The Architecture of Log City
Log City is the title of the original settlement of the founding settlers of Galesburg. It would take time to construct permanent residences for Galesburg itself, so the original inhabitants started by living in log cabins. These semi-permanent dwellings were a staple of early settler life and required a lot of work to build.
A sketch of log city done by Samuel Holyoke. The left side includes buildings 1-10 and 17 (described as a barn that sits surrounded by farmed fields), with two spots marked for log barns surrounded by several other log dwellings or adjacent to farmland. A road is marked between cabins 4, 5, 6, and 7 with the writing “Road to Kendalls Mill” on it. The majority bottom right corner is taken up by what is described as farmland with the writing “Bolony Farm - See descriptions of the numbers in the writing with this sketch - This farm of 80 acres was all tilled by the colonists in gardens field crops in 1837”.
A sketch of log city done by Samuel Holyoke. The right side includes buildings 11-16 and 18 (described as a barn that sits surrounded by farmed fields). The bottom of the image is taken up by what is described as farmland, separated from the log dwellings with a fence. Holyoke writes on the image on the bottom write “This fence had to be crooked so as to leave room between it and the ravine for the wagon road”. Cabin 16, in the top right, has a dark ring around it that goes off the page marked “ravine.”
Once settlers arrived at the land they were taking over, they’d begin the process of building a log cabin. They relied on the resources they could find around them. They’d cut logs of uniform size and carve notches into them so they would sit as close together as possible.1 Due to inevitable gaps in the walls, they were “chinked and daubed” (filled in with a mixture of sticks or rocks and mud). This process had to be redone every year, usually before colder weather began. Most cabins were around 7 or 8 feet tall, with only one story to them.
The roof was made by laying smaller logs from gable to gable. Long thin boards were used as shingling and laid across the roof.2 They were fastened to the roof by laying heavy poles across them called weight poles. Weight poles were kept in place with the use of more timber. Each cabin included a chimney, as this was the main way settlers cooked food in early days before they got stoves. The chimneys were wide (in order to accommodate the large amount of activity in them) and sat at one end of the cabin. They were built of sticks and stones and filled in with clay.3 The cabins also included windows, of course. Each window would be, on average, two feet wide. Some were filled in with glass, though this was the less common option.4 A cheaper and more common option was to put a greased piece of paper over it.
Samuel Holyoke’s recreation of what he remembers Log City looking like depicts a group of 16 cabins, most of them small, in close proximity to a farm with two barns sitting in a field that’s separated from the cabins with fencing.5 According to his description, not all of the cabins were used as homes. The one labelled ‘2’ functioned as a store for those settled in Log City. Otherwise the houses were home to different families. In some cases, a cabin was waiting for a family when they arrived, such as with Holyoke’s family.6 The community members relied on each other in order to survive and each member’s work was important.
By Bea Hartman
1 Chapman, Chas C. History of Knox County, Illinois. Blakely, Brown, & Marsh Printers, 1878.
2 Chapman, Chas C. History of Knox County, Illinois. Blakely, Brown, & Marsh Printers, 1878.
3 Chapman, Chas C. History of Knox County, Illinois. Blakely, Brown, & Marsh Printers, 1878.
4 Chapman, Chas C. History of Knox County, Illinois. Blakely, Brown, & Marsh Printers, 1878.
5 Farnham, Jerusha Loomis, Samuel Holyoke, and Ernest Elmo Calkins. Log City Days: Two Narratives on the Settlement of Galesburg, Illinois. Knox College Centenary Publications, 1937.
6 Farnham, Jerusha Loomis, Samuel Holyoke, and Ernest Elmo Calkins. Log City Days: Two Narratives on the Settlement of Galesburg, Illinois. Knox College Centenary Publications, 1937.
Images: Holyoke, Samuel. Sketch of Log City. unknown. Retrieved from Log City Days: Two Narratives on the Settlement of Galesburg, Illinois. (Accessed April 23, 2021).