Grace Yanz made some discoveries about her own home on Main Street!
My Home
by Grace Yanz
I moved into this house on 75 Main Street in February of 2017 from Rackliff Island, and I’ll tell you, I didn’t have an open mind. My mom said she bought the house because of the wallpaper. The wallpaper is pretty interesting.
When I explored the house I found a trapdoor in the ceiling of my room and a door leading down to the basement. The basement is dark and full of spiders and gravel with a window but no door leading to the crawl space.
In the living room I found a picture of my house in the 1800’s (it was built in 1872) that I found fascinating. The saplings around the house in the picture are now tall and full-grown. The people are dressed for a photo in amazing clothes. It was such a big family! It was originally owned by the Hart family.
The house is really nice to live in. I can walk to school in two minutes, the library in one minute, the Marsh in one minute, and the General Store in five minutes. Ripley Creek and the harbor are also close by, and I can find lots of fun treasures in the mud along the shore of the creek. Lots of the people living nearby go to the school, and the fire station is across the street in case of emergency.
The Marsh is one of my favorite places to go. I walk there and kayak there and it’s really interesting. The first time I went out on the water it was right after school when me and my brother were home alone. We found a pool by the beaver dam that was absolutely teeming with fish. I was walking my dog another time and I found a flightless merganser. Another time we were going in the evening and we found a turkey in a tree, an owl, a turtle, and sundew, a carnivorous plant (wish I had a picture of that)!
I’d like to thank John Falla for the work he has put into our class project, and especially the information he researched about my house.
Grace brought in this framed memo when she was researching the old photo. We asked John Falla to interpret what appears to state: “Harte Built by Charles A. Gliden in Oct. 1st 1871, moved in Dec.17, 1871”
“The house was owned by the Gregson family when I was growing up in the village (1950s-1960s). They were from Worcester, MA, and Mrs. Gregson was part of the Hart family in St George.
Charles Glidden lived in the house next to the Marsh where Jane Derbyshire now lives. Glidden was a joiner – or house carpenter – and built many homes in Tenants Harbor.
With this info, I believe the note is saying the house was built for Hart by Charles Glidden, and my guess is that the house was built for Ida Gregson’s parents – John Amos Hart and his wife, Mary Jane Dukeshire. One of Frederickson’s deeds refers to an abutting property owner as Mary J Hart.” John Falla, May 2017