This Single-Family Was Once a Duplex

Last week, I described the evidence that I found in my house of an "old kitchen", no longer in use, and how I pondered whether the house's kitchen had been relocated once, if not twice.

Having thought through the unlikely scenario that the house's original kitchen was abandoned for a kitchen located at what is now the rear third bedroom (and then relocated back), the matter did not receive much further analysis until a visit to the Township's building department. While I will describe this visit in more detail in a future post, I obtained one document for my house titled "Record of Sanitary Drainage and Plumbing Fixtures."

Two-Apartment Dwelling

Looking at the document above, you see the owner's name listed as John Cantlin at our house, and a very clear description of the Building Type as "Dwelling 2-Apt"-- this house used to be split into two apartments. In the chart of plumbing fixtures at the bottom of the file card, there are listed: (2) bath tubs, (2) sinks, (2) wash basins, and (2) water closets. It is the (2) sinks, apparently meaning kitchen sinks, which stand out, as there is only one today.

The epiphany which I mentioned at the end of the Old Kitchen post was actually a specific sudden recollection. As we were preparing to move into this house, one of the many checklist items was officially changing my address with the USPS. In filling out the online form, the system prompted me to select either Apt 1 or Apt 2 as my new address (or to select neither). I, of course, at the time had been confused as to why there were apartment number addresses on file at the house. Now of course, with the township's plumbing record and the physical evidence of an abandoned kitchen, it makes perfect sense.

The fact that the house was at one point used as two apartments was further confirmed by my other immediate neighbor, who has lived next door since 1989. He relayed to me that indeed, when the elderly Mrs. Cantlin was living at the house, a man rented an apartment, accessed from the back door of the house.

Where was the Demising Line Between Apartments?

Let's again examine the floor plan sketch first shown last week. Where did one apartment end and the other begin? Each unit must have had a kitchen and a bathroom. While it would seem to make sense that Mrs. Cantlin would have wanted to maintain direct access to both the attic and the basement from her unit if she could have, that is not a certainty. There likely was not a fire-rated wall between the two units, although one would be required by today's code. There also are a number of present-day door jamb openings that could have acted as a "permanently" locked door between units.

There would seem to me to be three logical possibilities for a layout of the house as a two-unit building-- two options which incorporate two 1-Bedroom units, and one possibility that Mrs. Cantlin occupied a 2-Bedroom unit, giving her tenant a studio apartment in the rear.

Option 1: Two 1-Bedroom Apartments

In this option, the separation door is at the entrance into what is now the primary living room at the back of the house, with an additional separation door at the front hallway just past the first bedroom. This layout would have preserved access to the basement for the owner Mrs. Cantlin in the front unit, which may have been a plus. It also isolates the main unit's bedroom from the bathroom, which was likely a negative. A plus for the rental unit is that the bathroom is accessed off of the bedroom, which may have made it easier to rent.

Option 2: Two 1-Bedroom Apartments

Here, the demising wall is drawn at the end of the kitchen, with the other separation door heading into the center bedroom, right after the hallway on the right half of the plan. Pro: Mrs. Cantlin's bathroom would be accessed directly off of her bedroom. This layout also maintains a more clear front/rear relationship between the two units that appears more logical. Con: As the owner of the house, Mrs. Cantlin would have had to enter the tenant's unit in order to access the basement or attic.

Option 3: 2-Bedroom Main Unit, with Studio Apartment in Rear

With a studio apartment accessed at the back door, really only the Living Room and Kitchen within the addition would be absolutely necessary, with of course the bathroom included as well. This leaves two bedrooms for Mrs. Cantlin, as well as direct access to the attic.

Analysis and Next Steps

There is no definitive conclusion here without further clues. Physical inspection of the interior door jamb openings show evidence of door hinges having hung within all of them at one point or another, whether they were a separation between units or not. I believe Option 2 to be the most likely, since it preserves direct access from the main bedroom to a bathroom. Furthermore, the lack of direct access to the basement may have been a secondary concern. I suspect the studio apartment is less likely, as a second bedroom for the main unit may not have been absolutely necessary after the 3 Cantlin children moved out (likely in the 1950's) or after Mr. Cantlin's death in 1961.

Of course, there could be alternate layouts, but to date there is no physical evidence of significant floor plan alterations. The time period during which the house was utilized as two units is also not evident. While there appears to have been a rental unit through at least 1989, it is not clear whether the second unit was created before or after John Cantlin's death in 1961. The Township's plumbing document presented here appears to have been amended at several times over the years, with the earliest record on the card being the connection to the township sewer system in 1952. However, different handwriting and dates appear on the card. The number "2" next to (Kitchen) Sinks appears as a different style of handwriting, suggesting this number was changed from "1" at the time of the renovation. A date of 11/18/63 is given for an item "Test N. Bath"-- this could stand for "New" bath, which could suggest the time of alteration to coincide with a second unit. It could also stand for "North" bath which would be the bathroom on the right side of the plan-- a less confident indication of a renovation.

Further inquiries seeking out the permit numbers listed on the file card could yield more information. Also, probing the neighbors on either side could help narrow down the timeframe of the existence of a rental unit, as well as how often tenants changed.

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Saturday Spotlight- Circa 1900 Stone Victorian in Ambler

This week's Saturday Spotlight house is a relatively modest stone Queen Anne Victorian in downtown Ambler, PA.

Ambler is a borough rich with turn-of-the-century stone houses, many of them being twin homes. This single-family example of approximately 2,400 square feet exhibits the waning of Victorian style around 1900, being much less decorative than most Queen Annes from the late 19th century. Still, this house has the scalloped shingles and turned posts on the front porch you would expect. As typical of a Victorian, the house is covered with a picturesque roof line, being hipped and interrupted by gabled dormers. These dormers are much less prominent than the front-facing gable which would typically dominate, however the dormer gables are still the place for the decorative shingling and includes a Palladian window with diamond panes on the side windows. A bay window adorns the side of the home, extending from ground level up to the roof eave.

