We were just about to clean our field gear and put it in storage for the winter when I got some great, albeit last minute, news....

The wonderful team at AllStar Ecology has provided the HTP with a volunteer to help us core another structure this season! So, next week I am heading out again! This time it's back to Greenbrier County to sample Hedrick House.

This trip should be an exciting one. We'll be carried up the mountain (gear and all) on ATVs and picked back up a few days later...if all goes well!! Good thing it won't be Halloween then. It could get spooky up there.

The only sad news is that Shawn won't be around for this one...but he deserves a break after all of his hard work this season!

​I'll fill you all in on the trip when I get back! If I get back.... (cue the scary music)

Shawn and I just got back from our visit to Pendleton County...and what a trip!

We loaded up the car on Wednesday with all of our gear (coring bits and bobs, boots, camping gear, caffeine, etc.) and left Morgantown for the mountains of Pendleton County. We could not have picked a better time! All of the trees were at peak on our drive down and it was beautiful!

What you don't see in the picture above are the cases of delicious beer we picked up on the way to Franklin. Somehow we managed to make room for those!

Our first stop after the three hour drive to Franklin was the Boggs House Museum, property of the Pendleton County Historical Society (PCHS). We had previously collected two samples from the museum on our trip to Pendleton County in June 2015. From those samples we were able to determine that the logs were actually tulip poplar (instead of black walnut, as the PCHS had believed), but we were not able to provide a date for the two samples. So we made arrangements to collect more samples on this trip.

The Boggs House Museum is completely covered in siding on the outside and the interior walls are all covered except for two exposed walls downstairs. The difficulty in dating this structure is that we don't have many logs we can work with. But we collected as many samples as possible (7) and hopefully we can help the PCHS determine the age of their historic structure. If we cannot provide a precise date we will still be able to give them an idea of the construction date (within approximately 20 years). 

We wrapped up work at the Boggs House Museum Wednesday evening and drove up the mountain to our destination for the week: the Ananias Pitsenbarger Farm. 

Jeff and Teresa Munn, owners of the farm, had generously offered us their hunter's cabin for the week. We had originally thought we would camp on their property but we couldn't turn down beds and warmth!

Thursday was a busy day for us. Not only were we sampling the big barn, but we also had visitors from the Pocahontas County Historical Society (including Mark Mengele, father of our own project member, Andrew Mengele) and the Pendleton Times to see us in action. No pressure! It was a busy day (as usual), but we really enjoyed talking with our visitors. I think Jeff did too, because by the end of the day his voice was gone!

Oh, and did I mention that Jeff and Teresa were expecting 15 motorcyclists to arrive for a big gathering while we were there? I don't know how they managed to keep us fed, entertain the visiting historical society and journalist, and make preparations for a motorcycle event all at the same time! They are amazing.

After a long day of coring we finished the big barn with 30 samples! We were off to a great start.

​The big barn is interesting because it is very different from the "Propst/Pitsenbarger" structures on the farm. It was constructed out of oak and poplar logs that were left mostly rounded with steeple notching. As you'll see, most of the other structures associated with the Propst/Pitsenbarger period (mid 1800s) are all pine and half dovetail notched. Also, note the door hinge in the photos of the big barn. This feature will come up again later. Our thoughts are that the big barn might be a remnant of the Amick period (late 1700s).

Friday morning we started working on the Pitsenbarger house. Before coring, we went in the house to have a discussion with the ghosts. Jeff and Teresa have shared with us many ghost stories that happened on the farm and we felt like we needed to explain to the ghosts everything we were doing and why. You know, just in case... I'm not saying I believe in ghosts, but it doesn't hurt to cover your bases. 

After our chat with the Pitsenbarger ghosts, we got to work on the old house. The right side of the house is the original log structure that has been covered in siding. The left side was an addition. We collected samples from all floors of the original section as well as some samples from the cellar below the addition. The house was built from pine logs and the support beams in the addition were oak. Because many of the logs were not exposed in the house, we were only able to collect about 15 samples. 

We limped our way up to the new house (Jeff and Teresa's house) Friday evening after coring all day and met the motorcycle "gang". When Jeff and Teresa told us there would be a bunch of motorcyclists here, my immediate thought was that it would either be A) a bunch of guys in leathers, covered in tattoos, long braids, and intimidating attitudes or B) a bunch of retired doctors/lawyers (no offense to the doctor who was actually there!) on their tricycle motorcycle things (I don't know what they're called), fancy Harley's, and side cars. I know that is ridiculous and stereotypical, but that's what I thought. In reality, there were a bunch of guys (and one gal!) on those super tough off-road (think large dirt bike) motorcycles. They were so cool! We were pretty impressed by the bunch.

