A log cabin is a small
log house, especially a less finished or less architecturally sophisticated structure. Log cabins have an ancient history in Europe, and in America are often associated with first generation home building by settlers.
European history
Construction with logs was described by Roman architect
Vitruvius Pollio in his architectural treatise ''
De Architectura''. He noted that in
Pontus (modern-day northeastern Turkey), dwellings were constructed by laying logs horizontally overtop of each other and filling in the gaps with "chips and mud".
Historically log cabin construction has its roots in
Scandinavia
Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Swe ...
and
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, wh ...
. Although their origin is uncertain, the first log structures were probably being built in
Northern Europe by the
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
(about 3500 BC). C. A. Weslager describes Europeans as having:
Nevertheless, a medieval log cabin was considered movable property (a
chattel house
Chattel house is a Barbadian term for a small moveable wooden house that working class people would occupy. The term goes back to the plantation days when the home owners would buy houses designed to move from one property to another. The word " c ...
), as evidenced by the relocation of
Espåby village in 1557: the buildings were simply disassembled, transported to a new location and reassembled. It was also common to replace individual logs damaged by
dry rot as necessary.
The Wood Museum in
Trondheim
Trondheim ( , , ; sma, Tråante), historically Kaupangen, Nidaros and Trondhjem (), is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. As of 2020, it had a population of 205,332, was the third most populous municipality in Norway, an ...
,
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...
, displays fourteen different traditional profiles, but a basic form of log construction was used all over North Europe and Asia and later imported to America.
Log construction was especially suited to Scandinavia, where straight, tall tree trunks (
pine
A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family (biology), family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanic ...
and
spruce
A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' (), a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal ( taiga) regions of the Earth. ''Picea'' is the sole genus in the sub ...
) are readily available. With suitable tools, a log cabin can be erected from scratch in days by a family. As no chemical reaction is involved, such as hardening of mortar, a log cabin can be erected in any weather or season. Many older towns in Northern Scandinavia have been built exclusively out of log houses, which have been decorated by board paneling and wood cuttings. Today, construction of modern log cabins as leisure homes is a fully developed industry in Finland and Sweden. Modern log cabins often feature
fiberglass insulation and are sold as prefabricated kits machined in a factory, rather than hand-built in the field like ancient log cabins.
Log cabins are mostly constructed without the use of nails and thus derive their stability from simple stacking, with only a few
dowel joints for reinforcement. This is because a log cabin tends to compress slightly as it settles, over a few months or years. Nails would soon be out of alignment and torn out.
File:mountain log cabin in Pyrohiv 2409.JPG, A timber cutter's mountain log cabin at the Museum of Folk Architecture, Pyrohiv, Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian invas ...
.
File:80-361-0817 Kyiv Pyrohiv SAM 0469.jpg, A typical Volhynian log cabin: Shpykhlir in the village of Samara in Rivne Oblast
File:Oseloftet ørnehode.jpg, Ornamental woodcarving in the shape of an eagle's head on a projecting log in the wall of the loft from Ose at Norsk Folkemuseum.
European settlers in the United States
In the present-day United States, settlers may have first constructed log cabins by 1640. Historians believe that the first log cabins built in North America were in the Swedish colony of Nya Sverige (
New Sweden) in the
Delaware River and
Brandywine River valleys. Most of the settlers were actually
Forest Finns, a heavily oppressed Finnish ethnic group originally from
Savonia and
Tavastia, who starting from the 1500s were displaced or persuaded to go inhabit and practice slash and burn agriculture (which they were famous for in eastern Finland) in the deep forests of inland Sweden and Norway, during Sweden's 600+ year colonial rule over Finland, who since 1640 were being captured and displaced to the colony. After arriving, they would escape the Fort Christina center where the Swedes lived, to go and live in the forest as they did back home. There they encountered the
Lenni Lenape tribe of Delaware, whom they found a lot of cultural similarities with (slash & burn agriculture, sweat lodges/saunas, love of forests, etc.), thus they ended up living alongside and even culturally assimilating with them (they are the earlier and lesser-known Findian tribe, being overshadowed by the
Ojibwe
The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains.
According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...
