This week's Saturday Spotlight takes us into Delaware County for the first time, with this Dutch Colonial Revival in Havertown, PA.
Image via listing of Erica Deuschle, BHHS, Fox & Roach Realtors
The 2,500 square-foot home is a quintessential example of this Revival subtype, ubiquitous in the northeast United States in the first half of the 20th century. The gambrel roof (with a steeper pitch at the start of the second floor, meeting a shallower pitch up top) is what defines a Dutch Colonial Revival. True Dutch Colonials from the colonial era sometimes utilizes a gambrel roof with flared eaves. You will generally see the Revival houses either with the long gambrel roof facing the street (common from 1895-1915, with a fairly prominent centered entrance) or the other way with the shorter end (the gable end) facing the street. Here, the gable is facing the street and the side of the house includes a long shed dormer on both sides at the second level. This orientation to the street prevailed in the 1920's and 30's. The gambrel roof is quite steeply pitched, thus allowing another 1/2 story at the attic level.
Masonry was used quite often in Dutch Colonials, especially at the ground level. In this example, brick faces the first story, with cladding above. The front chimney, centered on the facade and splitting the windows evenly, was very common as well. In addition, many homes of the style, especially those of this gable-front facing variety, incorporated a front porch, as we see here with a hipped roof over it meeting the pent roof within the gable.
Origins
This house sits on land between Cobb's Creek and Saint Denis Church at the eastern end of Havertown. Situated so near to the creek, this vicinity became the locale for a number of early 18th century industrial mills-- in fact for decades, a successful wool mill sat just to the east of where the house now sits. Early owners of this land included enterprising miller Dennis Kelly, and later a Patrick Boyle. By the 1880's, and for the next 30 or so years, the mill and its land were under the purview of a Todd & Murphey Company. But the milling industry had mostly passed-- by 1908 the wool mill building itself was down to ruins only. This local milling history was chronicled in 1917 by John W. Eckfeldt in his "Cobb's Creek in the Days of the Old Powder Mill". In that year, not many before the Dutch Colonial's construction, Eckfeldt lamented:
"Nothing of the people, places or industries is left to mark the day of prosperity. The landmarks have become greatly changed to the eye by destruction. The magnificent old trees have reached their limit of life and gone, and the familiar places in many instances are dumping grounds. Modern improvement has come to the valley, but the real beauty of the place has vanished."
Part of that modern improvement was new residential streets and subdivisions. The old wool mill property was developed in the 1920's as Merwood Park. Mixing Dutch Colonial Revivals with Tudor-Style home every other lot, the creation of Merwood Park also included winding the new roads of Poplar Rd, Linden Drive, Cherry Lane, Rosewood Lane, and Wynnefield Drive inwards and outwards of each other to the east of the Saint Denis Church property. The subject house of this article is seen as one of the first phase of houses built in Merwood Park along the western half of the subdivision in a 1926 atlas map and a 1928 aerial photograph.
Merwood Park in 1926 atlas map, portion of map via Franklin Maps. Dutch Colonial house highlighted with purple arrow.
Aerial view of the neighborhood, circa 1928. Via PhilaGeoHistory.
1930s to Present
One of the earliest owners of the house, if not its first, was a railroad engineer named Fremont Harry Tietze. As of the 1930 census, Fremont was 43 years of age, and was living in the home with his wife, 39-year-old Kathryn, and their 10-year-old daughter Dorothy. The family came to Havertown by way of North Philadelphia, where the couple had lost multiple children in infancy during their earlier years of marriage. Dorothy was their only surviving child. Although this area would remain their long-term permanent home, they would move from this house to nearby Turnbull Avenue by 1940.
By 1954, linotype printing specialist Edward Iannacone had come into ownership of the home, along with his wife Elizabeth. The couple had at least one child, a daughter Rita Anna, who would have been about 15 years old at this time, The Iannacones owned the property for over 45 years, until 1991. The house went through three more owners during the 1990's, until its current owners purchased it in 1999. The Dutch Colonial is currently on the market, seeking a new old-house lover to steward its historic charm!
When attempting to determine an exact construction date for a home, we often turn to maps to aid in this effort. This is, of course, as a form of visual/graphic evidence in conjunction with other documentary evidence, such as deeds, mortgages, etc. Not to be overlooked, however, are historical aerial photographs. In the same way that maps from various years can help to narrow down a range of possible construction dates or to observe development of a neighborhood over time, aerial photographs can provide a literal and visual representation. The key, as with maps, is knowing where to look and how to interpret the images found. While the ideal scenario would be to find at least one dated image prior to the house's construction and be able to compare it to one or several images post-construction, this would not be possible if the house you are researching is older than about 1920. Still, it is likely that aerial photographs exist for your home dating back several decades and thus still extremely interesting and useful to examine for your research.
A circa 1928 aerial photograph of my neighborhood, located via PhilaGeoHistory. My house is highlighted with the purple arrow, about 5 years after its construction.
A Brief History of Aerial Photography
Aerial photography has been linked to the documentation of our built environment ever since its invention in the mid-19th century. According to the Professional Aerial Photographers Association, early aerial images were taken over Paris and Boston by pioineers in hot-air balloons in the 1850's and 60's. Over the next fifty years, photographers continued aerial experiments, strapping cameras to rockets, kites, and even pigeons. By World War I, photos were being taken from another recent invention, airplanes, and were regularly used to document battle maps during the War. Due to further technological innovation, largely by Sherman Fairchild both during and after WWI, aerial photography became adopted and popular for wide government, civilian, and commercial use starting in the 1920's. Nowadays, satellites capture the bulk of aerial imagery, but the moments in times past which we wish to view here would have been taken from airplanes.
