Overhanging Plates, Again

I've penned a few posts about the mysterious overhanging plate, which, though common in the Upper South and Midwest, remains largely unstudied. Last month, while idling in my college's library, I discovered an early (1952) mention of the overhanging plate in Hugh Morrison's Early American Architecture. On page 168, Morrison writes:

The topmost logs at the ends of the cabin were projected to carry the wall plate forward, thus offering a modicum of protection from rain to the lower wall.

This "cabin" (truly a log house of "saddlebag" plan) stood in Caldwell County, North Carolina, near Blowing Rock. In 1938, Frances Benjamin Johnston photographed the home, then inhabited by one Mrs. Mary Gregg, for her Carnegie Survey of Architecture of the South.

Photo, 1938, by Frances B. Johnston, from the Carnegie Survey of Architecture of the South. Scanned by the Library of Congress.

In Early American Architecture, Morrison suggests the overhanging plate exists to shelter walls from rain, a theory equally plausible as mine (that the overhanging plate evolved from the butting pole). Of course, neither conjecture is provable.

The Gregg residence's logs were unusually well-handled; if I knew no better, I'd describe them as "circular-sawed."

Note the steeple notching, closely-fitted logs, and overhanging plate. The chamfered side log is standard.

An Unnamed House-Type

Contemporary architectural historians tend to classify buildings by type, much as a biologist groups plant leaves by size and shape. Thus, we see, in books and survey reports, such colorful terms as "I-house," "Foursquare," "gable-front," and "shotgun." Though useful, these terms are often ill-defined, and, in my opinion, little better than the stylistic labels they supplanted. (Most early historians of American architecture, like I.T. Frary and Rexford Newcomb, saw buildings as works of art, and described them accordingly.) For the sake of this post, though, I'll abandon my skepticism and invent a house-type of my own.

Scattered throughout Ohio are homes of strikingly similar design (as similar as, say, the state's many "I-houses" or "upright-and-wings"), but which, so far as I'm aware, remain unmentioned in architectural literature. Buildings of this type are invariably one-and-a-half stories in height (the upper half-story being wholly tucked beneath the roof) and quite "deep," with long side walls. In form, they vaguely resemble the braced frame "Cape Cod" residences of coastal New England. Where they stand, they predominate. These buildings have long intrigued me, but, until recently, I knew little about their origin.

Before continuing, I should give a few examples:

House, Miami Township, Greene County, Ohio. Owned by William R. Corry (1826–1885) in 1874; Corry was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Photo, 2012, from the Greene County Auditor's website.

House, Bethel Township, Clermont County, Ohio. Inhabited by Joshua Smart, a native of Pennsylvania, in 1870. Image, undated, from the Clermont County Auditor's website.

House, Brush Creek Township, Highland County, Ohio. Occupied by S.C. Seaman in 1880. Photo, October 2008, from Google Maps.

House, Nottingham Township, Harrison County, Ohio. Owned by one S. Ramsey in 1875. The Ramsey family emigrated from Ireland to York County, Pennsylvania, in the 18th century. Photo, June 2012, from Google Maps.

Homes of the form I've described, it seems, are unique to regions of Scotch-Irish settlement. In The Architecture of Migration, Donald Hutslar briefly describes the group's history:

These people were the Scotch-Irish — Protestant Lowland Scots who had largely resided in stone cottages in northern Ireland a few generations before emigrating to the [American] colonies in several waves[,] beginning early in the eighteenth century.

Between 1800 and 1830, many families of Scotch-Irish descent moved from Pennsylvania to eastern Ohio, settling, primarily, in the Seven Ranges and U.S. Military District. The counties of Guernsey, Harrison, and Jefferson, especially, contained concentrated Scotch-Irish populations. Scotch-Irish, from both Pennsylvania and the Upper South, also settled in the Virginia Military District, and elsewhere in Ohio (though in lesser numbers).

Interestingly, the house-type I've described seems confined to the Midwest. Most extant Scotch-Irish dwellings in southwestern Pennsylvania bear little resemblance to the Ohio house-type; neither do buildings in Virginia and the Carolinas. Precisely where, and when, the "Scotch-Irish box" (inelegant, yes, but so is "upright-and-wing") arose is unclear. Its origin may lie in Pennsylvania, or in Ireland or Scotland.