Thank you Linda for reminding me about the Foxfire books. Great, and I remember getting several of them for my Mother who grew up in west Texas when it was still wild and woolly, and was, by the time the books came out, teaching school in the upper reaches of northern Maine. I thought her students would enjoy the tales of "pioneer life" to which they themselves were so close, as my mother had been. I think I'll have to accumulate a set for myself. It was long ago that I read them, And I think they would be a great addition to my reference shelves now. Cheers Mary Linda Chesser wrote: > Upon arrival, a "lean-to" was often the first structure that went up to immediately protect the pioneers from the elements. If there was time before winter set in, a single-pen cabin with a loft was built. If a larger structure was desired, a double-pen was constructed with a "dog-trot" in between. Later, the kitchen was a separate building out back along with a root cellar and/or smokehouse. The cabin's logs were "chinked" with a mixture of pebbles, straw, and mud, whatever was available in the area to fill the cracks between the logs. I-Houses were often constructed with a center door and a hearth at both ends. Single I-Houses were half the size with only one hearth. Later, additions were added and sometimes more doors, but these doors are not the two doors referred to in the original question. There are several of these I-Houses left throughout the East, Midwest and South dating from the 1700s through the 1850s and they have been remodeled. Federal, Colonial, a nd! > Classical styles dominated until about 1840. Then the Victorian style of porches, gingerbread trim, and carriage houses prevailed. It is in this time period of Post Civil War through 1920 that most of the frame and/or brick houses appeared built with the two front doors we still see today, most of the time set at a 90 degree angle to each other on a porch. In about 1900, the two-story box or square farm houses appeared with large front entrances and side and back entrances as well. In the city, due to industrialization and a need for economical and quick-to-construct dwellings, "shotgun" houses appeared in quantity about 1890-1910. They had sprung up earlier in western mining boom towns. Bungalows and modern contemporary styles came along in the 1920s and 30s. Post-WWII and the "Baby-Boom" generation gave us the most of the other styles with garages and family rooms such as the ranch, split-level, bi-level, tri-level, and more > Most of us who read The Foxfire Book Series of the 1970s received a good education about how our ancestors survived in post-Revolutionary times. The books' emphases are on Appalachian settlers and their ways which were mostly the ideas of these German, and Scottish-Irish immigrants and their ancestors. So everywhere the Germans ( in America in 1683), the Scottish, and the Irish lived, their customs and styles followed. Everything, from how they built their homes to the dances they did and the songs they sang, came with them. From the styles of clothing they wore to the way they preserved food and treated their illnesses, was brought with them as they moved from place to place. Remember that Virginia was mother to West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky, and North Carolina gave birth to Tennessee. Their heritage and the accompanying folklore spread as rapidly as our ancestors' feet, horses, oxen, wagons, and flatboats could carry them. It is vital that we research a nd! > record as much as possible about the other aspects of our ancestors' lives and not just record names and dates. Our descendants will have a better chance of understanding the rich heritage that is theirs with an interesting and priceless piece of history we pass on to them. > Linda Read Chesser > >