Sources for Aerial Photographs
Places to inquire about aerial photographs throughout the past 90 or so years include libraries and historical societies, which can possibly point you to more specific repositories or quasi-governmental agencies or planning authorities. The latter may have commissioned aerial photography in your area for regional planning purposes at several points in time.
Many of these may ultimately be available to access online. Try a Google search for "historical aerial photographs (your state/city)" and you might run across a government agency or library with a stash of old aerials. Locally (to me), the PhilaGeoHistory website run by the Philadelphia Athenaeum includes a section of aerial photographs not just the City of Philadelphia but for the metropolitan area at large. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has a plethora of satellite and aerial imagery available, including an entire section of "Historical Photographs" from 1937 to the present. A link leads to the USGS Earth Explorer image search where you can search by address, then select different checkboxes under "Data Sets" to see if you can find any of those images for your area. Basic resolution images are free to download, whereas high-resolution images are available for a fee.
A number of commercial websites are available as well. Google Earth is likely the most well-known, has some historical imagery (in Google Earth 5 and later), and also has a neat "slider" feature which allows you to slide back and forth between images from different years. Most of the images in Google Earth appear to be fairly recent (1990 or later).
Screenshot of Google Earth historical imagery. The "slider" is shown at the upper left. The earliest available image for my neighborhood on Google Earth was from 1992 (and the roof of my house is washed out in the low-resolution image, rendering it difficult to see. Image quality varies from year-to-year.
The homepage of Historic Aerials displays a map of the United States covered in two shades of green-- the dark green areas have "historic" images available, whereas the remainder only have aerial photos from 1990 or later. Although the website considers anything before 1990 "historic", I've found that many of the shaded areas have available images back to the 1920's and 1930's, with several years in between available. It is quite easy to navigate from year to year at a specific location. The only difficulty is the large watermark which can make it difficult to view detail and only goes away if you purchase the image.
Screenshot at the homepage of Historic Aerials. Although images are generally available throughout the United States, the areas marked in the darker green are more likely to have earlier and older images available.
Screenshot on the image viewer at Historic Aerials. For my neighborhood, images are available to view for 13 different years, spanning from 1948 to 2013.
Vintage Aerial is a very unique website, focusing on rural areas and small townships, and their collection of images are oblique views (rather than a straight-down bird's eye view), which is a neat perspective. One can select any county in the U.S. and the results will tell you if their archive includes images from that county, as well as from which years. It appears that manually browsing images by film roll is the only way to view them at this time, but it is relatively simple to pick a film roll and scroll through the images in the roll. As for finding the right roll, many archive years are accompanied by a "flight map" of the county which includes a guide (which appears to be hand-marked by the original photographer), marking the coverage areas of each film roll. Locate the area on the map you are seeking and hopefully a flight path is marked with a film roll number. Navigate back to the list of film rolls from that year and choose the correct film roll to scroll through the images.
1964 Flight map from Vintage Aerials website in Montgomery County, PA. This map marks each film roll's coverage. The image below was found in Film Roll 88.
Although there do not appear to be any aerials from my particular neighborhood, I did find images from 1964 from the street where I grew up, but not my house's exact location. I was able to locate this image of a huge Victorian house I've always admired, about a mile from the house in which I grew up.
1964 image of a Victorian-era home, found in Film Roll 88 under Montgomery County at Vintage Aerial.
Finding Useful Information in Aerial Images
As you gather images from various years, you will find a wide range of image clarity-- even an image from as recent as the 1990's may not be as clear as an image from 1930. Within the last decade or so, however, satellite imagery has become extremely clear. The most helpful aid which a series of aerial photos could provide would be to help pinpoint the year of construction of a house. If you happen to find an image from 1948 and a house does not exist in it, but it does appear in a 1950 image, then you know that the house was constructed sometime from 1948-1950. This image below is a comparison between a circa 1928 image and a circa 1930 image. Houses which appear on the later image, but not on the earlier image we know were recently constructed as of the date of the second image.
The houses marked by the arrow in the 1930 image were recently completed as of that date, since they did not exist at all in 1928.
As mentioned previously, since aerial photography did not become common until the 1920's, if the house you are researching is older than that, then you will not be able to find images for this purpose, but viewing and examining what you can find will still be useful and interesting.
You may recall from mypreviousposts that I believe the construction date of my house to be between May 1922 and November 1923 based on numerous types of documentation and analysis. The earliest aerial photograph I was able to locate for my neighborhood was an image labeled circa 1928 (found via PhilaGeoHistory, as part of the collection of the Free Library of Philadelphia). There are no images from prior to my house's construction, but it is still neat to see photographic evidence of the house's existence this early, only a few years after its construction.
Portion of an image, located via PhilaGeoHistory. My house highlighted with purple arrow.
Although the resolution of the image is not extremely clear, you can see the house as one of the few existing on this portion of Central Avenue, something that further confirms evidence found in early atlas maps. The lightly-colored area is actually my entire current property, with the actual house only distinguished by a shadow line at the back of the house. The reason why the whole lot is lighter than other undeveloped lots may be that grass and other growth may have been cleared off of the property and had not yet re-grown, or had regrown in a distinctly visual way.
What you also notice here is the loose outline of a tree line running from northwest to southeast just along my property line, continuing on along multiple properties. This tree line then turns northeast a few blocks away, on either side. To see the reason, see this clip from a 1916 atlas map.
Portion of a 1916 atlas map, via Franklin Maps. My house's location highlighted in purple.
We can also zoom out on the c. 1928 aerial image.
Portion of a c. 1928 aerial image, located via PhilaGeoHistory. To the right, the Spear tract is highlighted with a purple boundary. To the left, we see how a tree line defined much of this boundary.
