Vintage Finds – Radford Family Bible

A post from my other blog that I thought I’d share since it connects to the family history side of things.

Till Next We Trod The Boards

Next to antiques and theatre, my third greatest passion is likely genealogy. Over the last few years I’ve spent a lot of time researching my own family history, and knowing the joys and frustrations that come with it have made me bother to take the time to document anything I come across in my own vintage/prop hunting that may be of interest to other family history buffs.

My most recent acquisition for Bygone Theatre’s upcoming show (join us September 24th to find out what that is) was an old family bible. While the cover is falling off and the pages are foxed and worn, it still contained some interesting pieces of history, that might be useful to anyone researching a Radford family from Huntington W. VA.

I’m including here the photos I’ve taken of selected pages from the bible; if this is part of your family tree, please let me…

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Abandoned Farm in King City

At long last, another post! It’s been a busy few months and Canadian winters don’t make for the best exploring, but with the thaw this weekend we thought we’d check out a place that caught our eye a while ago up in King City.

King City, March 2015

King City, March 2015

King City, March 2015

King City, March 2015

 

A reminder of why you should always be very careful of where you walk – a poorly covered well found under the snow!

King City, March 2015

I suspect it was this past winter that really did this home in; the porch roof had collapsed, as had one over the shed, but the damage inside & underneath was minimal. This may be its first year out in the elements.

King City, March 2015

Inside, it was rather sad to see what was clearly once a beautiful home now peeling, cracking & decaying before our eyes. Paint & wallpaper had pulled away to show years of change, layers of different styles piled over each other. The floors & ceilings were weak & had collapsed in some places, so we avoided the basement & most of upstairs, but there was still quite a bit to see. All the furniture was gone except for a lone chair left eerily in the middle of the living room.

You could no longer go through the front door, because of the caved in roof, but you could see through the hole where a dooknob once was.

Another interesting find were a couple scraps of old newspaper, dated 1995. One was about the OJ Simpson trial.

The house wasn’t the only interesting part of the property; there was a large barn that housed quite a bit of old farm equipment. I’m not sure, but my guess was much of it was used for bailing hay.

But as it’s getting late, I think I’ll leave that for a second post. All for now,

-E.

 

Abandoned House At Highway 10, Past Orangeville

After a long hiatus (partially due to my being out of the country for a month) we finally got a chance for a bit of exploring again! This time we were somewhere near Orangeville, on Highway 10. On a corner across from a very empty, lonely looking Subway was this old brick house with a dilapidated barn and collapsed secondary building (couldn’t get close to it, may have been a house at some point, may have been another barn-type building) nearby.

The “secondary” building

The home was boarded up but many of the boards had been torn down, and there had obviously been squaters or druggies inside; total mess, lots of graffiti.

Graffiti covered walls.

The wood trim, sturdy looking doors and floral wallpaper, however, suggested that this may have once been a very nice home. Most of the furniture appeared to be gone, but I did see some mattresses and tables through on room; not sure if these had belonged to the owner or if someone else brought them in later.

We didn’t go inside as there was shattered glass everywhere and we didn’t want to run into anyone, but I could see through quite a few windows. Out back, we could see into an old shed and there was the remains of a treehouse.

trees reclaiming the house

the remains of the barn

door to the barn

cracked walls

busted gutters

a view to the cellar

abandoned clock

boarded up well

All for now!

-E.

Abandoned Storage Shed, Farm Outside of Barry Ontario

Driving along the highway back from Barry Ontario we saw a ton of abandoned properties off the side of the road. Unfortunately, most of them weren’t accessible and we couldn’t slow enough for me to get a picture. We did come across this one small shed – it was empty inside, the walls collapsing, and was in the middle of a unused field. Not much to see at this one, but still a sort of pretty site.

