Best way to Research History of my house? (Bethlehem, Tunkhannock: hardwood floors, chapel)

[sheena12]

I will also check out the deed list as Margritte suggested.

When we were looking for homes in this area, an inordinate amount of homes seemed to be built in 1930. - both in Scranton, Wilkes- Barre and the surrounding areas.

Besides the fact that many of the homes looked much older than that, I found thus difficult to believe because "1930" is the year after the stock market crash.

Perhaps before 1930 they were lax about recording building records?
I know that the 1880s through the turn of the last century; and then again in the booming 1920s many homes were built in America.

But the date "1930" sounds suspicious to me.

[coalboy]

Originally Posted by sheena12

Thank you this all sounds very interesting and will keep me busy for a while
I found a 1950s or late 40s style wall clock in this house - I hada a feeling that it could be of value - it is a General Electric Telechron.

When I googled "telechron" I found entire websites devoted to the history buying and selling of Telechron clocks!

Would have preferred the diamond ring though, as all of that other interesting stuff that cao;lboy and others found!

I am looking forward to sanding my floors!

sheena, it wasn't a ring it was a loose diamond...this was in the first old house I restored, it was a 53 acre Horse and corn farm at one time...it was a workingmans farm...so nothing fancy...
I'm thinking the diamond might have fallen out of the woman of the house's engagement ring...
BTW sheena, that's one of the things I love to do is prowl thrift shops...I collect 1950's radios, Maritime collectible especially Steamship Lines stuff...
I used to have a part time antique furniture restoration business til about 5 years ago...Right now the younger people aren't so interested in antiques as I was in the 70's and 80's...
I used to have to turn work down because I could'nt keep up with the demand...I was backlogged with 3 years of work and restroartion and refinishing is something you just can't rush....
sorry for the rant, good luck with the floors, need any advice...I'm here!

[ki0eh]

When we bought our house the date said "1982" but the subdivision was from 1972 and the inside of the toilet lids said 1974. 1974 vs. 1982 makes a difference in lead disclosure. Hard to say what difference 1930 vs. earlier makes - some insurance thing? the end of knob & tube wiring??

[frank754]

I've yet to research our house, but many of the older homes date to +/- 1920, as the established older streets were already built up by then. The listing for our house was 70 years old, but we have some elderly ladies on the block. Across the street and a few doors down is Hilda. She was born in her house in 1920 and lived there ever since. She said the first she can remember, when she was around 4 years old, this house was already here and she was playing with the kids. We bought it from the same family that owned it ever since it was built. It was the elderly gentleman's moms house, before she passed away. There's a site called the Penn Pilots Photo Center, where you can get aerial views of PA (you have to navigate to our area).
Penn Pilot Photo Centers
Then you have to select the time range (1937-42), zoom in on the marker most close to your location and get the zip file picture for the area for the date you select (a bit tricky), but we we able to get that picture (from 1939) and zoom in on our house. Zooming in without that or searching for the city just gets the current view.

[sues1]

I love old houses with history, you'll never know what you will find in them

[poconogirl]

wow that is so interesting... that $75 back then is like $3000 today... amazing.

Originally Posted by sheena12

Yeah but I just can't randomly take an axe to my walls in the slim hope that there's something back there! Kind of a funny thought though. ..My kids would get a kick out of it....

What you both wrote IS true.
In our first house, a typical Long Island Cape Cod Style house there was this place under the stairway to the basement that looked as though it had been ut out and nailed back in.
It was a perfect rectangle.

The whole time we lived there 10 years it spiked my curiosity. But my husband is not that curious.

The day we moved out my brother was helping us. It was the day before the new owner's "walk through"
I got my brother interested and said "Hey you never know."
We found a small metal box with 74$ in it and some letters written in Polish dated 1959, which I can't read. But I recognized it as Polish.
The Polish words I know are not nice. (Thanks Grampa)
I had a Polish woman translate them.
She wanted out of her marriage and was saving to go to Poland.

Sort of sad really.
So I gave the money to a place for abused women and I added some to make it an even hundred.
I just didn't feel right keeping it.

[ChosenReject]

Originally Posted by poconogirl

wow that is so interesting... that $75 back then is like $3000 today... amazing.

i was just thinking that. Its cool that you gave it away but i wonder if they realized what they got? If any of that pre-1965 money was in coins it was worth alot more than face value.

VB is right about finding things in the walls. I don't know if it was just coalminers from this area that do this, but when we were remodeling our home when i was a kid we found coins dated from the year our house was built stashed in the wall along with other things.

Also, the one room must have been carpeted in the early 60's because when we tore up the floor we had local newspapers with headlines from the JFK assasination, Race riots in chicago and all kinds of interesting stuff!

[sheena12]

That is so interesting ChosenReject! The elderly man from whom we bought this house had the living room walls literally plastered with JFK Memorabilia!
From inauguration though assassination, he had original crumbling, yellowed newspaper clippings covering the walls!

[ChosenReject]

Originally Posted by sheena12

That is so interesting ChosenReject! The elderly man from whom we bought this house had the living room walls literally plastered with JFK Memorabilia!
From inauguration though assassination, he had original crumbling, yellowed newspaper clippings covering the walls!

Yea, alot Catholics in this area love JFK lol

[frank754]

I didn't try the courthouse method as mentioned above, has anyone tried this and found their home's history that far back?
I actually got busy doing some research on mine, and first I called the city. They said they didn't have any permit or occupancy records going back that far (I was guessing 1920), they get rid of them after a point.
I finally chose to go to the library on Franklin St., there they had old city directories going back over the years, some paper and a lot more on microfilm. In those books they have the street addresses listed, and the name of the people who lived there going back over the years. We live on Prospect St, and I didn't think most of the houses were much older than 1920, but I was wrong. The immediate prior owners before us moved in around 1920, as the 1921 directory showed their name (they were not here in 1919 and they didn't have a directory for 1920). There was another owner circa 1916, and (possibly) the original owner until circa 1910 (I'll call him "DM"). In 1899, it already looks like the majority of the houses were already here with the same number system we have now, but it seems like in 1898 they renumbered the entire street. Those 2 years, just about every address on the street had the same owner names, but the house numbers had changed by approximately +40. So now I was looking for a lower house number for our house. Going back to 1886, Mr. "DM" was at our house (the listing showed the house number). Also, in 1882 he was listed on our street, but they didn't use numbers yet in these books for the street. So I would guess the house was already here. 1882 was the oldest microfilm they had, and I also assume from the info that a lot of the homes weren't built until 1890 or so (possibly the street still had many vacant lots), as I found many of the same people listed in the earlier directories already in W-B but spread out in other parts of town. Very interesting- will have to try the court too, if anyone thinks it's worthwhile.