The Hartman Log Cabin is on Route 50 in Williamsburg, Ohio. Members of the Hartman family built it in 1838, after they emigrated from Germany in the 1750s and moved to what is now Ohio in 1801.
Constructing a house of logs was not a new idea in the 1830s. It is thought that the first log cabins in North America were built by Swedish immigrants, who settled in the Delaware River Valley in the 1630s. Those folks brought log construction expertise with them from Scandinavia, where cabins made of logs had been built since medieval times. Cruder log structures were used there as far back as the Bronze Age (3,500 B.C.).
People generally built log cabins where suitable timber (tall, straight, and relatively knot-free) grew nearby. The length of the largest available logs often determined the building’s dimensions, and this can be seen in the longest logs on the front of the Hartman cabin.
The flat fronts of those logs show they had been shaped, or hewn, before construction, resulting in a relatively smooth building exterior. In contrast, early log cabins were often built of unshaped logs. This took less work, but round logs were harder to seal against the weather. To fill the gaps between the logs in early cabins, builders used whatever came to hand — materials such as mud, small stones, sticks, and even corncobs.
The Hartman cabin’s logs are notched at the ends, so they fit together at the corners to stabilize the structure. Why not use nails? Because log cabins settle and compress over time, and nails pull out.
The Hartman cabin also has a stone foundation, which means it had an actual floor inside when it was built. Cabins without foundations had only earth floors and were often temporary shelters, to be lived in while more permanent housing was built. They were then converted to barns or used for storage.
Log cabins have developed a mythic reputation in the U.S., maybe because seven presidents were born or lived in them — plus one who made the claim. The ones who did: Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln, and James A. Garfield. The one who didn’t: William Henry Harrison, who wanted to be known as a man of the people, but who actually lived on an estate in Vincennes, Indiana, called Grouseland.
Log homes are still built today, using kits of pre-cut logs, and can reach 3,000 square feet or more in size. They are considered sustainable, and thus part of a “green” approach to living.
The Hartman Log Cabin continues to be used. The local county renovated it and rents it out for weddings, parties, and reunions. Other public log buildings include some U.S. National Park lodges, which are quite large.
So, what’s the world’s largest log cabin? It’s the Château Montebello Hotel, in Montebello, Quebec, built in 1930.
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Photos of the Hartman Cabin by the author.
The photo of the Château Montebello Hotel is from Wikimedia Commons and is in the public domain. It was orginially on a postcard.