Exciting discoveries as General Manager of Alleghany Historical Society (240 year old cabin)

     As general manager of the Alleghany Historical Society people come in and donate artifacts often and each item tells a unique story of the human experience in Alleghany County, Virginia.
     In order to expand public interest in the Historical Society I have been looking into acquiring a 200 year old farm

Merry Plantation House, needing a little work

in the county which is badly in need of restoration or it will fall down in the relatively near future (20 years tops). I have been posting pictures of the old house and I think that that may be the reason that one of the Historical Society members contacted us on facebook about their property. They live on the old William Crow property in Crow, VA.
   







     There used to be a famous tavern there which burned in late 1969 or early 1970. The owners contacted me because one of the original outbuildings is still standing onsite and is in need of attention. They wanted me to come to the property and see what I thought. I had already seen pictures of the outbuilding before this so I thought I knew what I was getting into when I went to the site but I was in for a pleasant surprise.
   

Notice the chimney with the old structure
rebuilt so the chimney was outside

 The outbuilding, going by the pictures, consists of a large outdoor kitchen fireplace attached to a building which was probably used as a barn and attached to another building reportedly used by the innkeeper, Col John Crow.

When I got on site I found much of what I was expecting. The kitchen chimney is very large as it should be since it was made for a sizable inn. It is roughly 200 years old.

I love the corners of this old building.
Whole building is mortise and tenon and pegged together

However, much of what I found was very surprising. Going by the framework around the chimney it is obvious that the structure is old (roughly the same age-200 years old) but has been rebuilt for a different purpose. The building is built solely by mortise and tenon and the mortise holes show that the building has been rebuilt. The four corners of the building are hand-hewn logs which have had the corner cut out of them.

I suspect that this building was the original kitchen and was rebuilt 100 years ago or more to use as a barn.

If we can get the resources together to restore the Merry Plantation than this kitchen would be perfect to disassemble and rebuild on that site as nothing is left of the original kitchen over there.  The chimney has some major structural issues which will need to be addressed so in this situation about the only possible course of action is to rebuild it. As we rebuild the chimney we can also disassemble the barn are reassemble it as a kitchen as it should be.

The truly intriguing part about the outbuilding is the rear portion which has been called an office. It did not take much exploring to see that it is a hand-hewn log cabin with chestnut siding which was added roughly 100 years ago. It is remarkably intact with a few replaced or reinforced boards and old tube wiring added but it is pretty much the same as it was when it was built.

ca 1770s colonial frontier cabin

Now, when was it built? It so happens that the Alleghany Historical Society already had the land deed for the property. William Crow was given a King's land grant for the property in 1770. Not knowing anything about William Crow it is possible that he was a surveyor and had already been living on the property. If that is the case there is no telling how old the cabin could be. Crow's Tavern was well known and had been around for some years before Alleghany County was created in 1821. When it opened is unknown at present. It seems likely that the cabin would have been made shortly after the land grant so it was probably made in the early 1770s in the late colonial era. This truly would have been a frontier cabin at that point as it is only a few miles from West Virginia and far to the west of the French and Indian War era frontier forts.

It needs some help as the roof is going and has been going for some time but it is surprisingly solid with less than expected rot (probably helped by the chestnut boards and logs since chestnut does not like to rot)