Recent Historical Find

[Mr Fixit]

In the days leading I to Christmas I found something at work which may interest you guys.
Many of you may know that I work maintenance at a prestigeous school here in Melbourne. The school is now over 150 years old and most of our main buildings date from @ the 1870's.
Well this summer break the main job for me has been the lifting of carpets and flooring to enable the contract electricians to run an evacuation speaker curcuit as well as to prepare for the installation of a "Guardian" control system. I'm not exactly 100% sure as to what that does myself, but in this day and age being able to co-ordinate and control the school with almost 1200 students and 200 plus staff in an emergency is vital.
Anyway, I was lifting carpets or carpet tiles and floor boards in one area and came across heaps of sawdust between the floor joists [about 8" x 3"] and under the sawdust but above the lathe and plaster was some carefully folded newspaper used as a barrier.
I removed the sawdust and inspected the newspaper, and we found one page dated 18 April 1876.
The classified ads made for some interesting reading as there were details about goods landed and up for auction, there were details of ship sailing schedules as well as ads touting the various attributes of ships sailing between Melbourne and London. Several touted having an experienced surgeon on board and one in particular touted having a milch cow on board.
On an other page was an ad for the private sale of a residence near the school in St Kilda Road, Melbourne [a major road] with a 99 foot frontage and 330 foot depth.
Anyone wishing they had title to that land now?
There was also notice of a deceased estate auction, where the gentleman's property named Rosanna near Heidelberg was to be sold, consisting of 800 acres of prime farm land to be sub-divided. This is auction basically forms and dates the establishment of the current suburb of Rosanna near where I live and where I do much of my shopping. Anyone wishing they had title to that land now?
Bizzare that I should happen to pull out such a newspaper.
I have given the original newspaper pages to the schools archivist as it provides an accurate date for the building an a glimpse of Melbourne of the time.

Mark

[ezdays]

That's really cool when you find something like that. It is probably of little monetary value, but priceless for it's historical significance. Years ago my wife's sister was living in an old farmhouse in upstate New York. They were pulling some old wallpaper off the walls when they noticed it was backed by a layer of old newspapers. They were able to save it and gave it to the local historical society. But to find a newspaper intact from that era was a great find.

[Mr Fixit]

Well Don I cant say that it came out intact, more like a tattered and torn treasure map.

I am thinking that when I get back to work and before I re-install the flooring that I may rescue some more newspaper a bit more carefully to see what else we can find out.

Still it does give us a very accurate date as to when that particular wing of the Quad. was being constructed.

Mark

[Chuck]

Very cool find! I grew up in an old house that used to be the halfway house for carriages from Detroit to Pontiac (I think that was the route). We found many cool things in the house and in the old carriage house in the back. WHen I was about 9 or 10, my mom found an old newspaper tucked behind the sink dating from the Civil War, and the coolest thing we found was a hidden room in the master bedroom. The east wall had a sort-of walk-in closet and next to it was a built-in dresser. My brother and I got to thinking, there must be something behind the dresser -- the depth of the closet was 8-10 feet at least. So we decided to pull the drawers, and found catches holding in place the wood spacers between the drawers -- they popped right off. This created an opening about 4 feet wide and almost 6 feet tall. The "back" of the dresser swung on hinges when we pushed against it revealing a 8x12 room with sloped ceilings under the eaves of the roof. There were shelves of bottles, some still sealed, and what looked like the remnants of a still. We had the local historical society come in and take a peek -- they were impressed. It was from prohibition days. They photographed everything and then we donated it all to them It was quite the find! It was never confirmed, but we think the house may have been part of the underground railroad, which is cool beyond measure. You never know what is hidden in some of the older houses, things lost to time.

Chuck

[Mr Fixit]

A very interesting house to have grown up in Chuck.
A very unique find having a still hidden there although from what I understand of the Prohibition era there would have been plenty of Canadian booze flowing across the borders near there and on further into the lower states. Also it cant have been too well hidden if two boys could work out a discrepancy in the floor plan. Are cops stupid?
Given the age of the house and its use as a stage coach halt, I too was suspecting that it may have to do with the Underground railroad, but after viewing a map wondered why, given how far North you are? The only explanation I can come up with is if escaped slaves were being smuggled north to Canada and instead of crossing the border near Detroit, the plan was to cross just to the south of Port Huron? That is only speculation on my part as my knowledge of the activities of the Underground Railroad are limited.
Mark

[Chuck]

Mr Fixit:
The house was in Royal Oak, just north of ten mile -- about two miles north of the Detroit border right off Woodward Avenue. I've heard of other houses in the area that were used for the underground railroad -- from what I was told, there were larger numbers coming north and there weren't enough places to hide them. I wish I could remember who told me this, but in many ways it became safer to have the hideouts in the burbs than in the city. I am not sure why -- possibly closer scrutiny closer to the border/in the city? Anyway, it is a cool to think the house could have been a part of the UR. As to the contents of the room, I am not sure why there were remnants of a still in the room -- at least that's what the crew from the society guessed it was. As far as discovering the hidden room, it was not that easy to notice without looking into the closet. It did remain hidden for 50+ years.... I wish the house was still standing. It was demolished to make way for some monstrosity of a fitness building, along with the house next door.

Chuck

[railroader9731]

Its awesome to find history in odd places and try to think of what it may have been like then. I have had two finds here at my house 1 we had to dig up the yard and fix a water line and as the excavator dug it dumped a bucket load to the side and I saw what was a coin. I gave it to the wife to clean off and to find it was a buffalo head nickel 1935. 2 after the flood we were tearing up the carpet and under it was some old flooring and under that there was some old news paper, all was trash but could read bits of it and one I looked at was when hittler was when he became leader of Germany.