Chapter 1 - History of the House
Mrs. Katherine Thompson’s book Penfield’s Past (1810-1960) p. 161 provides just about the only printed history of the structure. In addition to this undated photo, she presents a revealing excerpt from a letter handed down to the granddaughter of the house's builder, William Gorse. Our examination of the house verifies the details of this letter exactly.
“A pen was built on the ground and clay drawn from a nearby creek bed spread over the ground to a depth of about a foot. On this, cut straw was spread to a depth of three or four inches. Oxen were driven around and around inside the pen to thoroughly mix the ingredients. Plank forms about a foot high were set up on the wall foundations and filled with the clay mixture. As soon as the clay and straw had dried sufficiently to be self-supporting, the forms were raised and another course poured. Floor joists were laid across the walls and another layer poured on top, thus embedding the joists in the wall. When completed a year later, the house was given a thin plaster coat of clay and the interior walls were plastered and kept white-washed. Three fireplaces were used for heating and cooking. “
This method of construction – called rammed earth construction – while sounding rather flimsy has proven its strength now through 150 continuous years of habitation. The method of construction described in the letter was verified for me by Marcus H. Phillips who wrote me July 25, 1981 to this effect: once while collecting on a chattel mortgage for Security Trust in North Dansville, N.Y., he noticed a strange roofline on the Masonic Temple across the way. Enquiring from the caretaker he discovered that it was indeed an earthen structure and that the oxen pens were still intact behind the building. This visit occurred in 1964 and Mr. Phillips, now 81, allows as how everything may be changed by now.
While doing some research in the landmark society’s files, I discovered a note to the effect that there was a general interest in earthen structure in Upstate New York in the late 1820s and early 1830s, especially in and around Geneva. So, our building is neither unique nor without precedent in the area. In the Landmark Society’s files I also came across some interesting paperwork filled out by Mrs. Thompson on the National Register of Historic Places. In that application she asserts that both the inside and outside were originally plastered over. I have found no physical evidence of exterior plaster although the interior plaster is probably 2 to 3 inches thick. If they did plaster or whitewash the exterior all trace is gone now. She also asserts that the walls were a full 18 inches thick at the bottom but become narrower near the top. Again I have not found that to be true although it must be admitted that the deteriorated state of the present building makes exact measurement rather too plentiful to be really conclusive.
She also adds some interesting family details. Samuel Gors (no “e”) came from Hartford, Conn. and settled in Penfield in 1812. Penfield’s first settlers, including some traders living around Irondequoit Bay and a few fur traders living along Irondequoit creek near the four corners arrived about 1800. By 1810 the town was established and recognized by New York State. By 1812 the land had been surveyed and divided into farmsteads which were then sold to settlers by Daniel Penfield and others. Samuel Gors was among the purchasers. He purchased 80 acres and, along with his son, farmed the swampy land north of what is now Whalen Road and west of what is now called Jackson Rd (along with Jackson Road Extension) and east of Baird Road. These were all roads in the original layout of the town. By 1825 William Gors, Samuel’s Son, had married Rebecca Tripp, a local girl. There is no record I could find of the exact date of their marriage, but during the ten years between when we first know they were married (1825) and the date of the construction of the house (1835), it would not be surprising to discover that they had a full complement of children. The design of the house gives evidence of this.
As far as we can now tell, the second floor was designed with four bedrooms and a central room in the middle. The placement of the wall between the chimney and the barrister of the staircase suggests that there were at least four children since a small cot-like bed would be about the only sort of furniture to fit in that place and if less children were in the family they would have moved that bedroom out to the stairwell. As it was, the top of the stairs created another bedroom on the landing.
Downstairs the front room with the larger fireplace and beehive oven had to be the kitchen, but in a house built for functional uses the kitchen should be the largest room in the house. Other historical accounts state that William Gors first constructed a log cabin in what later became the display garden of Brown Brothers Nursery. As a child growing up on Baird Road in the early 1960s, I recall such a tumble-down structure, but I can’t honestly say whether I remember a cabin or a photo of a cabin. Memory dims these details.
According to Mrs. Thompson, the land remained in the family until 1925, but a map of Penfield farms made in 1852 shows no record of a Gors or Gorse owning any farmland in the township and assigns the mud house and the adjacent log cabin to J.N. Weldin and family. That would have been 17 years after the structure’s construction and there are any number of explanations. The males bearing the name Gors and their families may have moved further west during that great period of western expansion in the Ohio valley and beyond. Indeed a Gors may have married J.N. Weldin and brought the house and land with her as a dowry, but this is only speculation.
A close examination of the map of 1852 reveals some interesting details about the town as it would have been in the time the original owners lived in the house. Penfield was basically a farm town by then distinguished most notably by its mills on Irondequoit Creek. A flour and lath and lumber mill were important assets in addition there were three tanneries, three taverns, an amazing number of schools and blacksmith’s shops, and several distilleries. All but the tavern at Lovett’s Corners (near the present day corners of Penfield and Salt Roads) is a tavern to this day.
Judging by the number of farms identified, there must have been very fine crops and lots of produce to support so many families on so little land. The town itself, about the same size as it is today in Four Corners, was a relatively less significant center of town life, one would have to conclude from the diversity of services listed on the map.
The Erie Canal, opened in 1825 and would have provided a nearby source of market for grain and farm produce of all kinds. The old Erie Canal bed runs along what is now the eastern expressway route and this William Gors would have had nearby to load his grain into a wagon and carry down to four corners, over the bridge and up the hill into what is now East Rochester in order to take his product to market.
