Clues of an early cabin

Now that I knew the logs were pretty good, I started stripping out the interior. There was a lot of debris left from the previous owners and the interior walls were plaster and lathe, a messy removal job. The upstairs had tongue and groove oak ceilings, an early addition. I tried to remove the boards carefully and keep them for later use as wall covering.

I poked through the upstairs ceiling to find hand-hewn rafters that were pegged at the top! Very nice early feature. Many times these would get replaced with more modern rafters if a new roof was added. The rafters butted right into the top log (top plate) which reduced the eave. Many early cabins did not have a roof eave.

Stripping out the walls near the windows revealed hand-hewn boards for the window jambs. This is another clue to an early cabin or a time in which sawmills were not close by. They took the time to hew these boards and wooden peg them in to the logs. No nails!

The flooring upstairs was newer, but downstairs had early T&G oak flooring underneath a later narrower hardwood floor. I stripped out the newer stuff and sold it as it is still produced today. A man renovating his home's floor needed the pieces and they matched up nicely for him. I carefully removed the older floor and put it in storage. Very nice 1" thick, 6" inch wide flooring for later use. Underneath the floor were huge 18 foot long "sleeper" joists...oak logs hewn only on top. I would later remove these and keep to possibly have cut down into beautiful flooring. It will not be necessary to reuse them as joists because you will not be able to see them.

As she was originally!

After removing the siding, I was happy to see that most of the logs were in very good condition. The bottom rows were rotten and the cabin had settled quite a bit, so I couldn't even see the foundation (stacked stones as I would see later). The west-facing side had the most wear as expected and a couple of higher logs were rotten, probably triggering the clapboard and brick work. But all in all, if 10% of the logs or less are bad, you're in good shape. The darn thing is nearly 200 years old! Since they were hiding for a while, the logs had a nice brown hue that quickly turned the traditional gray from the sun.

Huff and puff and blow your house down

So, I offered a price for the cabin knowing that the logs on the outside might be rotten. The owners accepted my offer and I hired them to tear the bricks down. They had the equipment to knock the bricks down and bury nearby. I later sold some of the flooring to offset this cost. Under the bricks was clapboard siding! It came off pretty easy and was burned. It was added circa 1900 and was not very useable.

There's a log cabin under those bricks?

Yes, there was a cabin under those bricks. Why would they put bricks around a cabin? Well, probably for one of two reasons. #1) The logs were starting to rot over time and the owners wanted to protect them. #2) Log cabins were thought to be on the lower end of the economic spectrum, so some owners would cover them to fit better with the times.

The current owners of the house had stripped the interior walls down to the logs, so I was able to see that they were oak, hand-hewn, and very large (a feature I really liked). Large logs would last longer, look better, and potentially show that the cabin was old and constructed of sturdy, virgin timber.

Something I've always wanted to do

I've always been fascinated with old log cabins. Who built them? Why? How did they get the logs to fit so snug? It seemed like a lot of work just to build a small house. My interest is two-fold. I love history and I love nature. These old log cabins combine the two in a spectacular way.

My family has owned property near Cambridge, Ohio since the 70's. So, I had the place to rebuild...I just needed to find a structure. This was tough. I tried many ways to locate an old cabin...word of mouth, internet, driving around searching. The internet seemed to work best. I did not want to purchase a cabin from a dealer...someone who finds them, takes them down and sells them at an inflated price. Over a number of years I traveled to view a number of cabins within a 2-3 hour drive. Most of them had the same problems....either too many rotten logs or too high a price from the owners. You always seem to get the same story, "This cabin was here when my great-grandfather was a child". These cabins are uncommon, but not rare, in Ohio. Research shows that there could still be as many as 100 old hewn cabins in Athens County...many covered by siding. FINALLY...a lady contacted me about a cabin she had that was covered in bricks near Hillsboro, Ohio.