It could have been just a normal crawlspace, with the access hatch
eventually covered by new flooring added later on.

When I had my new hardwood floor installed, I also had a problem about what
to do with the 2'x2' access hatch to my crawlspace. It's not a good ideay
to close it off, since crawlspace access is very convenient for electrical
and plumbing work. The floor installer suggested covering the hatch with
hardwood with two inlaid brass handles, and creating a hardwood frame around
the hatch. Everything is flat and looks pretty good. The hatch can be opened
when necessary but is otherwise unobtrusive. A cutoff wooden ladder rests on
the edge of the hatch access hole to provide "stairs" to the crawlspace
floor.

"Dorthy Fuller" wrote in message
...
Hello,

I recently was having some flooring pulled up, to have hardwood floors
installed. This is a century home without a known history. There were
multiply floor coverings along with a layer of plywood, and also a layer
of
which looked like barn siding. Underneath it all was some original
hardwood
floors which are in terrible shape. Now the for the strange part.

At the back of the main floor stairs which lead upstairs, was a cut out in
the floor near the wall. The cut out size in the floor is about 2'x2'.
The
workers lifted this section out, and lo and behold it led to part of the
basement which I didn't even know existed. The basement walls are all old
quarry stone and there isn't a way to access the room from the basement.
Anyways, there is a room down there which is approximately 14'x16'. There
are no stairs, and the ceiling height is only about 5' tall, the floor is
dirt in this room vs. someone had concreted the basement that we know. I
had asked the workers to hold up on further work until I decided whether
to
somehow have them add stairs (for whatever reason).

The workers say it might have been part of the underground railroad used
to
hide slaves. BTW, this is in Northern Ohio. Needless to say, this is
kind
of exciting and scary at the same time. What do you think this room
could've been used for?