>>Coming up on Legacy List with Matt Paxton.

Matt is in the Hamptons >>Hey Matt, come inside.

>>To help a mother downsize a large family house and barn filled with heirlooms and antiques.

>>So a lot of it has sentimental value.

>>Look at this.

>>Oh, what is that?

>>Is any of this stuff yours?

>>Oh wow.

>>You don't have to keep everything to celebrate the past.

I'm Matt Paxton.

Let's do it, man.

My team of specialists, Jamie, Mike and Avi help me help people downsize their homes and settle estates.

As the largest population of baby boomers in American history transition towards retirement, they and their families face the overwhelming task of emptying their homes to move.

We help them sift through a lifetime of possessions, >>Bingo >>Heirlooms, and collectibles.

>>Oh my gosh.

>>She's gonna love that.

>>To help them find the missing family treasures that mean the most to them.

>>Oh my.

>>Jackie Robinson.

And along the way, they'll discover that the most important museum in the world may be in their family's basement.

(both gasping in awe) >>I've never seen that, that is cool looking.

>>From attics to cellars, closets to cupboards, we uncover the memories they want to preserve.

>>This is living history.

This is what we're here to find, let's go.

>>And discover the compelling personal, and often historical stories spanning generations that are their family's legacy.

>>[Female Announcer] Support for Legacy List comes from MakeSpace.

MakeSpace picks up, stores and return your items on demand.

Available for home or business.

MakeSpace provides professional movers, plus bins, blankets and a digital photo inventory.

You can find us at makespace.com.

And by ensure long-term care where we believe aging at home near friends and family is ever more possible for more people.

Learn more at insureltc.com.

AARP Virginia offering family caregiving support with prepare to care and down sizing and decluttering on line workshops designed to help organize and assess family needs Find the complete online workshop schedule At AARP.org/virtual VA The Ruth Camp Campbell Foundation (soft guitar music) >>Today I'm in beautiful East Hampton, New York.

(wind whooshing) Visiting Bess Rattray, she's a single mom with two children and her family has lived in this home for over a hundred years.

She's got a bunch of historical items that have cluttered her home, and she needs to make space for her more modern family.

(soft rock music) [Matt] Bess how are you?

>>Hey Matt, hi.

>>Good to finally meet you.

>>Great to meet you, come inside.

>>Gorgeous, this is beautiful.

>>Thank you, I'm so glad you're here.

>>Look at this house, my eyes are going everywhere.

(playful music) [Matt] This Jade is gorgeous.

>>Oh yeah, I think that my grandmother brought that back from Shanghai.

That's where she met my grandfather, was in the far East, as they said, they used to meet.

>>And I passed the paper coming in here.

>>Oh yeah.

>>And that's your family paper, right?

>>Yeah, that's the family newspaper, The East Hampton Star.

>>Is everybody a reporter or a writer and your family?

I mean, I walk in and the main feature of your house Is books.

>>We're very much a bookie family.

>>It's an old structure, how long has it been around?

>>This part of it is probably about 200 years old, I think, it was originally a silver smith shop.

[Matt] - You've come here to see your grandparents?

[Bess]- Yeah, I knew this is my grandmother's house.

We've been here about a year since we moved home.

>>Your kids are the same age as my kids.

>>Yes, and they really were not thrilled to be in this like antique shop of a house, you know?

>>Does it ever feel like your house or does it still feel like your grandma's house?

>>That is a very good question.

>>This house is filled not with just Bess' parent's stuff, but it's filled with her grandparents and great-grandparents stuff.

[Matt] This piece here, what do you know about that?

>>That is something my grandmother brought from Shanghai and we used to hide stuff in there for games when I was a kid.

>>Is any of this stuff yours?

>>Oh wow, the couch is mine (chuckling) Some of the China's is mine.

>>Well, that's the challenge of moving into a generation above's house, you never really make it yours.

>>This is true.

>>All right, well let's keep looking around.

>>Okay.

(soft guitar music) >>There's some great prints, this is beautiful.

>>This one?

>>Yeah, tell me about this weather vane.

>>It's been in this house since I was a kid, I know who made it.

That's a locally recognized artist with the last name of King.

>>You have so many cool things.

>>Really?

>>Yeah, I just love it.

I can't tell if this is cut this way or is it an old saw blade.

>>I never thought of that.

>>It's really cool.

>>Come on through.

>>So this is the kitchen.

>>Kitchen, sun porch.

>>Wow.

>>Yeah.

>>Oh my gosh.

>>Got my great-grandmother's pie plate, I actually still use that.

>>Everywhere I look, even in the kitchen, I'm finding things that are a hundred years old.

>>There's just old stuff everywhere, there's pewter mugs from colonial days.

>>A 250 year old mug.

I got one thing up here that doesn't make sense.

>>Yes.

>>What's this walkie-talkie about?

>>Yeah, I'm a volunteer EMT in the East Hampton village ambulance association, shout out.

>>Bess has her hands are full, if she's a single mom raising two kids but she's also a volunteer EMT.

>>Yeah.

>>This marble, it keeps just screaming at me.

>>Yeah, the marble actually used to be from the printing press of the newspaper, and it was brought up here I think by my parents around 1974.

My kids would be happier if I had a whole bunch of stainless steel in here you know, and it looked like other kid's houses.

>>When your family actually created the history in the town, I think it is hard to let go of items because you feel an obligation to keep their name going.

[Matt] I'm usually in houses, much messier then this.

>>Oh really?

>>You have some stuff around here but it's still just not a lot of stuff, and I'm trying to figure out how I can help you.

>>True, the stuff is hidden.

>>So, where?

>>I have an attic upstairs that I literally have not been in, in years.

I have a basement that I also, I do not go down those basement stairs.

I've got a barn outside crammed full of the contents of an entire house.

>>So what's the biggest amount of space?

>>The barn.

>>Let's go out to the barn.

>>Come on, let's go.

>>Let's do it.

