Historic preservation generally conjures up images of grand homes on Swiss Avenue or cool 1950s commercial buildings. Most people certainly do not think of cabins, yet that’s how Texans lived when this region was settled.
Though time took its toll on the original structure, the 1800s Webb-Crownover cabin resurrection is considered so important it has received a Preservation Achievement Award from Preservation Dallas.
A Home For Rugged North Texas Wilderness
Original Texas cabins offer an insight into our history, lifestyle, and culture. They also provide an informative and educational window into our past. The Webb-Crownover cabin is one of the oldest buildings in eastern Dallas County. Built around 1845, it is believed to be the first home of Captain A.W. Webb and his wife, Lucinda Crownover.
Over the years, it was thought to be a farm outbuilding and largely ignored. Don Mayfield and his grandson Joshua Tye, discovered it in 1992.
“This structure started as a log house,” said Ron Siebler of Siebler Remodeling and Historic Preservation. “As the family grew, they typically turned the cabin into a storage facility and built around it. Similar to the Sharrock-Niblo barn, it was home first, then became a storage shed. These cabins survived because they were concealed inside another building.”
“The property was going to be sold,” Toyia Pointer, Mesquite’s Manager of Historic Preservation said. “The new owners were not going to keep the cabin so The Franklin family stepped in and purchased the structure.”
Sunnyvale resident Jeanette Galloway Franklin, whose family were pioneers of the Mesquite area, purchased the cabin and paid for its move along with her son Elva K. “Vin” Franklin and daughter Deborah Parsons Franklin. The family contacted Dr. Don Dorward, an archaeologist specializing in log cabins, to determine historic value. He deemed it definitely worth saving.
Franklin’s son, Bedford, was keen to have the cabin moved onto the family property to be restored. He, unfortunately, became ill and passed away before anything could happen. The family decided to move forward in honor of Bedford and in 1997 donated the deconstructed cabin to the City of Mesquite for reconstruction at Opal Lawrence Historical Park.
Reconstruction, Resurrection, Repeat.
The Webb-Crownover cabin was actually reconstructed twice.
After years in storage, The Mesquite Rotary Club provided funding for the timbers of the 10-foot-4-inch by 15-foot-3-inch cabin to be reassembled on the Lawrence farmstead in early 2010. It was necessary to add a few non-original elements to the cabin, including the modern-day casing of the entry door, the addition of a back door, a side window, a covered front porch, and a metal roof.
An added front porch roof served to protect the south face of the cabin, but the lack of a roof overhang on the north side allowed rainwater to wash down the wall, saturating the logs and causing the Portland cement daubing to fail. All but one log on the north side of the cabin was seriously compromised and needed to be replaced.
Rebuilding a Relic Takes a Village
Historic preservation is never easy. That’s why it takes a village of dedicated preservationists. In 2018, Historic Mesquite commissioned Siebler to document the existing condition of the Webb-Crownover cabin. Work began in late 2019, and it’s not glamorous work. It’s complicated, tedious, and detailed. As each log of the cabin was disassembled, it had to be documented.
“When they disassembled it the first time, the documentation was not as we do it today,” Siebler said. “We do an existing condition study, tag each log, and document their location. Notes existed, but the roof on the cabin was not the original one. So when they moved it originally they went back with what they had discovered. However, the new roof did not overhang the walls much, so it was not keeping water off the structure which accelerated the decay. We’ve learned a lot in the last 30 years, so we were able to determine it was a log house. We did not intend to take it to the ground. We were going to do the restoration on the upper half, but the decay that happened in a year due to the weather meant between proposal and execution, the entire structure had to be addressed.”
The application to Preservation Dallas shows the difficulty of the process:
Careful examination revealed mortise pockets in the sill logs, providing evidence that the cabin originally had an elevated wood floor. Analysis of several original logs identified them to be of the red oak group of the Quercus species. Tool marks from “bit & brace” and hand chisel work remained clearly evident. Remnants of mortise pockets on the top sill also suggested the original roof was constructed with hewn logs and not the timber rafters and milled deck that had been installed during the 2010 reconstruction.
Replacement logs were acquired for the restoration and were shaped using period-appropriate tools and methods. Half-dovetail joinery was employed at the corners of the building, and mortise and tenon joinery was utilized when setting the rafter ties.
One-inch diameter oak pegs or “trunnels” were installed in the rafter framing and door framing connections. The covered front porch from the previous restoration was left off the restoration, and an ADA compliant ramp was added to the back of the structure. A new roof was constructed using hewn cedar rafters, nailers, and western cedar shakes. Plank doors were completed with clinched cut nails, and installed using hand-forged strap hinges and hardware.
Now the Webb-Crownover cabin will endure for years, serve the community, and be an incredible educational resource.
See all of the Preservation Dallas Achievement 2021 Awards on June 30. The awards are virtual this year and you can register here.