Traci filled in its history for me (I've edited this a
bit):
Built in the mid 1800’s, this
house played a big part in West Virginia history. It was
built as a wedding gift for a woman of a prominent family.
Her husband died shortly afterward. She stayed in this house
and never remarried.
During The War Between The
States, the house was used to hide escaped slaves and help
them to cross the Ohio River from West Virginia to freedom.
Ohio was at that time a “free state”. Our basement has
an entire floor concealed beneath it with a tunnel under the
road connecting our house with our neighbors'. Consistent
with its history, the house also has hidden passageways,
secret nooks in staircases and walls, and a secret
dumbwaiter.
The hill we live on also has a
history of its own. It was transformed into a hospital and a
lookout during the war, and the hill directly west of us was
where they quarantined cases of malaria and other diseases.
It was also where they hung recaptured slaves. One could see
a lot of gruesome things from this house and hear the
suffering. Later it served as a boarding home for the
younger of those wounded boys who had no where else to
return. As for the railroad, which still runs along
the river bank behind our house, it also has a history of
its own. It’s “haunted,” plain and simple. There have been
several deaths on the tracks right across from our house and
you can still hear the cry of a woman whose soldier did not
make it home on that train. (Or, so legend tells.)
As for our house today, the
moldings and framework are all original as well as the
brilliant fireplace mantels. There are pocket doors, and a
split bathroom which still includes the old claw foot tubs.
We have tried to decorate accordingly, with old chandeliers,
books, washtubs and such, to respect what the rooms were
originally used for and how they might have looked.
More delays ensued: This time it was Traci who was
under the weather. And then we corresponded back and forth
about changes she was planning to the front porch, windows,
and elsewhere. It was October, just a year after our first
conversations, regarding a knee-wall on the porch, and
support pillars, as well as numerous other details under
consideration, that I was able to send a preliminary pencil
study drawing.
I LOVE IT!!! It is gorgeous
already. There are a couple things that I would like just a
touch different but overall it's pretty darned close.
It was my sketches, subsequently revised several
times, that helped guide Traci 's architectural decisions.
In January of 2009, A color study painting was
finally sent. A few added suggestions came back, and more
revisions ensued. It was now February of 2009, and Traci
informed me that they were leaving West Virginia (to Alaska,
as it turned out) for "a year or two." Though there
were no more changes, there was also no rush to complete the painting.
Not to make an already long story even longer, I
finally received a note in May: Traci and family
would be home in June. When I received confirmation
that they had indeed arrived, I packed and shipped the painting, a
full 32 months from our first contact. I received the
following brief note on July 2:
I
got it! I got it! It arrived safe and it is PERFECT!
Thank you so much.
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*The Underground Railway (or Railroad) was an
informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by
19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to
free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists who
were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to
the abolitionists who aided the fugitives. (Wikipedia)
