Father Pitt

Why should the beautiful die?


Martin’s Cabin

Martin’s Cabin is a log house of the 1700s preserved in Schenley Park. There are not very many buildings of that era left within city limits: the Fort Pitt Blockhouse, the Neill Log House, this cabin, and possibly the Old Stone Tavern are the only ones Father Pitt knows of.  It is a curious fact that all the grand houses of stone and brick in old Pittsburgh have long since disappeared, but this humble poor man’s cabin remains.  (UPDATE: Note the kind comment below reminding us of the John Woods House in Hazelwood, which is in fact a stone house, though not one of the grandest of its time.)

Camera: Canon PowerShot S45.

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0 responses to “Martin’s Cabin”

  1. In fact we did forget about the Woods House. It is a curious thing that almost every listing (including Father Pitt’s own) of eighteenth-century structures in the city of Pittsburgh leaves out a few obvious candidates. Father Pitt suspects that there are more here than we realize. Who knows how many Insulbrick exteriors are hiding old log houses in city neighborhoods that used to be agricultural countryside?

  2. I was in the O’Neill log house a few years ago (they opened it once a year during the Vintage Prix, not sure if they still do) and there was an exhibit of how the O’Neill House fell apart and how it was reconstructed using the original logs. Looking at the state of the Martin House, I assume it was also reconstructed, but I cannot verify.

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