Well we couldn't just drive all the way back to Greenbrier County to core one structure, now could we?! After finishing up McCoy Fort, Shawn and I (not feeling nearly as worn out as usual) decided to revisit one of the structures we toured on our first trip - Keeney Cabin. Remember this cabin? 

What about this cute dog? Surely, he'll jog your memory!

We couldn't stop thinking about Keeney Cabin after we left Greenbrier County the first time, so we asked Dan and Diana, the owners of the cabin, if we could come back and they said sure thing! The reason why we were so excited about dating Keeney Cabin is because it has two potential histories. It is either the Lewis Cabin, constructed in the late 1700s and moved to the current site sometime later, or its the Keeney Cabin and it dates to the early 1800s. Of course no one knows which one it is, but the histories associated with each family are quite different and thus the significance of the cabin would be different depending on the construction date.  The photograph below, taken around 1914, shows Keeney Cabin (bottom left) in its current location. 

It was converted into a garage in the early-to-mid 1900's to store the previous owner's 1931 Model T convertible pick up truck (for all of you antique car enthusiasts). 

I imagine by now you know what we came to do. This time we put Dan to work too. Dan collected the longest archaeological core of the project. And the longest one I've ever seen. Pretty impressive, Dan! Looking for a job?

Then we got a surprise visit from Drs. Stephen and Kim McBride, archaeologists from the University of Kentucky. They happened to be in the area working on a project and, being good friends of Dan and Diana, they stopped by to hang out! So we put Stephen to work too....

We collected 25 great cores from Keeney Cabin that day. The only thing that could have topped it was if Woody caught a squirrel. Well, guess what? He did! I didn't get any pictures to show you, but you probably wouldn't want to see them anyway. He was sooo proud of his catch. He and his new (dead) squirrel friend went everywhere together that day. It was a great end to a great day! Maybe not so much for the squirrel though...

We owe a great big thank you to Dan and Diana for letting us work/play at Keeney Cabin, for providing a delicious lunch from Alderson Green Grocer (if you're ever in the area), and for bringing us a generator to keep the drills going. We really enjoyed working with you and can't wait to share our results!

For our final trip of the summer 2015 field season, Shawn, Andrew, and I headed to McCoy Fort in Williamsburg, WV. During the 1770's McCoy Fort served the area's settlers as protection against Native American raids. The fort was later used as a barn after the McCoy family built a new house, and during the 19th century the fort/barn was covered by a larger barn. 

It was largely forgotten until the 2000's when archaeologists, Drs. Kim and Stephen McBride, began searching the area for the foundation of McCoy Fort. It was then that they discovered the log structure, hidden inside of a barn, standing on the site of the original fort. Could it be McCoy Fort?? 

Fast forward to July 2015. Of course, things look a bit different now. The foundation that was dug up by the McBrides is now grown over.

And the fort is now a pile of logs....

But this is all progress! The WDHF is working to get this pile of logs moved to their museum. They hope to rebuild, renovate, and make the fort a permanent exhibit. So cool! 

Carolyn kept an eye out for the raccoon too. 

Shawn and Andrew tackled one side of the pile. 

Many of the outer logs still had bark on them. That was a relief. 

Even though this was Andrew's first summer on the project, he was a coring machine!

You probably don't recognize him without the blue plaid shirt, but there's Shawn. He always gets the dangerous jobs, like sitting on an unstable log with a nail sticking out of it, and coring in a very uncomfortable position....

Or like having to stand on top of the logs to core. These are just things Shawn does....He's a good sport.

And he gets excited about small victories too. That's why we make a good team. 

All in all, it was a successful trip. We collected almost 30 nice samples and we look forward to the upcoming lab work. We really hope this is the McCoy Fort! We will post the date and time of our presentation of results in the spring. Hope to see you there!

We owe a big thanks to Carolyn Stephens and the WDHF for inviting us to work on McCoy Fort and for letting us borrow her generator when the drills died. They always do....

After days of touring potential structures in Pendleton County we finally had to pick up the drills, warm up the coring muscles, and get to work! So we headed to Upper Tract to meet with Michelle and Jason Sites, owners of the Kile Homestead. Michelle and I had been emailing back and forth for months about the Kile Homestead and our proposed work, so it was a real pleasure getting to finally meet her in person! 