Although the map is oriented to align with the property, this 1916 map is the latest which depicts the land tract previously owned by Emma Spear. In 1919, she sold this land to Philadelphia jeweler Reginald Ferguson, who subdivided the land into individual home lots. The tree lines in the c. 1928 aerial image correspond to the border of Spear's former land. In the aerial image, we see that this land has only sparsely been developed in the preceding 7 or 8 years, although most of the streets have been laid out (although nearly certainly unpaved) to align with other existing roadways. The 1928 photograph also shows us the already-established residential development to the southwest (labeled "North Glenside" to the left in the 1916 map).
Jumping ahead in time to 1959, some of this tree line remains, and you can see that the neighborhood of Ardsley has now been largely filled with single-family homes throughout. Suburbia has taken hold.
Aerial image of the Ardsley neighborhood, 1959. Located via PhilaGeoHistory.
Zooming in on my house now.
Most of my neighbors' houses have now been built prior to this 1959 image, including the long row of stone-fronted Cape houses running to the southwest. The exception is the ranch house on the north side which was built in the 1970's. You can see the empty lot adjacent to my house which at the time of this image was owned by the owners of my house, the Cantlins. This image was also captured at least a decade after the Cantlins expanded the size of this house-- the purple arrow points to the rear addition constructed in the 1940's.
Have Fun!
These types of images should not be overlooked as part of the historical analysis of your house's history. They are an extremely fascinating way to gain photographic and visual evidence of the evolution of both your house and its context within the greater neighborhood. See if you can locate multiple aerial images over time for your home, and have fun taking a peek at these literal snapshots in time!
Two weeks ago I was apprised of a newly available set of Homestead records by genealogy blogger Randy Seaver, in a post at his blog "Genea-Musings". These records are available at Ancestry and are images of original Homestead records for the states of Arizona, Indiana, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, and a portion of Iowa. While the aim of a site like Ancestry is to allow subscribers to search for documents related to their family history, many of the available records hold some applicability to house history research. Indeed, the relevance is clear in this case. If you live in a state where federal land was dispersed through this mechanism, then you just might find some neat information on your land's history.
Homestead Act of 1862
If you are unfamiliar with "homesteading" or the U.S. federal government's Homestead Act of 1862, it served an integral purpose in the settlement of the American West. According to the National Park Service, approximately 10% of the land area in the United States was settled and conveyed to private citizens under this legislation's purview. A much-simplified summary of how the process went is as follows (information via NPS):
An interested citizen (including women and former slaves) visited the nearest federal Land Office and applied for a specific parcel of land, usually paying $12 in fees and commissions.
The citizen spent the next five years improving the land parcel, by erecting a dwelling structure and farming the land.
After the 5-year period, he/she returned to the Land Office with another $6 fee, plus signatures from two other persons as an affidavit testifying to the land's improvements.
Final processing of paperwork resulted in a land patent being issued to the citizen, which he then would file at the local courthouse for recording.
Many of the dwellings built on homestead claim lands were of a more primitive and non-permanent nature; constructed of thatch, sod, branches, and other cheap and readily-available natural materials. According to this very detailed piece about homestead frontier homes, produced by PBS, claimants found little incentive to erecting permanent homes before the land was officially theirs, as many applicants were not successful in reaching that point. Further, simple shanties and shacks provided flexibility in that sometimes they could be relocated to other claim lands for which they applied. Once they received their land patent, they could then feel more comfortable to build, say, a log cabin. Even then, out in the tree-less plains, some were still further subjected to sod dwellings built into the landscape, until the advent of the railroads made frame-dwellings more of a possibility in these areas.
"I am looking rather seedy now while holding down my claim, and my victuals are not always served the best.
And the mice play shyly 'round me as I settle down to rest,
In my little old sod shanty in the West.
The hinges are of leather and the windows have no glass,
While the roof lets the howling blizzard in;
And I hear the hungry ki-yote as he slinks up in the grass,
'Round my little old sod shanty on my claim.
But I'm happy as a clam,
on the land of Uncle Sam,
in my little old sod shanty on my claim."
The Public Land Survey System
The above is all well and good for historical background information, but if you are reading this blog post then it isn't likely you are currently living in an old sod shanty. However, if you do live in AZ, IN, OH, NE, NV, or IA then perhaps your land, or some nearby, could be found in these records available online to give you some further information about what may have been on the land prior to currently existing development. Ancestry adds that "additional records will be added in future updates". While the easiest way to search these records would probably be with the name of a person who may have been a claimant, for house history research we may not always have that luxury-- we might only know the location. Alternatively, you can see if there are any Homestead records on file for the township where your land is located.
An aside is necessary, then, to introduce the Public Land Survey System. Whereas land in the original colonies of the eastern U.S. could be traced back to original land grants (such as those grants by William Penn in Pennsylvania), the federal government began acquiring additional territories, it established a rectilinear surveying system to subdivide land to the west of the colonies. Thus, land in 30 of the 50 states can currently be located via this rectilinear Public Land Survey System. This public domain land was divided into townships measuring 36 square miles each. Townships are then divided further into a 6x6 grid of sections measuring 1 square mile each. Sections can be divided further as necessary.
So let's say you live in one of these 30 states. Your land can be found in a section, within a township. A helpful online interactive map which can aid you in finding the specific township and section is provided by the Bureau of Land Management at http://www.geocommunicator.gov/blmMap/Map.jsp?MAP=OG. Just keep zooming into your specific area and the grid system will come into view, with accompanying labels. Let's take one of the included states in this records collection, Indiana. Some Google searching found this website dedicated to the history of land surveying in Elkhart County at the north end of the state. There, I was able to find an original plat map of the various 36-square-mile townships within the county, including Elkhart Township.