(soft guitar music) >>Thank you.

>>I feel the breeze.

>>The ocean's about a half mile that way.

>>I could say, I can feel the, can you smell it?

>>Yeah, you can.

>>Lobster boat or what is this?

>>That's my brother's boat, it is a lobster boat, yeah.

>>Super cool.

>>Come inside, yikes.

>>Okay, here's the barn.

All right.

(soft guitar music) >>It's a little much in here, I don't, I get a little upset when I have to face the clutter in here.

>>I actually love barns, and when I walked into this barn, it did not let me down.

I saw stuff everywhere.

[Matt] We've got everything from moose antlers.

>>I don't know whose moose that is.

>>Okay.

>>I've got whale oil barrels, I've got surf boards.

I've got furniture from the newspaper, old office furniture.

Six or seven dressers.

>>And it just fills up, I can see it.

>>There's also an upstairs though.

>>All right, let's go up there, I'm taking it all in.

>>Be careful on these stairs, they are a little creepy, a little creaky.

>>All right, we'll definitely have to focus on safety, lots of beds.

>>Lots of old beds.

Now here's where most of it is.

It's the contents of an entire house, it's what it is.

>>Yeah, so what is this?

>>When I sold my old house to move home, all of that contents came in here.

A lot of it is antiques, so a lot of it has sentimental value.

The things that can go into the house I wanna keep in the house.

>>Okay.

>>I would donate stuff if anyone wanted it, I would give things away to people who could take good care of it.

Some of it's gotta go to the dump.

>>I see a lot of beds over here, I've seen a lot throughout the barn.

>>Yeah.

They're like more valuable than you'd wanna throw out, but who needs that many beds?

>>This stuff has been here in your house and in the barn for so long, that like I think some of it's actually kind of nice.

And so I need to get to ask some experts in to help me figure out like, and I'm not saying you're gonna be a millionaire because of this, I'm just saying it's not just family story, there's actually some, some really nice things.

>>Fantastic.

>>I know what I need to do operationally to get this job for you, but I still need to find out what the Legacy List items are.

So let's go sit down and we'll go through the Legacy List.

>>Fantastic.

(soft guitar music) >>Legacy List time, I've already seen a lot of cool stuff.

>>Yeah.

>>Like very cool stuff.

>>Thanks, so you ready to see what I got?

>>Yeah, let's do it, let's get right into it.

>>I had too many things to choose from, but number one, there are a lot of old letters in the house that I remember from when I was a kid, I'm talking like deteriorating somewhere in a drawer, civil war, whaling, I don't know what they are.

I remember reading one that was somebody's letter home from the civil war, some old relative of mine.

I don't need to keep those, but- >>You wanna digitize them and preserve them?

>>Yeah.

>>I like it.

>>There was a thing that was really cool in my childhood that I honestly don't know where it came from.

It's a native American mortar and pestle, so old that it's like petrified wood.

That would have been from local native tribes, Shinnecock or Montaukett, I think, those were the ones that were in this area, so that I don't know where the heck that is.

And that should again not be sitting in a basement somewhere I don't know.

(soft music) [Bess] The one other thing I sort of had in mind Is stuff from my grandmother's time when she lived in China, it's a little bit sentimental value.

This was her home and I remember her here.

>>What was your grandma's name?

>>Jeanette, actually Nettie.

My daughter's Nettie my grandmother was Nettie.

She traveled a lot, she was this sort of pioneering spirit very adventurous that I think sort of inspired me.

She was a very strong person, she published and edited the newspaper alone for decades.

And she wrote all the local genealogies in town, she was a very commanding presence.

>>You wouldn't name your daughter after if it wasn't something special.

>>True, this is true.

(soft music) [Bess] Another thing on my list is a large amount somewhere on this property of duck decoys and goose decoys that belong to my great-grandfather and my dad as well.

And I do not need hundreds of hunting decoys, but- >>We want a few.

>>Yeah, I want a few.

I'd love to have some in the house just to look at.

Some of them were handmade by my dad.

He was not a decoy Carver, but they were like cork on the bottom.

>>That's super cool.

(soft music) [Matt] What's the next one?

>>All right, I have an awful lot of furniture, large pieces of furniture.

Tables and dressers, particularly beds.

Some of that I think was locally manufactured by this locally famous family furniture makers called the Domini family.

>>Okay, so you want a report of what's out there, do you also want some advice on what to keep what to throw away?

>>I would love that that would be really valuable to me.

>>Okay.

And then let's be honest, one of the goals here is actually to clean the barn out as well.

>>Yes.

>>A lot of times we're here to do two things, one find items on the Legacy List, and two actually, let's make a dent in the house.

Right, you're not moving, you've just moved here in fact, we really need to downsize from the three prior generations in the home, and get some of your stuff out of the barn.

>>Exactly.

>>Okay, what else do we have?

We've got the furniture and what else?

>>I suspect there are still some relics from whaling days in there.

If there's some better place, they can go, I would love somebody to recognize them.

>>How do your kids feel about all this stuff?

>>About all the possessions?

>>Yeah.

>>I think it confuses them, It doesn't have value to them really.

They haven't seen most of it, it's dusty stuff in boxes.

It doesn't have any meaning to them at all.

>>You know, I can say, "well that's 200 years old", and my son would be like "so?"

>>So what?

>>So for me, one of the goals is to tell a few of those stories too so they can really understand a little more.

>>That would be meaningful I think for me, because my kids are adopted.

And so I'm always trying to tie together this idea of family characteristics, family values, things that we share.

>>I mean, my job is hard on this one.

I've got to find a balance between celebrating the past but making space for the future.

I think I got a pretty good list.

>>I'm excited.

Thank you for coming.

>>Oh, thank you.

(soft music) (guitar music) >>Hey Matt.

>>You guys.

>>Yeah Matt.

>>Look at that ride.

>>Are you jealous?

>>I'm very jealous, look at you guys.

