A group of about a dozen volunteers resumed salvage work in their ongoing efforts to restore the “Cracker House.”

Leah Swindler is the Secretary and Director of P.R. for the Cracker House Project, dedicated to restoring the house at 914 Main Street that was once occupied by Frank L. Sommer, the inventor of the saltine cracker.

“We started removing the exterior decorations on the roof, and taking off what pieces of the roof we can reach,” Swindler said. “We also opened up the interior and removed pieces of plaster, wall moldings, a marble fireplace, and doors, any salvage that we plan on reusing.”

Swindler says the exterior walls of the house are sound, but the roof is badly damaged and needs to come off.

“The roof ideally will completely come off, because it’s actually putting pressure on the brick walls, which are more important to save,” Swindler says. “Our goal is to get the roof completely off, gut the interior, and start rebuilding from scratch.”

“Optimistically I would love to have the roof off before winter, so we don’t have a snow load pulling in on the walls.”

You can support the project financially with a tax-deductible donation at gofundme.com/crackerhouse. Or find The Cracker House Project on Facebook.