When we last spoke, I promised to share a bit of what my g-g-grandfather had to say about his cabin, and the traffic that passed by the front of it. The cabin, as you might’ve guessed, is the very one pictured here, taken from the original painting (done from memory) in 1899.

I know these things, because the creation of this and the previously-mentioned painting were noted in the local newspaper:

“Uncle Dan Leonard has recently had a fine large picture (previous entry -ed.) of his Taylor county home painted which was on exhibition in the Shion drug store last Saturday and attracted much attention. Anyone who has ever partaken of Uncle Dan’s hospitality would at once recognize the beautiful home which he has builded (sic) for himself. Another smaller picture stood beside the large one. This was his first cabin erected in 1850. (actually 1856) The contrast is great.” (Duh)

-Adams County (Iowa) Free Press 14 Sept 1899

The artist’s name, BTW, was L. Berg. I’ve never seen another reference to him, but itinerant artists were commonplace in those days. If you ever run across him, please let me know. Now where was I?

Uncle Dan described his cabin, in his 1889 letter to his aunt (written ten years before the painting was done) as, “in its day the the finest residence for 12 years on a strip of land 16 miles long and 8 wide.”

Speaking of a photo he apparently enclosed, Uncle Dan drew attention to a horse on the road in front of his house… “a woe-begon moving family. Poor folks, they like hundreds of others had tryed (sic) Kansas and found it wanting and are pulling for their northern farms. Home.”

“Oh, I sometimes pity the poor slaves,” he continued, “the poor oppressed slaves that have left their eastern homes, came west to hunt a home and have been wandering those years and it seems as though they could not find any place to lay their head.” Uncle Dan wrote that note twenty-five years after Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

As a final, completely unrelated note of HUGE historical interest, at least to me, was one about recent events back “home” in Pennsylvania. The footnote was dated June 24th, 1889:

“Oh, what a calamity befell Johnstown and there is not a sparrow falleth to the ground without your father’s notice. Are you not of more value than many sparrows?”

Note for the non-native Pennsylvanian… On May 31, 1889, a neglect and a phenomenal storm led to a catastrophic dam failure outside of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. 2,209 people died in the ensuing flood.

Caveat emptor.

Many of you are familiar with our good friend and fellow researcher Allan, who recently packed up and moved to Washington County, PA. for the sole purpose of being closer to our collective roots. Well,  it’s been less than a month and he’s already hit genealogical paydirt… at the site of the legendary Leonard two-story log cabin!

We were always a little uncertain as to whether Jennie Leonard Hutchinson’s directions, written in the 1930s, were accurate. Roads have been reconfigured, the landscape has changed, and the directions didn’t seem like the most direct route to the site. But Allan put boots on the ground, so to speak, and drove right to it! The site is right where Jennie said it would be, on the outskirts of Ellsworth.

But that’s not the best part… the best part is… the cabin was still standing and occupied until 1996! the cabin was still standing until the 1980s! We thought it was destroyed in the 1940s. The cabin burned down 12 years ago and The cabin was torn down and there’s nothing left but an over-grown foundation, but current owner thinks the neighbors just might have some pictures of the interior!

Allen talked to the current landowner, showed him the picture you see here, confirmed that he had the right site, and drank from the Leonard spring that continues to supply water to the site today. It was too overgrown to get decent pictures of the foundation, so Allan’s going to go back this winter, when the vegetation dies back.

For those of you new to the Leonard party, this is the cabin Caleb Leonard, Jr. built and occuied in the late 1790s. Caleb outlived his son Daniel by three years and died in that cabin, attended by his grandson William, at the ripe old age of 95!  William and wife Mary, along with Caleb’s great-grandchildren Edmund, Isaac, Daniel and the rest would’ve spent their last years as a family unit in the same cabin.

Most of William’s family migrated to Ohio in 1855, but his sister Luzanna stayed behind, moving in with grandmother Lucretia (Caleb’s widow) and remaining at her side until she died in 1873… at age 96!

I get excited over the simplest things. But here’s a thought… if you’ve already calculated what it’ll take to support yourself in retirement… you might want to take a look at the longevity built into your genes… and think about building a log cabin. 

Cheers!
Rick