>>I think it's pretty, Hampton's appropriate.

>>We working are you on vacation?

>>A little bit of both, a little bit of both.

>>Did I pay for that or did y'all pay for that.

>>Oh you definitely paid for it.

>>That's nice.

(all laughing) >>Welcome to the Hamptons man.

>>So I haven't been out here in like 20 years but I grew up coming out here.

>>From the city?

>>Yeah, we didn't have a house, but my friends had homes out here.

>>It's a cool area, unfortunately, we do have to work.

The main house is actually pretty clean, every little corner has a hundred to 200 year old stuff.

>>Okay.

>>Two young kids she adopted from Ethiopia and they are not down with living in this hundred year old house.

(all laughing) They want some modern stuff.

They would play video games and watch TV, and I ain't even seen a TV in this house.

>>So the goal is to really help her kind of integrate some of the things that she likes with what's here from her family.

>>Correct.

Celebrate the stuff that's still in the house, but make some space for new items that are her and her kids coming out of the barn.

>>How's the barn looking?

>>How any hundred year old barn would look.

It is full.

>>Okay.

>>Good news is the really old stuff's at the bottom and the really new stuff's at the top.

So Mike, you and your guys are gonna have to clean up the entire barn.

>>Okay.

>>So what's on the list this time?

>>Legacy list is pretty cool.

Once again, it's an old nautical family, so there's a lot of whaling stuff.

There are letters she said from the civil war and from the whaling ships.

And then she's got tons of furniture.

Like she really needs us to look at it, find out more about it and then help her make decisions on what to keep and what not to keep.

>>All right.

>>The coolest thing on the Legacy List is her grandma went to China when she was like 20 years old and brought a lot of stuff back.

So she wants us to find them a few of those items.

And her daughter is actually named after her grandma, so it was a really special person.

You and I are going to go to the barn, you guys can start in the basement.

>>All right.

>>All right, we'll see you guys in a little bit.

>>Good luck.

(soft guitar music) [Matt] So here's the barn over here [Mike] and the fishing boat.

>>Yeah.

>>Long, long, I mean, generations of fishermen, whalers in fact.

And I think that's actually what we're gonna hopefully find in his barn.

One of Bess' Legacy List items was some type of whaling stuff, and man, we find it in the barn.

These barrels are super cool.

>>Absolutely.

>>You know what they are?

>>I think they're blubber barrels.

>>They are blubber barrels.

Can you say that three times fast?

>>No.

>>Try it.

>>Blubber barrel (laughing) >>I can't either.

I think they would put these on the boats and her family were whale guys.

They'd go out, they would scrape the blubber off the whale and they'd put it in these barrels.

And they had to go back in Shore to pour down the oil.

That's what I love about being in a new part of the country.

For me, I find about things I had no idea about.

>>There's really old stuff, and then there's a lot of newer stuff in here.

>>Yes.

>>I've been in plenty of barns, but this one was cool because it had stuff that was probably a hundred or 150 years old in some cases.

Oh geez.

>>Oh my gosh, a moose.

>>It's Bullwinkle?

>>Yeah, one moose antler.

>>Oh dude, hold on a second, hold on.

>>What is that?

A stick?

>>That's a stick so far with some rope- >>Holy cow.

look at this.

>>All right, give me a hand so we can get this out.

Talk about a harpoon, >>A harpoon.

>>And it's made out of a tree branch.

>>So it's a metal end once you threw it, and when you pull on it, it would open up.

>>It's not coming out easily.

>>It ain't coming out, no man.

I can't imagine like tossing it on a top of a boat, rolling it down in a whale.

I mean think how close you'd have to get to get that.

I read the first 10 pages of Moby Dick, like everybody else and it was exciting, but man when you're holding that harpoon and you start to realize how intense that job is.

I could not imagine working in the wheel frame.

I mean the irony of where we are now in the Hamptons it's become such a great, amazing, very wealthy people vacation spot.

but it was not founded by those people, these are people that worked hard.

(dramatic music) >>Indigenous tribes across North America hunted whales for centuries before settlers arrived.

In the mid 16 hundreds, South Hampton becomes the site of the first colonial whaling operation.

By the mid 19th century, whaling becomes a booming business.

Whale oil is used for lamps, soap and even machine lubricants.

By the 1840s, South Hampton is a bustling Seaport and a major center of the commercial whaling industry.

Young boys, dream of being the captain of a great whaling ship.

But reality isn't so glamorous.

Whaling ships are often gone for years at a time as they stalk their prey around the globe, and some never return.

Finding a whale is one thing, killing it is a different thing entirely.

Once a whale is spotted, small boats with a dozen or so men approach.

Their goal, pierce the whales big skin with metal tit harpoons.

The struggle is Epic, angry whales attack boats flipping them over and throwing men into the water.

Many lives are lost, but the outcome of this battle is inevitable.

Between the early 1700s and late 1800s, nearly 300,000 whales are killed in North Atlantic waters.

They are hunted to near extinction.

By the 20th century, Americans find more reliable alternatives to whale oil.

Lamps burn kerosene and synthetics replace blubber.

It's the beginning of the end for the great whaling fleets operating out of seaports like South Hampton.

By the early 20th century whaling comes to an end on the East coast.

>>She asked us to do two things, find some whaling stuff, that's one of our Legacy List items, and then just clean up this barn.

And the reality is she doesn't even really know what she has.

I'm gonna keep looking over here for franchise, this is a great barn.

>>Yeah.

(soft guitar music) (gentle music) >>That one's a little loose.

>>I'm sitting right here.

>>I'm pretty sure that Avi and I were the first people to go into that basement in like 20 or 30 years.

Oh my gosh, this is like really facing my fear right now.

>>Yeah?

>>Yeah.

>>Exactly what I imagined the basement would look like.

>>I'm gonna ignore all of the spider webs.

(sighs heavily) [Jaime] It was full of cobwebs and spiders and who knows what else?

