Original Art - John Buxton Once Upon a Time

The wilds of this new world frontier first saw the traders who dealt with the natives and required, like the natives, only temporary shelter - tents, lean-tos or wigwams. The next wave of Europeans brought their families and though they moved with the frontier, attempted to establish a homestead. They built cabins and cleared the land that was to be utilized by their successors looking for permanent settlement. Therefore, the log cabin filled a need for secure shelter, and a heavily timbered wilderness offered ready material for cabin, barn and outbuildings, used by the pioneer and the settler.

These cabins could be very crude, with no windows and a hole in the roof to vent smoke. They were often constructed of unhewn (round) logs; the spaces between filled with smaller log rails and chalked with available material like moss or straw coated with mud. A fireplace and chimney might utilize all stone construction or only stones lined the firebox area while the chimney was of logs, fillings and mud. Farming, full-time or partial, was essential to frontier life. With agriculture grew a need for flour milling and grist mills became indispensable for a growing community. Thus water power for turning these, and saw mills, was a determining factor in the location and development of future towns and cities. In 1643 the first mill in Pennsylvania was built on Cobb's Creek. Today this location is 73rd Street and Woodland Avenue in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.