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| Whitwer Site |
This weekend I explored a cabin site built by Nicholas Whitwer an immigrant from Rohrbach Switzerland. Mr. Whitwer lived in a dugout for several years until the log cabin was constructed in the early 1870’s. The area the cabin was located in is remote and for the most part untouched by modern agriculture. With the help of the landowner, I was able to locate the cabin foundation (metal stake in the center of the picture is the middle of the cabin) and even found part of one of the oak logs complete with borehole for a wooden pin that held the wall together. The owner also showed me the dugout and well.
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| Whitwer cabin after being used as barn |
I learned from another resident in the area who is 93 years old (I should say young because he still cuts his own firewood) that the cabin was torn down in late 1940. He was able to save some of the wood and later carved a horse out of it. See the accompanying picture. This old guy is probably one of the most interesting people I have ever met and a wealth of historical knowledge. He remembered playing in the cabin as a kid. He said that the Whitwer’s cut the logs with a pit saw and they were not hewn. He said there was no daubing or chinking that the cabin planks were fit tight.
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| Horse carved from cabin log |
What makes this story so interesting to me is that oak logs were used. There were few trees of any kind this far west in Nebraska, but this location was unique as it had a very large growth of oaks. The area was soon clear cut and the oak logs were used to build a flour mill in both Norfolk and Oakdale Nebraska.
Contrary to popular belief log structures in early Nebraska was quite common. The first documented log structures in Nebraska were built by James Mackay in 1795. Many more log structures were built for trading posts involved in the fur trade in the state. In 1819 Fort Atkinson was constructed of logs. It was huge, holding around a thousand troops and consisted of many log outbuildings. In 1846 the Mormons built a little over 500 log cabin in the Winter Quarters located north of present-day Omaha. They did most of this in a little over two months!
Sod houses were first made by Mormons at Winter Quarters, but they really did take off until around the 1880’s when most of the good land was taken and most of the trees were cut down. Most photos of sod houses come from the Solomon Butcher Collection. He made over 2000 and his photos saturate history books. It must be pointed out, however, that most of Butchers work contain pictures of sod houses constructed primarily in the area of Custer County Nebraska towards the end of the ninetieth century.
Sorry, I haven't posted anything in awhile, but life has kept me quite busy. My latest project is a rope bed for the Dederman Cabin in Norfolk, Nebraska. The cabin already had a rope bed, but this bed will be used to let visitors experience what it’s like to lie down in one.
I wanted to make a bed that was similar to what an early settler could have made with materials available on the frontier. I was going to copy the bed from the attached 1888 Solomon Butcher photo, but I settled on a slightly updated design using mortice and tenons instead of nails to hold it together. I also used only the bare basic tool that any pioneering family would have had. I used a crosscut saw, brace and bit, ax, foreplane, some chisels, and some basic layout tools like a square and some marking gauges. I did use a mortise chisel, I doubt most people would have had one, but I did so I used it.
The bed came out really nice and is plenty sturdy. It has to be to stand up to the use it will get from kids plopping in and out of it. My wife liked it a little too much and placed a quilt on it that she had made. Now she wants one for in the house. 
