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construction materials and methods carefully documented before and during demolition of 1860's chestnut street cottage

this early nondescript cottage located on chestnut resembled somewhat the non-extant john kent russell house, especially in that its age and alterations made it into a richly complex case study, and one that i managed to thoroughly document before and during its demolition.

like the russell house, the cottage contained a rear addition (or possibly another cottage moved to and adjoined to the first cottage), which was likely added when the original, single story house was raised onto several hewn cedar wood posts (the rear addition received the same cedar post structural support). the rear portion or fascia of the original cottage had been stripped down and opened up (unlike the john kent russell house, where the clapboard, brackets and lunette were left untouched since the civil war).

the original one-inch pine wood sheathing had eventually been covered over with lithographed tin advertising when the third addition--an enclosed porch-- was added around the turn of the century. these porches are found anchored against nearly every 19th century cottage, constructed between the turn of the century on through the 1930's. in most cases the original, previously exposed exterior clapboard is left intact, but nearly always painted over. in addition, these boxed-porches contain flat rooftops with a removable hatch allowing access to the heavily pitched roof and/or the attic containing the original rough-sawn rafters, sheathing, and in many cases, original wood shingles buried under rolls of tar paper and asphalt.

when the wrecking machine arrived and slowly began to open up the cottage's innards, the original (i.e., oldest) single story cottage, originally supported by cedar posts and a beadboard "skirt" was raised and subsequently modified with the addition of brick walls enclosing the posts and sheathing. the original heavily notched old growth pine wood sill plates with two girts and/or intermediary weight-bearing beams running perpendicular to the sills. the four corners and mid-sections contained mortise and tenon joinery, reinforced with tapered and faceted wood pegs. the massive sill plates contained notches for receiving floor joists along the side and square openings along the top to receive studs with tenons. neither the joists or studs contained any evidence of square nails or "spikes" to reinforce these two framing members designed to support the floor and walls respectively.

the white pine studs were partially hewn and sawn and the lath contained a thickness and roughness consistent with houses from the 1860's. perhaps the most impressive features were the remarkably wide pine wood boards used as sheathing, with clapboard nailed to the exterior and the studs, butted up against the interior. the rough-sawn boards were devoid of tongue and groove joints and the size of the boards varied from one to the next. when exposed for photo-documentation and sample retrieval, it was indeed a sight to behold, despite having discovered this time and again in other cottages erected within the same time period.

since i was out of town during the cottage's demolition, i haven't given myself adequate time to examine the photographs that a member of my salvage crew took as the cottage was brought down. i was pleased that several cedar posts or foundation pilings, samples of studs and joists, sheathing, square nails and pegs, clapboard (for paint analysis), and finally, two completely intact massive sill plates with hand-tooled notching were pulled or carefully extracted from the pile for further analysis.

there is no doubt in my mind, especially with the recent spat of cottage demolitions i documented over the last week, that the "deconstructing chicago" project will greatly alter how researchers perceive both the methods and materials used in the "chicago method" of balloon framing of various structures constructed during the last half of the 19th century. the existing "scholarly" papers rely much too heavily on what's been written about the evolution of balloon framing based on period journals, catalogs and the like.

however, when compared against the actual data harvested in countless field studies (i.e., demolition sites which researchers and/or the scholars have no access to), a major overhaul is badly needed. this would entail creating a more accurate model supported by countless images and actual specimens from hundreds of houses built all around chicago during various decades of the latter half of the 19th century.



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