Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER TWO
in the long move westward,
the custom
of building the hewn-log house came into the new
territory along with the settler's hunting skills and his
other crafts for survival. He might camp for months
on his new land in any sort of easily constructed shel-
ter, clearing and planting, building rail, stone, or pole
fences for his stock. But his permanent dwelling —
whether in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Smokies,
the Alleghenies, the Tennessee basin, the bluegrass, or
on into the White River Ozarks to the west — was of
hewn logs.
A pioneer could and often did build his entire log house with one
tool — the single-bit axe. This tool is a broad hatchet used for hewing
and notching.
Tools
Certainly the earliest houses of this type in the new
country were built with only the simplest tools. We
know of settlers who put up houses with only an axe
and no hardware. Others usually added to that tool at
least one auger, and, if at all possible, nails for the
shakes on the roof. Indeed, many settlers possessed or
had access to the tools of blacksmithing, which made
available nails and even hinges and the swinging crane
for the fireplace. Plowing the new ground, replacing
the axes, knives, shovels, parts of harness, horseshoes,
and wagon tires all depended on a smithy somewhere
within reach.
We know the split shakes of early cabins were held
in place with no nails, being weighted with butting
poles, weight poles, and knees, or they were wedged
under saplings laid across them and bound at the ends
with rawhide. But my experience with shake roofs in
wind- and rainstorms leaves me no doubt that these
cabins were drafty and damp.
Some broadaxe types. The axe head is a 20th-century design that was
still available in the 1960s. The narrow-faced axe is probably the oldest
style pictured. None of the handles is authentic. The originals would
have been about two thirds this length with no reverse curve.
