This little cabin is located next to the Skagit River in a park in Rockport. It was built in the late 1800s by Tom Porter, a settler who filed a timber claim on the river; the cabin says a lot about “simpler times.”
Porter felled two large cedar trees by hand with a friend and built the cabin. In 1891 he married Mima Kerr and over time six Porter children were born in the cabin. In 1897 a flood forced the family to spend three days in the cabin’s loft as the river flowed through below. One son died in the cabin, as did Mima who died with the birth of their seventh child.
The cabin was built without nails or pegs. You can see dovetail notching that secured its corners. It was insulated with moss, clay, and newspaper. Heat came from a wood fired cook stove.
Very different from today’s building methods Kay and yet in some cases more enduring ✨
It is lovely and very well built to have survived all of that!
An old one, but solidly put together.
The good ol’ days maybe weren’t so good, were they? I remember as a child thinking how hard my grandma and others on her farm worked, day in and day out. There was always something to do or fix or build. Grandma cooked most of the day every day just to feed the family.
Tomorrow, I’m posting some photos of an old village in Ocala; some of the buildings have been restored and some have been recreated, but in either case they are very interesting.
I wonder how many women have died in childbirth simply because they had no other option…
That cabin is the work of a true craftsman, a lasting testimony to his skill. A lovely and impressive cabin, I really like it.
For all the problems we have today, there is much to be thankful about modern life and its comforts.
Wow — if the walls of that cabin could talk! I appreciate that last photo, showing how the detail of how the corners were secured. Fascinating!