An Update on the Wick House and Ford Mansion

The Wick House has been around since the mid-18th century, and as a result, has a accumulated a lot: a lot of objects, artifacts, and well, dust. To say that we've been busy would be an understatement. For the first weeks, we really focused on getting everything within the house packed and sent out: textiles, kitchen supplies, furniture, even the front knocker. It all had to go so that the restoration crew could come in and begin their repairs. Everything has been brought to the Cross Estate, and the work on the house has begun, but our work is far from over. For the past two and half weeks, we've been unpacking and cleaning the objects.

To do this, we dry brush the objects or vacuum any remaining remnants of age, and then we clean them with a mixture of microban and distilled water to protect them from mold.





Once that's been finished, we take to photographing the objects and making sure that they are cataloged. Here's an example:

Although the chimney restoration project has been keeping us all busy, I've had some time to begin working on the virtual tour of the Ford Mansion. At this point, it's been all about collecting information: taking picture of the pieces that were there during Washington's stay, doing some research into those pieces, and figuring out a way to put them all together. It's been a busy summer so far, and there's a lot of work left to be done, but I look forward to it.



This blog entry is by Allison Alecci, Boston College.