Davy, Davy Crockett!

This post from Loup rang a few bells for me. I'd never seen the movie in all it's 50's cheesy glory, but the song was still floating around a generation or two later when I was little. So it was neat to finally see where it came from!

Here's the fun thing - my Daddy grew up maybe a half hour's walk from where Davy Crockett hisownself was born! The last time I was down visiting him, he took me for a drive around his old haunts as a kid, and we got to see the site as it stands now. 

First, the monument - according to legend the foundation stone of the original Crockett cabin. It's seen some years, and is in pretty sorry shape, I'm sad to say. I think a large part of that is a century or more of tourists chipping off a piece to take home. Funny way to show your respects, that. 

The really cool thing these days is that on the site they've rebuilt a copy of his folks' cabin. Now I use the term "copy" fairly loosely here - it's not like anyone was registering floorplans along the Nolichucky in the 1780's.

But that said, this here is a pretty typical cabin for the Southern Appalachians in the late 18th/early 19th century. Excepting the nicely mowed grass, plastic trash can, and ADA-mandated ramp up to the front porch, that is. :)

First, note that there's two doors, each in the middle of the cabin, opposite each other. In the hot sticky Tennessee summers, that breezeway is a godsend, I'm telling you. However, you'll also note there's not a lot of windows. Two small ones on either side of the front door, and a very small one well above ground level on the wall opposite the chimney. That cabin can be holed up tight. 

Next - you see those square spots above the door in back? Those are the supports for the loft. In this cabin the loft goes clear across the lower floor. That's the more common type I've seen, but occasionally you also see a half-loft, where the other half is left open across both "stories" of the cabin. That's usually where the kids sleep.

The foundation is just river rock to keep the floor supports off the ground - it's at least as common to have a full stone foundation though. The walls are dovetailed together in a really clever self-locking way. I think the squared-log/dovetailed corners thing was originally a practice of the Germans, but it caught on with the Scots Irish and English immigrants right quick. The original chinking between the logs was mostly mud and (I think) straw... when I was growing up you still saw the remains of some horrid preservation attempts using brick mortar from the early-mid 20th c.. These days it looks like they've mastered a "best of both worlds" approach that still looks pretty traditional.

Now let's look inside. Here's the far wall, opposite the hearth. You're looking towards the back door, and see the narrow walkway up to the loft. A fairly nice rope bed for Ma and Pa there - the bedspread looks like a linen or linsey-woolsey coverlet.

Those are *not* warm.  I bet the black bear pelt would help a little on a chilly night though. 

On the other side of the room, we see the hearth. Now this is a really nice one - lots of nice cut stone, and they even have fire irons! This is not a "just walked over the mountains" cabin - there's some real luxuries here.
Oh, and see that string of something hanging down by the left side? Them's "leather britches" - dried beans!

So there you go - Appalachian Homes and Gardens. It's actually quite cozy - I'd miss my hot baths and indoor  plumbing, but minus that, I'd be fair comfortable setting up housekeeping in one to this day. :)