Let me know if you see something crawling on me, please.

Look at all these, it's like a stack full of records, we have to show Mike these.

>>Check this sled out.

>>Look at that, I wonder if this belonged to her grandmother maybe, I know she's looking for things from her grandmother >>Check this out.

>>You with the weapons always, always.

>>This is a knife.

>>Is there any blood on it?

>>It's red, that's impressive.

>>Do you know anything about it, like where it might've come from?

>>It's like it serves as like a bayonet, like it might've attached to the end of the weapon, I'll do a little bit more research on it and find out.

>>Okay.

>>Yeah.

(country music) >>Hang on Matt.

>>That is a- >>I see stuff up here.

>>Oh my gosh Moore, I know exactly what that is.

[Matt] Do you know what that is in your hand?

>>I mean, it's got a lot of string on it.

>>So this is a fishing net repair kit.

So a big fishing at you would almost weave it, and this has the actual netting on it.

Dude, this is like real time nautical history, and this is super cool.

(playful music) >>Um, Jaime?

>>Yeah.

>>There's a red door over here, care to take a look?

>>I guess.

>>Ladies first.

>>Are you going to come with me?

>>I tell you what?

I'll do you one better, I'll give you this.

>>This is my weapon?

Okay, but don't be far away.

It's dark.

(playful music) [Jaime] Wow, look at this.

>>Oh.

>>It's like a whole room of Legacy List items.

>>That is perfect.

>>Yeah.

>>This room had ducks everywhere.

I have never seen so many duck decoys in all my life.

>>So her grandfather made most of these, and I think her father made some of them.

>>These decoys ended up being a pretty cool find.

I mean they looked handmade, hand painted and they were on the Legacy List.

(bright music) >>Look at this Dave, come here.

There it is.

>>Wow.

>>Hand painted, huge corner cupboard.

Look at this, 1789, this is super cool.

Well, there you go, you can open it that way.

What's in there?

>>We're finding a whole lot of nothing.

>>Ironically, the doors were actually made to come off.

Look, you got people's names on there, it did have a lock.

This is just fascinating.

What a cool piece.

All right, and this is why she's got us in here, she wants us finding Legacy List items, which we did, check.

And finding our old furniture.

This is good enough.

>>There's like all these old bolts and screws over here.

>>Jamie.

>>What's up?

>>Check this out.

>>What is that?

>>It's a mortar and pestle.

I know Bess had mentioned one, >>something to use to grind up like grains and corn.

>>And I wanna believe that this is a Native American artifact.

I mean, we've got a couple of tribes in this area, the Shinnecock and the Montaukett.

I knew this area of the Hamptons has some history with Native American people, I had a pretty good feeling that it might have a Native American heritage.

This is an awesome find, this is a legacy list item.

>>I know.

>>I mean, we did it.

(soft music) >>All right, can you see those beds over there?

>>Yes.

>>All right, I believe that is from a very famous local builder.

Domini I think is the name, she's had family folk lore, heard stories.

>>Well, this would be a great opportunity to try and separate the fact from the fiction.

Bess had nice things throughout her property.

So I don't think the money or potential value of the bed was so important, but it obviously had a lot of sentimental value for her.

[Matt] But basically, this space needs to be as empty as possible.

Lots to trash, lots to keep.

In some domain, I want you guys to pull everything out and then she'll come out and say yes no, yes no.

>>Okay.

(soft music) >>Bess' goal is to find a balance between her family heirlooms and making the living space a little bit more modern for her kids.

And seeing all of the things that she has in her house, I can tell that this is going to be a real challenge.

>>All right, talk to me about living in this house.

How cool is this house?

>>Oh, well I don't like the paintings in our house, they're really creepy.

>>What about Teddy, what do you think, dude?

>>I kind of don't like the paintings like Nettie.

Creepy.

Feel like they're always staring at you.

>>Yeah.

>>Like whenever you look at them.

>>I would tell you when I walked in the house that one in the dining room was a little creepy for me too.

I like finding cool stuff in people's houses, and unfortunately, some of your mom's creepy stuff is actually really cool to adults.

Do you know why it's cool?

>>Why?

>>Cause it's super old, which is hard to believe that old would be cool.

And some of it's like so old that there's like all this history.

People think that, oh, the younger generation just doesn't want my stuff, and sometimes that's the case.

But if they know the stories, often they do wanna keep the items.

This is super cool 'cause it comes from your mom's, the old paper, they are a paper daily family.

>>Did you actually know that?

Did I ever tell you that?

Yeah.

>>Well, yeah, what do you guys know about your family story?

>>Do we actually know that much?

>>Yeah, we do.

They're like whalers, right?

>>Yeah, oh yeah.

>>Whalers, they owned the paper, they ran the papers to the writers.

They're just normal kids and they just want a place they can hang out and be themselves.

>>You know, when you walk up in the barn and then there's like an upper space, I think it'd be cool if like I could like stay in, not stay in there, but like have it like as a hangout if my friends come over.

>>So they wouldn't have to come inside and see all the creepy old things?

>>Yes.

>>Teddy I mean, invited into that?

Is he allowed to go out there as well?

>>Sure, he could have the lower half.

>>By the stairs.

>>He can hang out by the stairs.

(guitar music) [Mike] Like many people, this barn had become the catchall for the family for generations.

Now the issue was Bess needed to clear out space to make a playroom for her children, so we had to come up with a plan for getting everything out so we could sort it and get it where it needs to go.

I gotta give Bess credit.

She was downsizing, and at the same time, preserving her family's history.

And that's not always an easy thing to do.

(playful music) >>Careful.

>>All clear.

>>Not a lot of standing room.

>>Nope.

>>Per usual.

>>But a lot of work to do, per usual.

So what are we looking for again?

>>We're looking for, you know she really admired her grandmother.

>>Right.

>>And her grandmother did a lot of traveling in her younger years like 1920s, she traveled like all over the world.

