A History of 205 East Main Street
Finds From 205 East Main Street
In 2024, the Library began renovating the 1812 Bayles House into the new location of the Library’s Teen Center. The building required extensive structural and aesthetic work to meet accessibility standards, and to function in its new purpose.
The eastern exterior wall had buckled and separated from the house’s frame over time, so it was removed and replaced. When removed, a new view of the home’s sleeping loft and the brickwork of the beehive oven was revealed. There, 14 different single (left) shoes were discovered. Those shoes or a “Spiritual Midden” may have been put there by the house’s inhabitants in keeping with a common Northern European tradition* of placing shoes on brickwork, under floors, or on rafters as a blessing or magical charm as a protective spell for the occupants*. These shoes have been submitted to the Concealed Shoe Index* maintained by the Northampton, U.K. Museum.
The shoes are made of leather and appear to be hand-stitched. They range in sizes from toddler to adult. The shoes in the best condition are displayed here along with the other items found during the renovation: pieces of earthenware consistent with early American kitchen-use pottery, pieces of porcelain pottery in a variety of patterns and colors consistent with imported dishware, pieces of coal, corn cobs and walnut hulls likely collected in the floorboards and air-pockets by critters, as well as a large glass shard of a bottle from a Brooklyn Brewery.
The Library is very proud to be part of the history of the 1812 Bayles House. We recognize the work of Beriah Petty, the original builder, the Bayles, Hulse and other families and businesses who kept care over the house for centuries, and acknowledge the Setalcott Tribe as the indigenous people who stewarded this land at the time of colonial contact.
*https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/concealed-shoes-ward-off-witches
*https://nbm.org/the-mystery-of-the-concealed-shoes/
*https://www.northamptonmuseums.com/directory-record/250/concealed-shoes
