By Michael Richter
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While members of the Monongahela Area Historical Society were working to restore the Longwell House, they happened upon an unexpected, necessary expense — a new boiler.
The house’s previous boiler was not vented properly and was emitting carbon monoxide.
“So then we started thinking, well, maybe that’s what’s wrong with all of us — we all have carbon monoxide,” MAHS President Laura Magone said facetiously.
After talking it over with an HVAC expert, the MAHS had no choice but to purchase a new boiler, which came with a $7,000-plus price tag.
Magone launched a GoFundMe campaign for the Longwell House Nov. 22 to help repay the organization for its new boiler and other restorative efforts, which include the creation of a Whiskey Rebellion room, a kitchen buildout and an HVAC system.
“Money that we had allocated for something else – we suddenly found ourselves having to put into the boiler,” Magone said. “We don’t have extra money sitting around. There’s just always something that comes up.”
The historical society purchased the house in 2019 for a reduced price of $30,000 during Monongahela’s 250th anniversary. Since then, volunteers and folks who happily work inexpensively for the cause have been sprucing up the place.
“Because if somebody else had bought this house, they would have possibly not preserved it,” Magone said. “Because it’s a lot easier to just come in and rip things out and put new things up than it is to do what we’re doing to painstakingly restore this. And we have so much community support that I get emotional just talking about it and thinking about it — how much people love this project.”
When the Longwell House’s restoration is complete, two primary rooms of the exhibit will be the Monongahela and the Rebellion.
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