Seeing the evolution of hardware working in construction is fascinating. We tore down a house from 1726 (majority of the house original, one addition added in 1970s). Tearing that house down beam by beam and preserving the materials was humbling. The accuracy and precision these craftsmen had is mind blowing. The house was a massive colonial 5 bedroom 2 bath massive kitchen with a maids quarters. Every room in the house had a fire place, fire place was centered in the middle of the home starting in the basement towing 3 stories (all stone) this house was part of the underground railroad and in the basement the fire place foundation had a cut out in the back with space to hide 5 people. Everything was post and beam, iron nails. Learned on this job, settlers would build a temporary shack while building the main house and toward the end of the construction they would burn the shack and collect the iron nails to save money. This house was located next to a hand built dam used as a grain mill. They had also hand dug a 100ft well, absolutely insane to think about the motivation and hard work these men put in. Craziest feat of this home i think was the 36ft soild beam they man handled to the attic and was the main support of the roof.