DM 2006

Welcome to Doomsday Monocle Archives for 2006.

You will find articles of interest to Earth House readers collected from around the world and normally updated 2-3 times each week. Please notice that some of these articles will have expired but on average we spend tedious hours sifting through them at the end of each year to clean out the sources that have expired. I hope you enjoy these stories as I consider them some of the best and they are a joy to read. All the best to you in this year 2006.

Cabin Fever: Effort heats up to save log house

By Mary Beth Breckenridge
Beacon Journal staff writer

PLAIN TWP. - The vacant house at Columbus Road and Harmont Avenue is unprepossessing and run down, the kind of place you drive by without a second look.

But hidden in its walls is a secret: rough-hewn logs from which its builders fashioned a humble structure that is believed to be the oldest in Stark County's Plain Township.

The vacant, nearly 200-year-old house is scheduled for demolition this summer to make way for improvements to the treacherous intersection. However, the Plain Township Historical Society is hoping to move the house to a new site, if it can come up with the money.

How much that would entail, no one knows yet, the society's president, Tom Pieper, said.

The original 20-by-18-foot section of the house is believed to have been built around 1810 by Christopher Palmer, one of a number of settlers who came to the township from Pennsylvania. It later passed into the hands of his son-in-law, George Speelman.

The house was expanded in the mid- to late-1800s -- an unusual development, since settlers typically built log cabins to serve only as temporary shelters until they could build more substantial homes, said Tom Kolp, a historical society member and Canton Realtor. Another addition was built sometime in the 1900s, but the historical group is concentrating on saving just the original two-story structure and its fieldstone basement, which would have to be disassembled and rebuilt stone by stone.

The society wasn't aware the house had historical value until a former student of Pieper's, a retired teacher in the Plain Local district, called him several months ago to tell him a log cabin in his neighborhood was about to be torn down. ``I said, `There's no log cabin at the corner of Columbus and Harmont,' '' Pieper recalled.

``The locals knew it,'' he said, but few others did.

The historical group got permission from the county, which now owns the building, to enter the house and remove a section of a wall. That revealed the original logs and chinking, still with remnants of the whitewash that had been applied in an early decorating attempt.

The layers covering the logs showed the house's evolution: unusual double tongue and groove paneling, typical of a type used in New England and brought west by settlers; newspapers dated 1894 that were pasted over the paneling and covered with plaster; a couple of examples of outdated wallpaper; and a layer of wallboard and a wood wainscot, both probably installed around the 1940s or 1950s.

The historical society also found a hole in the first floor that hints the house may have been a stop on the Underground Railroad, Pieper said.

The hole, visible from the basement and located under a stairway that was added later, is thought to have been a trap door where fleeing slaves could enter the basement.

``It's kind of a family story,'' he said, ``and we're trying to substantiate it.''

Outside, shiplap siding was installed over the logs in the early 1800s and was later covered with aluminum siding, most of which was recently stripped away. The plain shiplap siding is an unusual feature, because it typically was removed when the owners could afford to replace it with something nicer, Pieper said.

Schools offer land

Unfortunately, the house stands in the way of one of the turn lanes that will be installed at the intersection, which has been identified by the Stark County Engineer's Office as the third most dangerous of the county's roads, Chief Engineer Dave Torrence said. A traffic signal will be added, and the roads will be widened to accommodate turn lanes on all four legs, he said.

Construction work probably won't begin until at least late June, he said.

Torrence said the county is willing to work with the historical society on moving the house and has offered to let it temporarily move the building farther back on the property if more time is needed to find a permanent home. However, the building would have to be removed by the time the roadwork was finished, he said.

The historical group, however, is hoping to avoid the cost of moving the building twice. The Plain schools have offered to provide land, Pieper said, although the group hopes to locate the house as close as possible to the original site. He said the society expects to seek grants and other sources of funding to pay the cost of a move.

Torrence is hoping the group succeeds. ``It's a good effort for them,'' he said.

Mary Beth Breckenridge is the Beacon Journal home writer. She can be reached at 330-996-3756, or at mbrecken@thebeaconjournal.com.

http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/living/14239747.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp