Looney Jones House

11/10/2024

Sanded the dining room floor today and once again found blood stains in front of windows and a footprint.

10/29/2024

Here is a video shot just two weeks ago.

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09/23/2024

The dining room restoration just keeps on giving. For years we have been told that a tunnel runs under this house We assumed it was in the cistern but we were way too chicken to get down there and check. Twice, delivery folks have told me that the tunnel was through the fireplace in the dining room. This fireplace had been bricked in and plastered over. We decided to open the fireplace back up. When Carl chipped all the brick away, we discovered that this fireplace has no floor and the inside below floor level is plastered. What in the world?!?! Next up, talking one of us into going in . . .
https://www.facebook.com/reel/410914065040454

08/20/2024

Reading a book by a window in this house is magical

07/25/2024

So, I took the dining room ring to a jeweler to have it cleaned and it is gorgeous. The best part is the engraving on either side. Yes the engraving is an OWL. Victorians loved animals on their jewelry. The fact that we found this ring in the same room where Looney the Owl was residing this winter is not spooky at all . . .

07/24/2024

From the room that just keeps producing treasures: I just found a ring in the dining room! I’m going to get it cleaned tomorrow and take better pics but WOW!

07/20/2024

And then there were 2! I just found a perfect match to the first button in the dining room ceiling debris. Judging from how many buttons I am finding, it is by far the most likely thing to fall between the cracks of the floor. One of the other buttons I found is a Goodyear Hard Rubber button from 1851.

07/17/2024

Today’s sweet find from the debris of the dining room ceiling: a tiny antique black jet button. We know the lady that lived in the room above the dining room wore widows weeds most of her life after the civil war. I picture her looking everywhere for this button not knowing it fell between a crack in the floor.

07/15/2024

This past weekend we started the restoration of the dining room. A large part of that is stripping off the old wallpaper so we can repair the plaster. We are documenting all the patters and saving pieces where possible. I thought you would all enjoy the 5 layers we found.

07/05/2024

Happy 4th of July from The Mule Capital of the World OR as some call it The Dimple of the Universe OR as we call it the view from our bed.

07/04/2024

Episode 53: WE ARE ONE

This 4th of July, at The Looney Jones House, we have our bunting hung and Old Glory is flying as high as every other day. Flag Day starts our run-up to Independence Day. We might not be huge fans of shooting off fireworks 17 days before the 4th and 76 days after the 4th, but we love this country. While we don’t agree with everyone’s politics or religion or thoughts on the designated hitter, WE ARE ONE.

At least that’s what it says on the coin we found in our yard a few months back. We would find out later it was an early AMERICAN coin. Van Irwin had once again returned to our property to metal detect. After all, we had disturbed dirt twice in recent history. Once for the sun room rebuild and now for the new carriage house. He very excitedly brought this coin in from the fading sunlight to our brightly lit kitchen. “I think it’s REALLY old,” Van declared with an unfamiliar shake in his voice. I knew from his tone he was serious. Now I was getting excited.

After some quick, very light washing, we started to see some basic characteristics of the coin. “Looks like it has chains printed on it! And it has the words ‘WE ARE ONE.’” A quick internet search gave us our starting point. If you type COIN and WE ARE ONE, the search will pop up Fugio Cent. The coin’s other name is Franklin Cent. More reading revealed exciting words like “first official circulation coin of the United States.” Goose bumps!

Turns out the famous 1787 Fugio Cent really was the first official coin of our young country. And old Ben Franklin designed them himself. Ben had attempted an earlier coin in 1776 called a Continental Currency dollar coin, but it was never circulated for general use. Franklin knew as a newly formed country, we needed to produce some currency to be legit. Up until then, most colonists carried French, English or Spanish coins. Now that we were going to produce our own coins, what should they have printed on them? E Pluribus Unim? Out of many, one? Not quite yet.

