Mitchell House Gets A Facelift . . .

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • April 15, 2013

Or maybe we should call it a chemical peel since nothing was sagging.


With the tremendous support of grants, the Mitchell House’s southern façade is currently being re-shingled. The shingles we are all used to seeing – the dark almost black shingles of many decades – are no longer sufficient to protect the Mitchell House from weather. They have shrunk, curled, and left significant gaps between one another courtesy of sun, rain, and age. This can allow water to penetrate to the sheathing and thus cause rot and those dreaded leaks.

Nathan Killeen of Nathan Killen Old House Restoration is up to the task. Nathan has worked on the Mitchell House for many years with Sanford Kendall who is now retiring and passing the torch. Nathan is very “in-tune” with historic properties and only works on historic structures. He is incredibly knowledgeable. With carpenter Matt Anderson, they have been getting the job done carefully and respectfully – both of the historic house and the carpenters who came before them – mainly in 1790 when the House was built!


Nathan’s work has uncovered some things we knew about and some new things such as sheathing rot. He carefully cut out just the rotted areas and placed in old wood, trying to re-use what he could of the original sheathing – no plywood or pressure treated anything here and not full replacement! Removal of these two small sheathing areas also revealed what we knew already existed, sill rot. So, he carefully dug out the rot – LEAVING the existing sill – and sistered in a “new” piece of wood – nothing new or pressure treated – he used an old piece of lumber. This way the original sill stays and we have strengthened it with this piece that is now attached. That is the right way to do it. Nathan, Matt, and I also signed and dated the back of the new sister piece. Hopefully, it will last another 200 years or so.


We think based on nail holes, that this is only the third time the façade of Mitchell House has ever been re-shingled. The last time was in the 1950s or 1960s and they covered the sheathing with tar paper – something that did not exist in 1790. Tar paper may stop leaks but it also stops moisture from leaving the structure – it acts as a vapor barrier and the Mitchell House cannot breathe. Leaks get trapped and the tar paper and sheathing get wet and then you get – rot and a house full of moisture that cannot escape. So, tar paper is being removed and none is being put back in – just the sheathing and then shingles. What IS being replaced are the splines around the windows, front door, and corner boards. These pieces of cedar – one long piece – stop water from getting behind the framing of the windows and doors and getting to the sheathing. These were once on the House but for some reason when it was re-shingled, they thought tar paper was a better option and did not take into account the age of the House. It NEEDS its splines.


We have also found carpenters’ marks – roman numerals where pieces are to meet   up – sawyer’s marks from when the wood was cut, and even better – shavings from the carpenters when they built the house in 1790! These were stuck between the sheathing and the interior wall in the space or pocket that exists. I recently just found these at another house of about the same vintage that is being worked on in the neighborhood – very, very exciting!



And we owe a BIG thank you to Nathan – and Matt!


Take a look at a few photographs documenting the journey of the “chemical-peel.”


JNLF

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By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • November 9, 2026
You know the cold has arrived when I make the first soup of the season. I did just that this weekend – perhaps a little later than normal because all of a sudden it got cold at night and we have had three frosts in a row – the first of the season on Friday night (October 23, 2026). My first: Portuguese Kale Soup from a recipe found long ago in Yankee Magazine . This is my husband’s favorite and I “Italian-ize” it (I am half Italian) by having grated parmesan to sprinkle on top which also helps add salt if it’s lacking. I know – horrors! But don’t we all bring some of our backgrounds to the table – so to speak – when it comes to augmenting recipes? Then, what’s even better is you can freeze most of the soups – and then you have a ready meal for another time. It makes you realize, yet again, how difficult things were 100 or more years – certainly more – ago. Imagine cooking for twelve people, as Maria Mitchell’s mother did, and not being able to preserve or set aside much of what you made as there were not storage techniques or technology that would allow for such a thing. Just the cooking alone – never mind putting things by like preserves or salt cod or something – for twelve people! Poor Lydia! I can barely cook for three! Good thing my husband cooks a lot. Though he HATES baking so that’s where I still have a place at the counter!  I am looking forward to more soups – not sure what is next. Perhaps Curried Lentil – another good one that freezes well. My Mother just dug one out of her freezer from last winter and it was still good! JNLF

Applesauce!

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • November 2, 2026
Early October is a time to make something I love – applesauce. It’s one of my favorite things. Ironically, when I was a baby, I did not like it. But because I ate very little – and my Mother was worried because I was such a skinny baby (not anymore!) – my Other Nana (great grandmother) made a lot of applesauce because my Mother said I ate it. I did not – but my Mother could not tell her Nana (grandmother) that and disappoint her. So, I think my parents ate a lot of applesauce back in the early 1970s. I sort of dread making it though – which is silly because it’s very easy and I always forget that until I am making it. You only have to core and slice the apples – you leave on the peels. That is what gives the applesauce – which uses McIntosh apples (my fave!) – its pink color. And with some lemon and then some sugar – you’ve got the best tasting applesauce. And it smells so good while it’s cooking! It is also freezable so once cool – it goes into winter hibernation to be brought out for specific sorts of meals. Putting food by – as Lydia Coleman Mitchell once did for her family of 12! I was a bit late this year, but over the weekend of October 24, apples were cooking on my stove resulting in the first applesauce accompanied meal of the fall and winter season. JNLF

Bang, Clang, Hiss!

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • October 26, 2026
I grew up, quite literally, with hot water radiators in a Colonial Revival from the 1920s.  There was a huge boiler in the basement that chugged and blew hot belching air. It took up one whole area of the basement and I avoided it. I could hang over on the stairs and stare at its flames at the bottom. It scared me. It not only kept the basement very warm but also very dry. While the house had been built in an area that began to slope at our property, between the furnace and the clever drainage system installed by the builders of the house in the 1920s, our basement was always dry. My mother, the queen of rebates (this is the 1970s and 1980s), had her “rebate and coupon table” right in front of this furnace. I remember it always glowed – and I would not doubt that it still had some asbestos around some of its pipes. Maybe another reason I stayed away – perhaps I was warned away at an early age not just because I could burn myself! One of my fondest memories of this house was the clang and hiss of the heaters in the winter. It made me feel instantly cozy, as if I was wrapped in a nice warm quilt. If I was in bed at night and it was snowing, all the more warmth and cozy feeling. It was comforting and a sound and feel I still associate with snow and winter. The street light and the snow falling, spiraling down in that pinkish gold of the light – and the hoped for snow day to come! Forced air systems just don’t do the same thing. And, they suck all the moisture out of the house to boot! They do keep a house quite warm though – but still not the same – and I miss that humidity as do my plants. I reflect back on the hot water radiators – those old cast iron loopy radiators with the valve and perhaps a radiator box to cover them – as it if they kept me super warm. They didn’t. We kept our house at 63F – a lesson I still follow – and it was a big old Colonial-style house so it could be drafty. One reason we had a Franklin stove in our family room and quilts for nighttime television watching! So many times over the course of a winter, I think of that house where I spent about twenty years of my life, and remember the, “Bang, Clang, Hiss!” of the radiators and the coziness they projected. And while, it wasn’t always warm, it was a lot warmer that the Mitchell House would have been in February! JNLF
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