Part of the house that I grew up in dates to the very late 1700's. The house was added on to in the early 1800's. We have never been able to identify a date though we can trace the ownership all the way back.

I joked with my Mother who passed away in July of 2015, that her idea of cleaning out the house and getting rid of unnecessary things was to die and let me do it. Unfortunately it actually came to that. Last week I was there and cleaning out things and went into a closet just inside the front door under the main stairway that had probably not seen the light of day for 40 years. After cleaning out the closet, I observed what appeared to be a date carved into the main load bearing 8" by 8" hand hewn beam (the house structure is post and beam as was common at the time).

The numbers were carved into the beam with what appeared to be a knife and were about 3 inches tall. There were three distinct number sets. The first set was 09, The second was a 1 (actually just a straight line). The third set is what is confusing me. The carved in number looked like a Roman Numeral set however the number does not correspond with a standard Roman Numeral. The set reads IIX. Of course 8 is VIII and 9 is IX so I am confused. If the builder actually meant 1808, that date would fall in exactly with what is known about the house.

Is there anyone here that can offer an opinion as to what these numbers could have meant ( 09 1 IIX ). I have photos but they would offer nothing more than what I described.

Maybe consider that all of those characters can be read upside down. Perhaps, if it was carved first and then installed.

My guess would be 09/1/08 as you suspect. The carver probably just wasn't fluent in Roman numerals.

Pretty cool find though. Colonial graffiti.

Without Googling...I remember reading that using the V as a base for adding or subtracting wasn't always done as current form. I realize Roman numbers are old, but I recall reading that somewhere. Meaning that X, XI, XII, XIII, XIIII, XV, IIIIX, IIIX, IIX, IX, X, would be a normal counting.

http://www.historichouseblog.c...it-carpenters-marks/

Interesting read here...

Beat me to it.

My aunt’s house - well, the base for the house - dates from the 1700s and each post and beam have carpenter’s marks on them

Didn't think to snap a photo?

If the carpenters marks theory is the answer you should be able to find more.

Thank you all for your insight. I do have photos but what is there is certainly not a carpenters mark according to the referenced article. The numbers appear in the middle of a beam, not near any other joist's or studs.