So I think she wants us to find something that kind of showcases that.

Careful.

>>Yeah.

Look at this, this is like a toy in the original box.

>>Oh man.

>>It's a little tractor?

>>Steamroller >>Steamroller?

>>Yeah.

>>It was pretty clear that Bess had family heirlooms up there that she had never looked at.

Look at that old suitcase.

>>Yeah, its cool right?

>>It's still got the luggage tag on it, IDL New York.

>>Where is that?

>>Actually, this is the former name of one of the most well-known airports in New York.

>>John F Kennedy.

>>Yes, you got it.

So it used to be called Idlewild, and then after JFK was assassinated and all of these things got renamed after him, that's when they changed the airport name.

I mean, this could have been her grandmothers, right?

>>Yeah, I mean she traveled the world, so it would make sense.

>>Yeah.

That's very cool.

You know, I was expecting it to be just like a little bit cooler in this attic, and it's not.

>>Yeah, yeah.

Check this out.

How cool is that?

>>What is that?

>>It looks like a Chinese game.

>>I mean, I believe she traveled to China in her twenties, like as a single woman going halfway across the world by herself in the 1920s.

>>I mean, reminds me of you a little bit.

>>I mean, I do feel a connection to this woman who I have never met because she does have this wanderlust spirit and I think it's passed down to Bess for sure.

Bess' grandmother was a real inspiration to her.

So when we found items that belonged to her grandmother, I was really excited to show Bess.

This could be the Legacy List item.

>>Yeah.

(bright guitar music) >>Everyone I've spoken to, they know your mom, they know your grandparents.

>>(chuckling) Yeah.

>>Yeah.

>>Yeah.

>>Well it's a small town, my families ran the paper for a few generations.

So in that way, we're maybe a little more conspicuous because of the newspaper.

>>We learned a lot about Bess' family and their history in this town.

Her family still operates the local paper and it's just up the street.

So I thought we'd go down and take a look and see what we can learn about the paper.

Oh, let's check it out.

>>Yeah, come inside.

>>I'll follow you.

[Matt] This room is incredible.

>>Yeah, it's pretty cool, huh?

>>Tell me what this is here.

>>Oh, this is a friend of ours who's an artist, he does aerial photographs.

This is Gardener's Bay, the Bay I grew up on and he gets in his plane and takes these really cool pictures.

>>Very cool.

All right, let me look over here.

What is all this?

>>Well, I've got my great grandfather, you know, the last Whaler.

He actually opened this building as a pharmacy, a drug store.

I think in the teens, which is I don't really know why he went from fishing to opening a pharmacy, but he did.

And then it became the newspaper office I think in the twenties.

The paper was here since 1885.

>>Okay.

>>Yeah.

But my family wasn't involved until the twenties.

>>Okay.

(guitar music) [Matt] So I mean, this is just the regular paper.

>>Yeah, these are most recent issues from this past year.

>>A dog surfing.

>>You need a picture of a dog surfing.

But you know, the paper covers a lot of things that are really important to the local community.

Preservation, politics, If the small town papers don't do it, nobody does it you know?

>>Well, and that's why it's still successful.

>>Yeah.

>>And why you're still here.

>>Hope so, you know.

There's nobody to keep the politicians honest.

>>Straight, cool.

What do you know about the actual?

>>The ceiling is actually made of glass, it's tiles made to look like some sort of stone I believe, paint maybe?

>>It's painted glass.

>>Painted glass, yeah.

Nothing's changed the lights, the trim, the windows, everything's all original.

>>The woodwork, the sign.

>>Yeah, the paneling.

>>It's just awesome.

>>Yeah.

>>I mean, for me, I just keep coming back to, you know there's so much push for modernization, and this building just puts his foot down and says, No.

>>We're not going.

>>we're not going anywhere, and I love it.

>>Yeah, we're stuck in the thirties in here, but it's comfortable being the neighborhood paper.

>>All right, I got a lot of work to be back at the house.

>>Okay.

>>I'm going to go back and check it out, okay?

[Matt] All right, let's go.

>>Thanks for checking it out.

>>Oh, this is so cool.

>>These days, if you want to find out what's happening in the world all you have to do is turn on the television or glance at your phone, but it wasn't always that way.

There was a time, not that long ago, when people got their news by reading the newspaper.

The first colonial paper in America was printed in 1690, it's name, public occurrences both Bourne and domestic.

The Boston newspaper, which was really nothing more than a pamphlet was shut down by the British, after only one edition.

But there was no stopping the presses.

By the 1770s, papers began printing essays that fanned the flames of revolution.

One of the first to realize the power of the press, none other than founding father Ben Franklin.

Who's Pennsylvania Gazette became one of the most successful papers of the colonies.

By 1810, there were nearly a thousand papers being printed in the United States, and not all of them are in big cities.

Thanks to the first amendments and faster printing presses, newspaper's spring up across the nation.

Local papers become vital parts of their community giving platforms to prominent abolitionists and women's suffrage leaders.

Newspapers remained a vital source of news and information throughout the 20th century.

They kept readers up to date on important world events and their investigative reporting even brought down a president.

Today, with prints advertising revenue down, and more people getting their news from social media, newspapers across the country are fighting for their very existence.

Will they survive?

Read all about it in your local paper.

(guitar music) >>This one was a challenging one because usually in the barn there's stuff people don't want, but with Bess' family, sometimes they had furniture that was 200 years old and actually pretty valuable.

So we had to be really careful not to just toss a bunch of stuff.

>>It's really satisfying to help someone like Bess get started on this process.

We're not only helping her, but we're helping her kids.

(bright music) [Jaime] I mean, your house is packed with really cool stuff.

>>Thanks.

>>And I love this room in particular, it just feels very like warm and inviting.

>>Yeah, dining room.

When I was a kid, we ate here every night.

Now, not quite so often.

It's a little too formal for my kids, you know?

>>And I wanted to ask you, I love this China that you have here on display.