Origins

In 1891, the hilly land upon which this house sits was part of the farm of Joseph Ambler. Although Joseph is not the namesake for the borough of Ambler, his mother, Mary, was. Joseph's land, right on Butler Avenue, was much more modestly sized than his brother Isaac's 51-acre farm nearby. By 1893, it appears Joseph's neighbor's land had become annexed into his farm, extending it all the way back to Forrest Avenue. In 1895, Joseph Ambler passed away, setting into motion the subdivision of his land.

The Victorian home was built most likely sometime between 1900-1910 by Leidy Barringer Heckler. Born in 1859, Leidy Heckler was a carpenter and contractor and lived nearby to this site, on Bethlehem Pike. By 1916, he had acquired and subdivided Joseph Ambler's farmland, building 36 homes all of similar size and construction, and of similar but slightly differing style. Hendricks Street formed the spine of this development, with a new street called Heckler Street, bearing the builder's name, branching off of it just to the north of the subject house.

Although some of these homes had clearly become finished and occupied by the time of the 1910 census, no occupants appear at this particular address. Heckler still apparently owned many of these homes immediately after construction for a time, with many of these homes containing rental tenants in the 1920 census. Scottish immigrants Robert and Mary Armour appear to have been early tenants in this home, Robert being a 65-year-old stock man at the iron works. 64-year-old Irish immigrant James Shannon, a watchman at an asbestos plant, presumably that of Keasby & Mattison (the operation that made Ambler the "asbestos capital of the world", which was a good thing at the time), also lived in the home.

By 1920 most of the Heckler houses had new permanent owners, including Clarence Yost at this subject house. Yost was a 31-year-old mechanic and taxicab owner, and lived at the home with his wife, Anna, and two daughters, Marion and Nanette Yost. The Yosts appear to have lived at the house at least through 1940.

1980s to Present

The post-WWII history of the home is not immediately evident, however by 1981, Robert Kelly and Gloria Montes-Kelly came to own the home for the next 17 years until 1998. The house changed hands again in 2007 and once again this past summer when a new owner took over stewardship. From the real estate listing realtor, we see several views of the homes lovely interior.

Interior photos courtesy of Allison Wolf realtor, BHHS Fox & Roach

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Finding Physical Evidence: Old Kitchen?!?

Researching the history of your house must undoubtedly involve a thorough inspection of the inside and outside of your home with an eye trained towards unearthing clues. In previous posts, I have already touched on a few physical clues, such as those that tip off a previous rear addition, and the covering over of an exterior window in one of the bathrooms.

A few short months after moving into the house, before I got heavily involved in researching its history, I was in the basement trying to get a better understanding of all the piping hanging from the first floor joists above. Over by the stairs leading to the first floor was a pair of gate valves, on a set of side-by-side water supply pipes, with some duct tape wrapped around each. There was something scribbled onto the duct tape in black magic marker:

Copper water pipes, with old gate valves shutting off supply to the mysterious "Old Kitchen"

"Old Kitchen"?!? What does that mean? Houses do tend to undergo many physical alterations and changes over time, but relocating the whole kitchen would be one of the larger undertakings on the list. My immediate thought, and one that persisted for a bit, was that the kitchen of the house was at one time located in what is now the rear bedroom. I made this inferrence due to further inspection of the basement piping. Following the two water supply pipes with the duct tape tag, they turn at the foundation wall, heading along it for a few feet before penetrating through the foundation wall into the unexcavated crawl space. In addition, a sanitary drainage line pokes through this wall as well, right around the same location. These penetrations occur more or less underneath the demising wall between our living room and the rear third bedroom. Furthermore, this wall between the two rooms on the main level is extra-thick. These are all very strong indications that the wall is a former plumbing wall, with that bedroom being a former kitchen.

Copper pipes now oxidized where they run along the foundation wall. Sanitary drain pipe coming from the "Old Kitchen" is right below that.

However, that location as a kitchen doesn't make a lot of sense looking at the main floor plan. Sure, before modern homes valued the kitchen as a central feature of the house, kitchens were often located at the rear, more out of the way. But in this case, we have always been pretty certain that this location was part of an addition, constructed at some point after the original main house. Did the kitchen originally exist where it does now, in the center of the house, then get moved to the addition, then get moved again by my previous owners after 2001 (based only on the knowledge that they did a lot of work to the house)? That theory sounds a bit far-fetched and didn't make much more sense than the original theory.

Sketch of the main floor (L) and basement (R) plans. The presumed addition is the Living Room and Bedroom at top of the page, with unexcavated space at Basement level. Possible location of "Old Kitchen" is the rear bedroom-- the piping punches through the foundation wall at the location of the staircase in upper right corner of plan.

Still, someone in the past left this duct tape label over the abandoned plumbing valves, and I figured this most likely to be the previous owner of 2001-14. Surely the tape couldn't be more than 15 years old, right? I ran this by him, and he indicated that the kitchen was always where it was as far as he knew, but he had also had similar inklings of layout changes having occurred before his ownership. So it does seem that this duct tape was there prior to 2001 after all.

Then, however, at some point thereafter I had an epiphany...

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Examining a 20-Year-Old Photograph of the House

Today, we examine a photograph of my house first presented in my post on Browsing On-line County Databases. The Montgomery County assessment office maintains a profile for each property on record, and most of those include a photograph of the house, if a house exists on the property. In my experience, most of these photographs are from the days before digital cameras, meaning by this point in 2015 they are at least 15-year-old photos, or older.

Circa 1990 Photograph of my house, courtesy of Montgomery County PA

This photograph of my home I have pegged to the early 1990's, based primarily on the car in the neighbor's driveway. I'm far, far from an expert on identifying cars, but I think this is a circa 1990 Ford Escort. Assuming that the car was a few years old when the photo was snapped and not brand new, the photo was likely taken somewhere between 1990 and 1995. Thus, I'll call this a 20-year-old photograph.

What can we learn from this Photograph?

