The French and the Overhanging Plate

As I mention in a previous post, the overhanging plate (perhaps my favorite architectural enigma) is a distinctive feature of log homes in Loramie Township, Shelby County, and Wayne Township, Darke County. Two towns — Versailles and Russia — anchor this settlement. Both communities were populated largely by French immigrants, who arrived in the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s. (A few, apparently, fought in the Napoleonic Wars; hence the name Russia.) Hoping to learn about their use of the overhanging plate, I spent a bit of time researching the genealogy of these Frenchmen.

Thiebaud (1803–1863) and Nicholas Didier (1807–1881), prominent residents of Loramie Township, emigrated from Étueffont, France, to Shelby County in 1840 and 1851, respectively. Pierre Pepiot (1734–1839) lived in Neuvier until 1835, when he relocated to the United States and joined the French settlement near Russia, Ohio. Louis Peltier (1823–1876) left Évette-Salbert before 1848. The LeMoine and Gasson families, who settled in Darke County, hailed from Combres-sous-les-Côtes and Hennemont. The Russia-Versailles settlement's inhabitants, it seems, originated in extreme northeastern France, and reached Ohio via New Orleans and the Mississippi River. Where, then, did they learn to build log houses? No (or few) such buildings exist in Alsace, Franche-Comté, and Lorraine, whence they migrated. And New Orleans is hardly a bastion of log architecture. (1)

I suspect (but, alas, cannot prove) that the French immigrants tarried in Louisville, Cincinnati, or other sizable Ohio River cities before traveling to Shelby and Darke counties. The overhanging plate is particularly common in Kentucky, Indiana, and southwestern Ohio. If the French received an education in log construction from residents of these regions, they may well have assimilated knowledge of the overhanging plate!

1) Most of the "log" buildings the French encountered along the Mississippi River were, no doubt, of the poteaux-en-terre and poteaux-sur-sol varieties. Neither is, so far as I know, replicated in Ohio.

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.