2001-09-29 - 11:52 p.m.

The Oldest House?

There is a section of Frown Town called the Old Fort, and every year around this time they have a general Open House that they call the Walkabout. There are several old houses in this part of town, and by old I mean dating back to the early 1700s and before. These houses go back to when the United States was a British colony, and even before that.

Now to anyone from Europe, 300 year old buildings are not a big deal but here in America they are very rare.

This may sound odd, but I've never taken part in the Old Fort Walkabout, even though I've lived in Frown Town nearly all of my life. Even harder to believe is the fact that I actually lived in the Old Fort part of town from 1984 to 1990. I kept missing the festival, finding out about it only after it was over.

It's a pretty common phenomenon actually, people living near a tourist attraction sometimes never visit it, simply because it's always there and they figure that they can go see it later. Well, sometimes later never comes. I remember being surprised how many New Yorkers had never visited the Statue of Liberty, for instance.

I might have missed the Walkabout again this year if not for my brother Harry, who has become quite an avid history fan. He's never attended a Walkabout either, and he was really insistent that we finally see it this year. So I made inquiries and made sure we had tickets and the whole nine yards.

It wasn't just Harry and myself going along, his friend Drew and Drew's teenaged daughter Amanda accompanied us. In fact, thanks to Drew and Amanda showing up an hour late, we got a much later start than we would have liked.

Amanda is thirteen, and at the beginning of the afternoon seemed quite bored by everything that was going on, but she soon took an interest in the proceedings. In fact, by the halfway point it became obvious that it was her father who really had little interest in local history.

The way the Walkabout worked is that various houses in the Old Fort were open, and once you showed your ticket you got a guided tour, generally by the current occupants, or by a local historian.

I find this stuff fascinating, and while hearing these stories about the old days, my imagination always sets going, picturing what life was like here a hundred or two hundred or three hundred years ago.

Truth to tell, the comparison often doesn't make the modern-day Frown Town look so good. Sure, we have more modern conveniences these days, but it's obvious that this city was much more active and busier at almost any other time in its history. An indication of this: there seemed to be very few people under the age of 55 taking advantage of the Walkabout. Frown Town is a graying, post-industrial Northeastern city.

Probably the star attraction of the day was the house that Harry and I saw last. I was surprised to learn that not only was it the oldest house in the Old Fort, but it may be one of the oldest houses in the state, and even in the country.

Until relatively recently it was thought that the house was first built at the very beginning of the 1700s, but it was discovered that the person thought to be the first owner was in fact the third or fourth. This pushed the probable date of the original house back into the late 1600s, perhaps even before 1670.

Back before the Massacre.

In 1690 Frown Town was attacked and burned by the French and Indians and a could many of its inhabitants killed. It was thought that no houses survived this disaster, but apparently this one did. It was suggested that the owners of the house might have been known to the attackers.

Perhaps I'll talk about the Massacre more fully another time.

Besides the proof of the fact that the house is mentioned in pre-Massacre documents, the owners made some serious attempts to return the house to its original condition, at least as much as was possible in a modern house. It was obvious that a lot of time, care and love had gone in to restoring the house, also lots of money.

In the front room there the fireplace had been restored to what it looked like in the early days of the house - it was less a fireplace than an open hearth. As one of the guides said: "Much of this technology isn't Colonial - it's Medieval." By Medieval, they seemed to mean "really badly designed."

Of course modern people wouldn't really enjoy living in a 1600s house, and through the years various additions have been made to the original house - for instance a den off the front room seems to date from the Federal Period (ca. 1790) In the back of the house there was a kitchen, and that was added on in the 1980s, but every attempt had been made to fit it in with the rest of the house. In an authentic Dutch colonial house the cooking would have been done in the basement, or an outbuilding. The reason: it was probably the best way to keep from burning the house down.

It's hard to describe the feelings I had looking at this house and listening to the people who lived there talk about it. I could almost feel the weight of years pressing down on me.

There was also a sense of something ancient and evil, like some centuries-old tragedy or crime was speaking to me through the stone and dark wood of the house. For example, there were hidey-holes in the house where a person could hide if they had a repeat of the Massacre. However, I thought to myself: "it would be bad to be hidden under the floorboards if someone set the house on fire.

I think that it would be neat to live in a old house like that, especially one so nicely restored. However, I got the feeling that it could be a burden, too. The state historical society carefully monitors any renovations you make to these old houses - in fact they even have a very short list of "approved" colors you can paint your house.

But more than that, there was the feeling that as much as you owned a house like that, it owned you, too. It leaves its mark on you, as if to say: "I was here long before you were born, and I'll be here long after you've gone. You are just passing through."