We were a bit nervous about this site, because we had not had an opportunity to tour it before committing to sampling. This is something we very rarely do, but Michelle and I had discussed the details of the structures and she confirmed that there was bark on a number of logs. Fortunately, almost everything was exactly as she had described it to us! I'll get back to the "almost" part in a moment. Let me first introduce the Kile Homestead.

The Kile Homestead includes a large 2 story log house (covered in siding) with a once-detached kitchen (now connected and covered),  a 2 story log slave quarters, and a 2 story log barn. The Sites hope to restore this historical property. 

The Kile family settled near the river in Upper Tract in the 1780s. Sometime after settling they had to relocate to higher ground for safety because of a yellow fever outbreak. So they moved to the current location. The large house, kitchen, slave quarters, and barn were all likely built sometime between 1800 and the 1830s. There are a few clues about the age of the structures - the chimney of the main house has initials and the date 1834 carved into it and the first time the house and outbuildings showed up on the census was in 1840. Additionally, Michelle recently told me that she was given a penny (dated 1840) that a woman had found inside of the slave quarters when she was a young girl. 

All signs point to no later than 1840, but it is possible that there is a considerable difference in the ages of these structures. I imagine if the family had to relocate quickly they probably first built a basic one-room structure to reside in while the main house was constructed. The kitchen, barn, and slave quarters all fit that description, but only the slave quarters and kitchen have a hearth, so my guess is that either of them could have been the first structure built on the property. But enough conjecture already! Sometimes I get a little too excited and then I forget that I'm here to answer these questions...

We had 2 days to sample the slave quarters, kitchen, house, and barn. This was a really tall order! It usually takes about 20-30 minutes to collect 1 core. We needed to collect about 65 cores. And map the structures. And fill the holes. And sleep? Yikes! 

Shawn and I decided that we would start in the slave quarters. First let me explain the conditions of the slaves quarters - not only did it feel incredibly oppressive in there (for obvious reasons), it was also full of spiders (we named the closet the "Black Widow Closet" for a reason) and unidentified, creepily human-like, scat. We decided that Shawn would tackle the downstairs (and the Black Widow Closet) and I would tackle the upstairs (and the scat). Seemed like a fair trade to me.

Michelle, if you're reading this and cringing - please don't. These types of places are old and it is expected that they are full of something creepy and/or gross. It just varies by location and we love setting up our adventure stories with the gory details.

By now, readers, you know the details of coring so I'm just going to set you loose with some pictures of our work. Sounds more interesting, right? 

If you don't know the details of coring yet, please visit the Barracks Field Work post and catch up with us!

We moved on to the house after completing the sampling in the slave quarters. Because the kitchen was separated from the main house by the breezeway, we decided to treat it as if it was its own structure. We also made sure to collect samples from the breezeway walls to see when the two structures were connected. We were all set to get started in house, but there was one tiny problem....

There were no logs!!! AHHH. Worst nightmare come true! Fortunately, this crisis was easily averted. Jason, armed with a sawzall and a crowbar, came to the rescue! This was a first for me. I have never been in a house where the homeowner was willing to do demolition so that I could access the logs. Shawn and I would point at a wall we wanted taken out and Jason would tear it down. It was awesome!

After finishing up in the house we had a few hours left to tackle the barn. We were a bit hesitant to work in here because A) there was no bark and B) the logs were pretty weathered. We decided the best plan of action was to collect a few samples from the best beams and see what happened. Unfortunately, the wood was not solid and a few of the cores crumbled, but we got 2 that were in decent enough shape to be dated. We likely won't be able to provide a firm date for the barn, but at least we can give the Sites an idea of how old it was. 

Well, folks, that concludes our trip to Pendleton County. We had a great time there and hope to return soon for more work. We owe a big thanks to Jason and Michelle for letting us poke holes in the Kile structures, providing us a generator when the drills died, tearing down walls for us, and feeding us delicious strawberry salad. We can't wait to see the Kile house once it has been fully restored! 

