As might be expected, the earliest houses constructed in Columbus and the upper Tombigbee River Valley were mostly of log. The term log cabin, though, is not a very good description of many of the log structures that were built.
The earliest description of an area structure was of the two-story 20-by-20-foot log block house known as Fort Smith at John Pitchlynn’s on Plymouth Bluff, which was constructed in 1813. While the first house built at Columbus in the fall of 1817 could well be described as a log cabin, some other early Columbus log homes such as William Cocke’s circa 1818 two-story cross-hall log home were far from being a cabin.
Early log structures took several different forms. There was Pitchlynn’s blockhouse, out buildings such as smokehouses or barns and of course residences. It is the residential structures I will focus on. Log dwellings in what is now Mississippi and Alabama took four principal forms. These were single pen, double pen, dog-trot and saddle-bag.
A single pen house was just one room but often with a loft. A double pen was two rooms with an exterior doorway into each room. A saddle-bag was two rooms, one being smaller than the other, and one exterior door into the larger room.
The dog-trot was two rooms with a wide hallway between them and the rooms usually opening into the hallway. Because the central hallway was sometimes left open to the outside, thereby allowing a dog to run through unhindered, the style took the name dog-trot.
When the town of Columbus was established in 1819, all of the houses except for Gideon Lincecum’s frame residence were probably log houses. Very few of those houses have survived, and all have been altered over the years so that none of them when viewed from the street appears to be log. However, by the mid-1820s, frame and even brick homes were becoming more prevalent. Within the original city limits log construction ended in 1830, but outside of town log construction continued into the late 1800s.
The Cedars, circa 1818, is the oldest surviving Anglo-American house in North Mississippi, and was originally a single pen log house.
Butterworth, which was formerly known as the Moody House, is a log dog-trot constructed in the 1820s. Hickory Sticks was constructed as a log double pen around 1830.
The Cedars is located on Pleasant Ridge overlooking Military Road. Halfway between the house and the road is a natural spring, making this a prime building location along the road, which was constructed between 1817 and 1819. The original part of the house is a 21-by-21-foot single pen, with a loft, constructed of square hewn pine logs. The earliest recorded owner of the property was Vardy McBee. The McBee family moved to present-day Lowndes County in 1817. There is no record, though, as to when McBee acquired the property or if he built the house.
There is, though, strong physical evidence as to the age of The Cedars. The original log single-pen part of the house represents the earliest style of house construction. The original log exterior is visible in the attic. It shows four long periods of weathering and white-washing prior to Capt. Edward Randolph enlarging the house and converting it into the Greek Revival style in 1835. Based on physical and documentary evidence, the house was built between 1817 and 1824, most likely shortly after 1817.
Butterworth is a log dog-trot located on Southside and is one of only three dog-trot log houses known to have survived within the current city limits. Once known as the Moody House it was constructed in the 1820s. Oral tradition says the house had once been located downtown and had been moved to its present location around 1900.
The house was constructed as two 16-by-16-foot log rooms with a breezeway between them. By the 1840s the logs were clapboarded over and the breezeway had been given a Greek Revival entrance way. Its builder and original owner are unknown, and its date of construction is based on its style and because no log houses were said to have been built within the Columbus town limits after 1830.
Hickory Sticks is located on the west side of Pleasant Ridge overlooking the old Columbus-Hamilton Road, now Seventh Street North. It was originally a story and a half double pen log house probably built around 1830.
Interestingly the logs that were used were of different woods, probably as size not the type of tree was the prime consideration when procuring the logs. The earliest land deed records show Andrew Weir receiving a patent to the property in 1834, but the house appears to have been built prior to that date.
Robert Hayden purchased the house in 1846, and it was probably then that it was enlarged and remodeled into a Greek Revival home.
Within the town limits of Columbus an “edict” was issued in 1830 banning any further construction of log homes. All new home construction was to be of either frame or brick. The first frame house had been built in 1819, and brick houses were being built by the mid 1820s. The period of log construction in Columbus had only lasted about 10 years.
Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at rufushistory@aol.com.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
