Good info, but note that the log cabin was very popular and easy to build in the mountainous/hilly central South where chestnut, oak, and walnut trees COVERED the land.  Indeed, I can think of at least 6 that are yet standing within 50 miles of my home in the Cumberland Mts. of TN.  Paul   
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: [log in to unmask] 
  To: [log in to unmask] 
  Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 2004 6:22 PM
  Subject: [VAROOTS] Building of early homes.......


  A list that I am with posted some of their research and this is a portion I 
  got permission to pass on.  Carolyn list mom of the amxroads list gave me 
  persimion to use this.
  I thought is very informative as to how dwellings were errected in the very 
  early times of our countries establishment.   Beej--Fireflower


  "The popular belief that the historic log cabin of the frontiersmen was 
  introduced into America by our English forefathers is erroneous. The journal of 
  Jasper Dankers and Peter Sluyter, two Dutch Labadists, who visited the colonies 
  in 1679-80, a translation of which was recently published by the Long Island 
  Historical Society, states, in speaking of Mahlon Stacys house at "the falls of 
  the South River, Trenton:" "Most of the English and many others have their 
  houses made of nothing but clapboards, as they call them there, in this manner: 
  they first made a wooden frame, the same as they do in Westphalia and at 
  Altona, but not so strong; they then split the boards of clapwood, so they are like 
  coopers  pipe-staves, excepting they are not bent. These are made very thin 
  with a large knife, so that the thickest end is about a pinck [little finger] 
  thick, and the other is made sharp, like the edge of a knife. They are about 
  five or six feet long, and are nailed on the outside of the frame, with the ends 
  lapped over each other. They are not usually laid so close together as to 
  prevent you from sticking a finger between them in consequence either of their not 
  being well joined or the boards being crooked. When it is cold and windy the 
  best people plaster them with clay. Such are most all the English houses in 
  this country, except those they have built by people of other nations." Near 
  Burlington, Dankers slept at the house of Jacob Hendricks, which he describes as 
  "being made according to the Swedish mode," of logs.
  More on all this in another message, and I also will be detailing it in a new 
  webpage.


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