and built chimneys for the first house in Leesburg after they were grown men.

This last sixty-acre purchase cost, as the deed of record shows, eighty pounds or four hundred dollars. It was unimproved land, but was very rich and fertile, heavily timbered, with large trees of the usual Kentucky growth, and large grapevines, some of which were twelve inches in diameter, and also any quantity of heavy canebrake, as much as twenty feet high. I surmise that it was no easy task to open up this little farm for cultivation cutting out the timber and grubbing up roots, building the dwellings and out houses, stables, etc., but it was all done in a few years by home work entirely, except the log-raising, as it was termed, which was done by the whole neighborhood, on a fixed day, when all had been prepared and hauled to the chosen spot. Occasions of this kind were always made those of joyous festivity and social greetings, which none ever missed unless prevented by sickness or other like good cause; the neighbors gathered early in the morning and immediately organized systematically, each one assigned his proper place in the work, and then with a hearty good will, each vied with the others in promptness and faithful work, until all was complete, without any noon intermission, usually finishing about the middle of the afternoon; then, after a little rest, a face washing and general brushing up was indulged in, preparatory to the bountiful repast that had been prepared by the home folks with the help of the wives and sisters of those who had done the log-raising.

The dwelling house was built of blue-ash hewed logs, one and one-half stories high, two rooms below and three above; two of the upper rooms were bedrooms and one a storeroom. There were also two shed-rooms on the rear of the house that were used for bedrooms, a stone chimney at each end of the house, with large, wide fireplaces in the lower rooms only. Adjoining the main dwelling at one end was built a large room for a kitchen and the servants to live in. With a shed and pantry-room between it and the main house. the whole building was chinked and pointed with stone and lime, and weatherboarded on the outside; the rafters were hewn out and the sheeting was rived out with a tool called a frow, also used for making boards and shingles before they were shaved; the plank for the floor, doors and window and door frames were all sawed by hand with a whipsaw and planed and dressed by hand;

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Thanks to Candy Hearn for transcribing this page.