I was secretly hoping someone would offer to let me ride on the back of one (how cool would that be?!) and also secretly hoping no one would offer to let me ride on the back of one! They looked terrifying.

Anyway, we hung out with the motorcycle crew Friday night around the big campfire and swapped ghost stories, life stories, etc. It was a real pleasure getting to meet these guys that we would have never met otherwise. 

Oh! And one of the guys snapped a photo of a black bear hanging out very near to where we were working at the house that day. We had no idea it was there! Eek!

Saturday morning we set out to core the granary and the spring house. It was very cold and windy that day.

As we were approaching the granary, a raccoon fled the scene. Shawn screamed. And I almost wrecked the car. Yeah.

​We made sure he/she was long gone and then got to work. 

Shawn drew the short straw and got the glamorous job of coring the floor joists under the granary. He always does that icky stuff.

It was a very "Wizard of Oz" moment....

After we finished sampling at the granary, we moved on to the spring house. Unfortunately, there were only two logs that we felt were in good enough shape to collect samples from. We decided to skip it after much debate. Hopefully, some of the other structures with similar notching styles will help us put a general date to the spring house.

​Since we still had a day left to work, we decided to collect cores from the three hay barns. These barns were very interesting to us, because they had the same notching style as the big barn and appeared to be constructed from the same species (oak and poplar). They were also very different from the house and granary, which were pine and half-dovetail notched. We have a hunch that the hay barns and the big barn may have been constructed by someone other than the Propsts. Perhaps Henry Amick? If so, that would make these four barns the oldest surviving structures on the property. 

All three hay barns look alike and all three have had the roof replaced, as well as a few upper logs. We were careful not to core those. Additionally, two of the three barns still had the original doors, which happened to be constructed the exact same way as the big barn door. Important? Perhaps.

Further, one of these hay barns stands in the same field that the Amick house once stood in. It is also very near to the big barn, which is a good distance away from the Propst/Pitsenbarger structures. 

The picture below was taken in summer, but shows where the hay barn (pictured above) is located. The Amick house is believed to have been located downhill from the barn in the flat area. Clusters of flowers grow where the Munns think the house might have been.

It would be cool to have some archaeologists come out and do a dig for the foundation!

​Any interest, Drs. McBride?

We collected almost 30 cores between the three hay barns on Sunday and we were exhausted by the time we were done. In total, Shawn and I collected a little under 100 cores on this trip; a record for sure!

Saying goodbye to our lovely hosts, Jeff and Teresa, was very difficult. But it had to be done. With promises of a return in spring (during mushroom season!), we packed the car back up and headed back to Morgantown.

​A project this large will take us several months for analysis, but as always, stayed tuned for results!

Jeff and Teresa, you set the bar really high for our future hosts! Thank you so much for your generosity; the warm beds, the delicious meals, the entertainment, and the ancient generator (it worked great!). We can't wait to get results for you and visit the farm again...and again! 

Equipment to clean, bags to pack, check lists to...check. It's busy here.

​Why?

The HTP is heading to the Pitsenbarger Farm in less than 10 days! 

You know I'll tell you all about it when we get back! Until then, enjoy the crickets...

Yesterday the HTP accompanied fellow lab member and PhD student, Alex Dye, to Ridgeville, WV to see a man about a stone inn. Why? Well, because a hundred years or so ago Alex's ancestors moved to Ridgeville, WV and bought this large stone inn and called it Dye Tavern. And even though it is mostly stone, it has some pretty little logs hiding inside. And how cool would it be to date the house your ancestors lived in? We thought it would be very cool. Our mission was to help Alex determine if the logs in Traveler's Rest could be dated.

Traveler's Rest was believed to have been built around 1810, back when Route 50 was the main wagon road heading west. Apparently it received so much business that it had to be expanded in the 1820s. If you look closely you'll see a seam in the stone wall. The left portion is the original house and the longer right side is the addition. Written history suggests that the Kuykendall family was responsible for the construction of this inn. The Dye family purchased the inn in the later 1800s and sold it in the 1920s to move to Indiana where our superstar, Alex, was later born. After years of switching ownership, the Mineral County Historical Foundation purchased Traveler's Rest thanks largely to the late Elizabeth Dye Walker. There is now a sign dedicated to her efforts of acquiring the inn for restoration. 

Frank Roleff, member of the Mineral County Historical Foundation, is now working to restore this beautiful inn to its original state. Alex hopes that tree-ring dating of the inn may help the Mineral County Historical Foundation to claim its historical status and aid in restorative efforts. It would probably make his ancestors mighty proud to know he was keeping the family history alive too. 

