May 5^th, 2004

Well, if all goes well I’m going to start laying new gas pipe this weekend. My neighbor Gary has been a plumber for about 40 years and he his really nice about helping and giving advice. I’m going to take measurements of the lengths of pipe this week and then give a list to Gary. He will take it to a wholesale plumbing supply house and they will cut and thread all of the pipe exactly as I need it. The best part is I will get it at contractor’s price as opposed to retail.

After that I will start to run new copper pipe for the water lines. That type of pipe you solder together so I can cut it as I need it. AFTER THAT I can get the original bathroom and kitchen working. If all goes well I think that will be about 3 months from now. I finished stripping the raised paneled wainscoting in the dining room and, if I do say so myself, it looks absolutely stunning.

In perpetration for the new gas and water lines I was doing some work back in what was the butler’s pantry. Half of that room will become a utility room for the hot water heater and a washer and dryer. I removed some of the bead board from one wall so I could bring in the new pipes. This wall lead to a cavity under the back stairs that has been closed off for more than a hundred years. I found some very interesting things in there. There was a woman’s corrset, shoe, and clove. A young woman judging from the size of the items. A man’s starched collar or maybe a cuff. A bottle of “Scott’s Emulsion of pure Cod Liver Oil with Hypophosphites of Lime and Soda”. There is about 2 inches of the stuff still in the bottle. I’m tempted to taste it. I wonder if my insurance will cover being poisoned by 100 year old Cod Liver Oil? Better not risk it. The bottle was laying face down so the label is in excellent condition. At the very bottom it says, “Entered According to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by Scott and Bowne, in the office of the Library of Congress, Washington”

I also found some receipts for local shops (no dates), a cigar wrapper, and a wrapper from a can of Lablache Face Powder. The wrapper looks like it fit over a can about the size of a Secrets tin. It unfolds to a sheet of paper about 8X11 inches. It is covered with text about the company that makes it, how it use, Beware of Counterfeits On The Market!, etc. About ¾ of the text on both sides is testimonials form woman all over the world who swear by it’s beautifying powers. They are like letters to the company and all dated. The earliest one is 1888 and the latest on is 1892. They will mail a can to anywhere in the US for .50 cents.

The last item I found was I think the most interesting. It was a small envelope with a Victoria, BC post mark dated May 21, 1903. The envelope is empty but it is addressed to the original owner of my house, a Mr. Petch. The interesting thing is that it is not address to 904 M St (my house) instead it is to “Mr. T D Petch, Eureka Lighting Company, 122 F Street, Eureka, California, U. S. America”

It would seem that Mr. Petch owned a business called Eureka Lighting Co. I took a stroll down town to see the building at 122 F Street but unfortunately it is no longer there. 122 F street is now a plaza with a fountain. If you recall we ate a not so good breakfast one morning at the Water Front Café. The Water Front Café is on the corner of First and F street, and is 2 buildings down from what was 122 F Street.

The next day I went down to the library because someone had told me about a collection of City Directories dating back to the turn of the century. I had never heard of them before but a city directory allows you to look up an address and find out who lived there or what business was there. The earliest one they had was 1898. The first 6 pages or so were advertisements from that time and on page 4 was a half page add for “The Eureka Lighting Company”. The add is below.

J.M. Livingston, Pres., S. F. C.O.G. Miller, Sec. And Treas., S.F.

T.D. Petch, Supt., Eureka

THE EUREKA LIGHTING COMPANY

Dealers in

Electric Light and Gas Supplies

Lights Installed on Short Notice

Coke, Coal and Coal Tar For Sale

Any information given by applying to T. D. Petch, Supt., 100 C Street, Eureka

So it would seem that Mr. Petch owned a franchise of a larger company based in SF, or was an employee of that company. The add also lists the business at 100 C St and not 122 F st. In looking at other directories I found that the business started on C St., then by 1901 was on the corner of 2^nd and G, and then from 1903 on it was at 122 F Street. By 1916 the business was no longer listed and by 1917 T. D. Petch was no longer listed as the owner of my house. I could not find a Petch listed any where in the county after 1917. Not sure what happened.

This does sort of answer a question about my house though. One thing I discovered when doing the rewiring of the house was that every room in the house had a wall switch for a ceiling light. I could tell that the wiring for the switches was original to the 1895 construction. I had a hard time convincing people in the old house group I meet with that every room in the house had a switched ceiling light when it was constructed. It was common in 1895 for lights to have a pull chain and upstairs rooms may not have had electric lights at all. If Mr. Petch was in the lighting business by trade he would have been up on all the latest trends and technology and have access to equipment at the wholesale level. No doubt his new home would be very up to date in this area.

As for the pictures. The pictures of the woodwork speak for themselves but they don’t really do it justice. The paneling really came out nice. I still have to do the window sashes and the baseboards, but that will come later. That is “bad weather work”. Now that the suns out I can do some work under the house. The tile that is in the pictures is what is going to replace the damaged tile that goes on the floor in front of the fireplaces.