My name is Ronnie Dowdy I'm I'm from Murfreesboro Tennessee I've been in the reenacting since I
was 16. So about 33 years if this wasn't early 18th century Homestead the first greatest task
was built something to get in out of elements you know get away from A. the weather uh at this time
here it would have been B. the Native American tribes that were in here that did not want anyone
in here period if you were to stay and not move on if you were to homestead this and build you
know you'd have uh of course maybe a smokehouse something for food storage uh usually the barn was
the biggest and nicest structure that was the first one built on the place.
People live off the land you know live off a wild game well that's not always the case I
mean that gets that gets kind of scarce and the winter you know and you'd have your of course
your hog pens maybe some sheep if you had them possibly chickens if you brought a few with you
and it would just be an ever ever evolving type of of operation because they would have been once
the barn was built they had a nice barn had a good structure to keep their their some of their
most prized possessions which would be their stock then they would worry about themselves
then that's where you would come in with your bigger nicer house then maybe a larger barn
maybe another stock barn or stock sheds and it would just kind of grow as the need they
would I would think that they built as their needs arose you know they just didn't go with
the uh we'll build it and they will come I think they would you know they built as needed because
you know to build something just with the promise of maybe you know maybe we'll get some chicken
someday but usually they had them and then then built for their needs as they went along and you
know if their family expanded they might even uh add on to their house that was a common technique
later in the early 1800s to take an existing house proper or a nicer log house and slide
and build another one onto the end of it and add on you know and it was just and you can see that
even uh in old log houses that we tear down for renovation today you can just see the evolution of
this family or that family or this family took it as they moved through they all put their own
little signature to the house maybe they needed more room maybe they had more kids maybe they
needed a bigger kitchen and it would just kind of expand like that and I've been involved in
several original cabins teardowns there was one found in central Kentucky back in 2013
and we disassembled it after the landowners graciously gave it to us because they were
just going to burn it and we took it down and carried it to western Kentucky and reassembled it
I'm currently working on one thats called a three room log home or log house it was uh had a parlor,
great room and then the hall upstairs big huge chimney 10 foot ceilings and by the way the
the height of your ceilings measured your social status and how much wealth you have
we haven't been able to trace it back yet to actually nail down the exact date we think it was
in the neighborhood of somewhere between 1820 and 1830. It shows some early construction techniques
and then that's one of the neater things you see this on TV that everybody just goes in
they take machines just you know rip them down and go for a day you know and they're in and out
that's not quite that simple it is it can be that simple but if you take the time to
stop and let the let the structure talk to you you can see things and details that otherwise might be
missed this house had been renovated it had a what is what in our area in the Middle Tennessee area
it's commonly called a saddle bag log house it's where they had the house proper then they slid
and built another log structure around the chimney and they would tear into the back of
the chimney to have a secondary fireplace which is a common building technique as the family expanded
if they needed more room they needed more square footage it needed to be bigger, higher, longer,
wider and they just kept working on it and you can see that in this house you can see where they
took out logs they cut out logs to make doorways they added windows where there weren't windows
they covered up windows that were originally there and so you you kind of have to take
your time and see how the original and let it tell you give you the clues you know of what
what the construction techniques were and that's another thing you can if you pay attention you
can date it by some of the construction techniques and one one of the cool things
that we found uh most all of the professional Builders left their mark on these houses
and we found a circle uh it's probably four to five inches in diameter in the front on one of the
logs with six or seven sets of initials in it and we checked those by the census records and they
match no one in the area so we're pretty sure that that was a professional crew that came through
and you and you know the house speaks of that you can look at the the upstairs floor joists
they're not just holes they're not just hacked out they're actually hand planed and hand beaded
down the sides which is a feature that was covered up by someone that just didn't they didn't like
that they wanted the bead board so see you can see how that how everybody puts their own little
signature to a house when you start disassembling these old houses especially old log houses
um you you learn as you go I mean you know you you have to you see things that are interesting
little features to the house and for myself I try to go back and research those to see how far back
these constructions techniques just like the pages of a book you turn this page and you see what this
thing you know the history of as far back as this records can find and you know that these families
live there from these years to these years and you see how they remodeled that's what we would
call it today and it's basically what they did then to suit their growing needs and or family
you know they would add a room or as I said before they would they would remove logs in order to make
room for closets or stairwells and uh as the one that that I'm currently working on
um we were able to locate and date this to an exact style because we found
where the old stairwell went it's no longer there it's been taken out remodeled over but there were
little small clues there was some ghosting in the floor where the actual stairwell was in the closet
because they always had a little stairs would go up then turn to the left and go upstairs and they
would have a door there to shut off and keep the heat downstairs and that space underneath that
that void they utilize that as a closet and then a particular one we were tearing down we found a
mussel shell buttons all types of clothing buttons where they had used that for clothing storage
and it's just one of those things where you just if you have the time to be able to take the time
to listen to the structure and let it tell you it's history let it try to tell you as best it can
you know the stories and then if and as the old saying goes if those logs could talk
you know what stories could they tell about who lived there and how long it had you know
been built and progressed and who did what you know those would be the neat things to find out.