Bennett/Hallock House

This home is very old but the earliest owner I have been able to tract down was Adam Bennett. He had a brother, Peter,who lived on the adjacent farm. I believe the house predates Adam's ownership possibly being built in the 1770's. Barbara Wallace Green who lived in the home for many years said she thought she had seen the date, 177? written on an old stair tread when she lived there. She was invited by the former tenant to give an oral history of the house as a gift for the present owners.

I was invited to go with her and was soooo excited to see the inside of the house. You have to understand that I LOVE to go into old houses!!!! The home has been beautifully restored but perhaps the old stairway was removed without the person being aware of the date. We were not able to find the date. However, we did find the name of W. N. Hallock written in black on the side of the stairs leading to the basement.

I was very happy to see this because it confirmed my suspicion about it's subsequent owners. The sequence of owners that I have been able to find is as follows:

1. Builder/First owner?-possibly 1770's
2. Adam Bennett
3. William Bertholf-married in 1845-Ann E. Bennett, Adam's daughter
4. James J. Hallock-around 1863(His son was W.N. Hallock, the name on the stairway)
5. Mary (Hallock) Van Gelder(James daughter)
6. Millard T. Wallace-purchased it in 1913-Barbara Wallace's grandfather
7. Charles Wallace-he sold in 1974 to Hoffman? -Barbara's father
8. John Hoffman? I'm not sure about this name.
8. Present owners-private.

There are a lot of unanswered questions about the house, especially when the addtions were built. The original was much smaller in size than it is now and shows a heavy stone basement with a couple of holes that I think might haved been used to fire guns through?????Just my guess. Remember that in 1770's this was a pretty rugged area.

Look at how worn the saddle for the doorway is in the photo below-lots of feet walked over it all those many years!

Below is a photo of the fireplace in the original section of the house. I think this must have been much deeper and bigger and at some point it was made smaller to make it more efficient. There is what seems to be a warming oven or pass through to the room on the other side of the fireplace in the photo below.

This is on the opposite side of the wall from the fireplace.