Mountain Farm Museum House

The main house on the farmstead was built by John E. Davis. When he began construction on the house in 1899, Davis had already been a farmer in the Indian Creek area for around ten years. It took Davis almost two years to build the house for his family. Of their seven children, three of them were eventually born in the home. It was important to have a large family because it ensured many hands were able to help with the daily chores of living on the farmstead. Before the National Park acquired the home in the 1950s, David sold the house to Joe Queen.

At the time of the construction, sawmill-produced lumber was easily accessible, however, Davis decided to build a log house. It is hypothesized he did this for several reasons. One was personal preference, and the other was so that he might save money since Davis was a skilled woodworker. Regardless of the reason, David built the house out of "matched" chestnut logs, which meant that the log was hewed flat on two sides, at which point it was split in half along its length to create two building logs. These logs were then placed in “matching” positions on opposite sides of the walls. The ends of the logs were joined together with half-dovetail notches. Those types of joints were more time-consuming to make compared to other notches used in building log houses. However, it ensured that the logs were securely locked together and the downward sloping surfaces of the notch allowed rainwater to flow away from the house. Unlike many other log houses, Davis decided to seal the cracks between the logs with hand-split boards instead of the usual clay. The front of the house was built with a porch which during the warmer months was used to socialize, or do other work. Although the house is small compared to today’s standards, the Davis house is an excellent example of what the typical home looked like in this region

Tom Robbins, Mountain Farm Museum (Gatlinburg: Great Smoky Mountains Association), 4-5.