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excavation of two mid-19th century wood frame cottages on aberdeen yields hundreds of artifacts


within the past month, demolition commenced and then quickly finished on two wood framed cottages located at 455 and 457 aberdeen street (just west of the site where the john kent russell house once stood) in west town. since the excavated lots have been emptied of wrecking crew and salvager alike, there is little to keep them from passing away in public memory. the structurally important residences which date to chicago's "pioneer days" would have been among the oldest surviving cottages in the city based on existing data.

as a manner of extending attention to these historically important cottages, the following post offers a glimpse of artifacts unearthed during the excavation of the two lots where the houses once stood. i hope to complete a more exhaustive survey at a later date, but for now a collection of images are offered that pertain to remnants collected in and around three privy pits used by the occupants, dating back to the 1840's.

1845-view-from-west

 

the excavation opened a brief window into a time when there were just 30,000 people in the burgeoning city, and the most explosive industrialization was just on the verge of coming to fruition. the artifacts recovered were buried long before the first skyscrapers appeared, before the civil war, before the great fire swept through the city, and before many of the streets were raised to implement a modern sewage system.

the main site this week was first and foremost the location of two houses dating as far back as the 1840's-1850's. though as of now, both buildings on the lot have been torn down, i suspect one of the residences was the one of the oldest known cottage to be discovered in the city. the house, located at 457 n. aberdeen, would once have been 155 curtis street, before being renumbered and the street renamed in 1909. city directories from 1855 indicate two possible residents: a plasterer named william stokes, and/or patrick murphy, a blacksmith (both listed at a house on "curtiss," near or between hubbard and owen streets).

it is only tragic that the houses' impressive date of construction would have to be revealed through deconstruction, but as stewart brand writes, "cities devour buildings," and the least we can do is document and collect what gets upended in that process.

the wood frame two-story cottages hid in plain sight, buried beneath layers of vinyl siding. once peeled back, shearing away the layers, the large slats of wooden clapboard were clearly visible, as well as the structure, resting on large hand-hewn sills, configured with a single central summer beam and chimney in the middle of the house -- a definitive trait of early nineteenth century construction.

newspaper fragments sifted out from debris lodged in the sill plate corroborate the suspicion that the house was built in the 1850's or earlier, possibly pushing back to 1846. on that lot, a stunningly vibrant irridized cobalt blue pontiled blobtop bottle was unearthed, from the early era of bottle production of chicagoan george lomax. george lomax emigrated to the united states from england, arriving in chicago during the early 1850's. he is listed as a 41 year old "master soda maker" in the 1860 census.

george lomax was likely related to the chicago bottling giant john lomax, but records obscure their actual relationship. between 1852-1854 george lomax is listed as a "mineral water" bottler at canal street between lake and fulton. during these three years, edward k. bebbington and joseph entwistle are also listed as bottlers at the same address. from 1855-1863, george lomax was the proprietor of his own soda water manufacturing business--lomax & meagher and then g. lomax & co. (though meagher's name was never embossed on the bottles). the business ceased with his death in 1863.

following my usual method of salvage and in-shop/studio analysis, the cottages yielded material samples for bldg. 51 (i.e., the unearthing and deconstructing archives) in the form of studs, unusually wide pit-sawn clapboard, and sections of oak wood hewn beam sill and summer beams, all evidencing the construction methods and the houses' hybrid configurations. the ground cleared thereafter was also rich in material, however, and the recovery of several intact soda bottles helped to narrow the date of construction and mark the site's era of use (1850's). items unearthed included black glass, mochaware, blue-colored spongewear, wood pipes, an early toothbrush with the word "warranted" lightly incised.

 

near the western-most house at 455 curtis street, two 1850's bottles were unearthed. a single rare variety of quart-sized amber colored glass ale bottle was discovered, manufactured for bottler michael keeley. a fragment of an open pontiled ""dr. hoofland's" bitters bottle was also sifted from the detritus. the latter was a german remedy for dyspepsia and 'liver complaint.'

sections of newspaper and embossed glass in this case proved effective clues toward being able to quite literally "read" the house or site. when embarking on a salvage, i often address the impending "death" of a building or otherwise treat the structure as a dynamic entity that both "learns" from its occupants and "suffers" from alteration or demolition. this phase of the salvage process always reinforces that perspective, by bringing to life what occupants long ago drank, ate, read, and medicated themselves with. these most fragile remnants become the afterimage that outlasts even the architecture.

meanwhile at the crane mfg. building addition, the earliest type of glass soda bottle produced by william henry hutchinson was brought out from the ground-- a cobalt blue iron pontiled blobtop embossed all along the front body "hutchinson & co / celebrated / mineral / waters / chicago."

these fragmented materials in and of themselves provide insight into manufacturers of the nineteenth century, production methods, and what daily household goods were used. they were buried long before the first skyscrapers appeared, before the civil war, before the great fire swept through the city, and before many of the streets were raised to implement a modern sewage system.



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