Homestead Cabin

Our homestead cabin is the only building on this site that does not have a name associated with it. This seems fitting, not that it be nameless but that it remind us of every pioneer family, since perhaps no other building is more identified with the spirit of the American pioneer than the single-room log cabin.

The architectural origin of the log cabin in America is different than what most people and even some historians think. We often associate log cabins with the Scots-Irish settlers of Kentucky and Tennessee, the Daniel Boones and Davy Crocketts. But the log cabin was actually first brought to North America by the Swedish and German settlers of New Jersey and Pennsylvania who then taught the English and Scots-Irish settlers how to build them. This is obvious when we consider that the English, Scots and Irish settlers came to America from countries that had been largely stripped of their forests by the sixteenth century and so they were not the famous, born woodsmen their descendents would later become.

Second Story Access

As you stand on the front porch of the cabin and look up and to your right, you will see a hatch door accessing the second story. This was originally the only way to get upstairs to the sleeping loft. Inside you will see a staircase, but this innovation was cut in much later after the threat of Indian attacks had passed. One room cabins such as this were homes to even large families. You can imagine how close these families became in such tight quarters.

Windows

We have also taken another liberty with our cabin. It has glass windows, which would also have been a much later addition. Due to the high cost of glass, this would have been a luxury few if any pioneers on the frontier could afford. The few window openings would have been sealed off by wood shutters, latched from the inside. Oiled paper or cloth over these openings would have served in the summer to keep the mosquitoes out and some sunlight filtering in.

Regional Trees and Materials

Log cabins differed across the country in the types of materials used to build them. Pioneers were resourceful and learned to use whatever materials were close at hand. If oak was the predominant tree in the surrounding forest, then they hewed their cabins from oak. Some are chestnut or poplar and even walnut. The material between the logs, the chinking, was also made from local materials and varied from rocks mixed with lime mortar to mud and straw or small chunks of wood.

Joinery

The differing types of joints at the corners of the cabins had more to do with the national origin of the builders than the best method for construction. The Scandinavians tended to use diamond notched corner joints and the Germans used the finer half or full dovetails. The French settlers of the Mississippi valley had yet a completely different way of constructing their cabins, setting the wall logs vertically.