Across the Fence

 

By Arvord Abernethy

 

 

 

 

With the good rains we have been getting after much dry times, I remembered as a kid how glad we were to get good timely rains so our cistern water would be replenished. Then that reminded me that David Pool told me once that the odd looking, rounded part of their house enclosed the original cistern so people would not have to go outside to draw water. I dropped by the other day to find out more about it.

 

A few years back, the Pools bought the old colonial Marion Graves home at 201 W. Ross. The house was built in 1872 and is probably the oldest structure remaining in Hamilton ; and thanks to some different families, it is still in excellent condition.

 

The cistern was the main supply of water to this home, as were cisterns to other homes. To you younger people, a cistern was a large well-like hole dug to hold water. I would say that they were churn shaped, but then I would have to describe a churn to you. They were usually three or four feet across at the top and then enlarged to maybe eight feet across at the bottom which would be fifteen to twenty feet deep. A top was built around the surface, up about three feet. Then it was all plastered so it would hold water. Gutters on the house carried the rain water to the cistern.

 

This cistern had caved in some, and of course is no longer needed, so the Burketts closed it over when they redid the house a few years ago. That space in the round is now a utility room.

 

The room in the left of the accompanying picture has been added by the Pools, and they have tried to keep the spirit of the older part of the house in it. The walls are two feet thick of solid rock, leaving window sills almost wide enough for a seat. The ceiling is of the old fashioned wooden, beaded ceiling material. This room will be used as a family room and clothes closets. There is also a bath in this part. Ervin Jones has done the cabinet work in the bath and dressing rooms; and, along with some antique mirrors, one feels like he is in the older part of the house.

 

When one walks out onto the large front porch and looks down through the trees across the huge front yard to the old rock fence, he feels like he has been back in plantation days.

 

Shared by Roy Ables

 ACROSS THE FENCE