DeJoux House

For the first time in a long time I have had a few hours to spare to investigate the relationship between Maria Deyo, the story of the murders on Springtown Road in 1800, DeJoux House and the Deyo family -  especially now I have both the complete family tree and ownership of the house.    My investigation started with the facts that we knew so far. 1) The document from the Library of congress that documents the murders and the names of the husband (Josiah) and the wife (Maria).   In this news DOCUMENT she is described as killing two children from a previous marriage. Also an infant daughter of 9 months old. (presumably the daughter of Josiah) 2)  The map of 1790 shows the only other Deyo owned house as being owned by C. Dojo 3)  The tax record of 1798  references a stone house, next door to David Deyo's house (Our house) that is "owned by"  Christian Deyo but was being occupied by "Josiah Deyo"  and is described as being "B...

I decided it was time to give up on hearsay and word of mouth and clarify once and for all the provenance of DeJoux House. The goal here is to review the facts as we know them, based on real documents that we have seen or have copies of. The only way to do this is to work backwards from the documents that we have. The contract of sale and the legal deeds of 374 Springtown Road list previous owners back to Jesse and Maria Elting who sold the house to Hiram W. Minard in 1872. The 1875 map of Sprintown also shows the property as belonging to H. Minard. Right on the border of Rosendale, opposite the church and the school. Other sales listed in this document are: George and Jeanne Fiorentino to Arthur and Lona B. Jorgensen in 1941 Arthur and Lona B. Jorgensen to Jane Little in 1960 Jane Little to Russell Gilmore and June Finer in 1984 (and then to us in 2009)... So, we know this was the Hiram Minard farm in 1872 and before that belonged to Jesse and Maria Elting. We have confirmed t...

This weekend was full of adventure. It's late and we just got back but I want to capture it all before I go to work tomorrow and forget it. First, we arrived at the house and were welcomed by the Parise family. They had been reading the blog and heard that our house was not the haunted house they had been led to believe it was. It was great to see them and Laura gave us a DVD of the pictures she took. I can't post them all here but I have picked out some of the best: We then went on a tour of Huguenot Street and met Eric Roth the Executive Director who showed us around the Historic Houses...(that will have to be a post another time)...and he took us into the Archive to see the Elegy of Maria Deyo. This was the original published version of the poem and was incredibly delicate. We took photos and left. We had read about a talk on Springtown Road ("The other Huguenot street") that evening and although we had already had our fill of history, we pushed ourselves ...

We are at day 4 of demolition and the discoveries continue. The Hudson Valley Vernacular Architecture (HVVA) were meant to come round today but due to illness had to postpone. A bit of a pity as we are at the perfect stage for them to see some of the structures and advise us what we should keep and what is OK to pull out. I had a short conversation with Robert Sweeney of HVVA about some of the features of the living room. He thought the fireplace in the living room was original (although unusual for the period) but having taken out all the fixtures around the fireplace it seems to me unlikely that it is. The fire box is strangely 'pushed out' into the room (maybe another structure behind?) and the wall paper and plaster work behind it suggests a previous structure. Images below: 1) oddly protruding fire box, 2) wall paper behind structure 3) evidence of mantle 4, 5+6) unpainted area around the chimney. Robert, the HVVA guy, also wondered if the lowered ceilings in th...

This week has been really busy: 1) We chose our contractors to do the first phase of removals. Eight Point Construction really impressed us with the resources and expertise they brought to the project. They start work on Thursday removing all the finishes and unwanted modern fixtures (1930's/40's). They will also remove the wall in the Kitchen so we will get a sense of what it will be like as one room. 2) We visited New Paltz buildings inspector to get our permit. Stacy Delarede the buildings inspector came round to inspect the house and was wonderfully supportive and informative. Really nice to meet someone from the town who takes pleasure in her job and wants to be helpful. She was lovely and will have the permits for us next week. 3) Met with Frank from FJF who is removing the asbestos. We need to do this before the construction starts. He will be at the house Tuesday with tents and negative air fans that will make sure no asbestos dust gets into the air. ...

Sorry for the delay. Daniel and I spent a whole week at the house and I haven't written about any of the events. Here, in brief, is what is going on. 1) We have spoken to three contractors about the 'removals' stage. This will include removing all of the 1930's closets, kitchen cabinets, the multiple layers of wall 'furring' and the plaster ceilings between the beams which seem to have been put in to hide the heating ducts. The plan is to go back to the ceiling being the reverse side of the wooden floorboards above as seen here in this Huguenot house. 2) Daniel and I cleared the whole north side of the house. There were so many poison ivy vines and bittersweet vines and the old TV antenna pole. This meant cutting down many small trees and clearing some space. 3) Ryan Petit came over with his chain saw and we cut up the tree that blocked the path to the pond. He also cut up the fallen cherry tree, the huge limb of the pine trees on the north side of th...