COLUMNISTS

Get ready to roll

Consider this an invitation to a log-rolling. My wife and I recently signed a contract to build our retirement home. After a long search for land in central Arkansas, we bought eight acres near the community of Glen Rose in northeastern Hot Spring County. Situated on the line between the piney woods of the Gulf Coastal Plain and the Ouachita Mountains, the land is characterized by rolling hills covered with a mixed pine-hardwood forest. Some 50 good sized trees will be removed for the house and garage, plus another 25 or so for a vegetable garden.

Occasionally, while standing alone in the middle of that forest, I am reminded how lucky I am to be living in the age of the power tool, the bulldozer, the backhoe. The settlers in frontier Arkansas-and the frontier era was long lived here-had to depend on hard work to clear land, build a shelter, and put in a crop. To speed the process and lighten the labor, settlers often had log-rollings-at which neighbors collected the newly cut trees for burning or for constructing a home. “House raisings,” which involved neighbors helping erect a log home, were also common in rural areas.

Not everyone in early Arkansas lived in log houses, but that was the most available building source, and the structures were solid and long-lasting if properly constructed. Residents were proud of their log homes. Here is how Wayman Hogue recalled the log house in Van Buren County where he grew up in the late 1800s: “I remember the ‘big house,’ one large room built of scalped logs, chinked and daubed, and floored with puncheons, made of split logs with the flat side up and the surface hewn smooth.”

Hogue recalled that the house was covered “with boards riven from choice oak.” These hardwood shingles, when properly applied, were waterproof and durable. The Hogues’ one-room house had two doors, but no windows and “all light and ventilation came from the open doors and the cracks in the walls between the logs.”

John Quincy Wolf, who was born during the Civil War on a farm near Calico Rock, recalled as an old man that house-raisings “were big social occasions, very practical and very enjoyable, that drew people from miles around.” Wolf recalled that some neighbors were better craftsmen than others: “Chopping is really an art, and not every sturdy-armed six-footer was good at it. To swing an axe high in the air back over the shoulders and then bring it sharply down at exactly the right place and at the right angle with the right force required an accuracy that came only after years of practice.”

To avoid rot and termites, the log house was usually built on stone footings. A skilled chopper was stationed at each corner of the house with the responsibility of cutting a notch in each log so that they could be fitted together into a strong unit. The notch was often a simple V shape, but more experienced log builders could carve sophisticated dovetail notches that made for an especially tight fit. Spaces between the logs were daubed with a clay and grass mixture.

A daub of clay and grass was also used to make chimneys. This was often the case even in upland counties where building stone was readily available. Metal stoves were not common in rural Arkansas until well after the Civil War,so fireplaces provided both heat and a means of cooking, as well as serving as a major source of light.

The “mud cat” chimney involved building a firebox made from stones or well-stirred mud from a crawdad hole mixed with grass topped with a chimney made of oak lathing, also clad in a thick application of daub. The mud cats dried out and became brittle over time, posing a constant threat of a house fire. Wayman Hogue recalled as an old man how his father “would have to throw water up the chimney” whenever the mud cat chimney caught on fire.

An almost universal aspect of a log-rolling or house-raising was a good deal of visiting. John Quincy Wolf recalled that the “jolly crowd of neighbors who raised the house” was happy in large part because “their families were together in a big social gathering.” Food apparently played a large role in these parties. Wolf recalled dinner (what we today call lunch) offerings of “backbones, hog-jowl, sausage, fried ham, chicken, cabbage, turnips, greens, cornbread, biscuits, preserves, jelly, pumpkin pie, buttermilk, and coffee.” The socializing often continued in the evenings, and if a fiddler was among the work crew, a dance might ensue.

I will let you know when enough trees are on the ground to have a log-rolling. And let me know if you know any good fiddlers.

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Tom Dillard is a historian and retired archivist living for the time being in rural Pulaski County. Email him at [email protected].

Editorial, Pages 84 on 09/22/2013

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