THE EAGLE HAS LANDED!!!

The historic Duncan House is now sitting above its new foundation, awaiting the piers to be installed. It's sitting HIGH and proud, just as the Historical Restoration plan calls for!

This picture also show the "old bird" who got me into this deal more than a year ago: Woody Harrell, the now retired former superintendent of Shiloh National Military Park. This year marks a quarter century of Woody’s involvement in preserving and promoting Corinth’s rich Civil War heritage. His encouragement resulted in me being caught up in this slow moving, but always interesting project!

How Firm a Foundation?

The footings were dug today per the required specs, and that new foundation should hold up a bank vault. [An apt analogy, as that's what I'll need to rob when we go to filling those massive trenches with concrete!]

It's FUN to move a historic property while complying with all the pertinent preservation rules and guidelines! The Duncan House is one of 16 contributing properties for the "Siege and Battle of Corinth National Historic Landmark." An NHL is the highest level of significance by which the government designates historic sites.

342 inches = 28.5 feet = 8.6868 meters

Yeah....but why move the old house 28.5 feet?

Well, a picture is said to be worth a thousand words. So, here is a picture from earlier this year:

Although the Duncan House was here first (moved from the southeast corner of the same block), when it was placed on this lot within a foot of the property line, no zoning laws were in effect. So, when our neighbor built his studio over his small garage, things tightened up quite a bit space-wise.

In order to be able to showcase the Duncan House as close as possible to its Civil War appearance, the old home needed to be moved to the center of the lot and away from its neighbor. That move will enable us to restore the house’s exterior to its 1862 look. (This restoration includes raising the home higher off the ground.) It took a 28.5 foot move to get the Duncan House close to the center of the lot. So, that's the preservation plan we presented to the National Park Service, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, and the city. Now you know why 28.5 feet.