Years ago a horse was more than a pet. He was a chiseled machine with a personality. Horses today are spoiled. They have their own room with heat & AC, they get their teeth cleaned, nails done, special vitamins to make their coat shine, and they work maybe an hour a day. Wouldn’t you like to work for only an hour a day? Let me tell you a story about a noble horse whom was more than just a pet. He was the foundation of a family home.

April 1, 1850 Jonah Orrison became the proud owner of a 210 acre farm in Hamilton, VA for only $2,200.  The one room brick house was not big enough for his growing family, so he immediately got to work planning a stone addition. He hitched up his horse to a large cart, led him down to the nearby creek and started digging and loading stone into the back. The horse waited patiently as the Orrison men stabbed the earth with shovels, throwing the dirt, lifting the small rocks and breaking the larger rocks with a massive hammer. The cart got heavier and heavier. With a sudden crack of a whip the horse realized it was his turn to work. Digging his hooves into the ground he pulled with all his might up the hill with more than 1,000lbs of stone trying to hold him back. When he made it to the top his muscles hurt, he was out of breath and he waited as the cart got lighter and lighter while the stone was unloaded. Then he hears the crack again. Back down to the creek they go for another load.

At the end of the day Jonah would untack the horse himself. Brush him clean of the stone dust and dirt, give him a scoop of oats and some water. He then put his hand around his neck “Good work, boy. You keep us strong. You are our foundation.” After days of tough labor an unfortunate accident happened. Tears were shed as the family remorse over the death of their favorite horse. Building the stone house was too much on him and he had to be put down. Before his death Jonah put his arms around him and said “Good work, boy. You kept us strong. You were our foundation.” As a German tradition, he decided to honor this horse and his representation of hard work, Jonah mounted his jawbone into the chimney and put the rest of his bones into the walls of the home.  He will now always be the foundation of our home.

Not only is the jawbone visible on the stone chimney, but as we took the baseboards out of the kitchen while renovating, we found multiple bones. Could it be the bones from the horse? Or in the spirit of Halloween, maybe it was a poker night gone wrong and the winner never actually left the house?