Hidden along the back roads and underneath the wood and vinyl siding of later generations, log cabins stand as sentinels guarding a time long ago, yet they are an eerily familiar friend from the not too distant past.
Common throughout the late 18th century, through the mid 1800s and up to as late as the 1870s, cabins were once a common feature in the landscape. Not only did they serve as homes, but they also functioned as barns, and churches. Even the first courthouse in Greene County was housed in a two-story log cabin built in 1797.
The first and earliest log homes were often very rough structures with dirt floors, rough walls and wooden shingle or lap board roofs with log chimneys lined with local clay. No known examples of these survive in the county, and there are few in the nation. These buildings often served as temporary structures erected to provide shelter in the first couple years of a family’s settlement. As time allowed, these primitive homes were replaced with more refined cabins that sat on stone foundations, with stone chimneys and more substantial roofs. The primitive cabins, and the early “refined” cabins often only had one room with a loft above that served as a sleeping area.
Later in the mid 1800s, cabins would get a bit bigger; some were two, even three stories high, with many rooms, occasionally had a separate building serving as a kitchen, and, in a few instances, lathing and plaster were installed on the inside for a more finished appearance, and siding was installed on the exterior to present the image of a more modern style of home.
On Six Run Road in Gilmore Township, at the site of the old Fairview Cemetery, was once a log church. The church dated to the 1870s, and it seems that it was a log building that, shortly after construction, was clad with siding and finished on the inside, obscuring its log cabin roots. In the mid 1990s, this church was dismantled and is now located in Meadowcroft Village as a recreated log church.
Perhaps the most interesting and best restored log building in the county is the original log courthouse that now serves as the home of Cornerstone Genealogical Society on Greene Street in Waynesburg. This building served as the courthouse for over 40 years, likely had jail accommodations, and has been beautifully restored with the addition of a wing in the back to house a genealogical library.
Log cabins are a major part of the cultural history in southwestern Pennsylvania, and thankfully many old cabins have survived in various forms to remind us of where we come from.