Cadastral Map for Elkhart Township, Indiana. Present-day Goshen, Indiana and surroundings. Subdivided into a grid of 36 1-sq-mile sections and even further into 144 quarter-sections. Notice "T 36 N R 6 E" written in the center: Township 36 North, Range 6 East. Courtesy of Elkhart County Surveyor's Office.
Interactive map by the Bureau of Land Management, zoomed into Elkhart County at Goshen, Indiana. The designation "36N 6E" is highlighted.
In the captions for both images above, notice that I've highlighted the legal description of the township location: Township 36 North, Range 6 East. What does that mean??
Well, each township is located within the country as it relates to a given base point. This map by the Bureau of Land Management shows the various base points throughout the country which are governed by the Public Land Survey System.
Map of Principal Meridians and Base Lines. Public Domain image, via U.S. Geological Survey.
The base points are established by north-south lines called meridians, as well as east-west lines called base lines. You can see a meridian line running north-south just west of the center line of the state of Indiana. A base line runs from west to east at the southern end of Indiana.
This map below, also from the Elkhart County Surveyor, illustrates townships as they are numbered in relation to these two reference lines. The "Township" geographical reference refers to a distance north or south of the base line-- "Township 36 North" is the line in the grid 36 townships north of the east-west base line near the south end of the state. The "Range" refers to a distance east or west of the meridian line-- "Range 6 East" is 6 townships east of that north-south meridian line. Elkhart Township "Township 36 North, Range 6 East" is highlighted in the state map.
Map of Indiana via Elkhart County Surveyor's Office. Meridian and Base Line highlighted by author. "Township 36 North, Range 6 East" highlighted in blue by author.
Experimenting with the Records on Ancestry
Now that we know how to locate a specific township and section using the Bureau of Land Management interactive map, we can then theoretically search for Homestead records pertaining to that specific township on Ancestry. Remember, only six states are currently available (AZ, IN, OH, NE, NV, part of IA). Frankly, I was a bit disappointed that the State of Indiana had by far the fewest number of records of the six states-- there were no search results in all of Elkhart County, let alone this particular township. There were only 29 results in total when searching the collection for homestead locations in the entire state of Indiana.
Screenshot of Indiana search results at Ancestry.com
Shucks, well okay. For the sake of illustration of what these records hold, let's work with one of the 29 available in Indiana. I chose the second result from the top, the record of Charles C. Bradley, with a final certificate date of May 9, 1903 (later found to actually be February 9 after looking at the record image). Clicking on the link to "View Record" takes us to a screen with a more detailed summary of this record and some of the basic facts:
Screenshot of record index summary for Charles C. Bradley in the U.S. Homesteads Records collection, at Ancestry.com
Those basic facts are that Charles C. Bradley was 57 years old in 1903 when he received his final papers. He was born in Indiana (circa 1846) and applied for his claim through the Brookville-Indianapolis land office. Also given is the location of the claim land using the Public Land Survey System-- Township 08 North, Range 02 East, Section 5. Let's locate this on the Indiana state map I showed earlier, as well as on the BLM interactive map:
Same state map as above. Township 8 North, Range 2 East is highlighted in blue.
BLM interactive map, east of Bloomington, Indiana. Township 8 North, Range 2 East is outlined in blue; Section 5 is highlighted.
From the BLM map, we are easily able to tell that this section of land is located near Bloomington, Indiana, to the east of Monroe Lake.
Now, to the record images available on Ancestry. Clicking on the record image on the summary page (or the word "View") will take you to the actual scanned images within Charles Bradley's claim file. There are over forty of them, so I won't describe or share them all here. To summarize, however, the files include: Mr. Bradley's original application; various receipts of fee payments; correspondence between the land office and the local newspaper near Bradley's claim regarding the public notice to be published about his claim; the affidavits of Bradley as well as two of his proof witnesses; and the final certificate from the land office. There is even additional correspondence addressed to Bradley stating that an affidavit is required from one of his witnesses to clarify that Washington Parks and George W. Parks are the same person.
Voucher from the Homestead file of Charles C. Bradley, documenting the Land Office's purchase of a newspaper notice advertising Bradley's intent to prove his claim. Accessed via Ancestry.
To speak to some of the more substantive content in these papers, we find that Charles Bradley applied for the homestead claim in December 1894. It encompassed a 40-acre portion, known as "Lot 9", of Section 5 (a 1-sq. mile section being 640 acres) According to his and his witnesses' testimony, he relocated to the claim land in October (or November) 1895 and lived there with his wife, two children, and one grandchild. Bradley erected a log house, a log stable, and a cistern with a total value of $100 (this land's first house!). [Aside: Charles Bradley, farmer, is listed in the 1900 census here in Washington Township, Brown County, Indiana along with his wife, Mary, and their 14-year-old grandson Bernice (maybe Bernie??) Hatchet; the two children mentioned in the homestead documents are not found in the household, but several other Bradleys are listed on the same census enumeration sheet; perhaps several family members settled here).
Charles Bradley's testimony given to prove his claim; The land and his improvements upon it are vaguely described; Accessed via Ancestry.
He subsequently farmed about 7 acres of his claim for five growing seasons. The land itself was described as partially timber (wooded) and partially as farming land. Charles Bradley himself described it as "hilly". Having never moved off of the land for any significant amount of time, Bradley appears to have met the requirements of the Homestead Act to receive patent to the land. In December 1902, he gave the land office notice of his intent to prove his claim before the clerk of the Circuit Court. In January 1903, he and his witnesses gave their testimonies. After the subsequent clarification of the name of one of his witnesses, he received a final certificate in February of that year.
