A Changing House

When taking a break from his duties as “Curator Cat,” Frankie loves to sit in the back parlor of the Harrison House . . .

Gotcha! He looks a little surprised at being caught, doesn’t he?

If you have a keen eye, you can see something else in this picture that’s a little out of place. Look directly over Frankie’s back, into the fireplace. Can you see the black pipe behind the log? It may look like a dark shadow: it’s been made as unobtrusive as possible.

And most people don’t really care to see that pipe there, anyway. It wasn’t there when this house was built, that’s for sure! We like to go to historic houses and feel like we’re stepping back in time.

But the thing about time is that it moves. It’s always changing us—and changing our houses, too! That pipe in the fireplace serves to vent an “updated” heating and cooling system in the house’s basement. (Today, we might still consider that “update” historic—it happened many years ago!) The people who installed it were clever: they built it into the chimney because that was already a natural vent to the outside.

It can be fun to notice these little details when you go to house museums. They are evidence of how the house was lived in for many, many years, through changing technologies and times! Keep an eye out next time you’re stepping back into history, and see what you can find.