UPDATE ON THE GURDON BILL STORE

Being the  nosy guy that I am, I simply HAD to look in the window of Ledyard's 1814 Gurdon Bill Store (known as the Way Station to the Ledyardians), and was shocked at the interior's nearly total historic preservation. I saw the counter, a staircase, and another room to the north side, which I knew by the sign (see the previous post on The Gurdon Bill Store) to be the actual stagecoach waiting room.

I HAD to get in there!

And, being extremely nosy, I did.

I called the Bill Library (named after Henry Bill, one of Gurdon Bill's sons that was to expand Gurdon's legacy of community development) to ask about the ownership of the building, and was told with no surprise to the librarian that I had called the WRONG Bill Library, and this one was in Groton, just south of Ledyard. The Bills sure got around, and apparently left libraries around the area as if they were dropping gum wrappers. Actually, there are only two that I know of, and the very wonderful librarian (aren't they all?) in Groton told me the number and person to talk to in Ledyard, which was once North Groton before wresting themselves from Groton's evil clutches.

No, No! That's not true. Groton wasn't even CLOSE to being evil in those days. It actually took much longer.

At the REAL Bill library (I jest, of course, they're both wonderful and worth a visit, and I'll feature them here soon), I was directed to the Congregational Church website, where I wrote a plea to get inside the Way Station to take pictures. The Way Station is owned by the Ledyard Congregational Church, you see. In no time at all, David Holdridge wrote me back and we set up a date to get inside. I wanted to wait until natural light was coming in the east window, and the morning we arrived, the sun was pouring through to highlight the store.
David is a big mover and shaker in the Ledyard community, and was a fine host. It helped that I bribed him with some observations that might shed light on future upkeep and ways to avoid problems as the building ages.

The Bill Store and Way Station. The waiting room is off to the right, with the chimney.

Oh, MY! The puppy bears have been breeding! Well, that's what happens when you leave them alone at night. There was only the purple one there last week.

The north end of the store, looking into the waiting room past the stairs. Chalk writing on the wall tells of visitors, prices, and what might be schedules. It was hard to read after two hundred years.

Though I wanted some sun to light the interior (I HATE to use flash photography), it was a bit BRIGHT in places, as you shall see.

The majority of the shop floor. This building was essentially the commercial center of Ledyard in the early 1800s. In fact, it was officially North Groton until 1836, when a bloody civil war devastated both towns. No, NO! That's not true. There is no such thing as a civil war.

But Ledyard was founded in 1836. Same year as the Alamo fell and Texas became a Republic.

Heck of a year, that one.

Almost looks like Gurdon or one of his daughters walked away a few minutes ago. Took most of what was on the shelves, too.

A broom, a toy, a sled.

Written up near the ceiling: "First Frost, 17th Sept. 1865."

Got cold earlier in those days. Even for back then, that was an early frost. WAY early.

Oh my! It's the ghost of old Gurdon Bill hisself!!!

AAAUUUUGHHHHH! RUN!

Oh, wait. That's only David Holdridge, feeling the Station's vibes.

They really are very strong.

The plaster ceiling looks to be original horsehair and lime plaster, and is in remarkably good shape, considering how long the store has been there. As a restoration contractor, I can't tell you how many plaster ceilings in consistently occupied homes have a plethora of cracks, and many have to be overlain with drywall. Many collapse entirely.

I especially like the hand-forged ceiling hooks. I found one just like it in my house, up on one of the cellar sills. Now I know what it was for.

Simple, austere, yet elegant.

"I've got what you need upstairs, just a second while I fetch it..."

I wondered how they heated this building, and despite the stove and oil heater here, I still do. There was no sign of any flue or stove hearth, or anyplace to put one. All the walls contain counters, shelves, and windows. These are evidently imported for 'ambiance,' which is actually pronounced that way in New Jersey. As is virtually everything else in the store (the items, not the pronunciation. Sheesh.). I have no idea how long it sat empty, but I doubt there was much there after the Bill family stopped running it. David told me that it was operated for a short period in the 1940s. There is one electric outlet above the window below, though I didn't feature it.

I discovered a lot more old (and some crown) glass once I could see through the windows from the inside. I originally thought only one piece survived, and it was broken. Turns out a LOT of the original glass is broken. Figures.

More written information in chalk. Local news, perhaps.

Remarkable ceiling preservation. The area above the counter must have had water damage; it looks to have been replaced, possibly by Structolite, a modern, more lightweight plaster than original. The wood lath strips can be seen through the plaster throughout the room.

The Notice board brings up penmanship and the upcoming election that featured William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, John Davis and George Hull, all Whigs.

Tippecanoe and Tyler, too!

The front door, obviously period, features some beautiful hand-forged strap hinges. But it was the rimlock that attracted my notice.