Franklin decided on WE ARE ONE on one side, but he needed something visual to represent that we were all in this together. There were the original 13 colonies. Why not 13 links in a chain to show strength with no beginning or end? Now the other side. This side should remind us of the purpose of currency. It used FUGIO which was roughly translated from Latin as time flying by. The sun and sundial would represent time. The phrase on this side became MIND YOUR BUSINESS. Some today would probably say this phrase was akin to our “Don’t tread on me” license plates and flags. But most historians and numismatist(look it up) would agree these words would have been (or BEN) Franklin’s attempt to remind users to keep your business in mind and work hard while the sun shines and not waste time. AND use this money to keep your business legal in this new land.

Here is the Wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugio_cent

Great! Now we know the history of the FUGIO Cent. But was the coin we found really one of these rare coins? Yes, it looked like the WE ARE ONE side wiki web photo, sorta. You see our coin was extremely old and worn. We didn’t dare try and clean it other than a quick bath under the faucet to remove the top layer of dirt. Looney Jones House dirt. But our coin didn’t look like the internet pictures. Our chain links and words were way off center. The back was even less help. We could make out “Mind” and “Business” but they were printed twice and off-center. Then we realized even on the front, the chains were printed twice and offset. Lots and lots more research helped us figure out we did indeed have a rare Fugio Cent and maybe even more importantly it was double-struck. That was a mistake at the mint that put the same image on the coin twice, usually slightly off-set. When these coins were found to be struck wrong, usually they were destroyed by putting them back in the melting pot to be poured again. Another interesting fact was the origin of the metal used for these coins. The copper was made from the barrel hoops from wooden barrels of gunpowder shipped from France during the Revolutionary war. But in either case, a double-struck Fugio cent was extremely rare. It was either overlooked in the inspection stage or a corrupt inspector just put it in his pocket as a souvenir.

Now the WHY? Why was an 1787 first coin currency of this country found in our yard? There seems to be a pretty simple answer. Yes, our house was built in 1835 and was one of the first houses in our city. But people of that day would have certainly carried some coins and maybe older coins with them. It’s like today if you have a 1976 quarter in your pocket. Not normal, but not unbelievable. Believeable especially if the country was not replacing coins and removing the old ones from circulation as is the common practice today. One other very interesting fact was that the first owner of The Looney Jones House, David Looney was the son of Col. David Looney, WHO was a delegate from Sullivan County Tennessee to the Convention of 1788, which was called to consider the ratification of the American Constitution. Did Col David Looney drop a coin from 1787 in our yard? No telling. But this is the stuff of mysteries and legends. We can dream. We can surmise. We can theorize.

Now to the real question y’all are asking yourself. What’s this thing worth? After we placed it in our safety deposit box at the bank, we began asking that as well. We had lots of folks advise us to be wary of any value “experts” put on the coin. That could lead to them wanting to buy it at their reduced value. We did have one highly respected colonial coin expert from Williamsburg tell us it was rare but not insanely valuable. Welcome news. We either wanted it to be SO valuable that we would be OK with selling it to fund further restoration of the house OR be worth a smaller amount so we would keep it with the home, where it belongs. One other coin bonus fact. There is a Fugio cent in our country’s capitol in the American History Smithsonian museum. Kinda cool to look at the museum case and think, “Yeah, we’ve got one of those.”

So as you, like us Looney Jonesers, celebrate this 248th anniversary of our founding, between hot dog eating contests and fireworks and flags, let us all remember WE ARE ONE . . . and . . . MIND YOUR BUSINESS!

06/10/2024

Light through old wavy glass windows makes the most beautiful shadows.

04/07/2024

04/06/2024

Happy Mule Day, y’all!

03/25/2024

Mule Day is Saturday, April 6! Remember that you are all invited to the Looney Jones House to watch the parade and EAT. We will supply barbecue and fried chicken. All we ask is that you bring a side or a dessert. Come join us!

03/23/2024

LJH just had our first visitors from Spain! A mom and daughter from Madrid and Barcelona were touring Columbia today. Thanks for stopping by.

03/04/2024

Some of the latest and greatest finds as we spread out the dirt from where the garage is now. Two things are very clear. 1. It was obviously where they threw away broken pottery. 2. There has been a wide range of china used in this house over the last 189 years.