Playing possum

Yesterday morning Rhiannon and I went out to get a few groceries before the Thanksgiving rush. Rod was at work, and Wyatt still sleeping...like only a teenaged-boy can. After getting our groceries, we decided to get some tea and a muffins at Tim Horton's and go check out the house. We pulled into the driveway, and in the distance, next to the newest addition at the back of the house, seemed to be something lying on the white river rocks in the garden. Something that didn't quite belong. Something the size of a small watermelon, and furry. We got out of the van and cautiously crept near. It wasn't moving. Rhiannon threw a rock towards it, and it still didn't move. I went a little closer, and noticed a long tail curving out to the side. A possum! Rhiannon threw another rock...still no movement. We sneaked a little closer, then we noticed the possum's sides heave slightly as it took a breath. This was enough to send us both running back to the van!
We got in and pulled the van up a little closer, and saw it try to move its head, somewhat lethargically. It even appeared to be getting up at one point, but then it seemed to give up and flop back down.
"Maybe it's playing possum" I said helpfully. Do possums actually do that? We didn't see any signs of any blood or struggle nearby. It was almost as if it was drunk. Maybe it got into some rotten, fermented fruit at a nearby farm. Or maybe it was sick. Either way, I hoped we wouldn't be left with a possum corpse to clean up when we get the keys on Friday!
When we got home I called Rod at work, and asked him if could drive by on his way home and see if it was still there. We both decided that if it ended up dying, hopefully Jimmy the Greek next door would spot it and dispose of it for us. Some country-folk we're going to be! Luckily, Rod drove by after work and the possum was gone. So, either it died and was dragged off by some coyotes or a gang of very strong cats, or it was playing possum (and not doing a very good job of it), or, being nocturnal, it just chose a really bad place to decide to sleep. Maybe it was a teenaged-boy possum, sleeping away an unseasonably warm Sunday morning.
Speaking of sleeping...four more sleeps!

I found a photo!!

Well, my persistence has finally paid off. I have finally found a picture on the Internet, on one of the genealogy websites, of Elizabeth House, circa 1845. She appears to be in front of the house, churning some kind of a concoction in a large cauldron.

Okay I lied, it's me at last week's Pioneer Days in Jordan, churning apple butter. I'm sure I had you all fooled though, didn't I? It probably would have been more believable if there was an actual fire under the cauldron.

Mild Genealogical frustration

I've been trying to figure out the history behind our house. I think that we should know this if it's to become a bed and breakfast. So far I've heard that it was built 200 years ago. Or in the 1870's. It was a muster station during the War of 1812. And a coach stop on the lake shore road from St. Catharines to Hamilton. What I do know to be true is, the land on which the house sits is lot #8 on the "Broken Front" concession (which means it's the concession along the lake shore). This lot, which also reached back onto concessions 1 and 2, was granted to Joseph Wardell around 1791. You can check out his family's history here:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wardell/183.htm
The land was further subdivided at some point, into roughly four smaller lots. The house we live in is on a half-acre even smaller cutout. We met our new neighbours the other day, and they moved into their house in 1965. I asked them who was living in our house at that time, and they said the last name was "House". This got me wondering how the land got from Wardell to House, and I found that Joseph's granddaughter, Abigail, married a Patrick House. They had a son, William House, who is shown to have the property when this map was published in 1876:
http://digital.library.mcgill.ca/countyatlas/images/maps/townshipmaps/lin-m-Clinton.jpg
(when you're looking at this map, you're looking along the lake shore, lot 8). Whenever I had looked at this map previously, I was never sure if our house sat on the lot belonging to William House or Joseph Culp, as there are houses showing on both. Ours is the only "old" house in the area though; the neighbour's is a brick house probably built in the 1950's. I figured that if a House lived in our house in 1965, it had probably passed down in the family throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.
However.....
Yesterday I visited a wonderful genealogical research centre in St. Catharines, called Mayholme Foundation. There, they had a map from 1862, earlier than the other map, and on it it showed that there was one house, and that was on the property of Joseph Culp, right next door to William House. Could this be our house? Perhaps I misunderstood our new neighbours, or they misunderstood me, about which house I was enquiring. Joseph Culp was the brother of Elizabeth Culp, who was William House. So, brother and sister lived next door to each other, which makes perfect sense in such a small community. Likely someone bought it from someone else at some point when the land was sub-divided. Incidentally, both Joseph and Elizabeth Culp were the children of "Flat Head Jake" Culp; not quite sure why he sported that name, although it did  make me laugh. I also saw a "Satan Jake" in my searching. No idea where that came from, either. That's likely as far as I'll get, although apparently I can go up to Brock University and use their archives to get the land registry information. Some sad things I did find out, although I suppose it was very common-place back then...William House and Elizabeth Culp had eleven children in all, although only six survived. She had two boys and then a girl, the girl, Jane, died young, at around a year old. About five months later, Elizabeth was born, and three weeks after that the first two children, Joseph and Albert, died within four days of each other, most likely of influenza I would guess. So poor Elizabeth House was all of a sudden left with just one child again, after having three less than a year previous!
Another sad story of note, and there must be many, is that of Joseph Culp's son, Joseph Jr., who married Joanna Jamieson in 1879. They had three sons before Joanna passed away on Christmas Eve, 1890. Ten years to the day later, Christmas Eve 1900, their middle son, Perly passed away at the age of 16. I can't find any info on what caused his death, but I do find it a bit odd that he died on such a significantly sad anniversary.
Two of Joseph Wardell's sons, Thomas and Joshua, were listed in the muster rolls of the War of 1812, serving with the 4th Lincoln Regiment. Could this be where the 'muster station' rumour came from?
I'm sure that over time, we'll hear bits and pieces of what went on on our little piece of the lake shore. Until then, we'll just have to keep our eyes and ears open!
Thanks to the Culp and Wardell families for keeping such in-depth records on the 'net of their family histories.
Have a gorgeous Thanksgiving weekend!