Name/Title
Nellie Kimball house remainsEntry/Object ID
2023.50.78Scope and Content
Discovery on the Lagoon
A team from the [2000 "Lost and Found"] exhibition committee out taking pictures for use in this summer's exhibit on ghost towns encountered near the site of old Fishtown, a foundation, what looked like a stone floor, and a fieldstone well. It looked too new to be part of Fishtown in the 1880s so a query was sent to Norm Deam, whose family has owned the nearby lighthouse since 1936 He sent a couple of old pictures along with this reply:
"Mrs. Nellie Kimball, descendant of the piano family, lived there when I was a boy. I delivered old newspapers to her and charged her 5 cents. She was seclusive, but a friend of my parents. She had a parrot. The stones you see were the patio just to the east of her house and there was a stone walkway leading southeast to her lagoon dock which was a roofed pavilion with white railing from which she fed the bluegills. She may have had a canoe.
We cleared off the sand and overgrowth about 10 years ago and found a cement stone with a date that may have been 1932 or 1936. The patio must have been built after the house. Mrs. Kimball was a great gardener and planted all around her patio and house, especially at the south entrance and along her stepping stones to the lagoon. In the summertime, at ground level, bushes and trees made it hard to see her house.
The round structure was an outside well that had a hand pump. The stones probably came from between the pilings across from the house. I don't think it was part of Fishtown. Her cottage was a one story rectangle running east-west with a large room in front on the south side and a parallel back room which was a kitchen and porch. There were additions on both ends and at least one was a bedroom. She had an outhouse to the north. After Mrs. Kimball stopped coming about 1941, several guests of my parents stayed there during the summer. The old Kimball cottage was destroyed in the April, 1956 tornado that leveled the lighthouse."
The old pictures of Fishtown show buildings and a dock in about the same position as the Kimball cottage. It would not be unlikely that the well and parts of the foundation and dock have been recycled from the previous use by fishermen.Collection
SDHS NL Inserts, Buildings: LostCataloged By
Winthers, SallyAcquisition
Accession
2023.50Acquisition Method
Found in CollectionNotes
SDHS Newsletter insert page 161Location
* Untyped Location
Digital data in CatalogItRelationships
Related Person or Organization
Person or Organization
Old Harbor/Channel piers pre-1906/Ox-Bow Lagoon, FishtownGeneral Notes
Note
This information was OCR text scanned from SDHS newsletter supplements. Binders of original paper copies are in the SDHC reference library.Create Date
November 24, 2023Update Date
August 5, 2025
