Imagine spending Christmas there with friends and family while the house was in its prime . It must’ve looked like it came out of a Disney fairytale movie
I used to live in a house alot like this the same size and everything holidays where amazing there like easter they would hide huge easter eggs all over the grounds and christmas always felt just really festive and the fireplace was always lit and yeah my cousins would play the piano super amazing place
Wow what those walls could tell you! Looks like maybe there was a business too. Even though it's in ruins I love it. You can just imagine what it was like in the day. Live it but sad to see all those books rotting. Thanks guys!
The pizza is what got me... the way it had been shoved in the fridge in the box like "yeah, I'm gonna finish that pizza tomorrow" makes me think that whoever lived here did not intend to leave that day and never come back...
Stones are usually on older properties to show the property line. My dad was a home developer. It's no different than a fence really. EDIT: I'm dying from laughter! Josh said, "Look at that private lake right there..." & shows us a POND. 🤣😂
9:33 in, to think that when this newspaper was printed, either the TITANIC just had sunk, or was about to. Absolutely mind blowing this relic of an article we are looking at has lasted 108 years. Congratulations on another successful explore. Bravo my friend, bravo...
@@myMotoring It is an original French magazine that is bound together. They had large magazine newspaper combos back then and it was common practice to bind all the issues together for a years worth of printing. I have some American ones like this, and a few French supplements for serial stories that are close to this size. They often printed these magazine/newspapers on a better slicker paper, it was not as costly to do so as it was in later decades (graphic designer that collects historical ephemera).
Its a shame the kids who inherited it don't care enough to take the things like the books, photo frames and other stuff not completely destroyed to preserve their family's history. People just don't care
With all the dishes still sitting up I wondered how many of them were handed down from previous generations and now they are just waiting to be destroyed.
yeah would be great if they would just let people live in them take care of them and just pay the taxes on the property that would solve the problem of these old houses being abandoned and then eventually deteriorate. 👍
its so sad to see places like this going to waste. the old books that are getting lost because no one bothers to try and save them. i have watched so many of these abandoned explorations and see furniture, crockery, books old sewing machines and everyone who goes and explores just goes away and leaves them there shame no one can rescue some of this stuff for museums because before long there will be nothing for future generations to see so very very sad. keep up the good work josh cant believe you have been doing this for 7 years now. next time you are in the uk you should look up some local beauty spots in south yorkshire not far from me is the only remaining round keep castle in the uk. look up conisbrough castle south yorkshire and see the pics. stay safe in this terrible time love from the uk xxxx
Another commenter stated that the children who used to live in this house spoke about being abused, so just going back to the house would probably bring back a lot of trauma. If I were them, I'd never want to look back either, but it is sad to see a lot of things go to waste.
They most of the time don’t do that because it’s officially called stealing and there always a possibility that abandoned places like these are haunted and if you bring something haunted with you from a place it will haunt you, your family and friends the rest of your life. So that’s probably one of the main reasons they don’t bring any
@Jane Marsee can't steal something that's been abandoned. Hell I purchased a mobile home and when the landlord wanted my mobile home removed from the park he evicted me. I had no way to move the old mobile home so they claimed I abandoned it. Not even a year later actually just a month ago they tore it down. So I guess anything I'd left and couldn't get because I was banned from the park was stolen by whom ever.
I mean if you were abused in that house would you still wanna take care of it knowing that haunting memories happened there? Those kids/people were probably traumatized.
They are also rocks that farmers pulled out of there fields and built walls with them instead of scattering the woods. I have an old one that has been covered up over the years in my yard.
Yup they are border fences and back in the day that was probably fields and pasture where the rocks would be thrown eventually creating the border walls. They are very common allover New England
They do this in Ireland and Scotland I believe still to this day. I think it gives the property more character and keeps a natural barrier rather than an artificial one with fencing.
lmao I go with my friends to the mall, movies, bars, Josh goes with his friends to abandoned places not even to party or trash, but to explore, god, I could be friends with this guy
Visiting old abandoned homes Me: *starts picking up things and putting them where i assume they belong* No lie i could spend HOURS in somewhere like this, especially looking at the books.
When I saw the library, I just imagined the beautiful old day. The young owner of the 1850 house read the book with the sound of rain in that house. I can feel the 1850's vibes there. How beautiful
These kinds of places are so interesting to me. There’s so much stuff left over, like clothing and food, stuff you would take if you’d moved out. I always wanna know why everything was left.
I always get so sad when I see big, old houses with lots of history just totally abandoned and left behind. for what reason?! Couldn´t they just have sold it or something?
Josh mentioned that there was abuse going on inside the house, so it is understandable that they'd abandon it I mean would you still want to go back to the place where you were abused knowing that there were a lot of haunting memories that happened there? Those kids/people were probably traumatized
You should always try to check out those old books. Especially in the house of a millionaire. There could be works that are almost forgotten or even first editions of historical books that shouldn’t be left to decay. Cool video, thanks for sharing.