Placing the 20-year-old photograph side-by-side with a current photo and looking for differences in details, however slight, can give us some clues about the physical history of the home.

The most obvious difference is the exterior paint color. In the early 90's, the asbestos siding was a white color. Now, it is an olive green. At the closing table, the previous owners of our house relayed an anecdote of them painting the house in their early years owning the home, while the wife was pregnant if my memory serves me well. This would have been the early 2000's. The current green is at least the third color the house has exhibited. We know this because the current asbestos siding is not the original siding to the house, having been installed perhaps when the rear addition was performed.

Landscaping

Probably the next most-noticeable difference is the landscaping, namely the hedge at the front of the yard, which no longer exists (although the 2014 is taken from a bit closer to the house, trust me, it's not there). Not a huge story-teller of a detail here, but in another conversation with my current neighbor, he relayed that the previous owner (2001-2014) had constructed a short berm (mound) against the street to prevent water from running off onto the front yard. For his part, this previous owner tells me that the hedge was not there when they bought the house. The planting bed in front of the porch is also more densely planted in the early 90's than it is now. Again, the prevous owner helps out by telling me they replanted some of the azaleas from that location to along the side of the house.

Windows

Now, I noticed this one pretty quickly and I hope you did too-- there is one less window on the side of the house now than there was in the 90's. If you look at the second window from the front, it is now covered over.

Interior side

Exterior side

This is located at what is currently a full bathroom. The previous owner tells me that this room was always a bathroom during their time here, and a look at the piping underneath the basement shows that it is certainly more than 15-20 years old. Further, you can see the stack vent coming on roof above this window even in the 90's photo, meaning this bathroom was not a recent addition. Most likely, the only significant change here was that the window was covered over when a plexiglass bath-fitter type shower enclosure was installed at some point. While not incredibly exciting, it is still part of the home's history!

The vinyl shutters on the front windows (and one side window facing the driveway) were added post-2001. Their reddish color compliments the overall olive green building color nicely, although shutters likely never existed here (one shutter had to have a large notch taken out of it to fit against the porch beam). When the time comes for me to do significant work to the outside of this house, I will wrestle with what exactly to do here. I rather like what they add to the curb appeal, yet they are historically inaccurate.

Other Tiny Differences

The downspout on the left-most porch pier has now been moved from the front face to the left side of the pier, a welcome change visually. You can also see in the current photograph that the incoming electrical service attaches to the house at a mast (pole) that was likely added to comply with current electrical code or after a service upgrade, possibly as part of the 2001 transaction.

Conclusion

Photographs preserve a moment in time. They can prove invaluable when other records exist, but they are even more helpful in enriching the story of the subject being captured. Any house history researcher would be grateful to score an old photograph of their subject home, especially one of vintage from the early years since its construction. Photos can potentially be found from a variety sources: old newspapers, historical societies, previous owners, and perhaps even insurance companies. My search for additional, and older, photographs of the home will continue, but even a relatively recent photograph can display a wide range and amount of changes that a house can experience over a 20+ year period.

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Saturday Spotlight-- Circa 1934 Colonial Revival in Huntingdon Valley

This week's Saturday Spotlight house is a charming little brick and stucco Colonial Revival home in Huntingdon Valley, PA.

As we mentioned in our last Saturday Spotlight post, Colonial Revival homes can be quite eclectic-- in fact, many realtors use the term "Colonial" as a catch-all of sorts to describe a home that has a traditional style but does not neatly fall into another category. The "Revival" in "Colonial Revival" is important in order to distinguish a vintage home such as this (1930s) from a truly Colonial home from before 1800.

This particular house is nearly 2,300 square feet and has a steeply-pitched side gabled roof encompassing the entire second floor, with a shed dormer facing the road, and a very tall and narrow gable above the front entry. A bit of Classic Revival is thrown in with the arched pediment over the entry door. There is a chimney at one end of the two-story portion of the house-- everything to the left of the chimney is the original house, while the 1-1/2 story mass to the right of the chimney is a later addition. The first floor is brick-clad, with the second story finished in painted stucco.

Origins

County records indicate that this house came into existence in 1926. However, my initial research puts the construction date much more likely between 1930 and 1934. This land was originally part of a 37-acre estate owned by Israel Hallowell, a banker and President of the Huntingdon Valley Trust. A personal account by his granddaughter clues us into Mr. Hallowell's parceling off of some of his land on Fetters Mill Rd around the 1930's when he was in his 70's. Israel Hallowell passed away in 1949 and is buried in nearby Jenkintown. His home still exists today at the corner of Hallowell Drive and Mansion Drive:

Israel Hallowell house, Huntingdon Valley PA

As for our spotlight house, there are no labels in the margins of the 1930 census schedules indicating the presence of any occupants on Fetters Mill Rd in that year, but by the 1940 census one of the earliest occupants of our feature house may have been a Herman Nyland, a retail manager who may have rented the house with his wife and son. The house is seen on a 1934 map of the area. While these clues do not rule out a pre-1930 construction date, I think it was more likely built in that 1930-34 range.

1960s to Present

While the earlier occupants may have rented the home, the house was owned from 1966 to 2005 by Arthur Mullowney and his wife, Anne. Arthur Mullowney was born in 1922, in Canada, and along with his German-born mother lived in Moorestown,NJ and Upper Darby,PA during his childhood prior to enlisting in the Army during World War II (not immediately clear if he served state-side or overseas). He married his wife in 1944 and they raised five children in this home. The Mullowneys maintained ownership of the house until the year after Arthur's death in 2004, with the home being sold to the present-day owners in October 2005.

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Analyzing the House's Info Found in Online County Databases

In the last post, I located a significant amount of information for the house via two separate online county databases-- that of the county's tax assessing board and that of the county's Recorder of Deeds. Here, we will expand upon some of this information and offer up what it means to our house history research. We can also take this information and use it to search other places for even further information.