On our third day in Pendleton County we met up with Jack and Cindy Bowers, members of the Pendleton County Historical Society (PCHS). We were treated to coffee (yes, please!) and a documentary on early German settlement into Pendleton County and the culture of witchcraft that these settlers brought to the area. The documentary is called "Signs, Cures, & Witchery" and was really interesting! It featured the Pitsenbarger family along with other founding families of Pendleton County. Thanks to Jeff and Teresa Munn for letting the Bowers borrow the movie again for us to see! 

After coffee and movie hour, we got down to business. Jack's great great great great grandfather (Jack, did I get that right?), Patrick Sinnett, moved to Pendleton County from Ireland and settled in Sugar Grove. His son, Henry Sinnett, also settled in the area and even fought in the battle of Yorktown. The Sinnetts owned a large tract of land in the mid-to-late 1700s and built a number of houses and barns along the property, but the documented history of these log structures was sparse, so the family has no idea when any of them were actually built. It is assumed that one house and one barn were the original Sinnett structures and the others followed over time. But the real mystery here is which house and which barn were from the original Sinnett homestead. Of course, this is where we come in...

Jack and Cindy weren't able to go with us to the structures, but they pointed out where everything was (generally) and let us explore on our own. The first structure we visited was a double crib barn that is still currently in use. Because there are a lot of unnamed houses and barns on this property, I will refer to them using numbers. This is Barn 1. It is the furthest log structure from the houses and so is not believed to be the oldest barn, but it could still be of considerable age. Fortunately, Barn 1 had a lot of bark - almost every log had full bark still attached thanks to the sheltering overhang.

Oh, I forgot to mention it was very rainy that day. 

Next, we drove a short distance (closer to the homestead site) to see another barn, Barn 2. You can actually see the Sinnett homestead site off in the distance on the left side of the barn. Barn 2, another double crib barn, was not as pristine since it had not been covered. The logs were badly weathered on a few sides, but the interior logs were in pretty good shape. Barn 2 also had steeple notching and the bottoms of the notched logs were left rounded. This feature seems to be particular to Pendleton County because we did not see much of it in other counties we visited. 

The third Sinnett barn we investigated was very close to the houses. I forgot to take a picture of the exterior, but it looked like a barn in a field. You'll just have to trust me on that. This barn is currently being used for animals and was pretty mucky. I didn't get great pictures of the interior either (part of it was locked and the whole thing was covered), but most of the logs are more hewn than the other barns. Bark was lacking throughout most of it. This will be one we revisit if we have the chance. 

Our next stop was a log house, House 1, just behind the modern house on the property. The log house was covered in siding and locked so we weren't able to explore too far, but it showed some potential. The notching style appeared to be half dovetail, based on the foundation log.

Ok, here's where things get interesting. Jack had told us that just past House 1 there was another house and this one was believed to be the oldest house on the property. So, Shawn and I set out to find it. The problem was that we didn't see any other log structures. We assumed it was further back in the narrow valley so we walked further in. I even forded a stream (Shawn didn't have his rain boots on), but I still couldn't find it! I did see a dilapidated barn (it was sided and uninteresting), but nothing else as far as the eye could see. So we hiked back to the car and decided to drive up a road that paralleled the property. Maybe we could find it that way? Nothing. We found nothing, after hours of looking, except for that darn dilapidated barn! So we drove back to the Bowers' house in confusion and defeat.

Jack and Cindy decided to take us back there themselves and show us this house. So, we walked back in (we took the way that doesn't cross a stream - smart) and Jack and Cindy walked us right up to the dilapidated barn.....yep! Sure enough, just inside of the boring, sided barn, there were beautiful logs. I could have kicked myself. So this was House 2 - believed to be the original house, and masquerading as a boring dilapidated barn these days. What a trickster!

So, with a lot of help we found what was believed to be the old Sinnett house. It had steeple notching and pegged logs, both good signs of age in my book. 

We are excited to return to the Sinnett property and place these log structures in time! 

Thanks to Jack and Cindy Bowers for feeding us coffee, showing us the documentary, sharing their family history with us, pointing us in the right direction while we toured structures, and then finally escorting us directly to the Sinnett house/barn when our log house-hunting skills failed us.

