It certainly wasn’t a safety feature so we decided to take it off in case anyone grabbed it thinking it would support them. We’ll reuse the hand rail and newel post and after looking at the stair treads, some of those as well as wood is expensive. Out of all the spindles, maybe three are original. I was going to buy a lathe and remake them myself, but it’s probably easier to pay someone to do this.
The trick to removing the spindles (thank you Derrick) is to remove the side trim and then they pop out, note the square end so the spindle doesn’t rotate.
The bottom of the newel post is pretty decayed, I may stabilize it with Rot Fix or just chop off the rotted section and replace it with new wood. The wood is possibly walnut.
Thought one of the spindles had to be original. Keep the news coming really interesting. 👍🏼