It's hard to say how many families farmed in Penfield land, but by 1864 when Nellie Williams, “a little lass of fourteen summers who is the sole Editoress and Compositor and probably the youngest Publisher and Proprietor of a weekly newspaper in the world” sought advertising, she boasted a circulation of 1400 copies. Few probably left the township, although little Nell claimed Canadian and Californian readers. Even allowing this contention, still suggests well over 1300 local subscribers. In 1877 a history of Monroe County was compiled by a man named Mcintosh for J.B. Lippincott & Co. of Philadelphia, PA. The book was in all likelihood a subscription affair which meant that those who paid the most got the most prominent write up – perhaps a penned biographical sketch and – if the free was great enough – a pen and ink illustration of one’s farm. Given this bias, it is hard to judge the real character of the town, but some general details came through.
By 1877, most of the swamps which had hindered farming and promoted all manner of early death amongst the first pioneers had been cleared. This could provide one explanation for the sudden disappearance of the Gors family. Sudden diseases which wiped out whole families were not uncommon in those times in Monroe County - especially in Henrietta and Penfield which were plagued by a surplus of swampy land. By 1877 a wide variety of farm fences were in use, some sheep were being grazed. The horse had overtaken the earlier popularity of oxen as farm animals, and some larger farms even offered backyard benches and stepping stones to enter carriages with greater ease.
Earlier on - say when the house was first built - ox was by far the most prevalent farm animal. The reasons were not far to seek. Not only could oxen trod clay and straw for one’s house, but they were stronger than horses, more disease resistant, needed less water, lived longer, and could be eaten after they died. How much more useful could a poor beast be expected to be?
The Gors children which we postulate must have existed by 1835 either went to school at the corner of Jackson Road and Atlantic Avenue or at Penfield and what is now Nine Mile point Road. Both schools would have offered a mile or so walk each way. The nearest blacksmith’s shop was at the corner of Baird and Penfield Roads, although the Gors family could just as easily have sought the services of any number of others scattered throughout the town. There were wolves and foxes in early Penfield. The first known meeting in 1811 budgeted $50 for a $5/head bounty on wolves. New York State pioneers frequently record stories of young children being carried off by wolves and later found mangled to death. We forget sometimes how hard the farmers' life was in the early nineteenth century. All too often we are inclined to think of neat little farms laid out like story book fantasies instead of visualizing the brutal work and hard lifestyle required of all early pioneers.
Just clearing the forest and its stumps to make viable fields was a backbreaking task. Many farmers finding the job too large for one season would clear the fields for one year while living on the food they brought with them from their previous farm and then plow around the remaining stumps until the action of the weather could loosen them up and the agrarian season provided leisure in the fall once again to hitch the oxen to the more stubborn stumps. Many early fences and thus many early hedge rows were created by piling stumps in lines between the fields.
Beyond the old Leonard farm on Baird Road is a perfect example of such a hedgerow now grown completely out of control.
In the early 1960s we lived next to that hedgerow and controlling it should have offered ample exercise to any circus trainer.
In 1940 Brown Brothers Nursery bought the Mud house and land and renovated the house as an office for the business. Brown Brothers were responsible for naming Browncroft Blvd., I am told, and provided foundation plantings to at least a decade of Penfield houses. Thus when we purchased the house our first task had to be to clear the overgrown foundation shrubs which had for too many years been endangering the foundation and holding and directing water into the basement. Eighteenth century houses never had any plants near the building. Nineteenth century foundation planting was extremely rare, but with the invention of waterproof basement sealers the foundation plant really came into its own after THE war. In truth this house was designed to have a clear foundation and the house will function best without the moisture foundation plants encourage near the base of the house.
After Brown Brothers purchased the building they renovated the exterior by adding a chemical Bondex and some cinder blocks to support the corner and the interior by adding plaster board, electricity, and a perfectly miserable excuse for a bathroom in three closets on the second floor. One tiny room held the head and sink. A second held the pipes and a third cubby hole had the tub. These were plastered against the west wall. When we obtained the property all of this plumbing leaked profusely as did the roof and basement. But these are the stories which the diary in this book is meant to contain. All that remains of the history of the house as I have been able to find it is to say that sometime about 1968, a younger Lynn Emery and family lived here and seemed by a newspaper article on their decorating ideas to have enjoyed it. In 1964 the Wm. Seeler Construction Co. purchased the house and all of the land back to the creek. On the land they created roads and house plots, later houses, and in all this made themselves fabulously wealthy. The mud house stood ignored for most of this time although it was rented to a variety of families until the sale to us in 1981.
The landmark society’s files are littered with correspondence trying futilely to get the construction firm to arrest the alarming deterioration of the building. After reading the file one is prompted to want to pin a metal on Billy Harrington for the persistence year after year from 1964 to 1981. Yet through all this the Seeler people did nothing to preserve the structure. Articles were written, speeches given, the historical status of the building was established once and for all by its inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 but still Seeler sat idle. It’s truly appalling! After we purchased the building Seeler told me he originally intended to plow the building down but Landmark Society pressure prevented him from doing so. Well, we have arrived at the present and here is where the diary portion of this account begins. I will start with a newspaper article which appeared a week to the day after we purchased the building, and continue with whatever revelations occur as we proceed to renovate the structure.