Something I hadn't noticed before; the door is Dutch-style, split in two at the middle. This can be seen by the two strap hinges next to one another in the center of the door. It can also be seen on the exterior picture as a thin line dividing the two sections. The rimlock and latch, strangely enough, are on the top section.

That's one Major-league rimlock. I'd like to see the key. The latch is just like the ones I have at Standish Farm. Hey, they work.

The door to the stagecoach waiting room, with a portal to observe waiters and clerks, transients and shoppers, depending upon which side you stand.

Looks like David is in the exact same place as he was an hour ago! Actually, I took this pic right after the other one in which he is featured.

The rear waiting room, taken without a flash. The fireplace has moved away from the wall.

The same scene with a flash. Different things can be seen with both shots. The crack is visible in the first shot, the fire extinguisher in this one. I HOPE they don't have any fires in this thing nowadays.

The front waiting room and its fireplace. Big tan granite cut stone for a lintel. No wonder the fireplace has moved; that stone must weigh a half a ton. The newer plaster repair at the chimney-ceiling joint bespeaks a past leak around the chimney/roof joint, a very common problem.

I wondered why they needed two separate waiting rooms. White and 'colored,' as down south? Unlikely. Men and women, possibly. I imagine more than one waiting passenger had to take an evening snooze in this place, and they prolly din't want no hanky-panky.

Or, as a lot of places back then, they just separated men and women. They knew that men were far superior, being the originators of war and murder and rape. The dainty fairer sex just couldn't compete with that.

Riiiighhht……

I've often chosen the cynic route.

Without flash. Apparently the fireplace was abandoned for a wood stove at some time, as evidenced by the flue cover in the stack.

Apparently someone decided to paint or whitewash the paneling, but they changed their mind. Or ran out of paint.

Stairs to the attic. Restorationists like attics and cellars best; they tell of the history, use, and condition of an old building in ways the inhabited interiors just can't.

This set of stairs intrigued me for one reason, and I couldn't get a photo to work so I'll just describe it. The right side upon ascent is sheathed with white oak boards, but the left side is sheathed with chestnut. It made me wonder if this was once two buildings, and that the station predates the store. A trip into the cellar would prove it one way or another.

It did prove that it was one building; the front and back sills are continuous.

The attic, facing south.

A few rogue doors, window sashes, and shutters are supposed to have come from the large Colonial home across the street. That house was Gurdon Bill's, and is now the Congregational Church's parsonage, where their parsons have lived since Henry Bill donated the entire farm to the Church way back in 1874. I hope to feature shots of it soon.

The attic (second floor), facing north. Large bins with hinged doors held....what? Big bins for such a little store. The chimney has been rebuilt from the window lintels to the top. Just like mine at Standish House.

The rafters on thirty inch centers are 'jined' at the top with mortise and tenon joints that feature round holes and octagonal trunnels, or tree-nails. The angled corners of the trunnels hold the joint fast.

This one must have had a problem; someone tacked a 2x stake to it, or at least that's what I thought when I took the photo.

Further examination of the pic as I wrote this gave me another idea. This is the area above the replaced ceiling above the counter, and two of the roofers (wood to which the shingles are nailed, not the guys installing the roof) are obviously replaced, as they are a different dimension and have not the water satins of the adjacent roofers.

I suspect that the replaced boards were just a tad too short and the carpenters installed the stake to give the newer roofers support. If so, it was probably done fairly recently. You'd think there have been a lot of cedar roofs on this building since 1814, but my examination shows less than four. Cedar shakes, especially when split as opposed to sawn, can last a hundred years if kept free from leaves and moss, and I counted no more than three sets of different nails when I examined the underside. David told me the present roof was installed within the last thirty years. It has moss, and the ridge could use some repair, but it seems to be holding up pretty well.

Chestnut rafters with mortise and tenon joint jined with a trunnel. The trunnel ridges can be plainly seen.

Well, they can be seen.

The chestnut has a wavy, well-pronounced grain.

Sheathing behind the exterior clapboard is extremely wide chestnut, a pretty much extinct tree. Chestnut was the best wood for building until we killed it all off in the early 20th century by importing an incurable blight. It is lightweight, has beautiful grain and is easily worked but is also hard. It does not warp, split or check like the more sappy pine, and termites won't touch it. It grew into huge groves, and every town in America had Main Streets lined with magnificent specimens that sometimes measured five to seven feet in diameter.

No wonder we destroyed it.

Humans. Sometimes I hate them.

Did I say sometimes?

Kind of a cool shot looking down the stairs to the open door.

Oak on the left, chestnut on the right.

As my Aunt Stacia used to say, "I wonder know.."

A better shot of the chestnut sheathing.

Whatever craftsman built the roof took serious pride in his millwork, cutting not only curved arcs where the rafter tailed out through the cut in the hand-hewn plate below, but chamfering the corners of each arc with a 45 degree cut that fades to nothing.