Recap- What We Found

Between the two databases, this is a summary of the NEW information we found:

• 2001 Sale Price was $110,000 (I actually first saw this on Zillow, but the county database is Zillow's source).
• This 2001 transaction, in addition to having Catherine Cantin as grantor (seller) also listed " 'M' Cantlin Atty" on the grantor side.
• The Cantlins (John J & Catherine) took ownership of the house on October 18, 1932.
• The grantor (seller) in the 1932 sale was the Remlu Building and Loan Association.
• The house was assessed at $4,500 in 1987, and re-assessed at $91,800 in 1997.
• The consideration amount for the 1932 was $1,400. 
• The previous owners (2001-14) had multiple mortgages associated with the property.

Using the above new information, let us now analyze this information and perhaps do some quick, simple additional searches.

Analyzing the 2001 Sale

The couple that sold us the house paid $110,000 in 2001 from Catherine Cantlin. From my conversations with the neighbor, I already knew that Ms Cantlin was quite old by this point (I also knew she since passed in 2002, and was born in approximately 1906-07, but I found these out using genealogical search methods I will describe at another time). But the clue of "M (first name withheld here) Cantlin Atty" listed in the index with the 2001 deed is of interest with a new person involved.

Searching for "M" Cantlin by name in the Recorder of Deeds database reveals some interesting new bits. First, a Power of Attorney document was recorded with the county on the same date as the home transaction. This power was granted by Catherine to "M" and "R" Cantlin the year prior (I've since learned that "R", now deceased, was Catherine's son, and "M" her daughter-in-law). Likely, this 2001 sale of the home was a difficult one for the family, with Ms. Cantlin clearly quite elderly and having lived here for many decades. Also found in the search results for "M" Cantlin revealed that she currently owns a house the next block over from mine-- THIS bit of information COULD prove incredibly, incredibly useful, as previous owners are perhaps the most powerful source of inormation for a house history project.

There were two additional mortgages associated with the 2001-2014 owners listed (those mortgages being recorded in 2003 and 2012). Homeowners these days tap into their home equity to make home improvements and even for other non-home related purposes. It is quite clear that these owners put a significant amount of investment into the home over their ownership, with the house jumping in price by about $100,000. These additional mortgages are lower on the priority list to explore further, as the more recent improvements to the house are pretty well and easily known. Further, all of the mortgages were satisified (paid off) so they are of no great consequence at this time. Still, they are a potential source of further information.

Analyzing the 1932 Sale

John J Cantlin and his wife Catherine Cantlin purchased the home from the Remlu Building and Loan Association for (at least) $1,400 on October 18, 1932. On the face of it, this most obviously means that the Cantlins did indeed own the house for the vast bulk of its existence. However, as we saw in our initial census research, they were not the first occupants. This 1932 deed now proves that they were not the first owners. It is important to note that the existence of a deed at a certain time does not in and of itself prove the existence of a house at the same time, however our early research has already shown us a few facts that tell us the house was built prior to 1932-- a) the house is shown on a 1927 map, and b) the Stout family is living at the house on the 1930 census.

Index information of 1932 deed when John and Catherine Cantlin acquired the house.

So, was the Remlu Building and Loan Association, a company, the owner of the home when the Stouts were renting it in 1930? Possibly. We cannot know until we collect all of the deeds for the property to find out if 1930 falls within the period of ownership of the Remlu B&LA. As explained, all of the deeds are not listed online. Since they owned the home up to October 1932, it certainly is quite possible. As we explained briefly in the last post, a Building and Loan Association is a financial institution that focuses on residential lending, and home mortgages in particular. The name "Remlu" is significant, as it showed up on our 1937 map in the name of the neighboring subdivision "Remlu Heights". This small area of North Glenside, according to the Old York Road Historical Society in their Arcadia Images of America publication about Abington, was partially developed by a man named Ulmer, and he used the reverse spelling of his surname (Ulmer -> Remlu) in his subdivision. So, the institution that sold the house to the Cantlins was certainly a local one, and further research on this company may give us further information down the road as they were likely heavily involved in the development of this immediate area. For the time being, one can search the National Information Center for some basic historical information on corporations, and searching for Remlu B&LA tells us that it existed at least as early as 1979 (certainly), in 1982 moved to Wyncote with a slight name change, and was acquired in 1988 by another institution. If we locate a current listing of the acquiring company, there is a chance we could locate some more records.

Back to the Cantlins-- they certainly will figure very prominently in our research moving forward, especially if we can locate some living descendants who may have memories of the home. Mrs Cantlin by all appearances lived in this house for 69 years, and owned it up until within about a year of her death. However, we've now established that the house has a history prior to the Cantlins, and we will seek to find it.

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Browsing On-Line County Databases for House History Information

When a home sale occurs, the transaction becomes a matter of public record once it is recorded in the appropriate local government office (thus providing explanation for the slew of mortgage refinance and other related offers you will receive in the mail). Throughout the United States, this is usually at the county level, most often at the department of the Recorder of Deeds, Register of Deeds, or some similar name. This department will become very important to us when we go to chain the title of our property.

Before taking a trip to the Recorder of Deeds office or writing to them requesting pertinent records, a quicker first step you can often do online is to browse the public records databases your county government has made available on their website. There are generally two types of databases which MAY be available on-line in your area, as it relates to house history research: property assessment records, and deed/mortgage indexes.

Property Assessment Databases

Your county probably has a County Assessor, or something similar, such as a Board of Assessment Appeals. As most property is taxed (in order to pay for schools and municipal services), this county office aids cities, townships, school districts, and other taxing authorities in setting the assessment value for a property. This is not the same as market value (which is essentially what someone is willing to pay) but is instead merely the value upon which taxes are based, according to a set millage rate).