We started our tour of Traveler's Rest in the attic, one of our two favorite places to work with logs. They're so protected in attics that they appear just as new as the day they were cut. We like that.

The attic logs were all pine. They were pegged and each one had a numeral carved into it.

We moved down to the second floor to see if any of the beams were rounded. We found one with bark still attached!

Since we didn't see much to work with on the first and second floors, we moved down to the basement, my other favorite place to work. Logs down here are also pretty happy and protected, as long as water hasn't seeped in....

Alex and Shawn searched the basement for "healthy" logs. They find one with tons of bark still attached!

Next, Frank took us to his house to show us a few other structures that he has collected over the years. The first was a two-story log house with steeple notching, indicative of the late 1700s/early 1800s. 

Unfortunately, there were very few locations where we could drill because of the new chinking. This house reminded me of the Jarrett House in Greenbrier County that was also buttoned up. We did find a few locations though.

Next we checked out the chicken coop on Frank's property. It had half dovetail notching and was likely built in the later 1800s.

We sent Alex inside the coop to see if there was any bark on the logs. We told him he needed the experience. But really, Shawn wouldn't go in because of spiders. And I wouldn't go in because of the snakes. Yeah, they were fake. But we still weren't going in. Nooo sir.

And that concluded our tour for the day. Alex is now deciding if he can date these structures. If he does, we will gladly help him collect his samples. That's what friends are for. Unless there are spiders or snakes. Then he's on his own. Good luck Alex! We can't wait to read "Dendroarchaeological Dating of Dye Tavern" by A. Dye!

Thank you, Frank, for showing us around yesterday! It was a pleasure meeting you and we hope to see you again!

In our spare time, the Historic Timbers Project members like to do a little volunteer work for the local communities. Our latest volunteer project was helping the Old Hemlock Foundation determine the age of their log house. 

We first read about Old Hemlock Foundation in January 2015 in the local paper. It had been recently added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) because it was the house of the late George Bird and Kay Evans. George Bird Evans was an illustrator for Cosmopolitan, bird hunter, writer, bird dog breeder, and conservationist. If you're interested in the story of the Evans, you can find more information here. Old Hemlock House now serves as a museum of the Evan's artifacts (books, illustrations, sketches, etc!) and it is really a neat place. 

We noticed while reading the news article that while the property had been added to the NRHP (yay!), it was not because of the age of the log house. The construction date of the house was unknown, though it was assumed it had been built sometime in the 1700s. After reading this we decided to contact LeJay Graffious, director of the Old Hemlock Foundation, to see if he would be interested in having us date the log house. LeJay was happy to entertain us, and we started work immediately. 

Old Hemlock House is a two story log structure that is now covered. Logs are still exposed in the basement, stairwells, and attic of the house. Though the name suggests that the house was built out of hemlock, it was actually built out of oak logs. It was named Old Hemlock House because it is surrounded by beautiful old hemlock trees!

We invited a paleoecology class from WVU to help us core in March 2015. It was cold and snowy that day!  I gave a brief lecture on using tree rings to date historic structures, then a quick tutorial on using the equipment, and then we put them to work! Shawn and I very rarely get to have that much assistance. We thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Later, we glued and taped our cores...

Then Kristen sanded them until the rings were visible. 

Then the cores were ready for analysis!

Which brings us to today. We are still working on the analysis. We've had some help from Devin Scanlon, Americorps volunteer working for Old Hemlock Foundation, to try to find documentation of the ownership of the house over time. He has been searching all over for records, but they are hard to find because many records were lost in a fire. We now have a pretty good idea when the house was built, but we have a few issues to resolve with the dating. 

We will be presenting our results in spring, so for those of you here in mountaineer country that are interested in Old Hemlock House or the Historic Timbers Project, we invite you to come to our presentation of results! We will announce details of this in the next few months. 

Thank you LeJay and Helen Ann for the wonderful hospitality you show on our every visit. We are so glad to be working with you and we can't wait to add to the history of Old Hemlock!

Hi friends! We're all friends by now, right? 

We've been recovering from the blow of having our last grant proposal rejected. But we've been too busy to sulk about it. In fact, I'll be applying for another grant in October and another one in February. Fingers crossed!

Today I would like to talk with you all about replication. This is something I first mentioned in the August 11 post. But I want to bring it up again, because we've been dealing with issues of replication lately. The take away message about replication is that we cannot provide a date for a structure based on one core. Or even a few cores. We need to get the same date from multiple cores from multiple locations in a structure. But we like to be conservative in our coring, too. There is no need to core every log on every floor. We start with what we think will be the best representatives of the cutting date, and we come back and collect more cores if needed.  

