The following is adapted from a yet-unfinished survey report about log construction in Ohio.
A log house, at its most basic, is simply an inhabitable building which derives its structural support from timbers stacked atop one another and notched at the ends.* All log buildings include one or more pens, or self-supported structures, often enclosing a single room. The designation of a pen as self-supported is important, for quite a few log buildings contain “crosswalls,” composed of logs running perpendicular to the exterior walls, forming interior divisions. These crosswalls merely interlock with the exterior logs and, though they contribute structural support, they do not form self-supported units. A large log house, 30 feet by 18 feet and divided by a crosswall, is a single pen — not a double pen — structure.
The arrangement of log pens within a building was limited only by a builder’s imagination and financial situation; understandably, Ohio being in the midst of settlement at the peak of log construction’s national popularity, the state is dominated by single pen houses. Double pen buildings exist in Ohio, no doubt, but are not nearly as common as in earlier-settled states, like Kentucky or Virginia. I know of no Ohio buildings larger than two pens, though a few could exist.
* A more inclusive definition, befitting the peculiar “corner post” log house, is: “A building whose walls’ planar surfaces are composed primarily of timbers.”
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