A GOOD STARTER When housing costs go up we being to rise we see more advertisements the real estate sections offering small houses tagged as a "starter home."
Some and quite small and prospective buyers find the identification of the basic construction as something they were to buy now and improve later sounded a note of romance, adventure and compelling words "a starter home" often led to many young couple bow to a gambler's instinct few of them would admit having. The dotted phase passed and they owned a basic, fundamental piece of real estate to which they might add in the future.
It was a wise choice for some go-getters; an unwise one for others. Some added room, wings, facilities to finish their home. Others, for various reasons let their "to be continued" plans lapse or linger endlessly.
Anne McCleary, the authority concerning buildings of any kind in the Shenandoah Valley area, used to speak of an early type of construction we seldom about. She described the settlers as seeking out a hillside, perhaps near a spring or creek. There ,well above any flood plain threats, they would set about the digging of a cave.
The next step was to build a slanted sort of lean-to roof of small logs over the added floor space built with the dirt and rocks excavated from the cave itself. The idea was to try to cover the added floor space and of he mouth of the cave itself. The new settlers did not rush from from ship to wooded shore and start building what we now call "log cabins". That building technique was brought over by Scandinavian immigrants who settled in scattered sections of the colonies of Delaware, New Jersey and New York. Until such times that cabin construction "know-how'' spread southward and westward the principal materials used for a larger building were stone, brick or pole type wall structures in which logs were set down into the soil forming a vertical wall on which a roof might be fashioned.
The preparation of timber too time, too. The initial problem was a settler had to await a legal decision as to what sections might be his to cut and use. Once that was decided he "circled" or "ringed" those trees he wished to use and the usual plan was to let such marked trees "season" for six months, at least. During this weathering phase the tree would give up much of its liquid content and be much lighter to handle when cut as well as less subject to bending, warping, rotting and insect damage.
In the early days of Tidewater and Piedmont Virginia the "hogan" had a like role of being "a starter home". We all had to start somewhere.
Andrew McCaskey Sr amccsr@adelphia.net 12-23-06 [c-474wds]
