columbine

This one single plant showed up in the little mint patch in my yard. I should have been clueless what it was, but something in my brain said "columbine", and that's what it apparently is.

wild geraniums

The wild geraniums are blooming along the north side of my house. The Vaneff daughter Antina who grew up in the house says her father brought them back from a trip to the old country (Macedonia). She says the girls in Macedonia would crush the leaves and rub them behind their ears for the perfume aroma.

historic wood windows

The National Trust tip sheet on Historic Wood Windows is a must read if you are thinking about window replacement, especially for windows made before the 1940s. Could you be reaping a net loss over the life span of the replacement window? How hard is it to repair and maintain your original windows? How does the combination of a restored single pane window and a storm window compare to a modern vinyl double pane window?

historic landscape presentation

I gave a presentation last Friday at the Historical Society membership meeting about the historic landscape study that was done in 1982/83 at Oak Hill. You can view it here.

lilacs

My lilacs are in bloom. These are original to the grounds of Oak Hill and will be used to restore the bushes that used to be around the cottage. The mock orange bushes are just barely beginning to get leaves.

crown imperial

My Fritillaria Imperialus are in bloom. Out of 7 bulbs, three got the heads nipped off close to the ground just as they started to develop. One grew up, but its blossoms didn't develop. So that left me with three, just like in the old photo I posted last year.

bloodroot

The daffodils, hyacinths, and a few tulips are blooming, but these bloodroot were the latest unexpected spring flowers to pop up alongside the shady side of the house.

spring flowers

The Vaneff House where I live, across from Oak Hill Cottage, was home since the 1920s to one of many Macedonian families in this neighborhood . I'm going to try to post the flowers as they pop up in the gardens. The yellow flower, Eranthis hyemalis (Winter Aconite), showed up first this year the first week of March in several small clumps. They are native to southern Europe. The blossoms are closed in the picture because of the cold. The little blue flowers are blooming now all over two beds and at the base of the wild cherry tree. They are Chionodoxa lucilia (Glory-of-the-snow), a native of Turkey.

total eclipse post hydrant

When Oak Hill Cottage got indoor plumbing in 1877, the contract called for 5 yard hydrants. The one showing up most often in old photos was alongside the front walk, but none of the originals survive. Kupferle Foundry in St. Louis has been making the Total Eclipse brand of yard hydrants since 1857, and we have purchased and installed this nice piece of Victorian cast iron in its original location.

urns

Cast iron urns were a feature of Oak Hill Cottage's Victorian landscape since the 1870s, but haven't been displayed for many years for fear of losing the valuable antiques. Recently the Society Board purchased new reproduction urns of similar size and style, and they are now flanking the front porch and sporting pansies until the weather warms enough for a more elaborate display.

dining room

The rear wing of Oak Hill Cottage contains the dining room and kitchen with the servant's rooms in a half story above the dining room. The low dining room ceiling of about 8 feet and the way some of the window trim is cut short because of the lower ceiling, prompted the interpretation that there was originally a high cathedral ceiling that had been lowered by the Jones family (second occupants of the house) to accommodate their need for servant's quarters.
I have never believed this! My instinct that the dining room is unaltered goes back to my grandparent's house in Kentucky which was built about the same time, and had exactly the same arrangement. From the main part of the second floor of that house, there were two or three steps down into the second floor of the rear wing above the kitchen, just like Oak Hill's short doorway in the nursery leading into the servant's area.
Secondly, I felt the evidence just wasn't strong enough to make it part of the tour dialog and spoil the ideal of an unaltered floor plan.
Today in the servant's hallway above the dining room I took up a short floorboard to have a look at the joist end that normally rests in a pocket in the brick wall. If the dining room ceiling had been lowered, you would expect to find something unusual here. Perhaps a pocket made by removing bricks, or the joist resting on a header. But instead I found a very normal looking pocket that had been created as the original wall was laid. The photo below is looking down into the space with the joist on the left.

I think this is invalidates the notion that the ceiling was lowered.

rubber tires

When I posted the pictures of the National auto I wondered if the horseless carriage and rubber tires were simultaneous developments. Now I notice in a photo that this carriage has rubber tires just like the auto. This would be about late 1890s, and the location is entering the carriage drive in front of Oak Hill Cottage in Mansfield.

1905 national

Possibly the only surviving example of an auto manufactured in Mansfield will be on display starting this season at the carriage house at Oak Hill Cottage. Built by the Richland Buggy Company in 1905, the "National" was purchased and brought back to Mansfield through the efforts of local donors and restored by Richard Taylor. For several years it resided on the second floor of the city building, but now has its own "garage" within the renovated carriage house. For more photos, go to www.oakhillcottage.org/national

errata

Further research; John Riley Robinson
Any historical research encounters a myriad of details that can be carefully sorted out or casually glossed over, and there's usually a certain amount of both in any story. I knew when I wrote the Robinson episodes below, that there would be further work to do and revisions to make.

I made a couple of trips to the county recorders office today to trace Oak Hill's title. The deeds confirm that Oak Hill was sold at sheriff's sale in 1860. It appears to be a foreclosure. The sale was to satisfy a judgment of $9,320 and the property was purchased at the sale by Farmer's Bank, then resold to Harvey Hall for $7,000 who sold it to Dr. Jones three years later for $12,000. Thus it appears when the 1860 census showed Robinson's real estate valued at $10,000 he was essentially wiped out, probably a result of the bankruptcy of the railroad in 1855. Nevertheless, his connections with the Barneys, the Overland, and Wells Fargo took him on to his silver mine venture and great wealth.

john riley robinson; part 7

Llandaff c. 1878 home of John Robinson at Easton, MD.

Seventh and final installment in a series about the man who built Oak Hill Cottage
According to Steve Wilson, director emeritus of the Museum of the Great Plains, the revolutionary Adolfo Ibarra occupied Batopilas on July 23, 1872, and jailed John Robinson for five days. On Dec. 17, 1871, the company had paid a forced loan of $6,000, and in July 1872, Ibarra imposed a loan of $100,000. He got $15,918, and another $3,000 in silver. The revolutionaries took over the mine and mill and took another $207,180.

After Batopilas, Robinson went on to discover and develop silver mines in the Santa Eulalia district of Chihuahua, and formed the Don Enrique Mining Co. , at Cusihuiriachick, and the Santa Eulalia Silver Mining Co., with headquarters at Hacienda Robinson. He sold the companies in 1890.

At about the time of the sale of the Batopilas mine in 1879, Robinson built a new home, Llandaff, in the Queen Anne style at Easton, MD. The estate stayed in the family for 127 years and like Oak Hill Cottage is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Jane, his first wife, died in 1883 and Robinson married Katherine Taylor in 1885. John Robinson’s obituary in the New York Times, on his death May 9, 1892 sketches the broad outlines of his adventurous and prosperous life.

“Long John Robinson Dead. Baltimore, May 9 …John R. Robinson came from Florida on Saturday to his home, Llandaff Farm, Bailey’s Neck. He was then a very sick man, and died to-day, aged eighty-two years. An Easton (MD.) dispatch to the Baltimore Sun says: Mr. Robinson has been for many years a conspicuous figure in large business and financial operations in this country and Mexico. ‘Long John’ Robinson was well known in Wall Street, New York. …His first business venture of importance was the construction of the first railroad built in Ohio, that from Columbus to Sandusky.”

“He was manager of the great line of stages that was run between Fort Smith, Ark., and San Francisco. During the civil war Mr. Robinson went to Mexico and developed a silver mine which paid 12 percent a month for several years to its New York stockholders. Mr Robinson later got possession of other mines in Chihuahua…”