I just can't believe the family left all their things behind like that. I would love to know where they are now. My favorite thing in the house was the old safe, really cool. I thought the house would have been made of better quality wood and such. Especially the first half you went through Josh. The walls and doors seemed so narrow for a great home like that. Wonderful explore. Thank you for sharing. Delaware 🇺🇸
@@Mich-xs5vz A person on another comment stated that the family was abused. If I were them, I definitely wouldn't want to come back, it would just bring back a lot of trauma. Some people just want to forget their horrible pasts.
You should really wear some kind of helmet, the collapsed part should be enough to tell you the place isn't that safe to go in without any protective gear.
i am 50 yrs old and i watch at lot of these. i love these kind of videos. i did what you are doing before you were even born except without a video camera..
Hello Josh I'm one of your older viewers, your my favorite tubers ,you have a wonderful way about your approach and the way you talk and the enthusiasm and excitement that you have , your very genuine, and there's strong light around you,please be so safe 😘👒🎥💕
I just love how at 2:13 Josh describes it as being frozen in time To me his description of it really adds to the abandoned damaged old aged look at the place
I tipped Josh off to this location, and he did get some of the facts wrong. The family who was gifted the property as a marriage present to James Sibley Watson Jr (he wed Hildegarde Lasell in 1916). They both came from extremely prominent families, but unfortunately I believe that due to that extreme wealth nobody in the family wanted to come back to the area to live in a vacation home permanently. The family member that got ownership of the property (I’m not exactly sure who, but I’ll keep researching) had addiction, and financial problems. I could tell that she had up and left the property with food still in the guest house above the garage and tissues covered in mascara all around her bed. I don’t know what happened, but draw the conclusions from that as you will. I had also seen men’s clothing in one of the closets, so perhaps heartbreak. There was no evidence of a hard drug addiction, (needles, syringes, etc.) unless you consider Mary Jane a hard drug. Anyhow, she ended up staying at a motel out West for an extended period, and went into debt at a Motel 6. From what I heard, they were involved in the sale of the property to another prominent family in the town who have since demolished this building, closed it off, and made it a outdoor property for their sons and grandchildren. Despite this home being gone, I’m glad Josh could document it before it was demolished and sharing this gem with the world. I hope viewers can try imagining what the home looked like in it’s prime, and recreate something similar for themselves.
Josh, as possibly one of your oldest fans, I'll explain the house design & layout. Back in the day, it was very common for the family to start off with a small house, and then to just add on and add on as the years go by. It was also very common to build houses for other family members very close to the original house. So it was not uncommon for brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles to have homes right next to each other, and then to even connect the homes later on, so that it's easier to go from one family member's side to the other, while increasing the common areas for both families. My old Text family did this, by starting a zillion years ago with a one-room house, and then over the course of about 50 years, it grew every few years with a new addition, and even an addition of a second floor about 75 years after the first walls went up. This is why you should bring an old dude like me along with you, so I could explain all the old stuff to y'all young folks! If you're ever in Florida (not the there's much old stuff to explore here!) let me know and I'll join you guys and provide some more historical accuracy for stuff. Thanks for all the awesome videos! You're totally living my life!
i suddenly wanna locate this place grab some friends and people who know how to organize decorate and fix stuff up and go see if we can fix it a bit and make it last a few hundred more years or less or more maybe see if we can find out who made those drawings and bring them to a museum perhaps?
Rock walls are commonly found in New England and they were built to identify property lines. Even though most of them are built in the 1800’s people still do them today. My grandfather lived in Maine and he built one, and my father in Colorado did the same thing, pretty neat!
Like walking gardens around the landscape with roses, different things. In other places they used like entrances. Such beautiful art works across the world made w what they had.
People really dont know this? I guess being from New England this is just common knowledge to everyone. And 1850 isn't an old house up here. It would be considered fairly new. So He is in the midwest? Just a guess.
Josh do can you read off some of the names of books when you find them... omg!! I love old books!! Back in the 80s is what I went to Junior High and High School. I skip school a lot I started skipping in the fifth grade because I was being picked on. Do I soon learned how to defend myself and became very good at it I also learned that I like skipping school because I wasn't very good at it LOL. I struggled in math class and beg for a tutor and never received one. So I started skipping again and guess where I hung out! You got it I hung out at the library. Our library was built in the 1850s! He had three floors that included a basement. The old part of the library is where the history books the account books and nature books were all so you can find poetry Etc. I would go to the oldest part and I would grab some books of interest and curl up in a corner that hidden me between two almost adjoining shelves. I loved the smell of the old books The Creeks of the wood floor the sound of the heels clicking as the ladies walked and never noticed me. It was so peaceful. Regretfully that was the last library that I ever went to as I moved away from my hometown in 2005. This video brought all those memories back to me. I'm so appreciative and I love you guys you boys just tickled me to pieces. Since my back injury my Adventures have become far too few. At least I have found Josh exploring with Josh! That's badass I love you guys Happy adventuring. PS could you please read some names of the books off. Thank you all my love Angie Homan now in East Texas.🙏✌🤗😘 Wow....