Findians of Minnesota, Michigan and Ontario, Canada). In those forests, the first log cabins of America were built, using traditional Finnish methods. Even though New Sweden only existed briefly before it was absorbed by the Dutch colony of
New Netherland, which was eventually taken over by the English, these quick and easy construction techniques of the Finns not only remained, but spread.
Later
German and
Ukrainian immigrants also used this technique. The contemporaneous British settlers had no tradition of building with logs, but they quickly adopted the method. The first
English settlers did not widely use log cabins, building in forms more traditional to them.
[Bomberger D., "The Preservation and Repair of Historic Log Buildings"](_blank)
National Park Service, 1991. Retrieved 6 December 2008 Few log cabins dating from the 18th century still stand, but they were often not intended as permanent dwellings. Possibly the oldest surviving log house in the United States is the
C. A. Nothnagle Log House
C. A. Nothnagle Log House, also known as Braman-Nothnagle Log House, is a historic house on Swedesboro-Paulsboro Road in the Gibbstown section of Greenwich Township, New Jersey. It is one of the oldest surviving log houses in the United States ...
() in New Jersey. Settlers often built log cabins as temporary homes to live in while constructing larger, permanent houses; then they either demolished the log structures or used them as outbuildings, such as barns or
chicken coop
Poultry farming is the form of animal husbandry which raises domesticated birds such as chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese to produce meat or eggs for food. Poultry – mostly chickens – are farmed in great numbers. More than 60 billion ch ...
s.
Log cabins were sometimes hewn on the outside so that
siding might be applied; they also might be hewn inside and covered with a variety of materials, ranging from
plaster over
lath to
wallpaper
Wallpaper is a material used in interior decoration to decorate the interior walls of domestic and public buildings. It is usually sold in rolls and is applied onto a wall using wallpaper paste Adhesive flakes that are mixed with water to pro ...
.
Traditional log buildings in North America
Log cabins were built from logs laid horizontally and interlocked on the ends with notches (British English ''cog joints''). Some log cabins were built without notches and simply nailed together, but this was not as structurally sound. Modern building methods allow this shortcut.
The most important aspect of cabin building is the site upon which the cabin was built. Site selection was aimed at providing the cabin inhabitants with both sunlight and drainage to make them better able to cope with the rigors of frontier life. Proper site selection placed the home in a location best suited to manage the farm or ranch. When the first pioneers built cabins, they were able to "cherry pick" the best logs for cabins. These were old-growth trees with few limbs (knots) and straight with little taper. Such logs did not need to be hewn to fit well together. Careful notching minimized the size of the gap between the logs and reduced the amount of chinking (sticks or rocks) or daubing (mud) needed to fill the gap. The length of one log was generally the length of one wall, although this was not a limitation for most good cabin builders.
Decisions had to be made about the type of cabin. Styles varied greatly from one part of North America to another: the size of the cabin, the number of stories, type of roof, the orientation of doors and windows all needed to be taken into account when the cabin was designed. In addition, the source of the logs, the source of stone and available labor, either human or animal, had to be considered. If timber sources were further away from the site, the cabin size might be limited.
Cabin corners were often set on large stones; if the cabin was large, other stones were used at other points along the sill (bottom log). Since they were usually cut into the sill, thresholds were supported with rock as well. These stones are found below the corners of many 18th-century cabins as they are restored. Cabins were set on foundations to keep them out of damp soil but also to allow for storage or basements to be constructed below the cabin. Cabins with earth floors had no need for foundations.
Cabins were constructed using a variety of notches. Notches can vary within ethnic groups as well as between them. Notches often varied on a single building, so their styles were not conclusive.
One method common in the Ohio River Valley in southwestern Ohio and southeastern Indiana is the Block House End Method. An example of this is found in the
David Brown House.
Some older buildings in the United States
Midwest and the
Canadian Prairies are log structures covered with
clapboards or other materials. Nineteenth-century cabins used as dwellings were occasionally plastered on the interior. The O'Farrell Cabin () in
Boise, Idaho, had backed wallpaper used over newspaper. The C.C.A. Christenson Cabin in Ephraim, Utah () was plastered over willow lath.