Now, in order to talk about our issues with replication today, I'm going to have to give you just a tiny bit of insider information on the Barracks. Don't tell anyone. 

We have been working on cores from the Barracks for about a month now. I will show you what this entails in an upcoming post. But we have run into a bit of a problem. 

Let me first remind you of where we collected cores from the Barracks. If you'll remember, the Barracks was recently renovated and rechinked. Because of this, we decided it would be best to try to get a date from logs that weren't adjacent to the new chinking. Our philosophy is to only be as invasive as necessary. So we sampled support beams in the basement and a log wall in the attic. BUT when we started dating the cores we noticed that our attic logs were very old and our basement cores were not so old....Interesting. The obvious reason for this is that at some point in time (I'm not telling yet) the basement support beams had to be replaced. But because we were not getting the same cutting years for the basement and the attic, we could not rely on the attic date to be the construction date. Maybe the attic logs were also replaced at some point. Since we did not sample exterior walls we could not, as of yet, answer that question. But we knew it was time to collect more cores. 

So Shawn and I asked Nick at the Greenbrier Historical Society if we could come back for a day and collect cores from the walls. He said whatever you guys need to do, just do it! Nick is great like that. Thanks Nick! 

Shawn and I packed up our gear and headed to Lewisburg Thursday morning (very early). We collected 15 beautiful cores from the walls on the first and second floor. It was a really. long. day. But it was a successful day! We will begin dating those cores next week. And just so you know, no chinking was harmed in the process. 

It is with great disappointment that I must share with you all that we were not awarded funding from our latest grant proposal. I want to thank everyone who dropped what they were doing to help me gather the list of 12 structures we intended to sample. Needless to say, we are pretty bummed. 

But never fear! We will find a way to work on these structures. We know of a few more funding sources to reach out to and we have every intention of working with you all next summer on these structures. We may have to get a bit creative on sleeping arrangements and we may have to eat Ramen every day but the show WILL go on!!! 

Somehow we managed to still have some time left in Greenbrier County on our last trip. So we used it wisely. We sampled all of the beers at the local Greenbrier Valley Brewing Company! And then we had a nice long sleep.

The next day we met up with the Drs. McBride, archaeologists from University of Kentucky, at their field site. They were looking for archaeological evidence of Matthews Trading Post, an early store of the area. They even let us help them screen! We had a blast! 

Ok, so the barn isn't in great shape. Clearly. But it was a lot better than the other structure. I'm sure by now you're all looking at this barn and thinking "Kristen, it doesn't look very old...". And, of course, you would be correct to think that. It doesn't look very old. It has saddle notching and small timbers. But keep looking. "One of these things is not like the others.....". 

(I bet you don't know what that's from. Googling it is cheating, by the way.)

Alright, I'll give you hint. 

There are 2 large logs that are both notched and pegged. You can't see one in the picture of the barn. It's on the top floor. But the other one is on the ground in the forefront of the picture. They are massive and do not fit in with the rest of the logs. They look like reused logs to me. I don't quite know what to make of the notching style though. Both the outbuilding and these two log have square notching. So they probably date to the same period. I am unfamiliar with the time period of square notching for this area, though. Anyone know? 

Shawn and I decided to collect a few samples from the barn and get preliminary dates. It was also constructed out of multiple tree species, so we wanted to get an ID on those as well. 

Just out of curiosity, would anyone like to suggest what any of these species are, based on the bark? 

The winner gets a no-expenses-paid trip to our next site to help us core! Hah. Seriously though, if you're one of those people who can look at bark and tell what the tree species is, please do share!

I am terrible at identifying trees by bark. Sometimes I am just as bad at identifying trees by cellular structure. I do my best identification when a log is still a tree, with leaves, and has a small plaque at the base with Latin words on it. Hah! I really am pretty bad at it. Not that bad though...

We are mostly curious about "MTP01A". We sanded it and it's a beautiful, light colored wood. Additionally, it has a strong odor. Not unpleasant. Sort of floral and maybe a slight sour smell. Also, the smell of this tree is a smell I often associate with riverside hikes. So, it's probably a water lover. Which makes sense, considering the barn was directly next to the Greenbrier River, therefore the trees used to build the barn were likely from that area too. 

I'll try to get a better photo under the microscope for you all to see the cellular structure. This one was taken with my phone so It's not the best. 

I can't wait to hear some suggestions! I can't figure it out!

*Thanks to Stephen and Kim McBride for letting us play archaeologist for the day! We had a blast. Thanks also to the property owner for letting us collect a few cores from the barn!*

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....