If I may ...

[PogueMahone]

If I may bring your attention to the linked image from the December 24, 1864, Harper's Weekly, and ask that you look at the house depicted in the sketch at bottom.

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoun...ebel-women.htm

It appears to be a simple one room cabin with a stick/mud chimney.

In a prior thread I started about portable houses used at events, some questioned the documentation of these simple one room houses. Allowing for some artistic license, I think this is a start.

I am surprised by the stick/mud chimney though. I suspect this is meant to interpret a refugee shack. Such temporary construction methods might be used for such. I've never seen outside a military winter quarters.

[Hank Trent]

Re: If I may ...

I was going to post on that thread, when it got locked down, that vernacular architecture of first settlements and/or the smallest homes of a region is a topic that actually has a lot of folks studying it. What reenactors want to do or, practically speaking, can do with the historic knowledge is a separate topic. But people are out there who know these things, and a prairie sod house vs. a weight-pole-roof log cabin vs. a railroad worker's shanty vs. a western log or plank house, will be immediately recognizable in and out of their context, as much as the details of clothes or accoutrements are to most reenactors here.

Yes, the Harper's image is of course a classic vernacular style of house, typical of pioneer settlements or temporary housing, but still around well into the late 19th century. I like the extra touch of the logs slanted over the doorway, presumably to keep rainwater from dripping on people when they went in and out, and also the detail that the shingles on the peak are overlapped the right way for the prevailing wind.

For just a few other examples in images, scroll down here to the image captioned "Early School & Church House." Same kind of building as in Harper's. The description on that page says it has a weight pole roof, which was also a typical style of roof for this kind of home, but neither that illustration nor Harper's actually has a weight pole roof; the shingles are nailed or pegged on. Here's the same basic style, with a weight pole roof. Here's a similar home, photographed long after it had passed its normal useful life.

It's a style of construction that's been documented and studied a lot, even though virtually none of the originals remain standing today. Around the mid 19th century, when the old pioneers were aging, there was a spate of articles reminiscing about the first settlement of various places in the east around 1800ish, usually with a description of how the author's first home was built.

So even though there wasn't much written that was truly contemporary with the heyday of these homes, there's a fair amount written later by those who built them. Although few remain, we know the details of how they were built, and it's easy to tell an imitation from an actual construction.

I'm certainly not saying it's practical or necessary to make a portable reenacting house with the same attention to detail as reproduction trousers, for example. Imagination is necessary in reenacting, but let's not fool ourselves that a pair of modern pants with the back pockets ripped off really is the same as a pair of pants made from scratch the way pants were made in the 1860s.

I'm not sure what's too obviously elementary and what's too obscure, but I'd like to see a thread on the historic construction of these types of houses, if anyone's interested. Also, I'm curious where they've been documented as still standing in the 1860s and still lived in, rather than used as corncribs or whatever. Typically--not always of course--they were cheap first homes, made of the timber that was being cleared, meant to last a few years until a hewed log or frame home could be constructed. So I'm curious about the who, where and what of their occupants in the 1860s, especially in long-settled areas.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[jake.koch]

Re: If I may ...

If you take a look through the Tennessee Civil War Questionaires done in the (I believe) 1920s, one of the questions is about the type of home the soldiers grew up in. If you look at the responses from East Tennessee, the majority of soldiers were still living in one and two room log cabins.

From other things that I have read, a second room could be composed of adding a lean-to onto the cabin.

While I don't have experience with constructing the type of buildings mentioned in the previous thread on this subject, adding some sort of lean-to onto the building might help you create a more substantial dwelling, one that may look a little older since there is an addition to it.

I'm just thinking out loud here, hopefully it helps.

[Stonewall_Greyfox]

Re: If I may ...

Heck...for the poor and rural communities of Virginia, that simple one-room style house lasted well into the 20th century era as well.

Throughout rural Virginia, one can still find remnants of a few of these structures...and if you're lucky possibly even still come across a few in-tact buildings of this style as well. While maybe not the "most-common" style dwelling in the 19th century...still very well represented.

Paul B.

[PogueMahone]

Re: If I may ...