On day two of our tour around Pendleton County we met with the Pendleton County Historical Society (PCHS) president David Swecker, former president Richard Ruddle, and member Dewayne Borrer. David and Richard had a few places to show us around the county, but the first order of business was the Boggs House Museum in Franklin, headquarters of the PCHS.

The documented history of Boggs House Museum goes as follows: It was built in 1758 as a frontier fort and was originally located 3 miles outside of Franklin. It was moved to its current location in Franklin in the early 1800s and was used as a house. In the late 1800s it was covered in siding but when the house was donated to the PCHS, they exposed two interior log walls for display.

Now, I'm about to get slightly off topic, but bear with me here for a moment. I'd like to discuss our methods. This is a topic that often arises when we meet with folks who are interested in having their structure dated using tree-rings. I can't tell you how many times someone has wanted me to date their structure, but is only willing to let me collect one sample. By the way, this was not the case with Boggs House Museum, but I'm going to make a point that is related.

Here are two very real possibilities of what happens when we collect only one sample from a structure:
1. The sample breaks into tiny pieces or turns to sawdust. It is no longer usable. We cannot provide a date for sawdust. The end.
2. The sample comes out perfectly (yay!), but we just so happened to sample the one log that was a replacement 100 years after the structure was built. Great, you now have an incorrect date for your structure and we will never know the true date because we only collected one sample.

So, the moral of this story is that we absolutely must collect more than one sample to provide you an accurate date for your structure. This idea of replication is fundamental to our science, whether we are sampling trees for ecology or logs for construction dates. Multiple individual trees (logs in this case) must independently verify an event before we can conclude that it is a real phenomenon. We will never provide you a construction date for a structure after taking only one sample. Period. It's bad science and it's bad business.

Ok, so that being said, I will now get back on topic.

Because Bogg's House Museum is mostly covered and only about 12 logs are exposed, this place is kind of tricky. We were really interested in dating the museum, but for the reasons mentioned above in my little tangent, we were hesitant to agree to do any work. However, David and Richard, both fully informed on the issue, agreed that they wanted to know as much as possible about the museum even if we couldn't guarantee an accurate cutting date. We decided the best plan of action was to collect a few samples to test the wood quality, identify the species, and determine rough dates for the logs.

The samples were in excellent condition. So we don't have to worry about that, at least. They are now awaiting further analysis at the lab. Our hope is to return to the museum and collect as many samples as possible. Maybe then we can provide a cutting date. But it is a real possibility that we won't have enough data to determine when the Boggs House Museum was built. Stick with us to find out.

Our next stop for the day was the Elias Hammer Homestead in Ruddle, currently owned by the Vandevenders. Elias Hammer inherited the property in the 1830s and began to build his homestead, hence the name. But long before Elias Hammer inherited the land there was a fort here. Skidmore's Fort. Which is no longer standing. Stay with me here, this one gets interesting....

We owe a special thanks to the Vandevenders for letting us onto their property to see their structures.

We ventured just down the road from the Hammer Homestead to see the old schoolhouse. It once sat about two miles away from its current location, but a new schoolhouse was built in the 1890s, rendering this one useless. It served as a granary afterwards.

Next we dropped in (unannounced, and unbeknownst to us) on Charlie and June Padgett at the Simmons Homestead. They were great sports about our surprise appearance and happily showed us around. 

The Simmons barn was a real head-scratcher. We didn't know what to make of it. Sometimes those are the most exciting structures. Thanks to Charlie and June for letting us barge in on a rainy day!

Well that wraps up another day of tours in Pendleton County. But wait, there's more! Check back soon to see where we went next!

After a week of recovery from our trip to Lewisburg, the Historic Timbers Project hit the road again. This time we were heading to Pendleton County to collect samples from multiple structures at the Kile Homestead and to visit some potential structures for future tree-ring dating.

