Daniel Ackerman House
In 1979, the Daniel Ackerman House in the Town of Brownville, was arsoned. A propane tank was set inside the back door and lit. Immediately, the house was aflame. Because the local volunteer fire department was meeting at the fire hall a couple of miles down the road, they arrived within about two minutes. It was already too late. The roof and old cedar beams - everything ended up in the basement. Even the very old poplar tree in the front yard was scorched. Only stones remained among the charcoal.
The skeleton of the house was soon for sale and my family purchased it for $5,000. An inheritance provided us with $6,000 which we thought would be enough to put on a roof and make the house habitable. Obviously, we would do some of the work ourselves on weekends.
Standing in the rubble-filled basement we looked up at an interior gable end wall and thought of stone ruins in Greece. Immediately, we loved the idea of restoring the old house. A local contractor was found to assess the building. We were advised to get the roof on quickly before winter snow and ice further damaged the double faced stone walls. As it was, the rear inner wall was in poor condition and was removed to be replaced with cinderblocks. Not the best solution to the problem. Through family connections, we found stone mason Ambrose Loftis, who pointed the walls. We spent weeks cleaning the old soft mortar from around the stones. Unfortunately, he used a hard mortar that we later found was inappropriate. Mortar is supposed to be the sacrificial element in a stone wall. With changes in moisture and temperature hard mortar could lead to cracking in the softer stones.
Many mistakes were made. Perhaps the worst was the contractor's covering of the hearthstones and thresholds with cement that is impossible to remove.
Built of local limestone around 1835, the house was named for an early settler. We especially like the broad corner quoins that still stand true 185 years later. The windows and doors have smooth lintels. On the front of the house, the narrow stones are of a better quality - Black River limestone - and quite a uniform grey. The sides have more fossils and the rear wall is rubble. However, two rear windows have wonderful large lintels not unlike those on the nearby Read House. There is evidence that a wooden ell extended from the rear wall. It was used as a summer kitchen. Neighbors told us that it held a water trough for the horses to drink from. They also told us that the kitchen end of the house was used for square dances. Sometimes I try to picture the house full of fiddle music and dancing people.
The kitchen fireplace has brackets for a crane to hold pots over the fire. It also draws better than the living room fireplace - just as the neighbors told us it would. Keeping the house warm with two fireplaces requires not only a lot of wood, but constant attendance. Smoke quickly escapes and permeates everything, especially the upstairs closets. We can always tell which sweaters were smoked.
Our old house project has given us both grief and pleasure. More acreage has been added to the original plot and about 2,000 trees have been planted in what were corn fields and cow pastures. A fenced-in cottage garden, and fruit and nut trees have given us many good meals and lots of exercise digging and pruning. Birds and bees, not to mention squirrels, have found homes in the house and nearby trees.
It has been touching to have previous residents of the house stop by and tell us about their time living there. We heard how the woman who taught in the one-room school house nearby would board in an upstairs bedroom. One Sunday afternoon a mother and daughter stopped to say that it was the mother's birthday and she had been born in the downstairs back room (near the fireplace) in 1914. As custodians of the house for a few decades, we try to keep it in good condition for the next generation to enjoy - mice and all.