Copy of the Final Certificate which Bradley received after his proof of claim was accepted by the land office in 1903; Accessed via Ancestry.
The legal description as described in these homestead documents for Charles Bradley's claim is "Lot 9, Section 5, Township 8 North, Range 2 East, 2nd Principal Meridian, Indiana". This description is much simplified as opposed to a detailed metes and bounds survey description, yet still very accurately gets one to the exact piece of land. For us, the only difficulty is that we do not have access to any plat map designating how to find the 40-acre "Lot 9"-- the 640-acre Section 5 is as precise as I can locate right here, right now. Using, again, the BLM interactive map, I've located Section 5 and then roughly outlined that same area on a Google Maps aerial image to get greater detail and a better overall sense of the terrain.
Section 5, Township 8 North, Range 2 East, 2nd Principal Merdian, between Belmont and Nashville, Indiana outlined on a Google Maps aerial image (subdivided further into sixteen 40-acre areas).
Indeed, much of this area does appear hilly and wooded even to this day. I always find it interesting how section and township boundaries remain evident even today, as seen at the clearly distinct farm lot outside the northwest boundary of the section. Perhaps one of the farmed areas along Route 46 was Bradley's Lot 9. We can't really know here, but it would likely be possible to find out with more research. We do, however, know that Bradley claimed 40 acres (1/16 of the 640-acre Section 5). I've divided Section 5 into 16 roughly equal areas, which could correlate to the way the section was subdivided. The unincorporated town of Belmont sits just to the west, from where all of Bradley's homestead witnesses hailed.
Conclusion
What I have just done here is essentially the reverse of what someone that currently lives on Lot 9 could have done. If one lives in this particular area, the Homestead records could have instead been searched directly for Township North 8, Range 2 East in Indiana to access these records relevant to their current land.
On Ancestry, searching the Homestead Records collection and restricting results to each of the six states individually, I found the following numbers of homestead records for each:
Arizona: 2,517
Indiana: 29
Iowa: 808
Ohio: 101
Nebraska: 77,257
Nevada: 579
This group of roughly 81,000 records (as of April 13, 2016) represents about 10% of over 800,000 records from the 30 homestead states. It appears that those folks in Nebraska have the highest likelihood of finding Homestead records at present, as this state was the first to have its records digitized, according to the National Park Service. It also appears that we can someday expect to have all 800,000+ records available online, at some point in the future, so keep checking back if you live in a homestead state.
If you do not have a paid Ancestry.com subscription, further information on requesting yet-to-be-digitized homestead records directly from the National Archives can be found here.
This is Part 2 of a short series focusing in on my house's assumed construction date between 1922 and 1924. For an overview given in Part 1, see here. This article will focus on the real estate transactions of local North Glenside flooring contractor Andrew F. Gutekunst, one candidate out of three possibilities who had my home built. The goal of this exercise is to provide additional and specific context around my home's origin in order to hopefully narrow that construction date even further.
What I knew before this focused exercise, based on some fairly basic chain of title research for my property, is that Andrew F. Gutekunst owned the property from November 1923 to October 1924. He bought the property for $650 and sold it at the end of that short span for $5,500. However, he simultaneously leveraged the property for a $3,800 mortgage upon purchasing it, suggesting that the increase in value within a year is not as dramatic as it seems at first glance.
As described in Part 1, further searches of deed and mortgage indexes for Gutekunst related to properties in Abington Township yielded the following:
Grantee on eight (8) deed between 1923 and 1928, plus two more in the 1940's
Grantor on six (6) deeds in 1923 and 1924, plus three more from 1930-1947
Mortgagor on eight (8) mortgages from 1921 to 1924
How This Information Was Analyzed
A more detailed breakdown and summary of these transactions is included in the following table:
This table organizes all of Gutekunst's recorded transactions by current address. The reason for this is simple-- the 22 recorded documents were the result of transactions involving only nine (9) current properties as they exist today. This allows me to examine when Andrew Gutekunst acquired each property, for how long he owned it, and whether or not he mortgaged each property.
Next, I ventured to specifically locate each property on three maps: a current Google Maps satellite image, a 1927 historical atlas map, and a 1937 historical atlas map. By using the legal description of each property as spelled out in the deeds, I can pinpoint the exact property as it exists today on Google Maps. Then, I can find the same property on the two atlas maps. Why did I choose these two years? If you'll notice in the table above, Gutekunst was most active in the specific years of 1923 and 1924. By locating the lots on maps in 1927 and 1937 (the two closest dates available), I can get a good sense of whether or not Gutekunst may have built houses on these properties or whether he was simply making a short-term investment as values increased in the neighborhood. Note that there is also a 1916 map for my area, but it depicts the neighborhood as it existed before it was largely subdivided around 1920, so none of these lots would have had houses on them in that year.
There are two properties on Cricket Avenue, adjacent properties no less, where Gutekunst came into ownership in the 1940's. Although I will describe them below since they do complete the picture of Gutekunst's local real estate dealings, these are less relevant to the task at hand due to the timeframe. One was actually his own residence, previously owned by his father, Frederick William Gutekunst.
