Oct 2, 2023 By Paul Paterra staff Writer ppaterra@observer-Reporter.Com 4 min read

Barb Manderick

Washington resident for about 40 some years.

Annabell would come into my chiropractic office at Hornickle Chiropractic for over 20 years.

I got to know here a little bit. She had no family, no marriage no kids .   

She began to need some care and I was retiring. So I decided to become her caretaker part time, gave me something to do and helped her out. 

For a whole year, I never went off the first floor very much there were her needs, making sure the floor was clear.

When she started to get ill, we had to put her over in Evergreen, so I thought I should work on that second floor. 

I went up there and there were boxes and boxes and boxes. Her and her mother never threw anything away. There was her Girl Scout book, there was stuff from her childhood. I hit on this one box, it must have taken me three months to read every single page.

Boyd Crumrine. Lincoln and grant portraits ended up at Lemoyne House and Washington at City Hall. Died in the house on 8-21-1916 of paralysis and he is buried in Washington cemetery.

My guess is the paralysis could have been something like Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Elijah Gray was the same as Alexander Bell. Alexander Bell won the patent because he had not only the mechanics of it on paper, but he actually had a working product. Elijah Gray invented it. I’m assuming he didn’t have the money to make it. This is still talked about now about who really invented the phone.  

Boyd went to high school with Elijah Gray. 

Crumrine wrote for the ER as Uncle Enoch. 

Annabelles ancestors were Amoses. Amoses ancestor of Richard Millhouse Nixon .

I had no idea there were famous people in her family until I started reading these things.  

Connellsville was founded by her relative.

Lewis and Clark, from the Lewis side of the family.

Mother huge in genealogy. She even got in contact with the Library of Congress to find out about Lewis.  It had to take her years to go through this, there were no computers. That’s why I have so many letters between her and Boyd Crumrine Patterson. 

I should have been a historian I love this stuff so much. 

Her house was built in 1848, to my knowledge. There might be a better number in there, but that’s what I believe it was. 

Underground railroad Boyd told his grandson and family that he was told there was an underground railroad in their house. There was a door that if it was safe to come in, a horseshoe would be one way if not it would be the other way.  Printing press on the third floor. People would rent it over the years.

Underground railroad expert came to house

She found a horseshoe. Supposedly there was a small tunnel from her basement over to W&J and would come up on the W&J property. Experts could not find it .

They checked that brick to see if they could find any cracks. They couldn’t find anything. As many times as it has been painted and maybe re-bricked or blocked, there’s no way to figure that out. It’s probably all fallen in anyway.  That’s a shame. That would have been really cool to find that.

It’s a landmark house. 

The house is literally falling apart. ?????  

Winter kitchen new attachment summer kitchen had windows. 

All the clocks that are old are set at 2:12 because that’s their address. I looked at those for years and I thought isn’t that odd, that’s not the right time.   

Piano there from 1875. .

I’ve found so many treasures in this house. My biggest problem is having to decide who gets this. Second cousins. 

Wrote to Boyd Crumrie’s daughter

Anna Belle Jeffries, the last owner of the house, compiled all of her mom’s stories into a book.  

“I’m just trying to do the best by her, because it’s not my house and it’s not my money. I have to get whatever I can without hurting anybody to go into her account because it is not cheap to go into assisted living.  

Anna Belle is 89. 90 on Oct. 29.