Who is this person?

[RogerD]

(06-21-2015 06:47 PM)L Verge Wrote:  What a wonderful project, Mr. Dowd. We welcome you to this forum with open arms. Historic preservation is so important to the future of the U.S.

Thank you very much for your warm welcome! I am sorry about my late reply. Restoring the Seward birthplace is quite a challenge, as you can appreciate. It will be quite a while before we open the building to the public, but, we hope to be an educational partner in the community by hosting lectures and re-enactments.

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(06-23-2015 09:53 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  I agree - a wonderful project! Welcome, Mr. Dowd!

Thank you for your kind thoughts. We are in our fourth year and have a long way to go. It has been quite an education. The local high school - the S. S. Seward Institute - was founded by its namesake, Samuel Sweezey Seward. It is right next door to the homestead and is an indispensable partner in our efforts.

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(06-25-2015 07:05 PM)Anita Wrote:  Welcome Mr. Dowd and thank you for taking up this most worthwhile challenge. I read an article about the restoration where you are quoted as saying " volunteers recently lifted what they thought were walkway flagstones only to learn they were "badly inscribed" tombstones that could be hundreds of years old." - See more at: http://tinyurl.com/p8hews2

I bet you will uncover many more surprises in the months ahead. Please keep us posted!

I am amazed that you found that article. Yes. No doubt we will encounter many surprises. We still need to do forensics and archeology on the site. As it turned out, The Mapes house in the front portion of the homestead served as a funeral parlor into the early 70's. The headstones/flagstones may have been old vandalized headstones taken from a nearby cemetery. We just don't know. The Seward birthplace was actually used by the funeral home as a garage for limos. The bottom floor west section of the house was used as an embalming room. We have our work cut out for us. We can only hope our surprises aren't gruesome ones.

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(06-23-2015 10:38 AM)Gene C Wrote:  What a great project and good luck.
If you look at the facebook link Roger posted, there is a fairly recent photo and it looks like at some time the building has been used for storage, with what looks like a garage door on the side.

Thank you, Gene. As I mentioned in another post, what is left of Seward's birthplace was once used by a funeral parlor as a limo garage. But, the doors you mention were there since the early 1900's when the building was re-purposed as a barn. Our biggest challenge is determining how much of our restoration can be an actual restoration and how much of it will be interpretative. Working with state certified restoration architects and archeologists will help us there. One striking point of interest is "the kitchen", which is now a dilapidated outbuilding sitting on the grounds that may contain remnants of the slaves' quarters. Later this summer we hope to start the forensics on it.