First, we bought the Tenpenny House

circa 1830, from Woodbury , Tennessee.

It began as a small 16' by 16' log cabin. Then as the family grew a larger, two-story 18' by 20' cabin was added. In traditional dog-trot fashion, the cabins were side-by-side with an opening between them. When the whole thing was roofed over and the upstairs extended over the opening as well as the small cabin, a long porch was added and thus a much larger house emerged.

We were able to salvage an 18' by 20' two-story cabin and a 16' by 16' cabin. We used the smaller of the two to make our "back addition" cabin.

Below you can see where the two cabins were positioned:

Underneath the siding and insulation, plaster and wallpaper there were 175 year old hand hewn logs, most in preserved condition.

We used the logs from the smaller cabin, and sold the remaining logs from the larger cabin.

Here it is as we bought it. Being a story and a half,
the McMellon cabin was more the size we were looking for

Then a few weeks later, we bought the McMellon Cabin

circa 1820, from Fayetteville, Tennessee.

Built in the early 19th century, the cabin has had several owners. We are still researching the history and hope to one day know the entire story.

What we have found so far is that at the turn of the century it was owned by a doctor. Situated at a crossroads, patients could stop by. A clapboard addition was added at the back, possibly as a dispensory. During demolition, several old discarded medicine bottles were discovered left under the floor boards and between the logs under the chinking.

In the 1960's the cabin was purchased by the McMellons when they bought the land it sat on. The crossroads was long gone and the McMellons built a lovely farm house where they lived until recently. The family has fond memories of picnics and outings to the old cabin. They were willing to sell it to us in order to see it "brought back to life" and we will hope to see the McMellons visit it often and share in its new history.

The date 1821 is carved along with a previous owner's
initials on a log by the front window...

a McMellon later added his signature.

We enlisted the services of the very excellent Craig Cropper of Cabin Creek Log Homes out of Fairview, Tennessee to dismantle the structures, transport the logs to our site, clean and treat them for any insect damage, then reassemble them according to the plans we had drawn.

With both cabins, Craig carefully numbered the logs and recorded their postions. He was very diligent in preserving for us any artifacts he found in the cabins.

Now it was time to reconstruct the logs on their new site in N.C.