DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, the way Duane sees it from the road. Jabez Deming Giddings came out of Pennsylvania, and in 1837, he bought the land. That name, Jabez Deming Giddings, born in 1814, sounds like a man who meant business, and by all the evidence he did.
He was a lawyer, a businessman, a civic leader. The kind of man who, when he decided to settle somewhere, built something that lasted. And build he did.
He raised a residence of hand-hewn cypress boards, fitted it together, and got it standing before he even brought a bride home. That was 1843, the year he married Ann Tarver, born in 1822. Now here is the detail that tends to stop people mid-sentence when they hear it.
Up on the roof of this cypress house, Giddings put a reservoir. A rooftop reservoir, catching rainwater. You don't see that every day, and you didn't see it then either.
About 1870, the house got remodeled, and then in 1871 it was sold to John B. Wilkin, born in 1827, died in 1913. The Wilkin family moved in, and they stayed.
They stayed and stayed, generation after generation occupying that old cypress house, all the way until 1942. That is a long time to love a building. But then the years got quiet around it, and by 1972 the house was scheduled for demolition.
Somebody had decided it was done. The Heritage Society of Washington County had a different opinion. They bought it.
They restored it. That house Jabez Giddings built with hand-hewn cypress boards, the one with the rooftop reservoir, the one Ann Tarver came home to in 1843, it is still standing. Some things, it turns out, were built to outlast the people who wanted to tear them down.
What the marker says
Jabez Deming Giddings (1814-1878) of Pennsylvania bought this land in 1837. A lawyer, businessman, and civic leader, he built this residence of hand-hewn cypress boards before his marriage in 1843 to Ann Tarver (1822-1907). An unusual rooftop reservoir held rainwater. Remodeled about 1870, the house was sold in 1871 to John B. Wilkin (1827-1913), whose family occupied it until 1942. Scheduled for demolition in 1972, it was bought and restored by the Heritage Society of Washington County.