Report on the Garrity House, circa 1980

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(9) Col J P Merriam, had a half crazy ward, named Allen, and the little cottage was put up between 1830 and 1840 as a residence for this man "8 Mrs Griffing also states in a later correspondence, that the house was not entirely built at this time, but assembled from two of the estate ' s existing out-buildings She does not mention any date of construction for these previous buildings Examination confirms Mrs Griffings recollections Each leg of the main "L" of the house has a distinctly separate frame construction The framing and additional evidence, indicate two rectangular buildings, each of which at one time stood alone The western leg of the main "L" , to be referred to as the "front building" (see lA and 1B and 2A and 2B, Figures 4 and 5) , is clearly an example of late 18th century framing construction Timbers are hand-hewn Joints are mortised and tenoned Position of the posts indicates an unplanned structure The ridge beam and the major purlins are continuous from north to south The purlins are notched into the major rafters and trenailed in place Hand wrought nails secure studs to the plates and rafters in addition to the mortise and tenon joints Diagonal bracing is found at the corners of the frame and in the middle of the east and west walls (see Figure 6) All of this evidence together places this construction in the late 1700 ' s , possibly contempora- neous to the Battle of Lexington (see Figure 6) When the casing of the door between room 2B of the front building and room 2D, half story low storage area of the lean-to addition (see Figure 5) was removed, weathered exterior sheathing ( was found attached to the east side of the frame with hand wrought