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Schuller Log House Ralph is an avid student of history, and as a result of his efforts, renewed interest in the early history of Mercer County is centered around Shawnee Springs and the Anderson Circle Farm. During the 1990’s Ralph and Ruth were responsible for extensive archeological excavations on the farm by the University of Kentucky. The findings of that study have added greatly to the understanding of this area’s role in Kentucky history. This period was also the timeframe for the relocation and restoration of the Springhouse in this vicinity. We will tour these two sites in other sections of this website. |
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Other than the approximate construction date of the Schuller Log House, we know very little about the history of the log house. The log members were in remarkable condition for being approximately 175 years old, and very few members had to be replaced during the reconstruction. The logs are yellow poplar, and the corner joints are Vee Notch design. |
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Since we know very little about the original history of the log house, we will present some of the history of log cabins and houses in America’s history. The term Log Cabin and Log House is often used interchangeably, but there is a difference. A distinction is usually made between log houses, which have walls of square hewn logs joined by carefully hewn corner notching, and log cabins, which have walls where the timbers are left round and are joined at the corners by overlapping saddle notches. Log cabin walls with their half round logs were difficult to chink, i.e. to fill the spaces between the rounded logs with clay or other material to make them weatherproof. For this reason, log cabins were generally used only for temporary shelters in the woodlands of the eastern United States. Since the logs of the Schuller Log House are square hewn, it is a house as opposed to a cabin. |
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