Abandoned Cemetery, Lot 18, Concession 2, Ops Township, Victoria County, Ontario

One of the first abandoned places I ever discovered was an old cemetery, now known as Buckley Cemetery, although no Buckley’s are buried there (but that family currently owns, or at least owned the land when the name was given). My Great Uncle told me about it a few years back, as it is where my Great Great Great Great Grandfather, Thomas McNabb, is buried.

My Great Great Great Great Grandfather, Thomas McNabb

The cemetery had been abandoned for decades, and because it was located in the middle of what used to be a cow pasture, it was in horrible diss-awry. Stones were knocked over and broken, many unreadable, some possibly missing. Trees and weeds had overgrown, further damaging the stones and making them hidden from passersby on the road (though perhaps that part isn’t a bad thing). I thought there was something inherently sad about a cemetery in such rough shape, especially because, on a personal level, that was the final resting place of the patriarch of one branch of my family.

So last summer I decided to head out with my father and best friend Matt, armed with shovels, weed clippers and various gardening tools, in hopes of cleaning up the Buckley Cemetery. Unfortunately, when we got there we found it to be a much harder task than we had initially anticipated; the weeds were so thick we could barely hack through them. When we went to clean off some fallen stones we saw that the parts covered under the dirt were actually better preserved than the ones still standing, and the high winds that day made everything twice as hard. In the end, all we managed to do is clean out the weeds that were directly interfering with the stones, take photos of each and do our best to transcribe what was written on them. Here is what we came up with:

 

Stone Inscriptions: (numbers used correspond with the work previously done by Stephen E. Negus for the Ontario Genealogical Society – I have added to his work. Also, please note that __________ stands in place of unreadable writing)

1. ____________/Also/his wife/ Mary Boyd/ died Oct 1842/aged 24 years/native of Dobalie, Dumfarshire, Scotland
2. In memory of/Sarah____________
3. In memory of/Henry Armstrong/ who died Feb 12, 1852/AE 52 y’s/ Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord
4. Meet me/In memory of/Sarah/ daughter of Henry and Ellen Armstrong/ died Feb 6, 1864/aged 2 (8?) yrs & 2 mons &_____________
5. Rest, Sarah, thou has left us now, they loss we deeply feel. But tis God that has bereft us, He can all our sorrows heal/Yet again we hope to meet when the day of life is fled/ When in Heaven with joy to greet thee/Where no sorrowful tear is shed
6. John Ray/died Feb. 21, 1837/aged 12 mo 12 days
7. In memory of/Margaret Gray/native of Banff, Scotland/wife of Francis W. Hook/died Aug 21, 1842/AE 42 years & 2 mos
8. _________/________ Samuel and Margaret Sheridan/died Feb 6, 1877/aged 5 years/________ Lord give and he take away
   EDIT: after searching through death records online, I think I’ve discovered that this is James Arthur Sheridan, son of Samuel Sheridan and Margaret Sheridan (nee McNabb), who died of Diphtheria. This child is my 1st cousin, 4x removed.
9. _________/of_________ Arthur/___________ n of __________–
10. Catharine (Ru? Ruth?) _________/ died April 9, 1850/ aged 3 yr’s 9 mos
11. In memory of / Jane/ beloved (wife) of/ Thomas McNabb/who died Jan 22, 1875/ aged 22 years 7 mos/_________
    EDIT: another death records search online revealed this to be Jane McCollough, born circa 1852 in Ops Township, Ontario, Canada. She married Thomas McNabb II (1829-1913), making her the wife of my Great Great Great Grand Uncle. They married December 25, 1874. She died January 22, 1875, of “perpetual convulsions: 14 days”.
12. In memory of/ Thomas McNabb/ who died Sep 8, 1859/AE 58 yrs / Husband, father, thou hast left us/now thy loss we deeply feel/ but tis God that has bereft us/ (he can?) all our sorrows heal
13. In memory of/ Robert Graham/ who died Oct 9, 1849/ AE 10 y’s & 2 mos/ ___________
14. John C. Graham/ who died May 30, 1850/ AE 59 yr’s
15. (Ro)bert Graham/who died/Aug 30, 1850/AE 50 yrs/ readers in health and strength/death may be near thee/let my removal warn thee /to prepare

I’ll edit this as I find out more. I plan on going back this summer an giving it another go. My goal is to eventually have it cleaned up well enough that no further damage will be done, and in an ideal world, I would like to get a fence around the whole thing, and a plaque at the front with names of those buried there, both so that it is recorded should the stones eventually wear away completely, and also so that those looking for it see there is a cemetery there (by then, protected) and not just a patch of trees in a field. Of course, all this requires money, so it may be a-ways-away, but still, one for the bucket list.