The plate is hand-hewn, but the rafter was cut in a sawmill, likely a water-powered up-and-down sawmill on a local brook or river. There were thousands of small mills across New England. Anyone with a freshet and some drop could build a dam and a small mill. Grain, lumber, and anything that needed shaping, cutting, grinding, or fashioning was done locally.

And we still have a plethora of family-owned businesses, small grocery stores, and small farms that provide local produce.

Connecticut is still known as The Land of Steady Habits.

In the cellar!!!!

I'm so happy.....

Some of the floor joists still have bark, and most never saw the blade of those up-and-down mills. Looks to be yellow birch.

This is the only accessible section under either (the second) waiting room. The fireplace stack is on the right.

 

Newer uprights to support some of the joists whose tenons have deteriorated.

There is a very large cut stone behind the half-round step into the Store. The wall is dry-stacked using a large-and-small stone building style and flat stone chinking.

The stone is also local, likely recovered when the cellar was dug. I have mentioned that this is schist and gneiss country, and that I was puzzled as to the origin of some of the white granite I found while photographing the exterior. I have since figured out the origin of all this mysterious 'white' granite, and will reveal the answer in two posts. But by the time you read this, you'll have read the other two posts. We live backwards in the blogosphere.

This is a fairly tan colored granite, and not brought in by glaciers. Glacial moraine would be made of rounded white granite boulders brought and shaped by glaciers. That stuff comes from New Hampshire.

Apparently the Bills, who owned eighty acres of farmland, had a reason to put this plow there.

Another plow by the wall beneath the wall that separates the Store from the Waiting Room. This wall is mortared. Must have had some problems at some time in the past. Possibly it was done to strengthen the areas around the long-settling fireplace. My guess is that the fireplace did most of its settling over a hundred years ago.

BILL CEMETERY

LEDYARD CONNECTICUT

Just down the road from the Gurdon Bill Store/Waystation, this stone wall called out to me. I could see, with some little difficulty, a monument at the top.

 What a pretty place.

 Some pretty impressive stonework. Looks like white granite! Maybe I'd better do some checking into this unusual stone; I had no idea there was any around this area. Pink, gray, and tan, sure. I've never seen an outcropping of white. I doubt they trucked this much in.

 Beautiful workmanship. Somebody really knew their stuff.

 Walking up the hill, I noticed that the grass was relegated to the sunnier left side of the hill, while spiderwort 'moss' covered the right side. But what made those regular rectangles? Mower wheels, of course.

 Ah, so it's a small cemetery. I allus spelled it 'cemetary.' My spellcheck says otherwise. I've been writing since I was nine; you'd think I'd know by now.

 Why, it's Gurdon Bill! And his wife and family, too.

 Yeah, I think I could stand to look at this view through eternity, too. Good choice, Mister Bill.

Sleeping peacefully, and together.

GURDON BILL'S STORE

LEDYARD, CONNECTICUT

The name "Gurdon Bill" sounds like an outlaw from southwest Arkansas, if'n yew axe me. I AM from Arkansaw, and we DO have a town named Gurdon, famous for it's ghost light, which I went to see but didn't.

But Gurdon Bill was a local early citizen of the town of Ledyard, Connecticut, which is north of Groton and south of Preston in southeastern CT. This store, built in 1816, was a country store as well as a stagecoach stop. The left side has the store, the right side, a waiting area for stage passengers. It sits at a quaintly quiet crossroads a block from a very busy highway, and is well-known to backroads travelers but not so much to those speeding down highway 117. It is a mix of Colonial and Gothic architecture; the roof slope and footprint seem Colonial but the eave trim is all Gothic.

It sits on granite blocks, has original 6 over 6 window sashes, and is remarkably intact.

 Close-up of one of the north windows. All the original glass has been replaced with new 'float' glass, as evidenced by the smooth reflections. Old glass has lots of waves and bubbles. All, that is, except for the one pane with the hole in it. THAT pane is not only old, but is 'crown' glass, an extremely distorted hand-blown type of glass that came to the Colonies (or to The States, in this case) as ballast in tall ships. Before The War of British Tyranny, crown glass was sold to the Colonists with an attached tax that made them slightly angry. Making glass in The Colonies was illegal, as it might lead to independence. Apparently that didn't work out so good for the Brits after 1776.

Figures the best piece of glass (and the only original pane) would be broken.

 Another window on the north side has a sweet little poison ivy vine growing through it. Not the one below the sill, mind you, it's dead. The two at the bottom of the picture have entered between clapboards and  one has emerged at the bottom of the bottom sash while the other came out the top of the top sash. Insidious little buggers, aren't they?

 These appears to be entry points for a two-wire electrical feed from the early part of the 20th century. The insulators are inside the wall. Not exactly code.