I had never heard the term "weight pole" before, so I had to look it up. For anyone else with this knowledge deficiency: Page 30 and 31 of the History of Huron County, Ohio, gives a good description of the construction of a "weight pole house".

http://books.google.com/books?id=qDw...num=8#PPA30,M1

There is a suspension of disbelief required for reenacting. We don't use bullets or shrapnel, we don't all have lice, breastworks are usually "stick forts" that wouldn't stop spit, and age and weight must be ignored for the vast majority of participants. The obstacle of housing limits civilian participants at the majority of events to just a few impressions and those roles get repeated over and over again. I think that learning more about the construction styles and methods used would be helpful in creating possibilities for more roles and experiences for civilian participants.

More to Hank's question, the smaller log structures still in use as homes that I am aware of in Middle Tennessee were, at some point, added on with rooms off the back or a second story on top and planked over the logs and shingle roof (or in a few cases, tin roof) as upgrades. Many of these houses are still being used today.

(Such a home sits less than a half mile from my parents' house and was built about 1812. It is now a two story Victorian house with a porch on threes sides. The logs are visible in the main room of the house.)

(When I was a teenager, the first house I ever saw burn down was also an old log conversion, probably built about 1815 as far as anyone in the community knew. It was also a one room cabin with a second story, but a plainer style than the first mentioned. It was about 400 yards from the first mentioned, also. Those 140 year old logs burned hot. When the planking fell off, it was like looking at a skeleton.)

[Marylander in Grey]

Re: If I may ...

Deleted By poster.

[Hank Trent]

Re: If I may ...

Heck...for the poor and rural communities of Virginia, that simple one-room style house lasted well into the 20th century era as well.

Throughout rural Virginia, one can still find remnants of a few of these structures...and if you're lucky possibly even still come across a few in-tact buildings of this style as well. While maybe not the "most-common" style dwelling in the 19th century...still very well represented.

Are you making a distinction between one room log houses which have hewn logs and steeple or half-dovetail notches, and one room log houses with round logs and saddle notches? (The labels for the notches vary, but if you're familiar with the two types, I think you'll know what I mean.)

I think it's an important distinction, because the two types had different connotations in the period. There are a few of the hewn-log types still unsided (or that have lost their siding over the years) around here too, and a lot more that I'd guess are still there under the siding and additions. They were meant to be permanent homes, and lasted accordingly. The round-log types are long gone.

In fact, a fellow who restores and reconstructs log houses argued with us a few years ago that no round-log cabins were ever built in the 19th or 18th century, and that they were a myth propagated by the poor round-log cabins built in the 1930s and later by the CCC etc. It was because he only went by what he'd personally seen, and he'd never seen a surviving original. One of the few still left that I know of is the supposed Lincoln birthplace, now housed indoors.

A reconstructed hewn-log house would also of course be appropriate for the 1860s, probably more typical actually, but I don't believe it's the kind of house that's at the bottom of the Harper's illustration.

Here's an example, picked at random from google images, of the hewn log kind, compared to another photo of a round-log one here. Though they're superficially similar, the hewn log one follows a different vernacular tradition. The logs are, obviously, hewn, and have half-dovetail notches, and the shingles are sawn or shaved smoother, much shorter, and nailed to boards rather than logs--all characteristic of this kind of house. This house still has a stick chimney, though you'll often see stone or brick chimneys too. It has a double-hung window, though depending on the local availability, one might see nicer windows on the temporary cabins. Same for the siding on the peak ends; it has boards, but again, a temporary cabin might have boards or logs.

You're more apt to see a wood floor in the hewn kind of house, either plank or puncheon depending on the cost of wood and sawing. That allowed it to be raised on corner stones if wanted (though they did tend to sink over time) and slowed the rotting of the sill logs. The pitch of the roof is usually steeper on this kind of house; compare it to the other images of round-log houses in this thread and you'll see they're generally more shallow, though the Harper's image is about the same--an individual quirk of that house, or the artist's imagination?

Hewn houses might have panel doors and other niceties; a pioneer round-log house would be more apt to have a plank door, maybe even wooden hinges and latch. In other words, unless it was being built in at a time and place where cheap surplus stuff was available such as soldiers' winter quarters, a round-log house wasn't worth putting expensive stuff in because it was temporary, while a hewn-log house was more apt to either be built when better stuff was cheaper/easier to get or was worth putting better stuff in because it was planned to be permanent.

