Log Homes in Early 20th Century WNC

Worley Cabin

This glass plate photograph of a cabin and family was taken by Frank Fry around 1900. The photograph is listed as "Worley cabin in Hewitt, North Carolina." The mother and children shown in the picture are most likely Helen (38), Cora (8), and William (4) Worley. Charley Worley (33) was the head of household and a day laborer. This information was found on Ancestry through the 1900 U.S. Census records and confirmed by research performed by Don Casada.  

The Census lists the property as a Home rather than a Farm. You can see in the picture the dense growth surrounding the cabin. There is a slight view of running water behind the building. These features align with the myth of land use values of Scots Irish immigrants in the Appalachian mountains. Rumors might have one believe that Scots Irish or Ulster settlers desired rocky hillsides familiar to their homeland; however, in reality, economic limitations and land availability were more important factors than heritage and familiarity (Horning 134). 

The clothes the family is wearing were probably homemade. Mine work and rural living provided little funds for store-bought material items. Most items were made of wool spun into cloth. When money was in surplus cloth was able to be bought and was treated as a luxury. As explained by Peter Koch at the Mountain Heritage Center at Western Carolina University, "Appalachian people with money had access to buying processed cloth, so when they could, they did" (Nester). Sarah Smith Nester's full article "Women in the Appalachian Home" for Smoky Mountain Living Magazine. 

Hewitt, N.C.

A 1901 Postal map shows the location of Hewitt(s) and surrounding areas. The unincorporated area is best known for its large Talc mine. It was even named after its founder, Frank R. Hewitt. Frank Fry was the superintendent of the North Carolina Talc and Mining Company. Charley Worley was listed as a miner in the U.S. Census. The mine at Hewitt is part of the Murphy Marble Belt line of mines in western North Carolina. While the original shaft is not operational, large mining of talc and limestone still occurs. Information on the Hewitt mine. A digital map of mines in the surrounding areas along the Murphy Marble Belt. 

Hewitt was not only a mining community. Some of the most fertile farming lands in the region are found here and a considerable lumber industry existed in the early 20th century. Travel Western North Carolina is a digital resource provided by WCU's Hunter Library and follows wagon trails and the railroad through time and space. Information about Hewitt in the 1890s, 1910s, and 1930s can be found. 

Bryson Place Cabin

The Bryson Place cabin was a central hub for hunters and travelers in Swain county. Don Casada details the use of the cabin in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

"The Bryson Place was owned by the Bryson family from the 1870s until it was sold to the
NC Park Commission. The Bryson family allowed it to be used as a commons. There’s no
telling how many folks spent nights there. For some, like Mark Cathey and Sam Hunnicutt, it was a regular retreat. To get to it in the 19th century from the Billy Morris place at the mouth of Juney Whank Branch, one would have had to ford Deep Creek 18 times." (Casada) 

It was actually 2 cabins built together to expand space. You will see another cabin further off to the left. While the construction was more uniform than that of the Worley Cabin, the basic shape and structure are the same: a stone chimney, a shingled "A" frame roof, and hewn log walls.  

This image of Bryson Place was widely published in Horace Kephart's Our Southern Highanders with the caption "A Mountian Home" (177). Kephart did not credit any photographer. The photograph was taken by Kelly Bennett, the Apostle of the Great Smokies. Bennett's Obituary.  

The Saddle Joint and the History of Log Homes

This photograph by Edgar S. Purdom shows saddle joints of a cabin (more photos by Purdom). The saddle joint method of construction gave stability to the building and allowed less free space between logs. Most folks living in log homes preferred flat walls that could serve to hang household utensils, hence the hewn logs shown in the photograph. Temporary cabins might leave logs in their natural rough and uneven form for convenience. Both the Worley cabin and Bryson Place cabin are built with hewn logs put together with saddle joints. Their construction was meant to be comfortable and to last. 

Log structures have been around since the Bronze Age. Early American log homes and cabins used stick or wattle chimneys with stone or clay fireplaces. The History of Log Homes with migration of the tradition and the evolution into contemporary structures by Dorie Workman from Appalachian Log Structures. 

Later in the 19th century and at the turn of the 20th century homebuilders transitioned to stone chimneys. The myth of Appalachian settlers being remnants of Anglo-Saxon racial purity was a pervasive idea in the mid-to-late 19th century. Former President of Berea College, William Goodell Frost, in his 1899 essay, "Our Contemporary Ancestors in the Southern Mountains," romanticized this idea in a problematic way. He continually referenced the remoteness and isolation of the mountaineers, and used descriptors such as "primitive" and "archaic" (312). Frost observed the dwelling of mountian folk and was accurate in landscape for single and double cabins, but regressed mountain architecture to befit his contempory ancestor claim.

"[W]e are at once introduced to the first type of American architecture,--the log cabin. The blind or windowless one-room cabin is replaced in the broader valleys by the double log cabin,--two cabins side by side, with a roofed space between serving for a dining-room most of the year; in county towns even a second story with balcony is sometimes developed. In the Carolinas "stick chimneys" prevail, but in Tennessee and Kentucky substantial stone chimneys are the rule, aesthetically placed upon the outside of the wall." (312)