Up Moses Creek: Walking the log

I’d no sooner opened my book of Robert Frost’s poetry to start the morning right when Neighbor J drove up. A wind had downed trees in his pasture, and he was sawing one up when his chainsaw had gotten pinched — “Can you help me get it out?” A “pinch” happens when the tree trunk suddenly sags or shifts, clamping the saw bar tight in the kerf like gigantic wooden jaws. 

Jackson County cabin built from one poplar tree

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in The Smoky Mountain News in July 2004.

I recently read about a log cabin built in Jackson County approximately 140 years ago. I’m interested in this particular cabin because it was reputedly constructed from a single huge tulip poplar tree. I’m devoting this installment of Back Then to that cabin in the hopes that a reader will know if it still exists. 

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