Joseph Tudyck's Chimneys

Brick and Stone Chimney on the New House (1887)

 

Stone Chimney on the little house (1882)

We have been working for several weeks preparing the Tiner Hendrick House for its move to its new place to stand, near the Polley Mansion, Whitehall. 

 

However, work began in earnest this week, removing the two stone and brick chimneys that had stood for 144 years. We have enlisted Curtis Hunt Restorations, Inc., a local company, to remove the chimneys. They take photographs of the chimneys and feed that information into a computer program that maps each of the stones. The workers are now carefully removing the stones one by one, labeling them with a number, and stacking them on a pallet. Half of the larger chimney is composed of 2000 bricks that Mr. Tiner got from A. R. Stevenson in exchange for the payment of a debt for two mares. You can read more about the story in "Sticks and Stones," an earlier blog. Later the stones and bricks will be wrapped in plastic and moved to the new site, awaiting the time when they can be rebuilt. Curtis Hunt Restorations was gracious enough to provide two bids for us; one to deconstruct the chimneys and one to reconstruct the chimneys later after the house is moved. We do not have the funds yet to reconstruct the chimneys. If you would like to contribute to the reconstruction of the chimneys, you can click on the amount you would like to donate in the column on the right or type in the amount that you can give. You can also contact me to discuss your donation at mjcreech@mac.com. 

You can see the progress that has been made this week in deconstructing the chimneys.

 

 

 

In my earlier blog "Sticks and Stones" you can read about Mr. Joseph Tudyck's construction of the chimney on the new house. With the help of Sandy Mitchell, he constructed the chimney in 11 days and the total cost was $75, $38.25 labor, $36.75 materials.

We were not sure who had constructed the smaller house or its chimney. We knew it was older, because the Tiner family was living in the smaller house while the new house was being built. I thought perhaps it was built by Jack Sutherland, who was a former owner of the property. However, last week I found 16 pages from an 1882 diary written by Jesse Tiner. It cleared up a few things. Mr. Tiner himself built the house between 1880 and 1882. 

 

Jesse and Connie were married in 1879. 

 

The 1880 Census finds them living at the Peyton Warren Hotel in Sutherland Springs. 

Connie's mother Susan Rebecca Polley Henderson Brooks is also living in the hotel with her husband, 2 year old Joseph, and 7 month old Mary. Connie's first child, Lane, would be born in November. 

These randomly photocopied pages from the journal indicate that Mr. Tiner moved down to his place in Sutherland Springs in January 1882. Elnora, their second child, was born on August 10th. Mr. Joseph Tudyck (Tiner spells his name Toodick), along with his assistant Oscar Palm, began work on the little chimney on October 16. He finished the work on October 23. The chimney was 21 1/2 feet high, He was paid $100 per foot, for a total cost of $21.50. It took 7 days to complete. His assistant, Oscar Palm earned 75¢ a day.

I tried to learn a bit about Mr. Joseph Tudyck, resident of St. Hedwig. I found out that he was married to Petronella Kosub, and that he was the great uncle of Allen Kosub, one of our excellent local historians. Allen has a great website called Lost Texas Roads. Allen Kosub reports: "We can document Joseph’s brick work in the first church built in 1868 in St. Hedwig and his own house in St. Hedwig.  Attached is a wedding photo circa 1890 taken with the old church as a back drop.   We believe that he built numerous chimneys in the area.  His specialty was building with 'rubble and partially dressed' native sandstone."  

 

What a neat thought to consider that Allen Kosub's great uncle Joseph was the last one to touch those stones 144 years ago until they were carefully removed from the chimney last week by the workers from Curtis Hunt Restorations: Armando, Jesse, Manuel, Omar, and Dani. Thank all you artisans for your great work.

The diary recounts on Oct 3 that they need "one load of white rock from the Cibolo for the back of fire place." Jesse Tiner, George Neely, and Oscar Palm collected the red sandstone from his own property. We have evidence to suggest that these red sandstone rocks may have been used in the construction of the mission chapel for El Rancho del Paistle, the mission ranch of Mission Concepcion in the mid 1700s. That's another story for another time. So other hands may have collected and stacked those stones into a mission chapel before nature disassembled them, and they found their way into Mr. Tudyck's chimneys on the Tiner House.