Log cabins reached their peak of complexity and elaboration with the
Adirondack-style cabins of the mid-19th century. This style was the inspiration for many
United States Park Service lodges built at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. Log cabin building never died out or fell out of favor. It was surpassed by the needs of a growing urban United States. During the 1930s and the
Great Depression, the Roosevelt Administration directed the
Civilian Conservation Corps
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was a major part o ...
to build log lodges throughout the west for use by the
Forest Service and the
National Park Service
The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government within the United States Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of ...
.
Timberline Lodge on
Mount Hood in
Oregon
Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idah ...
was such a log structure, and it was dedicated by President
Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In 1930, the world's largest log cabin was constructed at a private resort in
Montebello, Quebec,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...
. Often described as a "log château", it serves as the
Château Montebello hotel.
The modern version of a log cabin is the
log home, which is a house built usually from milled logs. The logs are visible on the exterior and sometimes interior of the house. These cabins are mass manufactured, traditionally in Scandinavian countries and increasingly in eastern Europe. Squared milled logs are precut for easy assembly. Log homes are popular in rural areas, and even in some suburban locations. In many resort communities in the United States West, homes of log and stone measuring over are not uncommon. These "kit" log homes are one of the largest consumers of logs in the Western United States.
In the United States, log homes have embodied a traditional approach to home building, one that has resonated throughout American history. It is especially interesting to discover that, in today's world, log homes represent a technology that allows a home to be built with a high degree of
sustainability. In fact, log homes are frequently considered to be on the leading edge of the
green building movement.
Crib barns were a popular type of barn found throughout the U.S. south and southeast regions. Crib barns were especially ubiquitous in the Appalachian and Ozark Mountain states of North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas.
In Europe, modern log cabins are often built in gardens and used as summerhouses, home offices or as an additional room in the garden. Summer houses and cottages are often built from logs in northern Europe.
Chinking refers to a broad range of
mortar or other infill materials used between the logs in the construction of log cabins and other log-walled structures. Traditionally, dried mosses, such as ''Pleurozium schreberi'' or ''Hylocomium splendens'', were used in the Nordic countries as an insulator between logs. In the United States, ''Chinks'' were small stones or wood or corn cobs stuffed between the logs.
File:Schorn Log Cabin.JPG, Schorn Log Cabin in New Sweden Park, Swedesboro, New Jersey
File:Carter Museum-02.jpg, Edwin Carter Log Cabin Naturalist Museum () Edwin Carter
Edwin Carter was a naturalist, born in upstate New York around 1830. Carter lived in the Breckenridge, Colorado area from 1860 to 1900. He originally was a placer miner and was fairly successful, but when he observed the destruction of th ...
in Breckenridge, Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...
File:Log cabin homestead - DPLA - b123f5a1563fa8d3dd9ff0460e6da92d.jpg, Log cabin homestead in Northwest Ohio, approximately 1892
File:Conner-prairie-log-cabin-interior.jpg, Interior of a recreated log cabin at Conner Prairie living history museum in Fishers, Indiana
Roofing
Log cabins were constructed with either a
purlin roof structure or a
rafter roof structure. A purlin roof consists of horizontal logs that are notched into the gable-wall logs. The latter are progressively shortened to form the characteristic triangular gable end. The steepness of the roof was determined by the reduction in size of each gable-wall log as well as the total number of gable-wall logs. Flatter roofed cabins might have had only 2 or 3 gable-wall logs while steeply pitched roofs might have had as many gable-wall logs as a full story. Issues related to eave overhang and a porch also influenced the layout of the cabin.
The decision about roof type often was based on the material for roofing like bark. Milled lumber was usually the most popular choice for rafter roofs in areas where it was available. These roofs typify many log cabins built in the 20th century, having full-cut
2×4 rafters covered with pine and
cedar shingles. The purlin roofs found in rural settings and locations, where milled lumber was not available, often were covered with long hand-split shingles.
Symbolism
The log cabin has been a symbol of humble origins in US politics since the early 19th century. At least seven
United States presidents were born in log cabins, including
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was an American lawyer, planter, general, and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, he gained fame a ...