>>Aww, thank you.

Somebody gave that to my grandmother, like, I don't know, not quite a hundred years ago.

>>Yeah.

It's just beautiful, it's so colorful.

While there's also something else that's catching my eye in this room.

Think it might be like the elephant in the room but this painting over here.

>>Yeah.

>>One thing that really caught my eye was a painting of a little boy on the wall in the dining room.

A lot of people thought it was creepy but I thought it was kind of charming.

The eyes follow you wherever you are in the room, or is it just me?

>>It's not me, but my children say that.

My son is super creeped out by this painting?

This came out of a house nearby that was owned by a friend of my grandmother, a woman named Adley Worthington.

One of the local ghost stories was that poor old Adley is still in the house.

And the funny thing is the Hollywood actress Renee Zellweger, she owned that house for quite a while.

>>Really?

>>She doesn't own it anymore though, but I don't know if anyone ever told her about Adley's ghost but for few generations there, that was the story.

(playful music) >>I have not spent a lot of time in this region of America, so it was really awesome to go and visit the grounds of the East Hampton Historical Society with Richard barons.

And he could tell me all about this region and the people that came from it.

We're at the Rattray's house, which I think you know that family.

>>Oh yeah.

>>And we're sorting through some incredible history, but I kind of would just wanna step back and learn more about the town first.

>>Sure, East Hampton, the word ham In old English is pasture.

And that's the reason that the colonists came here to settle, they were after pasture land.

Because they were mostly farmers, there really wasn't any property for sale in England.

So this was just sitting here waiting for people to bring cattle to and start farming.

By the late 1600s, people were realizing that whales were going to ground on the beaches.

And that these whales had whale oil, obviously.

>>I mean, we've been going through the Rattray barn and the house, and we found a ton of information on the whaling industry.

>>Well, the Edwards family, which is what is the basis of the Rattrays', everybody out here was into everything.

I mean, they were into land, they were buying lots in Montauk, then renting those lots to other farmers so they could graze their cattle.

As time went on, the Edwards by 1825 were some of the more important whalers out here.

In the 1870s and 80s, when they would have celebrations and parades, they would bring the Edwards whale boat out, put it on wheels and all the old whaling captains and the whalers would be there with their harpoons and people would applaud, they were the rock stars.

>>I was really eager to meet with Richard, to hear a little bit more about the history of this area, but also I want to find out a little bit more about this mortar and pestle.

We were working in the Rattray house in the basement, and I think I came across what I believe to be a Native American artifact.

>>This is definitely Native American.

This is definitely prehistoric.

>>Pre historic?

>>Probably of course, Native American written history isn't very long, so pre historic is a little different.

but my guess is that this is around 1800.

>>Wow.

>>This is about a thousand (background music drowns the speaker) And the likelihood that it was used for grinding corn by the local Montauketts is near to 99% so.

>>Probably one of the really interesting items in this house is the folding bed.

Now this is rote, so it would be comfortable, it wouldn't be a hard sleep.

And this is something that Bess Rattray's mother gave us, and it's the bed key.

It's used to tighten the keys and then you you're good for another week.

And then it's gonna have to be tightened up again.

>>There's actually a lot of beds over at Bess' house, and she wants to know a lot more about them.

Would you mind going over and checking them out?

>>Sure.

(soft guitar music) >>Since the Dawn of humanity, one thing has been certain.

There's nothing like a good night's sleep.

The oldest known beds were discovered in a South African cave that dates back nearly 200,000 years.

Scientists speculate that early humans arranged piles of grass on the cave floor.

Researchers also found Ash beneath the grass bedding, which may have been used as an insect repellent.

The next advancement in bed design appears around 3,200 BCE in Skara Brae, a neolithic village off the coast of Scotland.

Beds resembling stone boxes surrounded a central hearth to keep sleepers warm.

Around the same time, Egyptians come up with a revolutionary idea, add wooden legs to beds in order to keep them off the hard ground and away from snakes and rodents.

Beds are also a sign of social status.

For middle aged peasants, bedtime men hitting the hay, literally.

They would sleep on a bag of hay on the floor with a coarse wool blanket wrapped around them.

Rich Nobles on the other hand, snoozed in four poster beds on mattresses filled with goose down feathers.

It was the best sleep money could buy.

Over the years, bed design remained relatively unchanged.

Until the late 19th century, when German inventor Heinrich Westfall introduces the first modern spring mattress.

Suddenly, people don't have to be rich to get a good night's sleep.

Today, beds come in a variety of shapes and sizes.

From bunk, to water, to sleep number.

There's a bed to suit just about everyone, which is a good thing because the average person will spend a third of their life asleep.

>>Always interesting to see what comes out of a barn >>To save time, I had Mike bring all the items out of the barn and lay them out so that Richard could walk through and analyze all the local furniture.

[Matt] We got lots of beds.

>>This is what's often called a spool bed, with these turnings which are often called spool turnings because they look like spools.

This would have been early factory furniture, it's a Victorian piece of furniture but not terribly important piece of furniture.

>>All right, I'm gonna keep walking, I love this.

>>This is a low post bed.

Does have its original headboard.

>>And is this for the ropes?

>>Yup.

And there's two ways of doing the ropes, there's one just drilling through, and then there's one to have the pegs.

The pegs usually are a sign of a slightly better cabinet maker, 1810, 1820, somewhere in that neighborhood and would have been painted most likely, or stained to look like mahogany or painted red, to look like cherry which makes it all in the less desirable.

>>With most families that we help, they've heard that some of their furniture is valuable, and that's not always the case.

But with Bess' family, she had been told that some of the beds in the barn were made by the Domini family.

>>Now this is really a pretty important bed.

>>Okay.

>>It doesn't appear to have been sown down, these have been replaced, these normally would have had holes in them for the ropes, for the spinning.

But the turning on it, is turning that was made by one of our most famous local cabinet makers and furniture makers of Daniel Domini the fifth, probably made about 1800.