Naturally, this county office contains alot of general information about each property, and you may be able to find a searchable online database for this information. Search your county's (or city's) website for such an assessment office and see if you can find a link for "Property Records", "Online Assessment Information", "Search Tax Records", "Property & Tax Information" or something similar. You can also try a Google search using the query "property records (insert county name) county", but always be sure the search results are linking you to an official county website or database. For our subject home in Montgomery County, the link for the Property Records database is on the Board of Assessment Appeals department page on the county website:

Link highlighted to assessment office public database, Montgomery County PA

If you are able to find such a database, you should be able to search for a property by address, parcel ID# (listed on your deed), or owner name. You will be greeted by a plethora of data, a good percentage of which may be useful to you: things such as a history of sales (including prices and previous owners), history of assessment values, lot size and house size, type of construction or exterior cladding, type of heating system, and perhaps even a history of building permits or alterations. The approximate year of construction is probably listed as well. This listed construction date must always be taken with a grain of salt, as there is a very good chance the date was estimated by the assessor several years or decades after it was actually built. If you are very fortunate, you will find a photograph or two of your house on file in this database (you almost certainly will in Montgomery County PA). Do be aware, however, that the information shown may not be complete in the online database; for instance, the sales history may not go all the way back to the subdivision of the land. Searching online is a good place to start, but you will never find everything you need online.

Deed and Mortgage Indexes

The workhouse county department for the house history is the Recorder (or Register) of Deeds. In another phase of research, we will attempt to gather all of the deeds on record for our property, to track history of ownership. Prior to a more extensive search in-person or via mail, check your county's Recorder of Deeds webpage and see if a records database is available online. Often, you will find one.

Link highlighted to Recorder of Deeds public database, Montgomery County PA

What this database will likely allow you to search for is deeds, mortgages, and related documents (such as the satisfaction of a mortgage). If you search by your property's Parcel ID#, you will get a listing of all related documents for that parcel.

Where this is most helpful is getting a start on the chain of title (or ownership history) of the property. There are two caveats here: firstly, deeds are related to real property (i.e. land) and more than likely will not specifically mention the presence of a house on the land. This is where analysis of the deeds comes in (a future blog post), as well as the use and analysis of additional documents (maps, census, mortgages, etc). Secondly, the online database, again, may be incomplete. It may only go back a certain number of years. Or, the database might not let you view an image of the actual record but only alert you to its existence. If this is the case, you will need to either visit the Deed office in person, or request a copy of the document in writing (again, not everything is online). Still, this can give you more additional information relatively quickly.

What do we find for Our House?

Returning to our subject house, searching on the database of the county's assessment office gives me the following pieces of information:

• The year built is 1920-- as stated previously, this is most likely only an estimate.
• The last sale of the house before my purchase ($110,000 in 2001). It does not list the Grantor (Seller) of that transaction here, but I know from my deed that it was Catherine Cantlin.
• A sale date of 1/1/1932 and a sale price of $0 with Catherine Cantlin as the Grantee (Buyer). The January 1 date leads me to believe this may have been a default month/day entered into the database and that really only the year 1932 is accurate. No Grantor (Seller) is listed. (Remember that we've found a 1927 map where the house exists, but no other sales are listed on this page).
• Deed Book and Pages numbers are given for both the 2014 transaction involving me as buyer as well as for the 2001 transaction. These are useful for locating the deed in the actual Recorder's office. No book/pages numbers are given for the 1932 transaction, but this information IS listed in my actual deed, and we will return to that later.
• The house was assessed at $4,500 in 1987, and re-assessed at $91,800 in 1997. Remember, the assessment value is NOT market value.
• A permit was pulled in 2013 for "Central Air/HVAC" and another for "Mechanical/Electrical". I know that my house does not have central air conditioning, but I also know from the home buying process that the previous owners installed a new gas boiler for heating in 2013. No other permits are listed online.
• Other physical attributes of the house and property are listed, such as its square footage, lot size, type of exterior siding (asbestos), and its style (bungalow).

Lastly, I was very excited to find this photograph of the house!

Photo of my house, via Montgomery County PA. Judging by the car in my neighbor's driveway, I'd date this somewhere around 1990.

Now, when I access the Recorder of Deeds online database and search for my specific land parcel, I find the following documents listed:

• The deed from my purchase of the house in July 2014.
• 2001 deed when the previous owners bought the home from Catherine Cantlin. Another name is listed here with her: "Margaret Cantlin Atty". The consideration amount (i.e. sale price) was $110,000 which matches the assessment office's information.
• 1932 deed (date given as 10/18/1932) with John J Cantlin and Catherine Cantlin listed as grantees (buyers). The grantor (seller) is listed as "Remlu B&LA". Searching for this via Google made it clear that this stands for Remlu Building & Loan Association. A building and loan association is a financial institution focusing on residential mortgage lending and investment (think Jimmy Stewart's Bailey Building and Loan in It's a Wonderful Life!). The consideration amount was $1,400.
• My mortgage is listed, along with the mortgage amount as well as the lender involved.
• Three (3) separate Mortgages are shown for previous owners, as well as three (3) separate Satisfaction of Mortgages correlating to each of those mortgages. The Satisfaction of Mortgage is what it sounds like-- a document from the mortgage lender stating that the amount has been paid off in full.

Unfortunately, none of the documents are available for online viewing, however the book and page numbers for each recording are given, so these documents could easily be found in the county office or requested in writing.

Please do remember that research is a process and that only a portion of the information you will wish to gather is online. However, with these steps, we have gone slightly deeper in the home's history of ownership and have some new names to search elsewhere. We also have various documents we can request from the county in the future, and we have a roughly 25 year old photo of the house. We will provide some further analysis to these clues later this week in the next post. Stay tuned!

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Saturday Spotlight-- Circa 1937 Stone Colonial in Wyncote

Welcome to the Saturday Spotlight!

Post #6 and I'm already creating a recurring segment? Sure, why not? On the weekly Saturday Spotlight, I will highlight a house in the suburban Philadelphia area (probably will be heavily Montco-based to start) and will give a brief snapshot of it's history-- at least whatever history I can piece together in a relatively short amount of time.

