081. Log House

Pioneers were advised to travel light as they made their journey west. But they did not forgo all refinements. A proper home had dining chairs for each member of the family, frame beds, coverlets, plates, silverware and a teapot. This varied slightly depending upon where the settlers were from originally. The fifty some settlers in Naper’s contingency were mostly rugged, rural Ohioans. To them, the New Englanders who settled in the area were a curious, straight-laced lot. As one early settler observed, “Whatever else he might lack, a Yankee immigrant never arrived without a plow, a bed, a barrel of salt meat, a supply of tea and molasses, a Bible and a wife.” He added that the New Englanders knew nothing of farm work. But like all settlers, they set to the task of building a log house. Regardless of their origins, log cabin settlers shared the dream of eventually building a finer house—one with clapboard siding, more windows and a stove for cooking instead of just a hearth.