The Daily Southerner, Tarboro, NC

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  • Benjamin Curran (left), historic preservation instructor at Edgecombe Community College, one of his students Maggie Gregg, and local builder Jason Ecker worked together to build the encasing of the cistern at the Blount-Bridgers House in Tarboro. The cistern, which stores rainwater, is the only functioning cistern in Edgecombe County. (Courtesy photo)

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  • The newly-installed cistern at the Blount-Bridgers House in Tarboro holds 1,100 gallons of water. A sprinkler system uses the water from the cistern to irrigate the perennial garden on the property. (Staff photo/Miranda Baines)

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July 12, 2012

Blount-Bridgers cistern: Historic amenity uses modern technology

OLD TECHNOLOGY REVIVED

Staff Writer MIRANDA BAINES

TARBORO — Rainwater from the roof of the Blount-Bridgers House poured into the 1,100-gallon cistern beside the house’s back porch Wednesday morning.

“It’ll be all filled up by the end of today,” said Benjamin Curran, as he tested out the sprinkler system that irrigates the property’s perennial garden with water from the cistern. Curran, historic preservation instructor at Edgecombe Community College (ECC), worked with a local builder, Jason Ecker, to design the cistern.

“It’s the only water collection cistern that’s actually working in Edgecombe County,” said Jenny Filbrun, project coordinator and member of the “Weekly Weeders” garden club at the Blount-Bridgers House.

The Natural Resource Conservation Service provided the majority of the funding for the project, The Town of Tarboro installed the cistern, and faculty and students in the ECC historic preservation program built the encasing for the cistern to make it appear historically authentic and aesthetically attractive.

“It was a good community project,” said Filbrun.

Before indoor plumbing, cisterns were “one of the most convenient and consistent ways of storing water,” said Curran, because they capitalize on a free natural resource – rainwater runoff from the roof of a house.

“Cisterns were quite prolific throughout rural agrarian areas,” said Curran. “They were a very important part of the homestead landscape.”

“Most of the historic homes in this area would’ve had a cistern,” said Carol Banks, house manager at the Blount-Bridgers House. She said the Matthewson House on Church Street was the first home in Tarboro to have a cistern with a force pump in the kitchen. The home was built by George Matthewson, a local brick maker, circa 1860. The current cistern at the Blount-Bridgers House is located in close proximity to the house’s original cistern, which was discovered in an archaeological dig in the 1980’s.

The cistern at the Blount-Bridgers House is loosely modeled after the working cistern at the Grimesland Plantation in Pitt County. The actual cistern is made of plastic. The encasing for the cistern took Curran and Ecker approximately four days to construct, with the help of four ECC students enrolled in a roofing class. The cistern is covered with a double dome to give it a rounded shape, mortar, and a whitewash finish. Whitewash is made from a mix of lime and water created by baking down oyster shells, Curran explained. Local oyster shells were used in the process of making the cistern’s whitewash finish.

“The composition would’ve been very similar to what you would’ve found here in the 1700’s and 1800’s,” said Curran. He said the whitewash is also anti-microbial, which is one of the main reasons why it was used for cisterns. Historically, cisterns were used for a variety of household purposes, including supplying drinking water.

The cistern at the Blount-Bridgers House is a  “historic amenity while using modern technology,” as Curran says. Certainly for the Weekly Weeders garden club, the cistern is the best of both worlds; it has a sprinkler system in place to irrigate the garden. Candis Owens, chair of the Weekly Weeders garden committee, said irrigating the garden was difficult before the installation of the cistern/ sprinkler system. She called the new cistern and sprinkler system “heavenly.”

    “It reduces our dependence on town water,” said Owens. “It’s just being a good steward of our resources.”

     In addition, the cistern is a major cost-saving measure for the Weekly Weeders garden club and the water from the cistern is better for the plants because it is “just straight rainwater” that has not been treated with chemicals, said Filbrun. She said she would eventually like to see another cistern at the other corner of the house.

 

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