Log Cabin on West Main St. 1904

Editor’s Notes: The Edwards flouring mill mentioned in the following article used to stand exactly where the Bob Stotlar Lumber Co. on W. Main St. now stands next to the I.C. tracks. The RR in those days were owned by the Chicago and Eastern Illinois Co (C.&E.I.). Where the old Blankenship auto parts building stands on the west side of the tracks was a mill pond fed by Crab Orchard Creek and was used to run the steam engines at the flour mill. The house in this article was located roughly in the parking lot on the east side of Bob Stotlar Lumber and next to the Baptist Church facing West Main St. The article is verbatim from the 1905 Souvenir book.

“There are quite a number of homes in Marion which aspire to the honor of being the very first home erected on the present site of the city of Marion, but careful inquiry among the oldest inhabitants decided an ancient log cabin standing near the Edward’s flouring mills and fronting West Main street, just east of the C. & E. I. Railroad tracks. Mr. Lewis Calvert, however, insists that the old Calvert house, put up by his brother in 1845, was the first and the log cabin built in 1847, the second.

It is now occupied by colored people, William Watson and his wife, and Mrs. Robinson, who have lived in it continuously since 1882. A picture of the ancient structure is given herewith.

It was built in 1843 or 44 by George Felts and John Hooper, who put up the cabin to have a place to live in while building the mill which stands near it. The cabin is double, with a passage way three feet wide through the center and three rooms on each side. There is a loft overhead for storage or sleeping purposes, reached by a pair of steep stairs in the corner of each division. The ceiling is only about six feet or six and a half feet high, and can be easily reached by the hand. The floor is of puncheons or hewed logs, and the roof of oak “shakes” or split boards.  It fronts the south and stands on a little knoll among trees of different sorts. The sides and ends are covered with clapboards, and chimneys of sticks laid up in mud originally stood at either end.

Mr. G. W. C. McCoy tells me that the occasion of building the cabin was as follows: It seems that Captain James Cunningham and Milton and Dr. Jonathan Mulkey, seeing the necessity of having a flouring mill for this region bought the necessary machinery and had it shipped to Marion, before the town was built and before railroads existed in these parts, with the intention of putting up a flour mill.   But, being ignorant of the whole business, they could do nothing with the machinery, nor could they find a man in a dozen counties who could. At last, however, Felts and Hooper heard of the situation and seeing their opportunity, came down from Franklin, bought the outfit for a song and erected the first grist and saw mill ever put up in the county. It was run by steam and people came with their grain from many miles around to get their grists ground. So great was the demand that they often had to wait three and four weeks for their turn. So busy were the enterprising millers with their saw mill and grinding that they had no time to build them a new house and lived in their log cabin and run their mill for many years. The old mill finally burned down and was replaced by the present brick structure, but the old log cabin still stands and affords a home to a couple of hardworking Christian women and their helpless companion.”

(Photo and article extracted from 1905 Souvenir Book, WCHS)