The garret or, as we know it, the attic was used in many homes as the boys' room. When a boy became too old for the trundle bed, around six years old, he was sent to sleep in the garret. There he was allowed to write or carve on the walls and to work out his "savage tendencies." It was thought this would enable him to behave when he was downstairs with the rest of the family. When he was around 15 years old, he was believed enough in control of his actions that he could have a bedroom in the same part of the house as everyone else.

Since Ezekiel was sickly, he probably never slept in the garret and there is no interesting graffiti to explore. Apparently, the garret was used for storage, with the exception of a possible few months in 1825 when it may have served as the overseer's living quarters while a cabin was being built for him. It was probably not the most comfortable of quarters, since it is unheated and neither of the two fireplace chimneys pass through it.

A visit to the garret does allow you to see some of the construction details of the house.

To the right is a photograph of the rafters and ridge pole. If you enlarge the picture by clicking on it, you can see the type of wooden pegs that hold the entire frame of the house together. In fact, the only nails in the house's construction are those that hold the clapboards to the frame.

If you look at the un-floored portion of the garret, you can see the tops of the second floor walls. Notice that they are only a single board thick, as are all walls upstairs. The boards run vertically and are left uneven at the tops.

The house is very carefully and skillfully constructed. If it had not been, it could not have lasted through the earthquake of 1887 and the years of abandonment.