I'll feature both large houses and small houses, and will showcase a wide array of architectural styles. I'll look at homes from the 20th century as well as those from as far back as the 18th century. I'm sure we'll hunt down some pre-1700 homes as well. (We'll see about 21st century, I'll never say never). The purpose of this segment (as with this blog) will be to show that every home has a history, and that that history can be found, assembled, and expanded with further details. And frankly, it's fun to take a spin around the area and take a look at what's out there. Consider this an historical Open House of sorts from the comfort of your couch.

Circa 1937 Stone Colonial Revival - Wyncote, PA

Our first feature house is one I fell in love with a little over two years ago, when my wife and I first began getting serious about the search for our first home. It absolutely became the object of our obsession for about 2-3 weeks, as we toured the house and fooled ourselves into thinking that we could somehow afford it, make it livable, and fix it up over time into our permanent dream house.

This is a Colonial Revival style home of nearly 2,100 square feet in Wyncote, PA near Cheltenham High School, and it is constructed of my absolute favorite building material on a home-- Wissahickon schist. This type of stone has a fantastic aesthetic, with varying layers of grey, beige, and brown, and most distinctively characterized by the flecks of mica that give it a touch of sparkle. It is also quintessentially a Philadelphia building material that is ubiquitous in the area. I can take some solace in the fact that the piers holding up the roof over my front porch are built from this stone, also known as Chestnut Hill stone.

Alright, alright, enough of that schist. Back to the spotlight house-- it comprises 2-1/2 stories, with a traditionally symmetrical form and floor plan typical of Colonial Revivals. Other typical features of this style are the accentuated front entry at center, the side-gabled roof with chimney at one end, and the multiple-pane double-hung windows. As a Colonial Revival of pre-WWII vintage, the proportions are more or less true to the early English colonial homes that inspired these generally more eclectic revival homes. Although the present roof is modern asphalt shingle, and not original, it almost certainly was originally roofed with slate shingles which still exist on the garage.

Origins

Although public records indicate a construction date of 1938, the house shows up on a map published in 1937, as one of the first few houses on new parcels carved away from the modest 17 acre farmland of the Fenton family. The Fenton family owned this land at least as far back as 1860, and possibly as far back as 1810 or earlier, spanning at least 3 generations. A branch line of the Philadelphia and Northern Railorad ran through the farm, near the location of our Stone Colonial, but was taken out of service prior to 1909.

John M Fenton passed away in 1886, bequeathing the farm to his adult son, Franklin K Fenton. By all indications, Frank retired to Hatboro prior to 1900, while still owning the property until his death in 1936. Franklin's death was likely the event that set into motion the eventual sale of the land and subdivision, as the 1937 map lists his son Clifford L Fenton as the owner of the remaining 14 acres of the farm. Clifford, however, had long ago created a life for himself as an electrical engineer out in western PA. It appears that by 1940 the old farm had been completely sold off and subdivided, leaving a new road called "Old Farm Road" in its wake, littered with new stone colonials that remain charming to this day.

1960s to Present

Although the original builder or owner of the Stone Colonial is not immediately apparent without further research, a couple named Gallagher purchased the house, likely in 1967. One hopes that this couple lived a happy life over many decades with their children in this beautiful house, right up until the years leading up to my introduction to it. Mr Gallagher passed away in 2011 (with his wife living on until 2014), and the house went up for sale in 2013 in as-is condition.

When we toured the house in the summer of 2013, it was not in terrible shape, although it did require much attention, especially on the interior. There were some moisture problems in the basement, the kitchen was perhaps barely in usable condition, and much electrical work was likely required. In general the interiors, while still retaining original character, were crying for refinishing. Despite our desires, it was not meant to be for us (nor would it have realistically been) and SJ4 Ventures came in with a cash offer, revitalized the home while maintaining the vintage charm, and placed it back on the market, re-selling the house in early 2014. Looking at the fantastic job they did, I think it is safe to say that their tasteful renovations will allow for a great family home for a long time to come.

Interior images courtesy of real estate listing and SJ4 Ventures LLC

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Census Records- An Essential Building Block for Your House History

If you've ever poked around ancestry.com, or talked to a genealogist, or looked into your own family history, then you've likely learned that census records, especially the U.S. Federal Census taken every 10 years, are one of the most essential sets of historical records for genealogical research.

The Essential Building Block

Family researchers are instructed to try to gather as many census records for their ancestors as possible, and upon viewing a digital image of a census population schedule, it is easy to see why. One can learn the make-up of each family unit, their ages, relationship to head of household, occupation, whether in school, what state or country born in, where their parents were born, and in some years even whether they owned a radio or not!

Although the original purpose of the US Census was to merely count the young country's population and to accurately apportion numbers of congressmen to each state, the scope of the Census expanded vastly over the years and today provides a ton of meaningful statistical analysis to aid policymakers and the population at large. Every once in a while you'll hear a news story citing a new statistic from the Census Bureau, such as this one, or this one. Population schedules like the one above are currently publicly available up to the 1940 Census and are a boon to genealogists. Nowadays they are indexed and easily searchable, making them an easy place to turn early in research.

Why does this matter to us as we research our home? 

So? How does this help me determine the construction date of the house? Well, why it may not directly help determine the construction date, a house history research project cannot truly come alive until we know something about who has lived here. After all, a house history is a HOME'S genealogy. Knowing a previous owner's occupation can place the family that lived there in the context of the neighborhood (or metro area) at large. Another example-- the census can tell you how much the head of the household earned in salary that year, which can be compared with his neighbors.

For many of the 1900 and later census schedules, the street name is listed in the left-hand margin, with the address number in the first column, helping you determine who lived at the home in that year. Although pre-1900 census schedules generally have less information (and the 1890 census was largely accidentally destroyed), if you are lucky you can trace some, or all, of your previous owners backwards through time in each census recording.

Our house's 1930 and 1940 Census Schedules

One very helpful website for searching census records is familysearch.org, a free website of historical records provided by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It is bar-none the most extensive and most helpful free genealogical website. One can search for a person in their entire database of indexed records, or you can navigate to a specific record type (ie 1940 US Census) and search only within that record set. For more information on how to search census records, see here.

