Because of the availability of trees, log houses were the most common type of house built in the Piney Woods during the 19th century. The most typical style, still found today, is the “double-pen” construction, also called “dogtrot” or “two-pens-and-a-passage.” Scholars disagree on the origin of the dogtrot. Some have attributed it to Scandinavian influence, while others have shown a close relationship to the double-pen houses of Africa. Henry Glassie has suggested that the dogtrot developed in the lower Tennessee Valley around 1825. However, a description of a dogtrot in Mississippi as early as 1789 has been recorded. In Narrative of a Journey Down the Ohio and Mississippi in 1789-90 (Cincinnati, 1888) Samuel S. Forman of New Jersey described his uncle’s house that he visited on a plantation bordering St. Catherine Creek, four miles from Natchez:
It seems probable that the dogtrot construction was a natural physical development, possibly happening in various countries simultaneously. Shorter All of the log dogtrots studied in the Piney Woods were built in stages, following the same pattern. The settler built a one-room log house or “pen.” Later, as his family and fortune increased he built an identical log pen and connected the two with a common roof, leaving a passageway or “dogtrot” between the pens and providing an overhang for porches front and back. One pen usually served as a kitchen and living room and the other as a bedroom. The covered passage formed an area for household activities, children’s play, and a cool sitting spot for summer evenings. Today the passageway is more likely to house the “deep freeze.” As the family grew and more rooms were needed, the sides of the front or back porch were walled off and called “shed rooms” or “drop sheds” (Fig. 1). All log houses were not dogtrots, and dogtrot construction was not limited to log houses. Many later frame houses were built in the popular style. When Hulan Purvis of Rankin County decided to build a frame house for his family in 1910, he emulated the construction of his father’s dogtrot, using the same type of “long-strawed” pine, but pine that had been planed at the sawmill rather than hewn by hand (Fig. 23). Many of the early dogtrots have been remodelled, enclosing the passageway for a central room (Fig. 25). Others have been abandoned or destroyed. Not all houses with open passageways are dogtrots. The Bob Goodloe house in Smith County is an example of a non-dogtrot because the two sides of the house are not of equal size or symmetrical relationship (Fig. 26). |