hi everyone ken here welcome to this house today we are in kimmswick missouri
exploring an 1850s log cabin let's take a quick look around outside
and then let's explore what life would have been like here in rural missouri
this area has been inhabited for at least 12 000 years as archaeological
evidence suggests that the earlier clovis culture hunted mastodons in these lands
fast forwarding to 1859 the town of kimswig was founded by theodore kim
a dry goods merchant from st louis he planned for the town to follow a grid of streets and
alleyways and even developed houses to make the area more appealing to tradesmen within 10 years
the town was bustling with a brewery flower mill several shops and trade services the town
went into decline as the highways were built and steamboats fell out of fashion since the 1970s
kimmswick has been on the up and up with new shops and restaurants moving into historic buildings
walking into the cabin this is just absolutely incredible so originally this house was built
around the 1850s up in mapaville missouri and it was imported to the spot as an extant building
all of the logs and stones were disassembled numbered and then reassembled here the spot
so pretty much everything you're seeing here is completely original to the house if we look
down we can see the original oak floors if we look up we can see all of the original timbers
as well as the original fireplace and we can imagine that meals would have been cooked here
as this house would not have had a kitchen indoors it could have had a summer kitchen
at its original location but we don't have that here today now in the space we can imagine that
entertaining might have happened as we can see a couple of politicians having a game of checkers
walking over to the side of the room there are stairs and this would have led to a boys room
and a girl's room however we are not going to see those today we are instead going to
see the rest of the house so on this wall over here is a picture of the howe family
and we can see that the house before it was moved here was originally covered in siding and had a
large front porch but this was restored to its original aesthetic now continuing on through this
house we come through a doorway and let's pause to notice the simpler construction methods used here
now entering the primary bedroom this is where the parents of the house would have slept
so let's take a moment to look around the rope bed gives us great insight into the day-to-day
lives of the early settlers of this house as we can see ropes acting in place of box springs
every night before going to sleep the owner would have tightened both beds using this
tool the trundle bed would have been slept on by the youngest child in packed with straw
this made it really easy to clean if the child would have had an accident in the
middle of the night also in this bedroom we get a better sense of early life in america
as we have a dresser now in this dresser you would have pressed your clothes and
laid them flat on the shelves and then placed rocks in them to keep them from blowing away
whenever you left the house you wouldn't be able to keep critters out of them so to do that you
would latch the door shut and this would keep any mice or rodents from crawling around on your nice
clothes now you might have worn your nice clothes when cording so this is called a cording candle
and we can see how it raises and lowers the candle symbolized the amount of time that a gentleman
could spend courting the owner of this house's daughter so if the candle was raised up high
that meant that dad liked him and he could stay for a long time maybe even for dinner and if
the candle was really short it meant just stop by and say hi and then get out of here
now crossing back to the living room we are going to make our way over to
the kitchen which was added on at a later period so come on through here
and this is going to give us a better sense of what life would have been like
in those early days so we can see a butter churn and we'll see how that's demonstrated as well
in behind the butter churn is a coffee grinder and this is how you would have made coffee so
let's watch another demonstration to see how this plays out every farm family that i knew of had one
of these you this opened you put your your roast coffee beans in here and then you would grind them
and this drawer would be full and then you would put this in your coffee pot
exiting to the yard from the door in the kitchen we will
now head over to the smaller cabin to see an outstanding example of an even simpler life
walking inside the little cabin come on in here and take a look at this because this
is really fascinating there are some details in here that are just reminiscent of the old
kind of frontier life so let's begin to look around
of course directly behind me is a large lofted space and this would not have
been the original bed that was up here but that is where the children would have slept
and then the parents would have slept down here on the bottom floor now the ladder to go up to
the lofted space is really interesting because of the duck tailing so come take a look at this
finer detail as we can see that the wood has been inlaid inside of the support wood for the ladder
over in this corner of the cabin is a wood-burning stove
and you'll notice some really interesting details here as the chimney does not extend
all the way to the floor but is instead supported by these wooden brackets
and this helps to free up more floor space because this is a pretty confined room
and over here is a cherry petter so we can imagine
the original inhabitants of this home sitting down and pitting cherries and preparing their food here
now up here on the wall above the window we can see two different saws the first one would have
been used for chopping lumber or for gathering firewood and the second one is an ice saw
so originally whenever the river would freeze in the winter time the inhabitants of this home
would go out to the river and cut out large blocks of ice and store them in a house that
was just up the street and the ice was said to have lasted all the way up until july
which was just incredible that it could survive so long in the hot and humid missouri temperatures
thank you all for watching i really hope that you enjoyed this video please make sure to like
comment share and subscribe i would also like to take a moment to say a special thank you
to the volunteers who helped to really bring this place to life there's going to be a special event
here on may 14th and i'll put more information about that down in the video description below
they will be doing appraisals for a very modest cost so you can bring your antiques your art
jewelry other collectibles down here and every dollar that's raised is going to go to the local
historical society additionally i'd like to take a moment to say a special thank you to
our members whose names you can see on screen right now if you would like to see your name
on this screen please sign up for our membership program today i'll see you next time on this house