I know many of you read about the discovery of early Maumee artifacts as workers upgrade our city streets. I recall several items my family found where I grew up on Harrison Street in Maumee. Our home was above the towpath and built in 1839. When my parents would plant a tree or shrubs, they would often find shards of blue and white pottery and other objects. One of the most fascinating discoveries was the bowl of a clay pipe, perfectly split in half in what is now the home’s front yard facing Harrison.
However, as we learned, originally the “front” entrance to our house was the basement door facing the towpath. Travelers on the towpath would walk up the hill and enter the house through that door. The house was known as the Eagle Tavern at the time with the tavern in the basement, rental sleeping quarters on the second floor and family residence on the top floor. So, the present front door facing Harrison was the back door at the time and that was where we found the clay pipe bowl pieces. The other intriguing find was recent. About seven years ago, my parents decided the stucco on the house was in such disrepair that it couldn’t be fixed and decided to take it off. It was not original to the house but put on in the 1920s. The architectural committee that determines what you can do to a home in the historic district of Maumee even sent an inspector out to the house to look over the stucco itself to see that it was not possible to repair. Off came the stucco and underneath were beautiful cedar planks. We know the house was built of cedar to keep it impervious to bugs, etc. What we didn’t expect to find was a primitive figure of a little man in a hat drawn on one of the planks near the front door. We took photos, then left him there for another generation to discover if they ever decide to remove the siding we placed on the house to replace the stucco.
Melissa Moves Maumee 