Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1911-03-17
''cOM7LkZED, The DIMENSIONS or tn
house. HRE rs X/6 EEET"

eight TO ten miles distant from your nearest
neighbor. IL you should so choose to settle
among a group of steep up-anddowns quite re-
moved from wagon road, little nearer to a
trail. and yet a greater and laborious overland
distance from sawmill, 1t Is obvious that you
Will have to depend, to great degree upon your
own resources and upon your ability to create
with your own hands from those things which
nature has provided in a wellwooded country
Imagine yourself placed in one OF these val
leys upon one of these foothills with no great
er amount of baggage tools and provisions than
could be conveyed over a country OF this char
acter with yoke of oxen. Then. to be com
manded, Here is the forest and all 1t contains
go, prepare for yourself your future abode"
This is story OF home making under such
conditions. The progress of the work is illus
trated and In its completion no other than the
aw materials of the forest entered into the struc-
ture OF its furnishings, save a small amount of
hardware and incidentals forming a portion of the
initial supplies brought in as a settlers outfit
Two young men, homesteaders both city bred
completed the entire work unassisted
or the tools used the double.bitted AK per-
formed the greater portion of the heavy work It
followed in the wake of the cross-cut saw after
the feiling of the trees, and, from then on was
the chief implement OF construction. With It
every duty of preparing the logs for raising them
into their positions in the building was most ade-
quately performed. First it scored the logs
IehgthWlse, on two opposite sides ready for wedg-
ing ana splitting into semicircular halves. Then
II followed as the tool for hewng the fiat sur
faces of the halflogs, which, completed formed
the smooth inside walls of the dwelling After
each log had been raised into position came the
task OF "notching down." which required even
more skill in the use OF an ak Those few of the
native inhabitants OF the forest who are most pro.
hclent in making the dovetaled notches which
are necessary In completing a perfect set of
interlocking timbers are known as corner men
q native cir fI,a
work are usually skilled woodsmen residing in
widely separated settlements among the hills
HOW wei this part of the work was done by two
young men totally unaccustomed to pioneer life
is better Illustrated in the series of photographs
wnlch SHOWS each successive operation Of preparing
the logs and raising the framework OF the strcture
IN going on to the flooring. shngling window
framing, partittoning. finishing and furnishing
you would know how it was all Accomplished in
the absence of the products of a saw and plan
ing mill or any of the manufactures SO essential
10 building construction and home making
Five very common tools constituted the board
making outfit This primitive substitute for a
sawmiH included ak: two or three steel
wedges and as many, hand made of hickory: a
frow' with hickory handle the blade made OF a
section Of iron tire; q maet and maui. each
cut from unseasoned hickory timber.
The selection Of perfect board trees" is
guess work to degree, as practiced by the ma
yves. Out of every four trees chosen by the
woodsman's system of identifying marks, usually
only one is perfectly adaptable to board making
oy the method OF splitting with mallet and frow.
The most reliable way to select the right kind
OF timber is to observe the general trend of the
crevices in the bark The course Of these lines
should be nearly perpendicular with the trunk.
Another good method of Judging q straight
grained trunk is to note the distribution and the
general design OF the scaly, turtle-shell patches