When the house changed hands in 2020, those four old fireplaces—one for each room on the first floor—were already hushed, boarded shut as if keeping their stories to themselves. Built of soft, handmade bricks, likely shaped by enslaved hands, they bore the wear of two centuries, some crumbling to dust where rain had slipped down their open chimneys, patient and ruinous. Gas heaters had long since taken up their duties, leaving the fireplaces silent.

 

The fireboxes, wide enough for logs to burn bright, still dreamed of their old work. The mantels, slathered in paint, were said to have once masqueraded as fine-grained wood, though they stood plain, without carvings or fluted flourish, like folks too plainspoken for pretense. Some window trim was notched to fit the mantel tops, as if the mantels had claimed their place first, resolute. In the back rooms, those notches were rough, near hacked, the wood scarred by a hurried hand.

 

Three of the four great chimneys still stood tall, but the left rear had crumbled to the roofline, weary and broken. Outside, the bricks wore coats of red paint, layered on through the years, now peeling in patches that bared time’s passage. Faint outlines of a lost room or porch traced the walls, like whispers of what the house once held, soft as a memory half-forgotten.