Some quick, general observations based on the table I've constructed. First, nearly all of these properties are within the block closest to the main arterial road of Jenkintown Road. The exception is very close to Limeklin Pike (at 257-263 Maple Ave), the arterial road at the south end of the neighborhood. Maps show that the earliest development occurred closest to these two roads, and Gutekunst's affinity was no exception. Second, Gutekunst appears to have purchased 3 lots directly from Reginald Ferguson, the originator of the Ferguson's North Glenside subdivision. With one exception (that same 257-263 Maple Ave), Gutekunst dealt entirely in land within this subdivision. It seems clear that this man was delving into something new to him, and perhaps he gained a greater comfort level by keeping his investments very close to home. He was age 25 in 1921 at the time of his first purchase. Now, onto the properties:
657 Jackson Avenue
This is Gutekunst's first investment, acquiring the lot directly from Ferguson in September 1921. Although the financial consideration of his purchase is not fully disclosed in the deed, Gutekunst did mortgage the property to a man named Sigurd Larsen in exchange for $2,500 within days of his land acquisition. Larsen may have been a long-time associate (it appears they may have worked at the same company as machinists as of 1917), as A.F. Gutekunst would later buy a different plot of land directly from Mr. Larsen in the 1940's. He further took out an additional $1,000 mortgage with a Building and Loan corporation a year later in 1922. There is a curious set of deed transactions on this property in June of 1923, with Gutekunst conveying the land to a Ms. Edith S. Mattson, a real estate stenographer of nearby Rockledge, then receiving it back from her one day later. Gutekunst ultimately sold the property to Frederick Locher for an undisclosed sum in July 1924.
Did Andrew Gutekunst build the home we see here today in the picture above? The amounts listed in each transaction are of little real help to us as they remain as murky as several other transactions involving $1 consideration amounts, plus with a few mortgages to boot. However, the house does exist on both the 1927 and 1937 maps. But, I was able to make a key discovery in the form of a newspaper advertisement in the Philadelphia Inquirer from May 7, 1922:
Bingo! This is absolutely a match for this property-- the house that exists on this land today fits well with the description given in the ad: an 8-room "semi-bungalow" (bigger than a typical bungalow, often two stories). The lot described in the property deeds is exactly 60x129, matching the ad. The use of the word "cheap" is interesting. This ad confirms to me that this house was completed by May 1922. The only reason I can't definitively peg this "new" home as having been built during Gutekunst's ownership is that he bought it only 8 months prior to taking out this ad. He easily could have bought it as a brand new house already and well within his rights continued to claim it as a new house in selling it. Given his $2,500 mortgage of the property upon his purchase, I'm guessing that's exactly what he did, taking it slow in the real estate game for his first property.
628 Maple Avenue
A.F. Gutekunst acquired this property in June 1923, right around the time when the mysterious transactions for the Jackson Ave house appear with Ms. Mattson. He acquired a separate double-wide lot on Maple Ave near Limekiln Pike this same month (see below). As for this lot at 628 Maple, Gutekunst again acquired it directly from Reginald Ferguson, and this time he had a partner. This partner was a Mr. William Brosz, a carpenter!!!
Did Gutekunst and Brosz work together to build this house in 1923? Well, they owned the lot less than 3 months. It doesn't seem like enough time even with a skilled carpenter on board. But maybe... maybe plans were in the works prior to buying from Ferguson and who knows, maybe they even had a deal worked out with Ferguson to start early (I think I'm reaching). Gutekunst obtained a mortgage on this property as well, for $2,500, and the partnership sold it in September of that year to a Nelson Mathis for an undisclosed amount. Mr. Mathis took out a $4,500 mortgage immediately, so a short-term bump in value of $2,000 may have been achieved here. The house does show up on both the 1927 and 1937 maps.
Look at the photo above of the house as it exists today. It has clearly been modified to a great extent over its life-- a second story has been added, and the front porch has been enclosed. But if you take away those two things, I see ALOT of similarities to my own house on Central Avenue-- the hipped roof over the front porch, the width of the house, and the existence of a projecting bay on the first floor left side of the house. It's just something to keep in mind... another "maybe" here.
257-263 Maple Avenue
Gutekunst and Brosz had a busy summer in 1923, as they also together acquired this double-wide lot further to the southwest on Maple Ave, near Limekiln Pike and outside of Ferguson's subdivision. This time, they bought from a Samuel Thompson, and the consideration amount is actually provided in the deed this time, for $1,550. However, another deed shows up shortly thereafter granting Brosz's half-share entirely to Gutekunst for slightly more than half the original investment-- $800. It's hard to know what happened here that caused Andrew Gutekunst to buy out his partner's half-- maybe they had a falling out, or maybe Brosz only wanted to build and not take on the risk of ownership/investment. Coupled with the previous property above, we have a partnership between Gutekunst and a carpenter that lasted, on record at least, only 3 months.
As for the houses that sit on these two now-separate lots today, I'm somewhat baffled. At first, you might imagine my excitement upon seeing nearly identical houses which I knew were owned and possibly built by the same person(s) in Gutekunst/Brosz. However, the house you see on the left, #263, appears on both the 1927 and 1937 maps, whereas #257 on the right appears only in 1937. Andrew Gutekunst mortgaged these properties heavily, in total to the amount of $25,000 through four separate mortgages over the next year, before selling the property to a local business, Glenside Lumber and Coal Company, in November 1924, for a total of $5,400.
I can't quite fathom the possibility that these two houses were built very far apart chronologically as suggested by the 1927 map-- they just look too similar. The theory I am running with, for now, is that Glenside Lumber and Coal Co. erected the houses, starting with #263 and completing it in time for the first atlas map (likely by 1926), with the neighboring house following shortly thereafter, maybe within a year or so after the map publisher finished their survey. All told, I believe that Andrew Gutekunst did not play a part in building these houses, although the incredible amount he borrowed via mortgage of the property is a huge mystery here. He must have improved the property in some way.
