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.