The Thomas Harper Cabin
This log cabin came from a post-Civil War African American community, north of Poolesville, in western Montgomery County. The Harper family built it in 1870 in the community of Jonesville.
The property remained in the Harper family until 1935 when it was sold to Harry L. Willard, who rented it to tenants. His heirs donated the cabin to Montgomery County Department of Parks in 1976. The cabin was dismantled, moved, and reassembled at Brookside Nature Center as part of the US Bicentennial celebration. During reconstruction, the chimney, flooring, windows, and other aging parts of the original house were replaced.
The cabin looked very different when the Harpers lived here. It had a rear addition, was covered by clapboards which hid the logs, and was white- washed inside and outside. Behind the cabin were a hen house, smokehouse, hog pen, vegetable garden, privy, and orchard with apple, peach, plum, and crabapple trees. The cabin had no electricity or indoor plumbing.
This cabin has one room downstairs and one room upstairs. Access to the upstairs is by an enclosed or “boxed” corner stairway. This is much easier to use than a ladder, and can be closed off to keep heat from escaping to the upper floor. Notice that the chimney is made of sturdy, large creek stones, but in Jonesville it was made of smaller stones and bricks. Originally, it may have been made of mud and sticks. The “V” notching of the logs is the German style, typical in the area. The logs are hand-finished; look for marks left by the adze (a type of ax).
The space between the logs was chinked with stones and mud mixed with hog hair and glue made from boiling down hooves. Though most of the cabin is now chinked with cement for ease of maintenance, a few spots have authentic chinking between the logs. Often, holes were made in the chinking in the summer to allow breezes to blow through, and then refilled in the fall.
The Harper Family
Thomas Harper, his brother John, and their father Alfred are listed in the 1870 census. Thomas (born around 1835) and Elizabeth (1848) Harper raised six children in the cabin: Thomas Jr., Richard, Mary, Ida, Annie, and Julia. Later, their son Richard and his wife Rachel raised fifteen children there, seven of whom are listed in the 1900 census: John, Elizabeth, William, Stanley, Geneva, Ashley, and Arnold.
Jonesville
Jonesville is typical of several dozen family-based communities formed by freed slaves in Montgomery County after the Civil War. Unlike freed black settlements in other states, Jonesville was on land actually owned by the residents. Slavery was definitely part of Montgomery County history, peaking at 7572 slaves in the county in 1810. Slavery ended in Maryland on November 1, 1864 with a new state constitution. After the Civil War, Erasmus Jones and his brother Richard purchased 18 acres in Montgomery County. This land formed the core of what would become Jonesville, a community of fifteen families along a road between Jerusalem Road and Cattail Road. The residents of the community were mainly relatives of the Jones brothers.
Everyday Life in a Cabin
Imagine raising ten children in a house this small! It sounds hard, but there are some important things to remember about life in those days. All the children would not have been living in the house at once. By the time the youngest was born, the oldest two or three were out on their own. No children expected to have a room of their own or many toys. They grew up in a close knit family and community where luxury items were few.
There was no running water in the house. Water needed for drinking, cooking, cleaning and bathing had to be hauled from a spring about 200 feet away. This spring was probably covered by a little stone house, and food that needed to be kept cool was placed in or near the running water. A pit toilet (outhouse) was located on a part of the property furthest away from the spring. Since there was no electricity in the house, light came from kerosene lamps or candles. Cooking was done over a wood or coal stove that also provided heat in the winter.
Furniture consisted of a large table surrounded by chairs and benches, a couple of smaller tables, maybe a rocking chair, and a bed or two. Most of the time the adults slept downstairs and the children upstairs, with curtains separating boys and girls. The beds would have been mats on the floor. In the summer, everyone might have slept downstairs where it was cooler. The outside yard was hard packed clay rather than grass. It was swept with a broom since it was used like another room of the house in warm months.
Everyone helped with chores, which included chopping wood, gardening, feeding the chickens and hogs, collecting eggs, cooking and baking, sweeping the floors, washing and mending clothes, washing dishes, and hauling water. In springtime, the family needed to till and plant the garden. In the fall, they had to harvest, put up food for the winter, and slaughter the hogs.
The Smokehouse
The smokehouse was an important part of a homestead. Since there was no refrigeration, meat quickly spoiled if it wasn’t preserved through either smoking or salting. Meat was hung from the rafters and a smoky fire was built inside the windowless smokehouse. After days of smoking, the preserved meat lasted for months. This 1850’s smokehouse, originally from Derwood, MD, near the intersection of Muncaster Mill Rd. and Muncaster Rd., was from the Leonard Kapiloff property. It was reconstructed at Brookside Nature Center in 1975.