The tools are at winter tour, his day books are winter tour.

Some of his day books are here at the library.

You might find the Edwards listed there, we might be able to find that in 1802, they bought a bed.

>>Okay.

>>And it easily could be this one.

Beautiful little acorns up here, there's little holes here.

'Cause when this bed was set up, it had an arched tester, which was then covered with fabric.

>>Okay.

>>And then would have curtains all the way around it.

>>Okay, so the family lore is correct, that is a Domini bed?

>>It's a Domini bed, It's probably maple, which turns beautifully.

And these turnings are interesting because this turning helps us identify it.

Here, this is a form that's found often in their Campbell standards and the template survives for this, so that's how we figure out who made it.

>>Okay, yeah.

>>It's really nice when the family thinks it's Domini but it doesn't really answer the question.

>>But we know that it is?

>>This one is.

>>The family doesn't really want to keep the bed, I think they just want to donate.

Is that something that's even donatable?

>>There's going to be a Domini museum, and so this would be a perfect thing for the Domini Museum.

>>Okay, that'd be great.

I know the family would love that.

>>Yeah.

(bright music) >>As dedicated as Bess is to preserving her family's history, I was a little nervous she wouldn't get excited when she saw an empty barn.

Remember it was full.

>>Okay.

>>But man, she was excited.

>>Whoa.

>>Okay.

>>Whoa.

>>What now, what do you think?

>>We got some space.

>>Yeah, I can't believe it's pretty tidy in here.

>>I mean, we've still kept a lot.

We did reorganize some of the stuff over there, all your beds are over there.

>>I love it.

>>We really did all of this just to make space so that we could get upstairs to do the rest.

>>I can imagine.

>>This room was totally full.

>>Whoa.

Wow.

It's about three times the size I thought it was.

>>Yeah, I really think it's a cool place for the kids.

>>You know, they could have a TV up here, they can, I can get like some soft furniture up here.

>>Yeah, I would put a couch, some bean bags, a nice rug.

>>Yeah.

>>All right.

We're now gonna go inside and go through the Legacy List, and I got a few special things for you at the end of the list.

>>I am thrilled, thank you, this is fantastic.

>>All right, let's go in the house and we'll check it out.

(soft music) [Matt] We always get to find the Legacy List items, and this one was a little different.

Where I wanted to kind of help you find a way to tell your family story to your children.

This one Avi found, it was the Native American mortar and pestle.

[Bess] - I have not seen that in an extremely long time.

[Matt] - This is really cool.

I learned a lot about the Native American tribes that were here, but one thing was unique about this, >>What's that?

>>This is not a matching set.

>>Oh no kidding?

>>This is about 200 years old, Native to the region.

>>Dang, really?

>>Yeah.

This is about 1500 to 2000 years old.

>>What?

>>So they would have been passed down from their families, and they would be rolled as both a rolling pin and a crusher.

>>Really?

>>Yeah, it's really cool.

>>That's incredible.

>>For me, it was really cool because it's been in your family for a long time and it really starts to set the tone of the respect to people that used this land.

And your family didn't just own this land, they really did respect it and care for it.

>>True.

>>They saved some things from way, way before colonization.

>>Well, this is true, there's value in having kept it.

>>And we did find the duck decoys.

And who made these?

>>I think this is made by my dad.

>>Okay.

Yup, there it is.

>>That's my dad Evert Tennet Rattray.

>>Okay.

>>He would have made it as a teenager I think.

>>Now these are a little on the nicer side.

>>Oh yeah.

This, you can see like the awkward shape.

You know, my dad was not a decoy Carver.

This was like a home made thing, but it's very sweet to see the head made like that at home, you know?

>>You don't have a lot of stuff of your dad's.

>>No, I don't actually, I do not have a lot of stuff of my dad's.

>>So how does this make you feel?

>>It's touching, it's very touching.

I mean, imagine a teenager sitting at home working on this carefully, you know?

>>There's a theme of your family doing what is now appreciated, they always did it.

>>It does feel good to have been on the right side of preservation impulse.

>>Preservation, I like that, okay.

You asked me about the furniture in the barn.

>>Yeah, my giant piles.

>>So you asked me of the Domini bed, right?

There was one bad out there that is a Domini.

>>Yay.

>>They were making a Domini museum, that should definitely be one of the- >>Really?

I would be thrilled for it.

>>One thing I've loved doing is surprising people with items I find in their home.

That's his relatives made that easy, they hid a lot of stuff throughout this house that she had never seen before.

I found this picture upstairs.

>>I think that's my great grandfather EJ.

What a great photo, I have never seen this before.

>>So I'm gonna wear gloves, I'm gonna have you wear them for the rest of this as well, because we've got some important documents coming.

One nice thing about living in a house this old, is other people put things away and you find them later generations.

And that happened for us.

>>Whoa, what is, this?

>>This, it blew me away, This basically the records of your home.

>>What?

No.

>>This is amazing.

>>No way.

>>Oh yeah.

So we're going to be really careful with this.

>>You're joking, where was this?

>>This is all upstairs.

>>Holy crow.

>>Documents, all the way, I don't want to open them all because we won't be careful, but this is actually taking root early 1700s.

>>No way.

>>In this time, this old tin is filled with doc and I didn't go all the way down, 'cause I didn't want to mess It up.

>>How have I never seen this?

This is completely nuts.

>>Buried up in the attic.

It follows all the land that your family obtained.

>>Oh my God.

>>If you're going to get into serious genealogy, this is where you're gonna wanna start.

This box takes us from way before these guys.

You and I learned a lot about your great-grandfather and all the amazing things he did with whaling and whatnot.

But we're going 150 years before that, it's all in this tiny box.

>>This is amazing.

1,798, it's dated, wow.

>>To have documentation of your family in the 1700s Is pretty special.

>>Yeah, this is beautiful.

