The House that Aaron Built

First, a disclaimer: I don’t know for sure that Aaron built the farmhouse, but it is most likely that he did. So I will proceed on that assumption and on a few other speculations in this post that I state as facts.

Aaron Hall was born in 1760 in the original Hall homestead. This small house, which eventually became the kitchen and dining room of the large house had a dirt-floored cellar, a ground floor kitchen and living space, and an upstairs attic sleeping room. Aaron was the last child born to Asahel and Sarah Hall, and one of six of their twelve children who lived to adulthood. Since Aaron’s own eleven children seem to have fared better, I wonder if their long and productive lives were due in part to the house that Aaron built.

In 1781 Aaron married Elizabeth Cook, and not long after built his new house on the upward slope of Whirlwind Hill. The Federal style addition to the original home was graceful and dignified. He was a patriot, and built in a manner that would befit his stature as a veteran of the American Revolution. I have one early picture of the house the way it must have looked in the decades after it was built.

Hall Farmhouse around 1870

Hall Farmhouse around 1870

My mother, who had strong opinions about aesthetic beauty, said that the stately house was spoiled when Aaron’s heirs and their wives made practical changes to the exterior over the years. Until the early 1900’s the home had classical moldings around the doors and windows, an iconic fanlight window in the attic pediment, twelve-over-twelve paned windows on the front, and white-painted clapboards. All these details were made for show and not for comfort or easy maintenance.

Aaron’s new house had more room, but bigger rooms and more windows brought the need for more heat and more furniture. The new house would have been cold enough in winter to have an upstairs bedroom called Siberia. There was more privacy, certainly, but with a front parlor and a sitting room and multiple bedrooms there would have been enough added housework to require hired help.

By the time my grandfather Ellsworth was a teenager in 1900, the family had filled the house with comfort. My great-grandmother Lydia records in her journals the family gatherings, the evenings when neighbors came to play cards and eat cake, and the celebrations to welcome a new generation. In this photo, which is one of the last that shows the house with its white clapboards, my great-grandparents pose at the front door (a place of many family portraits) with their youngest children, my grandfather Ellsworth and his older sister Ellen. To me they look both proud and happy. Life was good for them.

Ellen, Ellsworth, Lydia Jane, and William E. Hall, around 1905

I’ve always loved this ancestral portrait showing my grandfather as a young man, but it wasn’t until recently when I came across the photo below that I realized the extent of its influence. In the fall of 1968, just two months after our wedding, my husband and I asked a friend to take our first Christmas card photo. We were living in an old Victorian house in the middle of downtown Menlo Park, California. We had a small barn in the back yard, a little duck pond, six ducks, two chickens, and one cat. We felt like urban farmers and decided to dress the part. I don’t remember consciously posing in the style of my ancestors, but here we are, doing just that as we stand in our sunny doorway looking toward the future.

Alex and Carol Bryner, 1968

Alex and Carol Bryner, 1968

On Friday:  Dark Purple Lilacs

4 thoughts on “The House that Aaron Built

  1. Katy Gilmore

    I like your idea of longer lives made possible because of the farmhouse – healthier and warmer – certainly seems a possibility. And this photo astounds me – taken a hundred years after the house was built – and then almost another hundred years is the house you remember (albeit not so lovely thanks to the “wives”). Still that seems amazing to me.
    Alex doesn’t really look like a farmer in spite of the duds. A Russian gentleman farmer maybe.
    This chronology is all falling in to place – I love it. The house reminds me a little of your Anchorage house when you first bought it (a little) – but before the addition – just those straight walls I suppose. I do love houses and all the memories and meaning they contain – glad you are doing this.

    Reply
    1. Carol Post author

      Thanks so much, Katy. The house does remind me of our house 40! years ago. Can it be that long we have lived in it?
      I think a real farmer would have donned his Sunday go-to-meeting clothes for the portrait. He does look a bit Russian. I also love houses and all they contain physically and emotionally.

      Reply
  2. Netzy

    Hi Carol, your grandfather built such a beautiful house – all those twelve pained windows- I need them too – adds a touch of elegance. They may have had a bedroom named Siberia, however, we do too! Don’t all of us who heat with wood, have those cold upstairs rooms? I guess with more space- people are not on top of one another and thus – not sharing congested air??? I am assuming they had fireplaces and wood stoves throughout the house for warmth? Lots of upkeep-lots of work – no time to get sick!!!:) as always – your stories are so interesting. What an endearing couple you two make on your foot steps.

    Reply
    1. Carol Post author

      Thanks, Netzy. They did heat with wood. And then a wood furnace in cellar with hot water coming into the radiators. But not much heat ever reached the upstairs, I don’t think. How I would love to go back and see what it was like way back when.

      Reply

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