Ulster American Folkpark : Collections : America : Buildings : The Log Cabin : Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland

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The Log Cabin

The small, two-roomed log cabin is typical of the dwellings built or occupied by emigrants when they first arrived in the New World. They would often spend years in dwellings such as these until they had the time and, more importantly, the money to build a more spacious and permanent home.

The Log Cabin

The Mellon family continued the tradition of eighteenth-century Ulster emigrants by settling on the land. They spent their first winter in Western Pennsylvania with relatives while they searched for a suitable farm. One was eventually purchased in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, in what Thomas Mellon later described in his autobiography as 'a remote and unfrequented part of the country'.

The Mellon family endured four years of 'labour and privation' before they cleared the mortgage on their farm. Once this had been cleared, attention was immediately focused on the construction of a new farmhouse and, as Thomas relates: '... in less than a year we had as fine a six-room dwelling as the best of our neighbours, and that Fall and Winter as good a square log double barn as was to be seen thereabouts.'

ULSTER AMERICANFOLK PARK

The Log Cabin

ULSTER AMERICAN
FOLK PARK