502 Central Avenue
My house is within walking distance of all these other Gutekunst-held properties. Andrew Gutekunst came into ownership in November 1923, and it was a sole venture after absolving his ownership ties with carpenter William Brosz. He acquired the property from local real estate broker Harry Renninger for $650 and simultaneously mortgaged it for $3,800. Owning the property for approximately one year, he unloaded it in October 1924 to Anna Coogan for the amount of $5,500.
Did Andrew F. Gutekunst, or someone working for him, build this house during his ownership? If you've been reading this blog to any extent, you know that this is among the foremost unknowns I hope to solve. As I've described previously, the house appears on both the 1927 and 1937 atlas maps, and I feel very confident that it was constructed at the very latest by the end of Gutekunst's sale to Ms. Coogan in October 1924.
647 Jackson Avenue
This property, acquired in May 1924, is located directly adjacent to A.F. Gutekunst's first investment property, which he sold a few months after acquiring this one. Again a sole venture in terms of ownership, it is another which was conveyed directly from Reginald Ferguson, the subdivision's creator.
A bit curiously, a house is shown on the 1927 map but NOT the 1937 map-- I had to check multiple times to be sure I was looking at the same property on both maps. Was an existing house demolished sometime after 1927? Maybe. Perhaps it was a mistake by the atlas map surveyor.
No matter, for now. Mr. Gutekunst, it seems clear, did not erect the house which sits on the property today. Having obtained the property for an disclosed sum, he conveyed it to Glenside Coal and Lumber for $400 on the same day he sold the company his properties at 257-263 Maple. Was November 24, 1924 a day that Andrew Gutekunst, to a large extent, gave up his dabbling in the real estate game? This day, where he offloaded three properties to the same buyer, was his final transaction recorded for several more years.
626 Penn Avenue
In July 1928, Andrew Gutekunst re-entered the marketplace, having acquired an empty lot on Penn Avenue at the west end of the neighborhood. He owned it for less than two months. The true market value is not recorded on either end of his ownership, and it appears that no house existed on this property until the 1950's.
621-631 Cricket Avenue
The house at 621 Cricket Ave (on the right in the photo below) is another outlier to the 1923-24 transactions, as it served as Andrew Gutekunst's personal residence. His father, Frederick William Gutekunst, who like Andrew was listed as a flooring contractor/finisher in several records, was the owner until he conveyed it to Andrew and his wife Olga in 1941. The father did not pass away until 1953, but he was 71 years old at the time of this transaction. It appears that this home had remained in the Gutekunst family until very recently, just last year 2015. It was built prior to 1927.
The house to the left, #631, was likely built in the 1950's, and not by Andrew Gutekunst. He acquired the land in 1946 for the amount of $390 from Sigured Larsen and sold it less than a year later for $600. Both amounts are suggestive of a vacant lot, and no house is shown on the 1927 or 1937 maps. Perhaps Andrew, although having largely given up real estate, happened upon an opportunity to purchase the lot neighboring his and took it.
Observations and Analysis
Below is a much simplified version of the table shown at the beginning of this post:
I did what I set out to do here, which was to get as full a picture as possible of Andrew F. Gutekunst's personal dealings in local real estate. Further, I would contend that I can at the very least draw a reasonable conclusion that he likely did NOT build or have my house built during his ownership of the property. Instead, I am continuing with the theory that at which I arrived after my initial mortgage document analysis-- that the house was probably already there in November 1923.
The simplified table here shows that five (5) houses had been built on properties he owned in time for the 1927 atlas map. His now-discovered business association with the carpenter William Brosz in 1923, within the midst of Gutekunst's whirlwind of the same year, leads me to believe that he did build at least one house with this partner. The apparent dissolution of that ownership partnership, coupled with the fact that I just don't see a huge jump in value over his investment on most of these properties, leads me to infer that A.F. Gutekunst intended to build more houses than he actually did. Until I see more evidence that could suggest the contrary, I believe that my house is a case of him acquiring a recently built home in the rapidly-developing neighborhood and flipping it after a short time for a profit.
Coming soon, I'll do a similar examination of properties in this neighborhood bought and sold by Philadelphia carpenter Jayson Stover in Part 3.
Early on in my home research, a familiar corporation name kept popping up-- that of the "North Glenside Land Company". It re-appeared in deed after deed, specifically in the legal description of my land, as I kept requesting the documents from the Recorder of Deeds office via mail as part of my chaining the title (at that time, I had no opportunity to physically search in-person). Every week or so I'd receive a new deed further back in time, and each one defined the property's southwestern boundary "thence along the land of North Glenside Land Company". This continued back to Reginald Ferguson's receipt of the overall land tract from Emma Spear in 1919.
Just a Neighboring Development, But Consider My Interest Piqued
My initial viewings of local atlas maps found my property within the boundaries of "North Glenside - Ferguson" in 1937, as part of Reginald Ferguson's subdivision. But although it was called Ferguson's North Glenside, the corporation called North Glenside Land Company always seemed to be clearly a separate entity. In fact, it appeared to be the owner of the majority of the vacant land directly to the southwest and even a few slivers to the north and east bordering Ferguson's. The name "North Glenside Land Co." does not appear specifically on any of the early atlas maps, although the area is labeled "North Glenside" in 1916. In earlier years, this neighborhood was instead occupied by the "William Penn Real Estate Co." in both 1891 and 1897 (it was further labeled as "Remlu Heights" in 1909", a name which re-appeared on the 1937 map. Upon first glance, NGLCo (as I'll refer to it for short) appears to have been a successor to Wm. Penn Real Estate Company in owning that land tract.
