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A pioneer homestead on the Blue Ridge Parkway. This one-and-a-half story hewn log house is typical of houses that replaced primitive cabins. Note the boarded gables, shingled roof, and half-dovetail notching. The only window is a foot square opening next to the chimney. Weather permitting, interior light was provided by opening either the front or back door. Two doors were not the norm, but were not uncommon. A front porch betrays post-pioneer tendancies. The logs in the barn, root cellar, and spring house are v-notched (or in some cases round-notched), and all but those in the spring house are unhewn.

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Most Irish houses were as stark as the Ingles house, built about 1760 by William Ingles at the ferry he operated on New River near present Radford. Ingles and his wife, Mary, moved during the French War from Draper's Meadows (Smithfield) to Peaks of Otter in Bedford County, but they re-established themselves on the frontier in this house. When Indian hostilities commenced in 1763 Ingles built a stockade here and called it Fort Hope. Mary escaped from Shawnee captivity in 1755 but was forced to leave behind her four-year-old son, Thomas. It was to this house that William Ingles fetched Thomas from the Ohio country in 1768, and in which William died in 1783, and Mary in 1815. The Smith Tavern is still a residence two hundred sixty years after William Smith built it. Today the house is located in the village of Greenville, Virginia. Windows were cut after the pioneer period, and the stone, walk-in cellar shows German influence. The gable-end chimney, however, is characteristic of Irish construction.

Green Hill was built by Joseph McDonald east of New River on Tom's Creek about the same time as the Ingles house.

Introduction Finns English Germans Scots-Irish African-Americans
Native-Americans Warfare Warrior Society Religion Housing Clothing