In what I have shared thus far, you know that a family named the Cantlins owned the house prior to 2001, and that according to my neighbor, the Cantlins may have been the original owners. If so, they would have owned the home for about 80 years. So, let's search for John Cantlin in the 1940 census (latest year available)-- doing so gives us a search hit that matches: a John Cantlin in Abington, Montgomery County, and the following listing:

The Cantlins are listed at an address that is close to the current address, but the street number is off by 100 (this happens to be my first clue that the address number changed at some point in time). John Cantlin was a grocery clerk at a chain store (earning $936 in 1939), and lived with his wife Catherine (the elderly woman whose son and daughter-in law sold the house for her in 2001), and three children-- Jean C. (age 13), John Jr. (age 12), and Robert (age 6). Furthermore, matriarch Catherine was also employed, as a "winder" at a textile mill, for all 52 weeks of the previous year. She actually made $1,204 the previous year, according to what they told the census enumerator-- more than her husband! Interestingly, most of the households on this same sheet earned about $2,000-$2,500 so the Cantlins were right in range with their neighbors.

So, the Cantlins were indeed living here in 1940, and the "O" next to John's name in the 3rd column from the left indicates that he owned the home. The value of our subject house at this time is purportedly $3,000. Let's check 1930:

Here they are, but they are not living in Abington but instead renting at 2926 N. 25th St in Philadelphia. What gives?

Hmm, another thing we can do is page through Abington Township schedules in the 1930 census until we find a listing with our address. A more laborious task, to be sure, but nonetheless, after some searching we find Central Ave, and a family named Stout living at our address:

Eugene Stout was a 53-year-old engineer at a hospital. The "R" indicates that the Stouts rented the home (for $30/month) and did not own it. Eugene lived at the house with his wife, Mary, and their children Mary & Edna (twins?), and Eugene. Could the Stouts have been renting this house from the Cantlins, who had perhaps recently built the house and had not yet moved from the city? A theory, but just that, a theory. However, we now have more information than we did before, and it appears that the Cantlins may not have been the original owners of the house after all. At the very least it appears they were not its first occupants.

Searching the 1920 census for John Cantlin (and Catherine Cantlin) yields no apparent matches (although the info given in the 1930 census suggests they did not marry until 1922). Eugene Stout and his family are living in Abington in 1920, but have not yet moved to Central Ave as they are listed as renters on nearby Jenkintown Rd. Lastly, paging through the schedules for Central Ave addresses in 1920 only gives us addresses in the 800 block, on the other side of Jenkintown Rd. There are no listings at the 400 block, giving strong evidence that the house did not yet exist when the census enumerator circled town in February 1920.

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Ferguson's North Glenside

In my last post on Using Maps, the 1937 map I shared was the most colorful. Let's take a look at that one again:

The varying colors apply to different land subdivisions. A subdivision is exactly what it sounds like-- a much larger piece (tract) of land, usually farmland or the property of a large estate, has been divided into much smaller parcels for the purposes of development. You are probably most familiar with residential subdivisions, and you have likely seen a plethora of subdivisions get developed during your lifetime with "clever" marketing names like Willow Ridge or Regal Court. In fact, even if you own an older home, you probably live in a subdivision without even realizing it.

North Glenside (Ferguson) Subdivision

On the 1937 map, you can see the names "Ardsley Estates" (blue) and "Remlu Heights" (grey) on the left half of the map. The blue subdivision is slightly curious as it is spread out and separated into several groups throughout Remlu Heights. I am inferring that the overall Remlu Heights was subdivided first, and later a different developer came along and bought many of the still-undeveloped lots, grouping them into a new subdivision. To the right side of the map, a large pink subdivision is labeled "North Glenside (Ferguson)" (some of the text is cut-off in the image) and our subject house is located at the edge of it. This is the Spear tract of land mentioned in the last post, seen in the two older maps. Furthermore, the subdivision also has some letters and numbers after it-- "B 732 P 600".

The Deed

Remember when I said that on Day 1 I had some additional information sitting right under my nose? Let's re-examine the Deed from when the house was purchased last year. A few paragraphs in, we find this:

We now know that "B 732 P 600" on the map refers to the Deed Book and Page Number on record at the appropriate County department (in this case, the Recorder of Deeds-- the office name varies by state/county) where the original survey of the subdivision can be found. Note: sometimes Deed Books are referred to as "Volumes" and Pages are sometimes referred to as "Folios"-- it depends on the nomenclature used in your county.

So, this larger tract of land, owned in 1897 by Dr John C. Spear and in 1916 by Emma L. Spear, was officially subdivided on July 12, 1919. Whoever owned the tract at this time (Hmmm, could it be someone named Ferguson?) hired William T. Muldrew to survey the land, draw up a plat plan subdividing the land, and record it with the County. Presumably then, one of two things could happen-- the owner/developer could build homes himself and sell them individually, or he could sell the land parcels to individuals upon which they could build their own homes.

What Does This Mean?

Our very first "assumed" construction date of 1920 for the subject house may still be accurate, but further research is needed. We can now narrow the timeframe to 1919-1927 based on the date the land was subdivided (1919) and when it first shows up on a map (1927). Although one option for the subdivider would have been to build houses and sell them, a large percentage of homes in this subdivision are clearly from the 1940's and 1950's, so he instead likely sold off the individual land parcels after subdividing, most of which were not developed for some time. And, again, we have the neighbor's anecdote that the subject house was one of the first built. An interesting side note, looking again at the 1937 map, is that the new subdivision contains lots which are not as deep as those to the southwest (left of image), resulting in the residential roads being closer together in the new subdivision. This is the cause of the curve in all the roads at the point where the two subdivisions come together.

What's Next?

One thing I did do next was to order the listing for this survey from the Recorder of Deeds (noting that I wanted the listing that starts at Book 732 and Page 600). In the mail I received some photocopied sheets of the listing-- 3 pages total. Unfortunately, page 1 noted "Missing page from source documents", but pages 2-3 are portions of the plat map drawn by William Muldrew for "Ferguson's North Glenside".

