"Laying Up" Pioneering Log Homes

As the tide of European settlers pushed west across the North American frontier, one iconic construction technique traveled with them - building homes and cabins by stacking and notching horizontal logs. This traditional practice, known as "laying up", allowed rough dwellings to be erected quickly from abundant natural materials. But it was an immense test of strength, ingenuity and teamwork.

At the most basic level, laying up a log cabin required brute manpower. It took a crew of at least ten strapping men to muscle and heave the massive half-ton logs into their upright positions, one course at a time. When fewer hands were available, pioneers employed clever leverage using skids and ropes to wrestle the logs horizontally into their notched grooves.

With walls raised only to shoulder height, timber skids were propped atop the last log laid. The next massive trunk would be rolled atop the angled skids, attached to ropes or chains, and pulled into place with the might of human force or even oxen and horses. As the heavy logs inched upwards, builders guided them into the saddle notches cut into the intersecting logs below.

The cadence of hoists, grunts and log shifts continued relentlessly until all four walls stood fully enclosed - often requiring 36 or more individually handled logs. It was an exhausting feat of coordinated muscle that could take even experienced crews several days working sunup to sundown.  

Speed came with experience handling the logs and setting up a synchronized workflow. Feats of two or three men single-handedly erecting modest single-pen cabins within a couple days were remarkable accomplishments of sweat and sinew. As one old adage chuckled, "If you don't cuss, you'll never raise gourds" - a nod to the frequent need to vent frustrations.

But the logwork was far from finished once vertical walls were raised. Roofs had to be framed by fitting trimmed logs atop gabled end walls. Woodworkers set about chinking the gaps between courses with strips of wood covered in mud daubing. Fireplace chimneys were carefully stacked from fieldstones or clay bricks. Doors and window openings were cut out. Floor boards installed. The pioneer cabin evolved from a bare shell to a outlined shelter to a rustic home over many meticulous construction phases.

For all its crudity compared to modern building techniques, laying up demonstrated the remarkable physical capabilities and clever improvisations of early settlers. Using only hand tools, fertile imaginations, and thick muscle developed from farm work, they could fell trees from the wilderness and transform them into rainproof, windproof dwellings - however primitively.

More than primitive construction, laying up cabins was part of the pioneering spirit that defined westward expansion and the American identity. Taming an untamed land through sheer perseverance, making do with what nature provided - these same values stacked up lives, homesteads and eventually a nation, one heavy lift at a time.

So while few modern Americans will ever experience the calloused-hand burliness required for building traditional log homes, we can still marvel at the enduring cabins as monuments to our country's hard-won history. Each saddle-notched timber represents not just a pioneer dwelling, but a hard day's work to declare one's self-sufficiency and humble hopes for the future. The laying up tradition endures as a legacy of ingenuity, determination and human strength.

Now with all that said, we have chainsaws, and tractors to lift logs into position.  Here are a few pictures of the corners of the Joseph Greer House.

Corners of the kitchen end of the Joseph Greer House

End wall in position.

All proceeds from the sale of the "House of the Messenger" support the Joseph Greer Chapter and the Tennessee Society, Sons of the American Revolution. The funds will be allocated to historical and educational programs dedicated to the founding principles of the republic and the Constitution of the United States.