Posted on 04/06/2010 7:15:17 AM PDT by jay1949
This article features a single cabin which is perhaps the most primitive example of such a habitation you'll ever see. But it is the real McCoy -- a one-room, round-log Backcountry settler's cabin, the kind of structure that was thrown together quickly by tens of thousands of immigrants in the mountains of Southern Appalachia during the colonial years. Previously I would have been confident in stating that not one of these structures had survived much past the time of the Civil War -- but not only was this one still standing when it was photographed in 1902, it was the home of one Pharaoh Jackson Chesney.
(Excerpt) Read more at backcountrynotes.com ...
If it fell down, could anyone tell the difference ?
. . . which is one of its most endearing qualities.
There may be more cabins around than people realize.
My grandparents’ house began as a one-room cabin around 1850. At some point, it was jacked up and a cellar was dug, At that time, they covered the logs with clapboard siding and cut holes for windows. A few years later, a second floor was added, then they started expanding back.
Until some time around WWII, the only heat was a stove. When they installed a furnace, only the newer parts of the house were heated, which is less than pleasant in Wisconsin. The house is still occupied.
It may not be common in Tennessee, but in Wisconsin, I have encountered quite a few farm houses like this that grew from cabins.
It is very common here in Iowa. My dad was at an old steam engine show and they had on display the old country school he’d attended for awhile.
Except at the time it was brick. Doing some repairs or something they discovered the old log structure underneath. The basement of my girlfriend’s place is made of river rock, which dates it to at least the Civil War. There are some amazing old treasures out there.
LOL
Cool, the freedman voted Republican.
My first wife grew up in such a house in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Unfortunately, less-than-Code wiring did it in. Her stepfather nearly pumped the well dry trying to save the place, but the combination of well-dried timbers, a brisk winter wind, and the eventual burning out of the electrical wires which ran the pump sealed the house’s fate.
In the county where I live, one fellow set out in the ‘70s to see how many log cabins, log barns, log smokehouses and such he could photograph before they were all gone. If I recall correctly, he found more than 50 — many on their last legs, but a few have been salvaged.
Some log cabins were “sheathed” when built. The cabin in the article linked below has, as is typical, an old section and a new section. From what I could tell, the old section was originally not sheathed but when the addition was built both were covered on the outside. You can see in the interior shots that the logs were not plastered or covered over on the inside of the walls; they were simply painted white.
http://www.backcountrynotes.com/history/2009/8/28/frontier-culture-museum-1850-american-farm.html
By the way... if any of you live in the North Georgia driving distance area, this weekend - Friday and Saturday (April 9th-10th) there is a big festival at the Foxfire museum in Clayton GA.
"See the days of pioneer Appalachia brought to life by local families as the Foxfire Museum & Heritage Center hosts two days of living history, with adults and children dressed in 1800s period costumes, showcasing almost every facet of life in these mountains 200 years ago. Cooking simple food in a stone fireplace, crafting wood furniture with hand tools, blacksmithing in a coal-fired forge, one-room schoolhouse classes covering the Appalachian “three Rs” (Readin’, ‘Ritin’, and Religion), short church services, a quilting bee, plenty of old-time kids’ games (everyone is invited to join in), live traditional music ......"
http://www.foxfire.org/news.html
I'll say this for him to live in what he did where he did he was one tough old bird. I live on Chestnut Ridge which isn't quite as high. The top of Copper Ridge at times is a weather maker it's so high. That cabin looking at the picture I believe was at or near the top of the ridge. The wind up there during a storm is a force to be reckoned with as well. The fact that cabin held together as long as it did where it did speaks a lot for the construction as well.
Old log cabins weren't built for looks but rather built solely to be functional. The older the cabin more so that applied. A one room cabin with small door and windows like his was easier to heat. Log Cabins are cold in the winter. I had an Ashley wood/coal stove in the one I had and it still was cold.
His family likely moved on to Anderson or Knox County at some point afterward maybe upon his death. In my community there was a neighborhood of black farmers living a few ridges over. They moved or likely died out in the 1960's not because of harassment of any type as there was no such issues but because of the area being too remote and their children etc moved on to Knoxville for jobs. The older generation died out and that was it. In Union County though I hate to say this but he and family would have later on faced some rough times that I'll not go into detail about in here. I doubt a census of that county from 1930 on except for possible CCC workers in camps would have showed a black family living there. That's just the reality of it.
Many thanks for the information. I know that area of Tennessee only from driving through on the main roads; I’ve never been on Copper Ridge. Sounds like it’s fairly rugged. Those settler’s cabins certainly were “survival” shelters — nothing like the romanticized ideas of the bucolic life in the woods that many have today.
Other than the book referenced in my article, there is a privately-published genealogy “Our Tennessee Chesneys” — see http://www.genealogytoday.com/roots/xweb-a.mv?xc=Product.Order&xo=product&xn=16&xr=937&xz=gsgf — which concerns “descendants and family history of former slave Pharoah Jackson Chesney, and descendants of Nathaniel Richard Chesney,” but whatever information it contains is not available on-line to my knowledge.
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