Unfortunately again, the parcels where our house is located is either on the missing page 1 or just barely cut off of the left edge of page 2. However, all is not lost. At some point, I can see if it is possible to view the original Deed Book. I can also try getting in touch with a currently-practicing civil engineering firm in town which has William Muldrew's plan records, and who may even be able to tell me more details about this document and those like it. Looking at the document itself, it is dated March 26, 1918-- it is interesting to note that this may have been when the survey was started, as it would have been a lengthy job to subdivide 194 acres and likely needed to be approved by the client before recording it with the County the following year.

Although Google searches are sometimes fruitful, searches for "Ferguson's North Glenside" and similar yielded some current and recent listings of homes within the Ferguson's North Glenside subdivision, but little else of relevance. Mostly just links for comedian Craig Ferguson's upcoming show at the nearby Keswick Theatre (you're welcome Craig), or to the Ferguson Plumbing showroom over on Easton Road. The search will continue.

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Using Maps to (More Closely) Date the House

A neighbor, who has been in his house since the 1970s, told me that the elderly woman (the Ms Cantlin mentioned in previous post) who owned the house until 2001 may have been the original owner along with her husband. Ms Cantlin also had relayed to my neighbor at some point that her house was one of the first in the neighborhood. One used to be able to see all the way from the house down to the Ardsley train station 1/2 mile away, according to this account, prior to the bulk of the development of the Ardsley neighborhood at large. Boy, to be able to time travel and see what that was like would be quite something. But, in 2015, we can at least attempt to gain a sense of how this development occurred over time by using maps. Looking at different editions of maps of the same area from different years, we can see in what years a house existed on certain properties, and we can track how the neighborhood grows. Doing so, we can try to verify or disprove the anecdote that this was one of the first houses that popped up.

Types of Maps with Residential Information

Throughout the 19th century and early 20th century, a dense network of railroads was developed in Pennsylvania, primarily to transport coal throughout the region. The growth of the Philadelphia suburbs in large part corresponds to the development of these railways. Most of the surviving rail tracks in the area were once under the domain of the Philadelphia and Reading Railway, and some tracks exist today as commuter routes for SEPTA, while most remain in operation for freight lines.

Image courtesy of www.ancestortracks.com

Property atlases were produced by map-making companies, such as A.H. Mueller, during this time and served multiple purposes, including aiding railroad companies to identify ownership of surrounding properties. As these railroad atlases were updated with new editions every 5-10 years, they are very valuable to trace neighborhood development. The most well-known creator of neighborhood maps nationally was the Sanborn Company, which produced detailed maps of cities and towns throughout the United States starting in 1867, to aid fire insurance companies. Some (non-Sanborn) atlases included owner's names, especially if larger land tracts had not yet been subdivided, or if large estates or mansions are shown. If you'd like to read more detailed information about these types of antique maps, see Here, as well as Here For Sanborn Maps.

Locating Historic Maps

One place to try to locate maps of this vintage is through your local historical society-- they may have several editions of these atlases for your area, and they may even have sample images posted on their website. This is exactly the case for the town of Glenside, which is one of the focal areas of the Old York Road Historical Society. I highly suggest visiting your historical society in person as part of your research, as well as supporting them by becoming a member. Other locations, especially for Sanborn maps, might be your local library, or from map companies or dealers themselves. The Library of Congress has a listing of all Sanborn maps and can tell you which repositories have them as part of their collections. Sanborn still operates today, and you can still order copies of their maps from them directly, if you cannot locate a particular map in a repository to which you have access.

I was able to locate the atlas maps for the subject neighborhood for four specific years online via O.Y.R.H.S.: 1897, 1916, 1927,  and 1937. These maps are currently available for use and reproduction through Franklin Maps, the surviving map publisher in the area. Armed with the approximate construction date of 1920 listed with the County, I might expect that the house shows up on the 1927 and 1937 maps, but not on the two earlier maps in 1897 and 1916.

Let's go backwards in time. First, 1937:

*There's the house, highlighted on a portion of the 1937 map. If you click the image at full size, you may be able to tell that even at this point, the house is indeed one of a relative few in existence. The claim that the train station (not shown, off of the bottom of image) would be in view from the house would seem to be plausible.

Next, one step backwards, in 1927:

*The house, highlighted, as well as the house across the street and one a few lots down, are the only in existence on this part of the street. Our subject house is indeed one of the earliest houses built in this subdivision.

1916:

*This image shows greater context and is further zoomed out from the 1927 and 1937 maps. NO HOUSE-- The land on which the house exists today has not yet been subdivided and is part of a 194 acre tract owned by an Emma Spear.

And finally, 1897:

*Similar to the 1917 map, however the owner of the 194 acre tract is Dr. John Spear. A reasonable inference, which will need to be verified, is that John Spear passed on this land to his wife Emma upon his death.

All images are portions of maps available via Franklin Maps.

Analysis and Future Steps

From this fairly straightforward exercise, the house exists on a 1927 map, but does not exist on a 1916 map. Therefore, we can not yet confirm nor disprove the 1920 construction date, although we have definitively narrowed it down to a timeframe between 1916-1927.

Further observations can be gleaned from these maps, such as the progression of names/entities listed for the subdivision just to the south (left of image) such as Wm Penn Real Estate, North Glenside, and Remlu Heights. Since the subject property is right at the border of the Spear tract adjacent to this subdivision, researching this subdivision as well may provide additional information. Some of the other names and labels on the 1927 and 1937 maps seemed to provide additional clues (such as "North Glenside (Ferguson) B 732 P 600"). The exact information, although not apparent at first, did become clear to me during future research, which I will share in due time.

I also will continue to look for additional maps to try to pinpoint the likely year of construction. From the Library of Congress, I can tell that Sanborn maps exist for the area for 1909, 1920, and 1925, so I can try to locate them at a repository.

So what about that Spear tract-- when was that subdivided? Although not apparent from these maps, my next post will reveal the answer...

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