GCHS Log Cabin Project

Before its move and restoration, the log cabin at the Greene County Historical Society resided on Ackley Road near Graysville and belonged to property owner Ed Capenos. It had been used mainly as a hunting lodge. Ed Capenos sold his property to CONSOL to be part of a refuge they were creating. He was given a year to have the cabin removed before it would be bulldozed. As the year quickly passed, having had no luck selling the cabin, Capenos contacted the Greene County Historical Society and offered to donate the cabin, as long as they could remove it from the property.

When Linda Rush, a member of the board, heard about the offer, she immediately contacted her husband, Brice. Brice, a log cabin enthusiast since youth, had previously completed a log cabin restoration on his own property from a log cabin uncovered in Ceylon, so he joined the group of board members that traveled to Graysville to look at the cabin and make the decision to move and restore it.

What they found when they got there was a cabin that was in pretty good condition along three sides, although the fourth side was not. The cabin rested on four stone pillars with no original foundation, and the logs along the bottom of the cabin were in very poor condition. The logs of this cabin were also very skinny and could make restoration difficult. Inside, the lower level floor was in decent condition; however, the upper floor beams had been broken and spliced, leaving the ceiling/upper floor weak. But for the most part, the cabin was salvageable.

In November 2009, the very beginning stages of the cabin’s dismantling began. Before the cabin could be fully dismantled, Brice planned out the teardown and transportation logistics. He measured all aspects of the cabin, created blueprints and began the process of logging where each piece of wood was located within the cabin. To keep the logs used for the outside of the building organized, he used a system of color-coded metal tags hammered into the wood, marked with letters A-Z, with A at the bottom. The floors were also marked so that they could be laid down in as close to original position as possible. Because of the damage to parts of the cabin, the restoration would not be an exact replica of the original.

After the measurements and markings had been made, Brice, his twin brother Bruce, older brother Albert, and his nephew began the process of taking the cabin down piece by piece, while making sure that they could salvage as much as possible.

In a stroke of luck, another cabin was donated to the GCHS that would greatly help with the cabin restoration. Cumberland Mine had already had a log cabin near Oak Forest dismantled, so they contacted the GCHS and offered the pile of logs as a donation. These logs – a pile almost as big as the original cabin – would come in handy during the restoration. Many of the logs were in better shape than the logs from the other cabin. Incorporating the logs from the second cabin allowed the final cabin restoration to have a bigger footprint, as well as include the second floor.

Once the first cabin had been dismantled, transportation was arranged. Greene County donated a boom truck, a dump truck, and a couple of county employees that could be used to move the cabin over the span of two days. They also donated the use of a truck and employee to move the remnants of the second cabin. The Rush family loaded the pieces of the cabin onto the county trucks and the county brought them to the GCHS. The dismantling and transportation stage of the renovation lasted until May 2010 and took approximately 540 hours to complete.

The construction of the cabin began in April 2012. A full foundation was built to support the cabin. The walls, floor and roof were placed and then the chimney work began. The original chimney had used many tiny, fine pieces of rock and would be extremely hard to recreate. Tom Busoletti was brought into create a new chimney. “We let him use his artistic license on the chimney because his work is amazing,” Linda Rush said. And he did. He carved three large fish into the sandstone of the chimney of the upper floor, each one tinted a different color. He created the lower floor’s mantelpiece from hand carved ash. And of course, he created the sunburst pattern in the fireplace. The cherry upper mantelpiece was hand carved with various wildlife by Shirl Vernon.

Many of the materials used in the construction were donated or found. Cheryl Hart donated block for the foundation, rebar, and some hand cut stones. Other hand cut stones were found already at the Museum and were able to be used. Rick Bartoletti donated a tractor that could be used during construction. Bruce Rush also donated a tractor that could be used. Tom Pevarnik loaned his dump truck that was used to haul almost 25 tons of stone for the fireplace. Hoys donated 10 yards of concrete for the footer. Frank Lewis donated a lintel stone from an old family house to replace the cracked lintel stone from the original cabin.

Dallison Lumber, a logging outfit in West Virginia, provided one of the biggest donations. Large beams were needed for the ceiling of the first floor and couldn’t be found. Brice called Dallison Lumber to see if they had any stock that would work. They didn’t, but sent a forester out that day to get them cut. Within two days, the beams were ready. When Brice and Paul Weitzel went to pick them up, Dallison informed them that they were donating the $1600 beams to the project. “That was an extremely nice donation and very helpful. “ Brice declared. “They even gave us a tour of the sawmill operations, which was very interesting to see.”