The handwriting >>Your family had a theme, in whatever they did they decided to be the best at it.

>>Yeah.

>>It's awesome.

There was land ownership, whether it was running a pharmacy whether it was running the paper, for any good story, there is a protagonist.

(Bess chuckling) You asked me to find some stuff from your grandma.

>>Yeah.

>>One of the really cool things about my job is I get to learn a lot about families and the people before them.

And this was definitely the case with Bess' grandmother.

She was a fascinating woman and I can see why she named her daughter after the person she loved so much.

Tell me about her.

>>She was tall and formidable and prideful and incredibly hardworking and loved to travel more than anything else >>She traveled a lot.

>>She did, yeah.

>>You asked us to find something from China.

>>What is this?

>>This is Mahjong.

>>Oh cool.

>>A bit complicated, she would've brought this with her.

>>Really?

Oh my gosh really?

>>I've seen it in movies, I don't know how to play it.

This is an incredible set.

>>It's popular in the twenties right?

>>She was everything you said.

You talked about your grandma being an author.

>>Yeah, cool.

>>Who did she write this book with?

>>Her dad.

It's about in shore whaling right in the surf.

You know, they would go right to the surf in the winter in those small boats.

>>We found another book.

>>Oh yes.

Ooh, what a beauty.

>>Did she write the whole thing?

>>She wrote the whole thing.

>>Okay, well this is just a second edition, so she updated it.

But this is what I loved about her.

If you notice in the sleeve notes, >>Yeah.

>>All the proceeds go to the library.

>>Oh do they?

>>Now here was my favorite part of all of her writings.

>>Really?

>>This was an article about this book in the New Yorker, and your grandma to the author sent back editor's notes.

>>She did not.

>>check this out, this is all over edited.

>>She wrote to correct The New Yorker, go!

>>She corrected The New Yorker about her own book.

[Matt] How cool is that?

>>And saved a copy.

>>And saved a copy.

Formidable was the word you used.

>>Formidable for sure.

>>So the last item on the Legacy List was whaling stuff.

>>Yeah.

>>And you had asked for letters from the civil war and whaling.

We did find some whaling letters.

Now, I'm not gonna pull them all out, I've got a few over here I'm going to bring up, but this really really blew my mind.

>>Purse of some kind.

>>It's a little purse and I'm gonna hold off on that.

We found some incredible whaling stuff.

(Bess chuckling) Now I know you've had some items that from the whaling, they went to the whaling museum- >>Yeah.

>>These were just amazing.

These are the actual tools to fix the nets, I think that most of your good stuff from the barn and actually went >>To the Marine museum, yeah.

>>To the marine museum.

[Matt] Still pretty cool.

>>Yeah, this is pretty cool.

[Bess] What is this?

>>This is not actually for whaling, this is just for in shore fishing.

Stab 'em and grab 'em the before now.

Your family was well into established in the whaling industry.

And the letters we were able to find really were spectacular.

>>Ooh.

>>Okay?

[Matt] Is this letter.

>>What is that?

>>This guy is talking about getting a tripod.

There's an entire chapter in Moby Dick about tripods and the tripod was kind of the next step.

>>Like industrial style?

>>Industrial style.

It's written almost from an entrepreneurial perspective.

They were discussing how they were gonna expand and grow their business.

They're modernizing their business in 1834.

Your family continued to push and learn and work hard but modernize everything they did whether it was- >>Modernize.

>>A pharmacy, you know what I mean?

You see where I'm going now?

>>I do, I see where you're going.

>>All right.

Here's my last piece of modernization.

>>[Bess } Okay.

>>What'd they do after the whales?

They had a pharmacy and this is the ledger of the pharmacy.

>>Ooh, neat.

>>County, your family always modernized.

We found hundreds of years of documentation of Bess' family being involved in this town from before the whale trade to during the whale trade and all the way to now, they even own the local paper.

I mean, her family has deep roots in this town.

So what I've really loved about this time here, on the Island with you and your family is it was a good reminder that, you know, you don't have to keep everything to celebrate the past.

What did we need to modernize?

We needed to clear out some space for your kids >>Yes.

>>Which we did.

>>I'm gonna encourage you to think about getting rid of that painting, 'cause the kids all staring at them like.

>>Yes, thank you so much.

>>It has been awesome and we just, we really appreciate you bringing us here.

>>I'm truly genuinely grateful really from the bottom of my heart, it's really meaningful for us, it really is.

(soft music) [Matt] My job is extremely satisfying, we know we made a difference here.

Her children are going to have a space that they feel comfortable in now.

And I think Bess actually has more knowledge of some of her family history.

>>Wow, it's so big.

>>Right?

>>Having a lot of stuff is one thing, but if you can't live in your house and your kids can't have their own space, what's the point?

>>And we can put up whatever artwork you want, whatever posters you want.

>>I think the work that we did will really go a long way.

I think the kids ultimately will feel more comfortable living in their house.

>>So if we redecorated this and made it however you want it modern.

Games, TV, couch and bag chair, you would actually bring friends over here.

>>Yeah.

>>This wasn't the Hamptons experience that I expected, but at the end of the day, it was one that I could feel really good about.

>>[Female Announcer] Support for Legacy List comes from MakeSpace.

MakeSpace picks up, stores and return your items on demand.

Available for home or business.

MakeSpace provides professional movers, plus bins, blankets and a digital photo inventory.

You can find us at makespace.com.

And by ensure long-term care where we believe aging at home near friends and family is ever more possible for more people.

Learn more at insureltc.com.

AARP Virginia offering family caregiving support with prepare to care and down sizing and decluttering on line workshops designed to help organize and assess family needs Find the complete online workshop schedule At AARP.org/virtual VA The Ruth Camp Campbell Foundation (soft guitar music) >>Visit MyLegacyList.com to learn more about the tips, tools, and professionals to help make your own big life move easy.

Learn more about this episode or submit your to be featured on the show at MyLegacyList.com (soft music)