The door threshold sports a cute little bear, mought be the Ledyard school colors, I dunno. Prolly not. I especially like the step and how it's cut. Gray granite? Or schist. I din't 'zamin it too good. Doesn't match the pinkish granite blocks of the foundation.

Unusual shutters. I'm not sure why there's a joint at the top, but it seems to be a fixed butt joint and not a hinged section. Likely closed 'em up tight after dark, possibly in the winter. But I like light in the winter, and so does everyone else. A little late in CT history for protection against Indian attacks. The windows themselves are sliders, meeting in the middle and slid (duh) to one side for air.



One of the hooks that held the closed shutters in place. Iron, it is, says Yoda. Needs to be stripped      and coated with Rust Converter whenever they decide to paint the building again. Hope it's soon.

One of the hinges is secured with what appears to be a re-bent coat hanger. Don't know why, as it doesn't look like the shutter can be removed without a struggle. And the wire isn't exactly a deterrent.



The upper section of shutter, also held with original hardware. I'd close them winders a bit tighter, if'n it wuzt me. Likely the upper section helped with the morning sun. It's doing so here.



Rust Converter, where are you?

This eye does not line up with the hook of the lower shutter, nor did I see anything to which it would attach on the window frame.

 I like this repair. Someone went to the trouble of braking the metal to match the crown moulding after the latter rotted away. Prolly aluminum, which is pronounced "loong-ning" in certain parts of the South.

The bottom of the door facing suffered from the same disease that most others have; no paint on the end grain that causes the base to rot. Thus the pieced-in replacement.

The only thing that makes me call part of this building "Gothic" is the angle of the façade fascia, tilted out slightly as opposed to ninety degrees from level. Note the other sheet-metal fix on the lower cornice. The cedar shakes, though old, seem to be doing their job. But then, I never did get inside the building. Hopefully will soon, and will add the interior pics to the blog. I did look in the window, and was amazed to see several skeletons and desiccated bodies of folks waiting on groceries or possibly a stagecoach.

No, NO! That's not true. I didn't get to see the stagecoach waiting room, of course, so I missed those bodies. I did see that the store is pretty intact inside as well, with an L-shaped counter and stock on the shelves. The accoutrement and furnishings look to be period.



 Behind the store, halfway to the barn that sits on the next lot, a large granite boulder leers at those who approach it.

A glacial erratic, this piece of white granite likely came from western Maine or The White Mountains of New Hampshire, where that rock is King. No white granite anywhere in CT, as far as I know. And certainly none in Ledyard, which is mostly mica schist. This fella was left here after the glaciers receded nineteen thousand years ago. A blip in geological time.

 The barn is pretty, though it doesn't look as if it gets much use now. I call it a barn, but its real purpose is unknown to me.

 Between the store and the barn, near the leering rock, a well-carved piece of white granite once held a wrought-iron gate. At least, I imagine it did, what with the ironmongery and all.

I might be wrong about the white granite being imported; the wall seems to be made of the stuff. Or they hacked these pieces off the leering rock.

There is actually lots of white granite in the state, almost all as rounded cobbles brought in by the glaciers as mentioned above. I've never seen an outcropping around Preston or Ledyard, but there are lots of places I haven't been. And the squared-off blocks in the wall are certainly not cobbles.

 Definitely Gothic lines in the barn's façade, what with the high-pitched roof and the central gable. A little Carpenter Gothic what with the bridgework above the door.

 So why have a door here at all? No sign of stairs, or of a pulley system for getting things up there. This is not a typical barn with a slanted approach, a threshing floor, and a rear door to allow wind to blow through as the grain is threshed, taking away the chaff and leaving the seed. Looks more like a workshop or garage. And why a Dutch-style door that has a top and bottom half?

 And though the lines are gothic, the tilt of the façade fascia present in the store is not repeated here. Ninety degrees , while the eave itself is on the same plane as the roof..

 Another puzzle. The two 90 degree iron brackets look to be installed sideways, as if to hold up a  stove pipe. Possibly the pipe burned the wood above, that also sports a piece of steel sheet metal? If so, why didn't it scorch the crown moulding? Methinks it was used for something else than a pipe support.

 A very fine building. I could have a shop there. If they'd let me.

 Red, now painted black, sporting its new teak grill. Gets a lot of looks. If you see it parked near an old building, I'll be nearby, taking pictures. Stop and say hi.

I have no knowledge of this guy, but he was apparently a Grand Pooh-Bah with the 'Pisple Church (another Arkie colloquialism, no meanness intended). Was he born in the store? No, it wasn't here then. I imagine there was another building there, but there is a fine central-chimney Colonial across the street. As it is someone's home, and not abandoned in the least, I did not picture it here. Leave people in peace, but document the architecture they leave behind. That's my motto.

Hopefully Bishop Seabury will forgive me. It's what Jesus would do.