Shelby, Like you, I am ancient. I don't go back to Abe Lincoln, but he and I had something in common: We were both born in a log cabin. Take a peep at the cover of the book; TRACKING THE PIONEERS II: A History of Browning Families of Southern West Virginia. Now for a story: I used to be close to a family who lived just below the famous Trough on the South Branch of the Potomac River in Hampshire County, WV. A daughter of theirs married a brother of Freddie Wyant, an all american quarterback at WVU in the fifties. The young couple decided to remodel the old farmhouse, which was originally a huge log house that had been "modernized" and expanded. One of the first things to go from the old house was the wallpaper. When they had stripped the walls down through several layers of paper, they discovered that the walls and ceiling of the entire logged portion of the house were covered with one-inch black walnut lumber. The dang thing was worth it's weight in gold. The old log houses of West Virginia were mostly built from huge yellow poplar logs that were hewn flat on two sides and the cracks were filled with mud. Later on as they were preserved, the mud was often replaced with cement. The one I lived in was finished off on the inside with beautiful yellow popular lumber. Yellow popular was a very soft wood, but old timers liked it because it was more workable than most of the Appalachian hardwoods, and it was highly resistant to rot. Floors of cabins that used the popular planks for flooring wore away in the areas of high usage until they were no longer even. And, that leads to another tale. (But, as you all know by now, anything can remind me of a story!) In the fall of 1960, a group of aerospace engineers, myself included, was sequestered in the historic old Claryville Inn located on the south side of Route 40 between Cumberland and Frostburg, Maryland, to work on a highly classified design project associated with the Polaris missile system. The building had been a hospital during the Civil War. The upstairs rooms and hallway had served as the hospital and the downstairs area housed horses. My desk was situated upstairs against a wall in the hallway. I am not sure if the original building was a log structure, but the floors were of yellow poplar. Through the decades the center of the hall had been worn down, but the area near the wall was worn considerably less. It took five 1/4 inch shims to level the desk indicating to me how much of the floor had worn away, and it made me wonder how thick those boards must have been originally. I told this story before to some friends from Wyoming County and one of them pointed out that a relative of theirs by the name of Griffith Canterbury died in a hospital in Frostburg. No doubt this was the hospital where he died. Ironically, it served our country in two different centuries, first as a hospital in the Civil War and later as office space in the Cold War. Back to stories of the Guyan next time. STAN On Oct 17, 2007, at 7:26 AM, [email protected] wrote: > The largest log home, made with an axe & saw, was the Bob Lowe > home across > the Guyan from Kitchen, WV. It was about 30 feet in length, and 20 > feet in > width, with a huge loft. Bob was a relative of mine; his wife was > Caroline(Hill) > Lowe was my late wife Norma's great aunt. > The oldest log home was the Gideon Marcum homeplace, at Breeden, > Mingo co, > WV.Gid built this cabin in the early 1800s; it stood until a few > years > back,when it finally collapsed.I have a pic of the cabin. > Another old log house was the church at Davin, Wv.; built about the > same time > as the Gideon Marcum home. Today, there are more beautiful log > homes being > built with modern equiptment, but its doubtful they will last as > long as ones I > mentioned. > > Shelby > > > ************************************** > See what's new at > http://www.aol.com > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to WVLOGAN- > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes > in the subject and the body of the message