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By RENEEJEAN\Daily Journal Assistant Managing Editor

A little piece of the county's history is coming down, and it's moving to southern Missouri.

Out on Turley Mill Road there is a two-story log cabin that has been nestled inside a more modern-looking house for many, many years. The owner of the property, Nancy and Vernon Clubb, had peeled those outer layers off and were seeking someone to take over the cabin, to preserve what she believed could be an interesting piece of the county's history.

"I begged and begged for someone in the county to take it over and preserve it," she said. There were no takers.

Failing that, she advertised in the newspaper and found someone willing to tear the cabin down for her and restore it elsewhere.

She got about 100 callers interested in taking on the cabin project. The first man to arrive was called to work and would not have time to remove the log structure, so the hand-hewn home is going to the second man to arrive, Ted Villmer.

Villmer plans to move the cabin south, where it is to become the focal point of an aquaculture business he has been working on.

The cabin itself did not lend many clues as to its original owner. The windows were Franklin glass, an old type of glass recognizable because it sags a bit with time. The logs were all hand-hewn and the cracks between were filled with the triangular chips as well as chinking.

There were no closets in the 16 by 18 foot structure, and by today's standards it would be considered a cracker box. It had a second-story loft for the sleeping quarters, but to get there you had to go outside and go up the stairs.

The back outside wall was covered in old newspapers, evidently as part of an addition to the back of the house. A new door was cut into the back. The newspapers showed the date 1833 in a few places, but it was impossible to tell if that was a date of publication. Not enough of the newspaper print survived.

Nancy does not know who the original owner of the two-story cabin was, but she has a stack of deeds and abstracts from Frank and Edith Tawfell, from whom she and her husband purchased the property.

In one of the documents a home place is mentioned, and that seems the most likely to be related to the cabin. That particular abstract begins with a purchase in 1821 of two 80-acre tracts of land from the United States Government by a George Taylor.

Mr. Taylor's will, also bound up in the same abstract, mentions the "home place," which he willed to his family and heirs "simply forever." The will says he owned a total of 1,000 acres.

The abstract previously mentioned only shows he bought some 280 acres from the United states, 160 of it in 1821, another 80 in 1845 and 40 more in 1855. Evidently, he had also purchased other tracts of land to go with that, but it was difficult to sort out any more details from just the documents.

Witnessing the will are W.R. Taylor and Martin Clardy.

A George Taylor is mentioned in a history timeline being kept in the genealogy room of the Farmington Library.

In that timeline, Taylor is mentioned as having bought the farm of Joab, the brother of one Sarah Barton Murphy. He was said to have the farm as of 1822.

Joab had been living with Indians and was found by one Daniel Boone, local historians say. "I know where your sister is," Boone said.

Joab was reunited with Sarah, who took care of his daughter.

If it is the same Taylor, and the information in the timeline accurate, that would seem to point to the cabin being one of the first homesteads in St. Francois County, connected as it is to the one of the very first families to settle in the Farmington area.

Taylor is also mentioned again in the timeline as having served on the first grand jury of the county and as having put the brick on the very first courthouse.

Editors note:
If anyone has further details that might make the history of the cabin clearer, please contact Renee Jean at 431-2010, ext. 117.