If you haven't already visited Pendleton County, you really must go! It is a beautiful part of West Virginia and is home to Seneca Rocks (an awesome rock outcrop) and Spruce Knob (the highest point in WV). It is also known for amazing pie! Well, maybe not, but we had excellent pie EVERY SINGLE NIGHT and we loved it. Thanks to the Fireside Cafe folks of Franklin who literally served us breakfast, lunch, dinner, and pie every day for a week. Delicious! 

Our first stop in Pendleton County was the Pitsenbarger Farm. Some folks at the WV Preservation Alliance told us about this place a while ago, and we had been dying to see it ever since! Fortunately, the owners, Jeff and Teresa, were equally as excited to have us come visit. Here are the highlights from our trip to Pitsenbarger Farm.

The Pitsenbarger Farm property was owned by three German families from the late 1700s to the 1970s. It is an all inclusive farm with 23 original structures still standing. Henry Amick purchased the land in the late 1700s, John Propst purchased the farm from Amick in 1845, and the Pitsenbarger family purchased it from Propst and resided there until the 1970s. It is unknown which of the families were responsible for the construction of these structures. Tree-ring dating would help place each log building with the original owner.

We owe a special thanks to Jeff and Teresa Munn for inviting us to poke around their beautiful farm. To be continued??? We hope so!

If you'd like to learn more about the Pitsenbarger Farm, click here or check out their Facebook page

We've been anxiously awaiting the arrival of a box of wood. It's not just any box of wood though. It's a box of custom made core mounts from right here in West Virginia. Our core mount guy ships these mounts to tree-ring researchers all over the US and Canada. Why? Because he's the best!

OK, so I've talked these core mounts up, but there's not much to them. Basically, they are little cradles for our cores to rest in. These cores have been around for hundreds of years and they're tired.

The purpose of a core mount is to hold the core so we can sand it without breaking it into eight million pieces. Core mounts are very important. Without them, we can't sand. If we can't sand, we can't see the tree rings. Without tree rings there's no tree-ring dating! You get what I'm saying.

Core Prep

Step 1: We write the core ID on the mount.

Step 2: Glue, baby!

We use kid-friendly Elmer's Glue. This stuff is great because it's water soluble, meaning we can fix our mistakes (and we have our fair share of mistakes).

Super easy, right? I know what you're thinking. "My five year old could do this!" Yes, they probably could. Our methods are pretty straight forward. But, you'd be surprised how many times we mess this part up. What I haven't told you yet is that the cores have to be placed in the glue in a particular way. If you don't set them in the mounts properly you can't see the rings. And we are nothing without our tree rings!

So here's a little lesson in wood anatomy for tree-ring dating...

Step 3: Tape the core to the mount.

Tape is great. It holds the core down while the glue dries. Those stubborn cores like to bend. Tape keeps them in line.

Step 4: Cutting the mounts.

After the glued-and-taped cores dry we cut the mounts into core size pieces. This makes it easy to sand them.

Step 5: Sanding.

This is the most exciting part of prep work. Each core is like a little gift waiting to be unwrapped. As soon as we sand them, we can tell what species they are and we can see all the beautiful little rings. Ahh. Bliss!

We have a four stage sanding process. On the first pass we use 100 grit paper. Then 220, 320, and 400. The sand papers progress from coarse to very fine, leaving us a nice polished surface at the end.

Oh yeah, and another reason why clear tape rocks: You can sand right through it! Easy peasy. Here are some cores that have been sanded using 100 grit. You can already see the rings are starting to pop! Three more grits to go though.

And these beautiful babies are completely sanded. See those rings? Aren't they lovely?

But then there's this little guy. We'll call him Billy. Remember what I was saying about mounting cores the wrong way? Well, I did it. Billy is all messed up right now. See how the left side looks "stripey"? That's the radial surface. The right side is the cross-sectional surface. Billy is actually twisted half-way through. I started to sand it and quickly realized it was mounted wrong on the left, so I stopped. We're gonna have to unglue Billy (this is why we use Elmer's), snap him in half, and re-glue the left side. And then re-sand. Such a process. Bad Billy.

Up next: Lab Work! This part gets exciting, but I'm not giving away all of the news here folks! No, no. I'll show you how it's done but if you want to know how old these log structures are you'll have to come to the presentations in the spring!