Cabin at FENCE

Shortly before the American Revolution, Governor William Tryon traveled on horseback two weeks out from his seat at Old Brunswick Town, to settle a treaty with the Cherokee defining the western line of English settlement. A prominent peak near here was selected to mark the boundary and named in his honor. What few Europeans and Africans lived in the vicinity dwelt in houses of hewn logs. During the following eight decades they, and native Americans who remained in the Tryon area, built hundreds more of these vernacular dwellings. Mollie Pritchard, the last Cherokee inhabitant, lived in one nearby until the 1940s. Virtually all local examples have been destroyed, moved and altered, or the timbers salvaged. None is extant with an original roof of white oak shakes. Log walls of the early period were always hewn square, joined at corners with half-dovetails.

This structure of mixed chestnut and heart-pine logs is rare—on its original site with a period fieldstone chimney. Credit for saving the place goes to equestrian “Jack” Kimberly from Neenah, Wisconsin who owned Eskdale Farm in the 1930s. When he acquired the house, it had four log “pens” but only this room was still standing. Kimberly took away the tumbled-down pens and fixed this one up for a schoolroom where his children were privately tutored. The property became part of non-profit Foothills Equestrian Nature Center in the 1980s. A magnificent old specimen Cedrus deodara, the Himalayan cedar, national tree of Pakistan, is adjacent to the cabin along with an herb garden kept by FENCE volunteers, and a butterfly and hummingbird garden.

Modern landscape esthetic embowers the dwelling in plants. When this log house was erected, earth of the yard was swept clean. Lawns were unknown.

TROT (Therapeutic Riding of Tryon) program for special-needs people of all ages is conducted at FENCE. Riders on horseback use these multicolor elevated mailboxes during their sensory-perception exercises.

Modern concrete chinking, between logs, simulates earth daub of early times. This side of the cabin bears evidence of a door that once connected to another “pen” of the old four-room log house.

Machine-made wallboard and a late-19th century fashion print evoke typical interior updating of early log structures after arrival of the Asheville & Spartanburg railroad in 1877.