Moving the Cabin

Irene inherited a piece of land from her grandfather J.E. Howe. After she got married to Jack Chisholm they decided to build a house there. At first they had a cabin right along the creek. The creek provided running water, cold in the summer and colder in the winter. (40 Fahrenheit is about the warmest it gets.) Since there was a young child in the house, and then two of them, having running water so close was not a bad thing. (That cabin had no plumbing.)

However, this creek, known as Mud Creek, floods. Sometimes it floods a little, sometimes it floods violently and takes things out. No one ever told me the details, but I was told they saw some of the floods and decided it was time to move the house. Since I've seen the water rise across the area where the little cabin would have been, I rather imagine they had some very tense moments during the winter or two that they lived there.

A new house site was decided on. But they needed a place to live while the new house was being built, and that place needed to be out of the flood zone. It was also decided that the little cabin could be the core of the new house.

The result was that Jack put the cabin on skids (big logs going the long ways of the house that were fastened on). Then, he put rollers under the skids (smaller logs going crossways, not fastened on, think "multiple wheels" here). He used a come-along to pull the house forwards inch by inch. As the skids cleared a roller at the back of the house, he'd move that log around to the front. He said that it was slow going until he suddenly remembered that skids needed to be greased. Once the skids were greased, the job went on a lot faster.

This took some time, I think a week or two from the description, if not longer. It had to be moved about a hundred yards south of its original spot to where there was a bridge across Mud Creek, turned 90 degrees to cross the creek squarely, and then across the creek and up the further bank. One of the photos below shows the angle the house was at coming up that bank. My mother said cooking was difficult during that part of the transition. (Yes, they were living in the house during this.) And after it cleared that bank, it had to turn and go up a shallower bank and then be straightened with the hill before the building of the log cabin around it started.

On the far left side, there's the cabin where it used to be.

The cabin up on skids & rollers moving down the road to the south.

The cabin coming up the bank on the creek crossing. This shows the come-along and block & tackle used.

The cabin landed safely and the log walls going up.

Links

Irene & Jack
Chisholm's
Link Page

Credits

Photographer: Jack Chisholm

Author/artist/designer/programmer of page: Rowan Ainslie Chisholm