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Research and More Research Brings Cabin Closer |
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by Dan Veaner
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Friday, 10 March 2006 |
 The Old North Cabin committee met Thursday so that members could report on progress that has been made over the past two weeks. The committee hopes to bring the oldest log cabin in Tompkins and Cayuga Counties home to its original location in Lansing by late summer this year. The cabin is currently behind the Cayuga Museum in Auburn, where it has been since 1958.
Progress is in an in-between state as committee members continue to research the history of the cabin and the North family who built and lived in it, and also research what it will take to get the cabin to Lansing. Town Councilman Bud Shattuck said that a Member Item Grant from a State legislator may be the Town's best bet to pay for moving the cabin, and that a historical grant could help to restore and furnish it once it gets here.
The cabin's eligibility for the latter will depend on where the cabin is placed. Originally the committee thought that placing it on its exact original site. New information suggest it can be located anywhere on the original land the North family owned. That encompasses military lot 71, a plot of land originally used to pay off Revolutionary War soldiers. It extends from the corner of Searles and Conlon Roads west past Salmon Creek Road and about a mile North.
If it turns out the cabin can be anywhere within this area, land that Chris Muka has offered would make the cabin eligible for maximum aid. There is plenty of room on the plot to locate the cabin and parking, and it would mean that the cabin has a place to go to.
Muka has spent over 20 hours researching the cabin and the North family, and the meeting was a fascinating look back at Lansing history. But he has not yet been able to pinpoint the cabin's exact original location. We know the cabin was moved to around 578 Conlon Road in 1844. Muka noted that hemlock trees are plentiful in a ravine north of that location, so he surmises that the cabin, built of hemlock logs, must have been built nearby.
Shattuck hopes to have clarification in the next few days on what constitutes the "original location" for the purposes of funding. Meanwhile committee members are following up with State legislators and the State Parks Department, and will be talking to a building mover and the Department of Transportation to discuss when the cabin could be transported and what route it must take.
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