Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
houses that still stand. A lean-to may have been added,
for instance, about the time of the birth of twins now
in their 80s. Or the building of the second half of a
dogtrot may coincide with a settler's marrying a
widow with children.
Different broadaxe strokes also bear the tale of
patient craftsmanship or of hurried shelter construc-
tion, as do marks of other tools, details of foundations,
care in stonework. Sometimes there will even be pen-
ciled notes on walls. I recall a house in the Buffalo
River country of Arkansas that has a regular diary
written on the outside wall, dry under the porch.
Of course the best reason for restoring a log house
is to preserve a bit more of our vanishing heritage,
reflecting so well the American pioneer culture that
has allowed us to grow, for better or worse, into what
we are today. If you believe in vibrations, they are cer-
tainly abundant in the silvering logs and old hearth-
stones laid so long ago.
Beginning
Both building and restoring the hewn-log house have
much in common. But all in all, there are compelling
reasons for restoration instead of building from
scratch.
There's the difficulty in obtaining materials and a
justified concern for dwindling forests. Certainly you
will save a lot of time and labor using seasoned, fitted
logs instead of laboriously shaping them yourself.
Whether the house is to be restored at its present site
or moved to another, you're often three months or
more ahead in acquiring materials.
But that isn't the reason I like to restore old log
houses. Perhaps I can best tell it this way: A good
friend and I were dismantling a long-abandoned
house I'd found for him, which he planned to move
and rebuild. In the attic, still dry under its replace-
ment tin roof, was the cast-off accumulation of over a
century of living — old farm catalogs, a quilt pattern
collection cut from old newspapers, cinema schedules,
shredded clothes, ladies magazines. Faded scraps of
letters, gnawed by mice, told bits of history. We were
able to trace the growing of a lad named John, born
just after the turn of the century. Some school records,
letters reporting his staying with relatives out of state
— fragments. We thought it quite fitting that my
friend's son, then six, would also grow within these old
walls.
People come from everywhere to watch a log house
being built, rebuilt, or torn down. The young ones are
usually just curious, but the older ones almost always
have a store of log house memories of their own to
relate. The old man who shuffled up as we removed
the last of the roof was one of these.
“This house used to belong to my folks,” he said. “I
grew up here.”
“Your name isn't John, is it?”
“It sure is. How'd you know?” He was genuinely
glad we were going to rebuild the house again, and
promised to visit later. For my part, I considered it
something of a privilege to have been a part of the
restoration.
I have sketched bits of family history from old
cemetery stones, and tried to match the births and
deaths with additions and changes in the nearby
Recycling material means a lot of handling, hauling, and storage.
