The Whitehall Historical Preservation Society is working to restore the Grim Homestead on Mickley Road.

Upon entering, the first thing seen is a huge walk-in-size fireplace with the doors closed.

Society President Robert Miller said the group has all the fireplace cookware.

A beehive oven outside had to be torn off the house. The society plans to replace it. A window and door removed from the room being used as an office will also be restored.

The Peter Grim Home was built in 1834. Out back is a brick smokehouse and a summer kitchen-wash house combination.

In the dining room, a table is set with 90-year-old English dishes, part of a service for 12 that Miller bought for $28 at a flea market. It is set off with silverware from the 1920s. Because there was always pickles and mustard on a table, Miller bought a mustard jar and is looking for a pickle castor.

A dinner may have included a pot roast with potatoes, homemade applesauce, string beans, beets and lettuce with hot bacon dressing.

According to the lease from Whitehall Township, the society has to open the house to small group meetings.

"We are getting ready for Christmas," said Miller. "It will be the second weekend in December. The exact time will be advertised. The ladies will be making homemade decorations."

The parlor has more chairs than what would have been there when the house was occupied. Most of them are from the 1860s era. A Civil War officer's cot is complete with a chamber pot under it. Miller said they were donated.

Donations are a large part of restoring the house.

"We've been working on it about 25 years," said Miller.

Shelves of books, many in German, sit in a small cabinet attached to the fireplace where they would have been kept dry. Frank Lacko rebuilt the fireplace with a new mantel.

The steps will be repainted in white which made it easier to see when carrying a candle as the only source of light. A carpet, not yet laid, is from an old hotel in Maine.

Although there were fireplaces in the bedrooms, each had an iron stove. The middle bedroom is now a library open to visitors. Notebooks hold materials about each of the villages in Whitehall Township.

"We have a fantastic relationship with the township," said Miller.

A trunk room held clothing in trunks and clothes hanging on the walls because there were no closets in the rooms. It has been transformed into a kitchen for the people working at the house.

The archives is now in what had been the housekeeper's room.

The Grim Homestead is on the National Register of Historic Places.