House History Update-June 2015

Don't forget, you can click on the images to enlarge!

The Duff family property deeds 

1864 deed -Thanks, Dad!

I finally buckled down and gave my optic muscles an Olympic workout by reading the hand scratched property deed from December 24th, 1864. The deed is executing the will of Samuel Duff, partitioning out 163 acres to his six sons. He was pretty diplomatic, making sure each son got the same amount of land. He divided up the land in equal lots, and gave his eldest son (or favorite son?) the lot with the "mansion house" on it. As much as I love the idea of living in a mansion, this is not our house. The next eldest son got the second choice, etc

The deed also mandates a private road parallel to the railroad that all parties would have access to. That railroad is still in existence and operational. We occasionally hear that distant whistle of the freight line that runs over it. I have an odd fascination with freight trains. They mesmerize me, so this is definitely a perk.

Sam Duff Sr was an Irish immigrant who busted his ass as a carpenter and contractor and bought 175 acres in 1831, using at least some of that land for farming. The 1864 deed references some land being mandated for farming in Willbrook, but doesn't give any more details beyond that.  He had nine children that lived to adulthood with his wife Isabella. What happened to those unaccounted for twelve acres? I hope to find out by the next blog entry.....

Annoyingly, the son that took the land that our house now sits on is also named Samuel Duff. He received 22 and 1/4 acres from his father.

Samuel A Duff Jr was an ice merchant who owned a huge ice plant in the next county over. He one upped his parents by having ten children that lived to adulthood with his wife Matilda.

The mysterious Matilda and Mary

According to a local newspaper biography sent to us by a historian, both generations of Samuel Duffs had daughters they named Matilda and Mary, which just adds to my general irritation and confusion. If this is accurate the first Matilda and Mary got the shaft. Being women they inherited no property.

"Dear Mr. President, Why are you still screwing us over?"

1884 deed-keeping it in the family

This easier to read deed documents Samuel A. Duff Jr. selling two acres to his brother William for $3000.Women are making great strides by this time as Sam's wife is actually mentioned at length in the deed. It states that Matilda is of full age, examined separately from her husband, that the contents of the deed is fully known to her, and that she has signed off of her own free will.  How progressive-score one for women's rights.

1896 deed-repo man

William Duff doesn't own this property for long. (I guess 12 years is a long time, I'm just being dramatic)  On September 11, 1896 he is sued for unpaid debts and gets his land repossessed by the sheriff. He owes $2307.20 to the villainous sounding Abner Bedell.

Mr. Bedell's favorite pastime 

What happened to William Duff? Was he a drunk? Did he sustain an injury and was unable to support himself? Did he gamble all his money away? The deed doesn't provide details but guess who buys the land from the county?

His brother Sam, of course!

September 11th, just a crappy day all around.

Sam purchases the land back into his family for $4000. He must have been pretty pissed, losing $1000. in the deal. The circumstances of the repossession and the dynamics of these two brothers really intrigue me. What happened to William? Did Samuel let him live on the land out of pity?

The Graham family property deeds

1903 deed-sisters are doing it for themselves
In 1903 Sam A. Duff Jr gets over the sentimentality of keeping the land in the family and a sells the plot  for $6000. to Christina Graham- all by herself!  This deed mentions the land being referenced in the "Samuel A. Duff's garden plan of lots" A neighbor of mine in his 80s mentioned the Sam Duff Gardens, and we have since learned Sam A Duff was responsible for partitioning out the land and essentially creating the suburb where the house now sits.  

I'm not sure what's done on modern deeds, but all of these deeds describe the land being transferred by long winded sentences like "thence along the line of the Johnston lands south 33 30' west, one hundred ten and fifty nine hundredths to a point in the said line........" Total acres are not always mentioned.

This deed mentions the land of Ms. Mary Duff as a property marker. Mary is the name of one of Sam A Duff's children. I did a quick search on the history of women's rights in this country, and like other civil rights issues, most rights were granted on a state by state basis before national laws were passed.

1935 deed-What a bargain!

The 1903 deed implies Christina Graham was an independent new century suffragette type who bought her property as a single lady. However Graham is actually her married name, although her husband is not at all mentioned in the 1903 document. By 1935 she lightens up and she and her husband William F. (a manager of the Pine lumber company) sell their property to their son William Davis Graham and his wife Pauline for one dollar.

Were Christina and her husband estranged?  Did she move out of another house they shared and bought our house on her own? Either way, this 1935 deed is the first one to take advantage of a typewriter, for which I was extremely relieved.

The 1930 census has William Davis at 27 years old, single, and still living at home with mom and dad. He's listed as a lawyer working in private practice, so either he has a problem saving money, really gets along with his parents or is coddled by his them. Five years later his parents can't take it anymore and just give him the house.

Here is a graduation photo of William Davis Graham from 1922. 

That caption is pretty racy, especially for 1922!

I'm stopping deed information for now, the next deed starts more modern history, and I'm unsure about writing about people who may still be living without their permission. 

 Just how old is our house, anyway?

Our house is listed as being built in 1900, a convenient round number that is probably incorrect. I was told by a neighbor that in many cases 1900 was just an estimated date, assigned when the county decided to actually access of all the real estate in its jurisdiction.

This map is from 1890, and William Duff is marked as the owner, before he lost his property to debt. I don't know how accurately the shapes drawn represent the structure on the land, but this may be our house, and hopefully not a house built before ours.

Here is a map showing lots of the Samuel Duff Gardens from 1897. This diagram represents the shape of our house pretty accurately,except for that curve at the top of the map, which I imagine was a fantastic domed solarium.....

Many of you reading this wish that Samuel Duff was a wealthy beer baron, and that this guy inspired the Simpsons cartoon. Unfortunately this is not the case, as Sam Duff II owned an ice plant. That would be a funny addendum to our story. Oh well!

Our trip to the cemetery

Through findagrave.com we found the cemetery where William and Christina Graham are buried, the couple who lived in the house from 1903 to 1935, about 15 minutes away from our house. Here are some noteworthy graves found during our search. These people have nothing to do with our house, I just liked their names and/or gravestones.

The one employee at the cemetery was unable to help us without previous notice, so we decided to just sniff around the general area until we found them. William and Christina's gravestone had two slivers of slate underneath it.  Pete thought of the slate we found in the house that was a part of the original roof, although it could have any significance for the person who left it there. I know it was a total long shot and kind of improper, but I wrote a short note and placed it under the gravestone, asking any visitors to contact us and share information.

The slate can be seen, with my note tucked underneath.

One odd coincidence was that there was a Samuel Duff buried next to the Grahams about ten feet away. We were hoping this was one of our Samuel Duffs, but the dates and middle initial don't match up to any of them.

During our search we found a gaggle of Duffs in several locations, which I guess shouldn't have surprised me being that there were so many of them in our town in the 19th century. I am tempted to work on their family tree, but this would be a huge impractical undertaking. Here are the Duffs we think are relatives of the two Sams.

            Possible descendants of Sam Duff I, the Irish immigrant

This may be the William Duff that lost his property to debt and his wife.

In a perfect world I'd like to track down their descendants to see if anyone knows stories about them losing the house. Being familiar with the strong Duff stock these two probably had 15 children.

We saw a woman visiting near one of the Duff clusters, so I asked her if she was there visiting any of their graves. She wasn't, but had a lot of memories of her mother talking about prominent Duffs in the community.