-E.

Abandoned Farm House on Hurontario, Outside of Brampton, Ontario

This is one we found somewhere along Hurontario – we may have been in Caledon, Ontario.

As it was one of the first ones we explored, I don’t have as many good photos, or too many details, but I still thought it was worth sharing.

The old car was cool, though in terrible condition. All of the interior had been removed and there were trees growing through the floor and seats.

The house had at one time been covered up in tile and plaster, and my guess is someone who came here before us knew something about the original structure and chipped it away to reveal this date; 1855.

And to top it all off, the beautiful stone wall of the barn, directly behind my even more beautiful fiance 🙂

-E.

Abandoned Farmhouse on Torbram Road in Brampton, Ontario

We came across interesting property in Brampton the other day, this time less than a 10 minute drive from our house. There were a few key things that caught my eye here; first, the beautiful vintage farm equipment and the gigantic pile of rubbish, which housed a couple interesting vintage finds.

The old threshing machine

 

The robins egg blue stove immediately grabbed my attention; it was difficult to get too much information from it because it was balanecd precariously on a pile of junk, but the colour alone gives you an idea of its age.

The rusted stove

what I suspect it once looked like

Also in the pile was a very rusted child’s electric stove. With a quick google search I came across this blog with a picture of what I suspect it once looked like.

Much of the other junk was newer, likely from the 1990s or 2000s, and there were also a lot of rusted propane tanks. The pile was huge, and what looked like a former barn had collapsed nearby, with piles of hay, so who’s to say what else was hidden underneath.

The old threshing machine

A close-up of the beautiful logo

The next thing of real interest was the old threshing machine, which caught our eye mainly because of the painted detail on the wood, and the beautiful lion logo. My guess looking at it was that it was made in the 1910s, and when we got home and researched it I found I may not be far off. The Lobsinger Lion Thresher machines can dated back as far as the 1890s; as I know nothing of them myself, I’ll just link you to the site where I found the most information, rather than copying it over here: Traders Bend. It is interesting to note that one of these is kept in the Ontario Agricultural Museum.

There was an old house there, but it wasn’t as interesting as some we’ve come across. Just a simple, red brick, quite small, likely first half of the 20th century. So I’ll leave that for now.

Finally, the shed.

Take a look. See it? Yep. A giant bone. We didn’t touch it, there were no other bones around so it was obviously brought there, maybe it was even a dog toy (though it was definitely an actual bone). My first guess was a cow, but I don’t know. If anyone has an idea of what it came from, I’d love to know.

E.

Abandoned Farm & Barn Off Airport Road, Caledon E, Ontario

 

Google Maps Sky View

 

   18000-18398 Airport Rd

   Caledon East, ON L7K 2G9

   43.914667, -79.928809

 

While the house was interesting, the entire roof had caved in (I suspect during the awful winter that we just had) and there was no way to go inside safely. A few hundred feet out back, however, was a barn with a big beautiful old piece of farm machinery in it.

I gave the label name a quick google search and came across this site that had some great info. Apparently the name McCormick Deering was a trademark name of a line of farm machinery made by International Harvester, a company founded in 1902. Apparently labels with that name existed until 1948 or 49. I’m not sure how old this machine is, I’ll have to do some more investigating to figure out a specific age, but my initial guess was it was from the 1930s and given what I’ve read from this site, it needs to be from before 1949, so I may not have been too far off!