After Googling the North Glenside Land Company, I was excited to find the following photograph courtesy of Duke University:
This photo was taken less than 1/2 mile from my house in 1916, down at the Ardsley railroad stop, and captures three advertising billboards. On the far left billboard, one can just make out the words "North Glenside Land Co." In the foreground we see the rail tracks, with Jenkintown Road trailing away from the photographer to the east. This view is in the direction as if one were moving away from my house. Cutting across from left to right in front of the billboards (behind the closer sign reading "Get Off Here- Ardsley Burial Park") is Tyson Avenue, largely obscured by the sloping ground. This sign for the NGLCo alerts disembarking train passengers, as well as those remaining on the train, that great home lots are nearby. The sign reads "North Glenside Land Co. [Hou]ses and Bungalows For Sale" and the bottom line likely reads "Build to Please" with further text not in view.
Before I knew more details about Ferguson's tract and before I pinpointed my house's construction date to about 7-8 years after this photo, I thought that this could possibly have been advertising a development which included my house's lot or even the house itself. Alas, it is the neighboring subdivision but is a fascinating find nonetheless which intrigued me further about the North Glenside Land Company.
North Glenside Land Co. in the Years 1914-1920
Documentation found to date of the NGLCo's existence and operations largely consists of newspaper advertisements and references to the company in property deeds. The corporation is included on several reports produced at the Pennsylvania State Treasurer's office for the years 1916 and 1918, and there appears to be some evidence that the company was formed in 1914. Newspaper advertisements taken out by the company, found in the Philadelphia Inquirer, are frequent in this same year, 1914, adding credibility to that assumption. The company again appears to have advertised somewhat heavily in both 1916 and 1919, with at least one ad found in 1920.
Add to this the photo of the billboard dated 1916 and we have a fair bit of evidence that the NGLCo was active primarily from 1914-1920. What occurred pre- and post- these dates I am not quite sure at this time. However, any documentation which also provides any sense of geography always refer to the general area of Ardsley station. Thus, at this time I feel reasonably certain that the area of their holdings corresponds with those of the Wm. Penn Realty Co. before it and which was labeled as North Glenside in 1916. This general area, to the southwest of Ferguson's North Glenside tract, also corresponds roughly with what is today known as the community of North Hills (between Jenkintown Rd and Mount Carmel Ave, and between North Hills Ave and Edge Hill Rd). I have to assume that NGLCo's holdings were further contracted within those boundaries (probably no further east than Hamel Ave), and subtracted from it certainly would have been any lots sold off before 1914 to individuals.
Portion of a 1916 local atlas map. The location of my house, prior to its erection, is circled in purple. "North Glenside" is directly to the southwest. Original map via Franklin Maps.
"Your Bungalow in North Glenside"
The company's 1914 advertisements in particular provide some richness to this story. Nearly all of them stood out within a dense newspaper page of text ads by including an image of a bungalow. Most are also peppered with flowery language, as many real estate ads are. NGLCo was selling much the same type of haven that many developers were at this time, offering modern amenities such as reliably clean plumbing water and electric street lights, as well as an escape from city life with attractive landscapes ("high healthful surroundings"!) while at the same time allowing easy access to Philadelphia by way of the railroads. They implore potential customers to "enjoy your summer in a bungalow". Indeed, many of the bungalows built in this era served as summer cottage retreats for city dwellers. All of the ads in this first group are from April through July of 1914, indicating a heavy advertising blitz to try to lock in customers during the first spring and summer seasons after the company's establishment:
We see here an indication of the possible number of sales during these several months, as NGLCo continually amends its total availability from "500 desirable lots" down to 450 and eventually to "over 400". We also learn that the company had built dozens of bungalows itself (at least 40), in order to offer turn-key homes to buyers seeking such. In addition, vacant lots were available (certainly!), and the company appears also to have offered ready-to-build floor plans as well as customization. But wait, there's more! Easy financing and a free automobile ride to the tract from the train station. Everything to everyone, of course! It clearly was successful to some extent, as the earlier ads indicate pricing for a bungalow home ranging from $3,000 to $3,500-- that is later amended to $3,500 to $4,000 and later further to "$3,500 and up". A buyer could grab hold of a vacant lot for $250 to $500.
The ads also indicate management of the company by a Mr. William G. Glenn, on-site customer service by a Mr. Walter Lewis, and that the NGLCo maintained three offices in Philadelphia. One of these offices was at the Land Title Building on South Broad Street, an early skyscraper designed by famed architect Daniel Burnham. Given the existence of not one, but three offices, all of which were off-site in the city, I'd wager that Mr. Glenn was part of a larger operation and that the North Glenside Land Company solely existed as a corporation to serve this new development.
By October 1914, either business had slowed or the company had completed more bungalows on the lower end of its scale. This simple ad offers a "white plastered bungalow, hardwood finish ideal for young couple, $3000" as well as 5-room (2-bedroom) homes for $3,500 and 6-room (3-bedroom) homes for $4,000. No picture in this one either:
A few advertisements return to the Inquirer newspaper in 1916, one found with a picture:
In the plainer advertisement, we also see an additional listing below it bearing the name "Renninger & Renninger" (if you've read my chain of title summaries, this name should be familiar!). It's a sign of things to come for the North Glenside Land Company, as by 1919 they no longer rely solely on their "agent on the grounds" here and instead have farmed agency representation to the prominent local realty company headed by Harry Renninger:
The NGLCo still claimed "500 desirable lots" and perhaps used this figure loosely to describe their entire development at large. The company seems to still clearly be building in the neighborhood in 1919 in order to "supply the urgent need of more houses". Also, the sizes of the homes being built have increased in size. This ad below from 1920 is difficult to read, but lists three bungalows, ranging from 7-8 rooms in size with price tags from $6,400 to $9,500:
The trail of the North Glenside Land Company dries up after that, at least without more extensive research. I'll just need to keep digging, figuratively speaking, of course.
