Gilfillan descendant seeks to preserve Upper St. Clair farm
The front of the Gilfillan farmhouse, built in 1850. The building features both Greek Revival and Victorian interior style and architecture as it transitioned through family owners over the years.
Rachel Carlson stands beside a water pump fed by surrounding springs at the back of the farmhouse. The 100-year-old vines produce grapes, but Carlson is looking to graft the roots onto newer plants.
A hair wreath made of collected strands deposited in a hair jar. These were made to remember and honor family members.
A shallow, foot-deep closet. Considered rooms, homeowners were taxed on the amount of space in a house.
Inside the springhouse, the oldest building on the property, built before 1840.
The dinner bell, which still sounds, between the farmhouse and summer kitchen.
The interior of the smokehouse still bears the black stains from its namesake use.
The summer kitchen, separate from the farmhouse, was used in hot months to keep smoke and heat out of living areas.
Cozy or crowded? A “fancy” six-seat outhouse is the first thing visitors see as they drive onto the property.
Rusty remnants – tools and a half-rotten workbench inside one of the barns.
The chicken coop was severely damaged from a storm in 2011. It is one of three buildings Rachel Carlson hopes to repair as part of the Upper St. Clair Historical Society’s master plan for the Gilfillan farm.
A manual typewriter and adding machine at the Gilfillan farm
An eighth-generation descendent of an Allegheny County settler is rushing to find $8,600 by year’s end to preserve her family’s farm.
Rachel Carlson, president of the Upper St. Clair Historical Society, needs the cash to match a grant for $22,445 awarded to the organization to help preserve and curate artifacts at the 165-year-old Gilfillan farm at the corner of Washington and Orr roads. Architects laid out the phases of the preservation plan Monday, with most expensive aspects of the $57,000 preservation plan being assessment and storage.
The property was deemed historic in 1979 by the National Register of Historic Places, and Carlson said some buildings on the property are in danger of indeed becoming history in a less favorable way.
“The chicken coop was severely damaged after a storm in 2011. It took parts of the roof off. And the brick foundation of the smokehouse is giving way,” she said.
The other eight buildings on the property are in otherwise decent condition, either restored to original specifications or supplemented with artifacts common from the 1850s.
“Almost 90 percent of the furnishings and artifacts are originals,” she said.
Carlson allows visitors to see those artifacts – hand-crank butter churns, manual punch-type calculators and typewriters and wreaths made of human hair – as she has done since 2001, taking over tours following the passing of her grandmother, Margaret Gilfillan. In her will, she donated the 15-acre property to the historical society. Carlson said the importance of maintaining the property goes beyond farming (cows graze on the property) to preserve the history of Upper St. Clair.
“This is a hidden gem – an 1850s farm in the middle of the suburbs. You see the garden from Route 19, but not many know this farmhouse and all the land is back here behind it,” she said. “This is about preserving history of one of the founding families of Allegheny County.”
As Carlson tours the farmhouse, she tells the stories of the “gentlemen farmers” who raised livestock and planted a field of daffodils.
“Most of the Gilfillans had full-time occupations. They were either lawyers or surveyors first, farmers second,” she explained.
Certain features in the house show the family’s tendency to adopt new technologies while holding onto the old: an overhead light in the parlor features both a gas lamp and a lightbulb.
Nearby buildings also remind visitors of the modern conveniences taken for granted.
“There’s a separate summer kitchen, because the family wouldn’t want to fill the house with heat and smoke in July,” Carlson said.
And some aesthetic features are timeless in their preservation of style and technique.
“This is ruby glass,” Carlson said as she pointed to a dark, blood-red glass panel adorned with grape imprints. “It has that color because the hand-rolled glass was melded with gold.”
There are real grapes, too. Outside the farmhouse, a 100-year-old vine bears small, green grapes.
“Part of the master plan is to hopefully produce new grapes by grafting the old roots onto a newer plant,” she said.
And still other things will be left the same, like the black stains on brick walls inside the smokehouse where meats were cured and preserved for the winter.
For more information, visit www.hsusc.org.