Log cabins crucial to frontier

The story of the American pioneers is an exciting tale of the men and women who pushed the frontier from the Appalachian Mountains, through Missouri, to the Pacific Coast. There were many famous frontiersmen such as Daniel Boone, Jim Bridger and Kit Carson, but the real heroes of the frontier were the thousands of average homesteaders who never became famous. It was their courage and hard work that tamed the wilderness, and gave rise to this great nation.

Those earliest pioneers to Missouri generally arrived in small groups, with all of the worldly possessions that they could manage to cram into a single, canvas covered wagon. They generally brought with them their household effects, farming equipment, and livestock. Also food enough to last until a new crop could be harvested; after all, there were no corner grocery stores like we have today. Small plots of ground were chopped out of the wilderness that first year so a small patch of grain could be planted for the first season.

Usually, a crude shelter had to be built by each new family at a pioneer settlement until a home site could be cleared and seeds planted for the first new crop.

Once that was accomplished they could begin building a permanent home. Those earliest homes were crude log cabins made from tree logs. The cracks between the logs were chinked with sticks, clay, moss and mud. Generally, the log cabins were just one room with only a dirt floor for the first year or two.

 A fireplace was constructed at one end of the room, made from fieldstones and clay mortar. In the fireplace hung a crane for a kettle and a Dutch oven for baking. The fireplace was the favorite gathering place. Mother kept the fire going day and night for cooking, and to provide light and warmth. When the fire did burn out, there were no matches, so flint stone and steel were used to strike a spark. The men preferred to make their own gunpowder and smelted their own bullets.

The first French settlements in Upper Louisiana grew around the lead mines in present day Ste. Genevieve and Washington counties in Missouri as early as 1720. Those early French settlers built log cabins differently than the early pioneers of Jackson County. The French placed their logs vertically upright in the ground, stockade style. In Western Missouri the logs were laid horizontally, one on top of the other.

In Jackson County, using only an ax, the men and boys cut trees into logs from 12 to 15 feet long. Then they chopped notches close to the ends. The notches held the logs to each other when they fitted the corners together to form the sides of the cabin. It was the women and young girls in the family who filled the cracks between the logs.

The men then fitted smaller logs together forming the roofing frame and fitted clapboards or thin cedar shakes to the frame. They overlapped the shingles so the rain would run off. Few of the early pioneers had nails, so they used wooden pins to hold the roof together. It was the boy’s job to whittle out the pins.

Frontier cabins had only a couple small windows covered with animal skins or greased paper. The greased paper allowed some light into the cabin. The front door swung on hinges made of leather.

If you would like to see what they were really like, there is an old log cabin that has been restored and furnished with period furniture in Independence on the southeast corner of Noland and Truman roads.