This Old American Foursquare

I'm taking a break from drywall to dip back into our house's history. According to property records, we know there have been at least two other families who have owned this house/property: the Desmonds (1974-2023) and the Hotchkins (??-1974).  In this post, I'll start with George and Marguerite Hotchkin . They are the earliest family to own the house according to property records. In the section of the Sullivan County atlas above, I've identified our house/property as Lot 510. This map was drawn in 1875, likely before the Hotchkin family acquired the property. So, now I'm asking...who is J.D.? Also what is the method with the naming conventions here...R.Armstrong, Mrs. Van Aken, and Decker?  I also have to consider J.D.'s exact location. Could that really be the location of the present-day house or is it actually closer to the Wright's cabin (a well-known fly fisher who has passed down the property to his son/our current neighbor)? To narrow down J.D.'s ...

The first project in the house that we feel most comfortable doing ourselves is drywall replacement in all four bedrooms of the house. For context, the house (I feel like we should name it down the road. It's something cute that I found on  fourssquarefortwo  in my rabbit hole of research of renovation blogs.) is move-in ready. It wasn't a condition that we required when we were looking for a house, but it was certainly a plus. The house's previous owner had it since the 1970s and it likely went through some updates here and there, but largely hasn't been renovated since then. The current state of the drywall feels like the bulletin board I kept in my room when I was a teenager to tack up photos of my favorite bands and quotes - brittle and crackly. Like the initial demo moment in home renovation shows, the first hammer through that drywall was satisfying. The tedious work that followed wasn't reality show worthy.  Below are a few before and after pictures, and less...

According to our research, our house was built around 1900. However, we are taking that with a grain of salt since the American Foursquare design was prevalent in the mid-1890s through the 1930s. It did pique my interest to embark on finding out the accurate year the house was built. So I've been putting together links to town histories, property maps, ancestry.com.finds, and podcasts. I'm linking them below in no special order. To be honest, I'm basically going to use these posts to bookmark all of the links I've been reading through so I can go back and review. So if there doesn't appear to be a method to madness, you're correct.  Location-wise we live in the hamlet of Claryville, which is located in the town of Neversink (Sullivan County), which is not to be confused with Old Neversink and Bittersweet, the two towns that were displaced to make way for the Neversink Reservoir. While I've never taken New York City tap water for granted ever sinc...

We are a This Old House- enthusiast and history nerd pair embarking on our first-ever restoration of an old house. Our goal is to restore the beauty of this American Four Square style house in the Catskills. We are learning along the way, leaning on experts when we are out of our depth, and endlessly curious about the history of this house and the town of Neversink. Thanks for stopping by.