A round-log house that survived over time might be improved as the ease of shipping and industrial revolution brought the price of things down. Most of the studies of round-log houses that I've seen have concentrated on the era when they were first built, and not necessarily how they were kept up and altered over time, so I'd be curious if anyone has looked into that. Soldiers' winter quarters and late 19th century hunters cabins are the most common available images of them newly built and occupied after the pioneer era, but I'd be curious what's been discovered about their continued use as civilian homes in the non-frontier east/south.

One good book comparing various styles of log buildings is Donald A Hutslar's Log Construction in the Ohio Country, 1750-1850. Though it's focussed on Ohio, the houses were built when immigrants were still coming in from elsewhere, so a lot of common styles from surrounding states are covered, as well as a few ethnic groups such as German and French. There are probably lots of resources online these days too.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[LindaTrent]

Re: If I may ...

I didn't follow the previous thread so I missed the discussion on cat & clay chimneys and all. We did do a lot of research back when we built the Bradford Place around 1994 through 1998. The link will take you to numerous period accounts of the round log, cat and clay chimney that you're talking about. We never got the chimney finished on the old hut, but the discriptions should be good enough.

The information that I collected was all done back before 2002 and has not been updated, so I'm sure there are tons of other sources now.

But some of the references do talk about how these houses are no longer seen. By the Civil War era they were considered "old timey."

Linda.

[PogueMahone]

Re: If I may ...

Hank,

I wasn't making a distinction in my comments. Hadn't considered it, really. But, yes, those still lingering cabins that I have seen were the hewn kind, set on stones to give the wood life.

I had forgotten about your cabin building project before. Dang.

[OlszowyTM]

Re: If I may ...

Without getting into specific building techniques, here are a couple sites for a visual survey-

http://www.picturehistory.com/category/cat_id/2/subcat_id/102

http://americanhistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/abraham_lincoln_his_birth_and_childhood

A search of the American Memories LOC http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pp/cwpquery.html site for "house"=315 hits

http://afroamhistory.about.com/od/slavery/ig/Slavery-Photographs-and-Images/Slave-Quarters.htm

Somewhere along the line, I read a southern account of a woman renting out one of her empty slave cabin to another but for the life of me, can't remember what book. It may very well have been a vignette in a book like "When the Yankees Came". In addition, the owner was bemoaning the fact that the renter hadn't paid up and she was having problems getting her evicted.

An 1852 take on rural architecture http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19998

My all time favorite and the basis for the cabin we built on our property.
The foot print can't be much more than 16x16.

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?cwar:3:./temp/~ammem_hjaQ::

The single largest issue I see with a portable house based on something like the above is the lack of loft or 2d story the case of the clapboard sided structures. Building a 1 story "log" cabin for transport is going to be heavy and unwieldy. In both cases, roofing is an issue.

[LindaTrent]

Re: If I may ...

One of the few still left that I know of is the supposed Lincoln birthplace, now housed indoors.

http://americanhistory.suite101.com/..._and_childhood

Terri's post had a photograph of Lincoln's birthplace and the logs are hewn, not round, though the style of the cabin is similar to the round log ones. So now I'm not sure if there are any remaining original round log cabins.

Linda

[PogueMahone]

Re: If I may ...

Terri,

I can't get the link for the LOC site to open. Can you verify it?

[Jon The Beloved]

Re: If I may ...

Hope this helps:

Here's an example of an unhewn log structure found to be attached to a hewn log structure of the late 18th century home: At the research site photos you'll see a few views of round-log construction in the late 1700's in the Mid-Atlantic region.

Isaac and Margaret Sharp House
New Garden Township Chester County, PA

I'm sure there are others out there still standing nearest the size and style you seek. I seem to recall many cabins built around the Great Lakes/Canada region that were round unhewn tiny cabins that remain intact.

[OlszowyTM]

Re: If I may ...

Ok I'm tech savvy enough to paste links that don't require a query but anything else....

Go to the LOC Civil War photo catalog

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pp/cwpquery.html

Enter search Cedar mountain. Go to #7 Cedar mountain with family in front of house where Gen Winder died.

I like this one because it is clapboard with a small footprint.

[PogueMahone]

Re: If I may ...

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgu...en-us%26um%3D1

I posted this same link in the peanut thread, but there are a lot of good images of structures in this site. I can't date any of them, but they can't be too far off what we are looking for.