This abandoned farmhouse is on Pinkerton Run Road in Settler's Cabin Park, just opposite the old barn which now serves as the park's maintenance building.Enter through the kitchen window on the back side of the house.
Someone said that the most beautiful word in the English language is cellardoor. (Sounds like two words to me.) But I gotta say, the doorway into the cellar of this place is anything but beautiful. It creeps me right the hell out.
My guess is that this place has some historical connection to the 1780s log cabin that's adjacent to it, the one for which the park is named. Strangely, the cabin is boarded up, too. It will be the topic of a future post.
This is a traditional "hall & parlor" design, I think, from the mid-1800s. Because most of the windows were boarded up, some of the rooms are too dark to enter without a flashlight.
Notice the remains of red and blue stained glass in the window above the door. I counted four fireplaces. I didn't have the balls to go up to the second floor by myself. (I really don't want to discover a decomposing body, and this would be just the place for that.) There was a page from a Pittsburgh newspaper dated 1987. I think it said The Pittsburgh News, which as far as I know is no longer in print.
This former farmhouse was erected when the occupants of the cabin were commissioned by the disputed state of Virginia as frontier authority. Virginia trying to claim West Augusta County and then the later Yohogania and Ohio counties as their holdings needed some semblance of authority. The Augusta Courts used district sheriffs and magistrates both before and after the French and Indian war until the Mason Dixon line was marked to keep the settle frontier complaints. The upper room in the farmhouse was where the disputes were heard by the magistrate it is one large room on the top floor which made it possible to hold a court for hard crimes as some duly sworn in authorities would travel in from adjoining courts. References are found in Virginia History as well as Pennsylvania History and West Virginia Historical Records held in Morgantown.
ReplyDeleteHello - the farmhouse has been razed early this year and is the site of the future administrative offices of the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden which leases 460 acres from Allegheny County/Settler's Cabin Park. I have a Facebook page created recently to promote the memory of the old house - the page is "1855 James Nelson Ewing Cottage." I will post a link to this blog which is FANTASTIC! - may I also post photos from the farmhouse section of the blog on my FB page? I have many interior shots as well that I took starting August 2013 through March 2014 when the house was razed. Will be posting those to FB as well over a period of time.
ReplyDeleteHi Jerry, thanks for the info on this old farmhouse. I haven't been back to Settler's Cabin in years. Too bad historic preservation wasn't part of the development plan for the botanic garden---which I've heard is great. You can definitely create a link from the FaceBook page to S&J.
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