,
James K. Polk,
Millard Fillmore,
Franklin Pierce,
James Buchanan
James Buchanan Jr. ( ; April 23, 1791June 1, 1868) was an American lawyer, diplomat and politician who served as the 15th president of the United States from 1857 to 1861. He previously served as secretary of state from 1845 to 1849 and repr ...
,
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
, and
James A. Garfield. Although
William Henry Harrison
William Henry Harrison (February 9, 1773April 4, 1841) was an American military officer and politician who served as the ninth president of the United States. Harrison died just 31 days after his inauguration in 1841, and had the shortest pres ...
was not one of them, he and the
Whigs during the
1840 presidential election were the first to use a log cabin as a symbol to show Americans that he was a man of the people. Other candidates followed Harrison's example, making the idea of a log cabin—and, more generally, a non-wealthy background—a recurring theme in campaign
biographies.
More than a century after Harrison,
Adlai Stevenson Adlai Stevenson may refer to:
* Adlai Stevenson I (1835–1914), U.S. Vice President (1893–1897) and Congressman (1879–1881)
* Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965), Governor of Illinois (1949–1953), U.S. presidential candida ...
acknowledged: "I wasn't born in a log cabin. I didn't work my way through school nor did I rise from rags to riches, and there's no use trying to pretend I did."
Stevenson lost the
1952 presidential election in a landslide to
Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Toys
A popular children's toy in the US is
Lincoln Logs, consisting of various notched
dowel rods that can be fitted together to build scale miniature-sized structures.
Wooden Garden Log Cabin Kits
/ref>
See also
* Alternative housing
* Burdei
* Blab school
* Cabin (disambiguation)
Cabin may refer to:
Buildings
* Beach cabin, a small wooden hut on a beach
* Log cabin, a house built from logs
* Cottage, a small house
* Chalet, a wooden mountain house with a sloping roof
* Cabin, small free-standing structures that serve as in ...
* Cottage
* Izba
* Log house
* Magoffin County Pioneer Village and Museum
Magoffin County Pioneer Village and Museum is museum in downtown Salyersville, Kentucky that exhibits a collection of reconstructed log buildings from, mostly, the eastern region of Kentucky. The Magoffin County Historical Society maintains a Libr ...
, Kentucky
* German Wikipedia has two articles on log cabins, one links from the sidebar and this one to ''Blockbau''
* Log furniture
Log furniture is a type of rustic furniture made by incorporating the use of whole logs. It is often designed to have a "pioneer" look. Log furniture is often very durable and long-lasting, depending on the manufacturing methods used.
Descr ...
''Related-housing''
* Beach hut
* Beach cabin
* Hunting lodge
* Mountain lodge
Mountain Lodge was the former summer residence of the Governor of Hong Kong on Victoria Peak on the Hong Kong Island in Hong Kong. The second building was a two-storey Renaissance style home and was demolished in 1946. The site is now the V ...
* Shack
* Sweat lodge
* Tiny house
References
Further reading
* .
*
* .
* .
* .
* .
* .
* .
External links
''Log Cabins in America:The Finnish Experience'', National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places Lesson Plan
from the Missouri Folklore Society
''Log Houses of Southern Indiana''
by Warren E. Roberts. Indiana University Trickster Press. 1996.
* Short radio episod
poem (modeled on " The Old Oaken Bucket") by W.S. Walker
WS, Ws, or ws may refer to:
Businesses and organizations
* Ware Shoals Railroad (reporting mark WS)
* WestJet (IATA airline code WS)
* Society of Writers to Her Majesty's Signet, in post-nomial abbreviation
* Williams Street, the production arm f ...
from ''Glimpses of Hungryland, or California Sketches
Glimpse or Glimpses may refer to:
* Glimpse: Live Recordings from Around the World, an album by Sonicflood
* ''The Glimpse'', an album by Robert Mitchell
* Glimpse EP, an album by Trapt
*Glimpse (software), a photo editor forked from GIMP
GLIMPS ...
'', 1880, from California Legacy Project.
Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions Digital Image Collection
at Marquette University; keyword: log cabin.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Log Cabin
Indigenous architecture
House types
American architectural styles
Woodworking
*
Rustic architecture in the United States
Vernacular architecture
Building engineering