Archive: News

This week construction on the North Log Cabin began on the walls using the original 1791  hemlock logs and new hemlock logs that will replace old, rotted ones.  Contractor Al Roy and carpenters Dan Newton and Ed Roy assembled the logs on the concrete slab that was laid by contractors and volunteers last week.

Newton says reassembling the cabin is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle.  When it was disassembled at the Cayuga Museum in Auburn in 2007 the logs were tagged to make it clear how they should go together when they were reassembled in Lansing.  But over the two years they were exposed to weather in a pile near the Highway Department barn many of the tags faded or were washed away.


Newton and Roy are using pictures of the cabin that were taken in Auburn to identify individual logs and determine where in the puzzle they go.  They are looking for scratches or any identifying marks to piece the logs into place. 

As the cabin is assembled one surprise was how much space there is between the logs.  Boy Scout Martin Keefe will apply the 'chinking,' a kind of mortar applied between the logs that insulates the cabin.  Newton says that will be a more time consuming  job than originally expected because the gaps are so large.  Keefe will also construct a kiosk that will display a sign explaining the history of the cabin.


CabinTimelineSign5_640.jpgIt was originally built by Thomas North in 1791 near the intersection of Colon and Searles Roads.  Two of North's grandsons moved to Michigan in 1836, and in 1841 Henry North and two others successfully petitioned to name their settlement Lansing, after his original home in New York.  The cabin itself was used as a schoolhouse before it was purchased by Daniel Tichenor, who moved it about a mile north.  As his family grew he added a kitchen and pine siding hid the original cabin.  It was rediscovered about 100 years later when the siding was removed for repairs.  At that time it was taken apart for the second time, then reassembled behind the Cayuga Museum in Auburn, where it was used for a Millard Filmore exhibit and eventually for storage.  In 2007 is was taken apart once again.  This summer more than $13,000 of an estimated $17,500 needed was raised by the Lansing Community Council and ground was broken at a new site in Myers Park on September 3rd.


By mid-afternoon yesterday Newton said he hoped to have the walls done by the end of the day, or on Monday morning.  If the weather cooperates most of the construction, including a replacement roof, could be completed as early as next week.  A gallery of construction pictures is being maintained at www.NorthLogCabin.com as well as information on how to contribute to the project.

----
v5i39