Below is the pair of house photos for House #56, immediately to the west of today's house # 55. Most instructive is the first (oldest) photo of House #56 from early in the century. There are two dwellings sharing a common wall. It seems obvious now that it was the old half-timbered house adjacent to House 56 that burned. The fire was likely to have damaged both houses. The reconstruction that occurred in 1928 enlarged House #56 and relocated House #55, the old Hasselbacher House, further east to its present location. Revisitation of the 1828 map and better understanding of its legend is consistent with a habitable building immediately adjacent to House #56, and that there were only "non-inhabited" buildings on what is now the site of House #55. The reason for all this perhaps tedious detail is the obvious conclusion that the old half-timbered house seen adjacent to House #56 is very likely the very house in which Peter the Hazelbaker was born. That is a very exciting prospect even to me who is not his descendant!

I will send these photo to my friends in Germany for their estimate of the age of the house. It looks to me that it could easily date to the 1700s. I have asked my friends in Münchsteinach if there are any other old photos available that will give a better view of the old house. So far none have turned up, but our interest is known and perhaps someday we will get lucky.

A few years ago I met a man living in house #56 who even invited me inside. He told me that one of the girls standing in front in the old photo of his house was his mother. The young man standing at the right was born in 1908 allowing an estimated date of the photo of the Hasselbacher house of about 1920, some 7 years before it burned.

After the old Hasselbacher House burned down, it was rebuilt further to the east, and the neighboring House #56 was enlarged to include some of the area formerly occupied by House #55. It is suspected locally that the small garden adjacent to House #56 outlines the foundation of the old Hasselbacher House.

Peter's brother Balthasar ended his days living in house #76.  I think a case could be made that this half-timbered house is of the same vintage as House #55. (This view of #76 is from the Neustädter Str.))

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