The first room you went through had clearly burned at some point, all the roof beams were black and a part of that bookcase had soot on it. It is so sad that something that nice looking history is let down and gets rotted away.
I feel so sooo sorry for Josh, for only have seen libraries in people's houses only twice. 😲😭 I never considered my family as rich, but I now know how to appreciate the bliss to being able to just go to our own library and seek for a interesting book. All the family houses or apartments ( even the 1 room app) in our families have a little library. And as a kid when I visited my aunts and uncles or cousins etc... the first thing I would do before go to bed is explore their libraries content. It says a lot about the owners and its awesome to see what are their real interests or at least for a certain time captured their interest. It's also a great conversation starter and especially with family members, it helps to shorten the usual boring small talk about parents siblings and school etc.
Despite my utter appreciation for these beautiful homes, whenever i see the beautiful artifacts and paintings.I am 100% reminded of my incredibly sticky fingers all i can think is "oo i'd take that for my living room" SMH
It was interesting and if u could tell us for more what happened to the family. If someone in the family has written a book what happened then and who published the book. Thanks
I love your channel so much. I would love to go exploring in abandoned buildings 🏚 but they don’t have that many here in the UK unfortunately but I am so happy that you are going round and filming abandoned buildings and things as I can live the excitement through your videos. Thank you so much.
the stone walls (here in the uk) are usually used as boundary markers for property e.g. to show the edge of the garden. or they can be used as separators of land.
Josh it is so nice to see someone your age apricate the older thing that were of the days gone by. To more are not like you and love it and not destroy them. your one in a million....thank you!
In England in Europe we have these everywhere, it's not to physically keep people out it's just so you can tell who's land is who's. It mostly divides farmers fields along with hedges
This is awesome guys. Keep up the good work. The only abandoned place I have ever explored was this old church in Detroit. Just FYI for future exploration, landline phones have their own power separate from the power company, so it is totally normal it still functioned. Growing up in the 90's, I remember even when the power went out from a storm or something, the phone companies often had their own backup power system and you could still call out in emergencies. I even got on the internet during a power outage once using dial up with an old laptop, haha.
I used to be subscribed to you on my old channel, but then it got deleted. I totally forgot about your channel until, some one mentioned it, and I’m so happy to find your channel again.
That's not the only thing, but the comments below are correct. Waaaay too much damage but at one time people were probably here walking right on top of a lot of expensive stuff.
the old stone house structure could well been the old kitchen back in the 1800's it was common to have a separate structure for the kitchen so as to not burn down the wood house
I just want to thank you so much for making these videos I just started watching your channel and I always thought I was the only one I thought I was crazy my grandma used to take me to estate sales and garage sales and I remember being in these people's houses and feeling this sense of history and loving it and just seeing how people lived and their things and it gave me the sense of calm the sense of knowing like and then getting stuff that people don't usually have older stuff and made me so happy and it still does so thank you you bring me joy just to know that there are other people like me that really appreciate this kind of thing there's something to be said about our history, something to be said about other people's situations how they lived what they loved that way you get to know people for who they really are,and most importantly seeing the things that they cherished and loved their life it's so beautiful thank you for your videos you're amazing thank you.
21:54 landline phones use different grid from power lines altogether, it will not be cut if you don't pay the bills they just gonna block your calls. That's why the phone still got power but can't make any call but you still can call 911.
I would take every clean electronic in that house, especially those computers and monitors, I would be the biggest theif ever if I were in this house dayum.
The great-grandchildren who inherited it weren’t the ones who lived there and were abused. They likely abandoned it due to a severe drug addiction, as he said.
Josh, this find is epic. It makes me want to read the book you mentioned in the description. Do you know the name of the author or title of the book? I'm one of your older subs. I starting watching your vids because I liked to explore abandoned places before it was the cool thing to do. Lol. I subbed because you are so adorable. Keep up the good work and enjoy life to it's fullest. 🏘️🏚️⛪🏚️🏠🏚️
I lived in a house growing up not far from me now that used those rocker-like push in light switches. I always got in trouble because I would run up and down the stairs to flip them on and off lol
more information I was able to find online. - "Gentleman's retreat on over 170 acres with outbuildings: big timber barn, garage w/updated caretaker's apt, stone walls & serenity.The main house built to 1850 specs of original section & added on in the 1920's-hand plained floors, hand hewn beams, museum potential used as a summer getaway."
2:43 These are the remains of strategic defense walls erected during the Civil War. You will find them almost anywhere there could have been a Civil War battle (East Coast).
"Thats what happens when you give kids spots who just don't care" That hit hard, I wanna start getting into urban exploration but how can I prove myself that I'm planning to be respectful and just take pictures and admire the nature claiming the old abandoned buildings? I'm curious how to slowly build myself up as someone trustworthy enough to tell spots to
when property owners would "clear their fields" for farming they'd remove all the big rocks/boulders to the edge of their new property. That's, usually, what a stone wall is.
During these hard times when you can’t go anywhere besides your yard, these kind of videos are the best to feel better that one day we can go back to seeing stuff like this!!!