Not only were many of the materials donated, most of the work was done by volunteers. Brice and his brothers worked on most of the project throughout all the different phases. Other volunteers would come by to work on special projects or just donate a day of their time to get the project completed. GCHS worker Charles ‘Pete’ Moyers worked with Brice on the cabin.

One of the most instrumental volunteers was Paul Weitzel. Paul had previously restored a log cabin and was a great help in making sure this restoration ran smoothly. He donated some of the short logs needed for construction. He also volunteered many hours to work on the construction. “Paul had a template used to recut the notches in the logs from his own restoration. That was really helpful, saved us a lot of time. He probably worked on the project for about 300-400 hours,” Brice said.

Other funds for the reconstruction came from Jean Zimmerman and Direct Results. Jean Zimmerman had left money from her estate to GCHS and it was routed into the cabin reconstruction. Direct Results contributed the money raised from the annual GreeneScene Road Rally, in memory of B.J. Quallich, to the museum to be used for the reconstruction, as well. To honor both of these ladies and the large part these funds played in the reconstruction, their names have been carved into the chinking on the wall by the fireplace on the first floor.

“We had an interesting time working on the restoration. People’s donations, the time people volunteered, it really helped a lot. A lot of hours went into making the cabin. It was some adventure,” Brice exclaimed. “The stories I could tell!”

The full history on the cabin has not been completed, but it is known that it belonged to two families – the Teagardens and the Burns. The cabin is setup to replicate a 1850s, pre-Civil War era cabin, although some changes have been made to structure and design that are not completely historically accurate. The steps have been moved to the right side of the door when they normally would be placed closer to the fireplace so that heat could travel up the stairs and warm the upper floor, saving on costs. The hand-carved upstairs cherry mantle would be less intricate and be a simple, functional mantle. And the outside sunburst on the chimney would just be basic stonework, similar to the original cabin.

While mostly finished, the cabin still does have some work that needs completing. Electricity work needs to be completed, the ceiling needs finished in the upstairs loft, a lean-to in the back needs to be built, and some other minor projects are needed to wrap up work on the cabin.

“The cabin will become a dedicated space to house the Museum’s Civil War collection, as well as a place for the re-enactors to hold meetings, “ stated Museum Administrator and Curator Eben Williams. “We’re looking for someone that can create some blueprints and build a lean-to on the building. The lean-to would be used to store a collection of cannons, provided by John Eckerd,” he added.

If you are interested in helping with the cabin or would like more information about it or the GCHS, please contact the Greene County Historical Society by phone at 724-627-3204 or by emailing gchsmuseum@greenecountyhistory.com.

Published in Holiday 2017 GreeneScene Magazine.

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Last month, we featured a story about the log cabin located at the Greene County Historical Society. The article focused on the move and restoration of the house. Because of the story, Arlene Teagarden Lantzer, came forward to tell us a little more about the cabin and its owners' history.

In 1784, Alexander Burns (1731/9-1826) was granted a pursuance of land. He used money from his service in the Revolutionary War to purchase the land, referred to as ‘The Big Lick’, in 1791. At the time, Alexander was living in what was called ‘Burns Camp’; this eventually became the village of West Finley.

Alexander’s first born, a son named James, was born in 1786 in Fort Lindley (now Prosperity). James married in 1808 and settled down on the ‘Big Lick”, next to Owens Run, a small creek flowing into Wheeling Creek. In approximately 1815, James built a log house for his family; he built a sawmill on Owens Run around 1835.

James died in 1842 at the age of 56. His six surviving children shared the inheritance of his estate. A daughter named Sarah Anne married Hamilton Teagarden, a local blacksmith in 1846. Hamilton cleared the land for crops and livestock and they had a 1 1/2 story log house on the top of the hill.

Near the turn of the century, a log cabin was moved from farther down Owens Run to the area at the bottom of Hamilton and Sarah’s hill. This cabin is the house that would end up the Greene County Museum. According to Helen Vogt, a local historian, the original log cabin on Owens Run belonging to William Teagarden (1783-1829) was moved to its second to last location across the street from Robert Burns’ log home, near James Burns’ sawmill. Alvin H. Teagarden remembered the moving of the house, as well as living there before moving into the log house on the top of the hill – he even recalled falling from an upstairs window. The lower house was rented out, and would eventually be bought by the Capenos family in the 60s. The log house at the top of the hill was also sold and is no longer owned by the Teagardens. However, the rest of the land remains with the Teagarden families.

Published in January 2018 GreeneScene Magazine.