Thomas James Store, Interior:
Visible on the left side of this photograph are the wide shiplap boards
that composed the retail room's interior walls. They extend to a
vertical strip that, again, marks the partition wall that once divided
the retail and counting rooms.
The later (1840s-era) cipher-and-crown boards of the counting room are
visible to the right of the same strip. The storekeeper would have
secured the building at night from inside and exited through the
counting room's corner door (left rear wall), which still retains its original locks, staple, hinges, and even
the tiny leather washers under the hinge
nail heads.
The early store had a 55-inch brick chimney (a common feature of early stores)
centered against the exterior of the back wall. Presumably the
chimney was removed when the store was relocated in the 1840s. (Other
indications of the chimney can be detected today on the sill beneath the
floorboards and in the attic as well.) There is no evidence that the
store's original interior had a finish of any kind; the whitewash was
applied at a later, undetermined time.