A Greene County log cabin in Ireland?
Mary Beth Morgan Pastorius, left, and Janet Blair hold the Glassie Report “Log Architecture of Southwestern Pennsylvania” during a meeting this month of the Cornerstone Genealogical Society.
Cornerstone Genealogical Society
A Greene County log cabin relocated to Ireland? Mary Beth Pastorius spoke about the Uriah Hupp cabin at Cornerstone Genealogical Society’s September meeting.
Pastorius’ trip to Ireland all started by reading “Vernacular Architecture” – a book written by Professor Henry Glassie of Indiana University. In the footnotes of this book, Pastorius found Glassie wrote a 180-page report, which was never published, that is stored in Northern Ireland at Ulster American Folk Park and discusses historical architecture in Greene County. It was this report Pastorius wanted to bring home to Greene County.
Ulster American Folk Park in Northern Ireland is an open-air museum of 55 acres, and it tells the story of Scotch Irish immigration to America. Ulster is the term used for Northern Ireland, what we call Scotch Irish. These Scotch were mostly tenant farmers and Presbyterian who, in the early 1600s, left Scotland and settled in Northern Ireland. Because of extreme hardships, they started migrating to the United States in the 1700s.
There are three parts to this park – the old, the new and a replica of an 18th-century ship.
Uriah and Marinda Cox Hupp raised 12 children in the Hupp cabin, which was located near Clarksville. After the death of both Uriah and Marinda in 1911, the cabin belonged to one of their daughters, who was married to a Teagarden. Their only daughter, Anna, inherited the cabin. Anna was married to Robert Crane. The Cranes had no children, so the cabin passed to a local couple.
The cabin is currently not in good shape, but the couple thought to move and refurbish it. Their plans stalled and in stepped Peter Chillingworth of Scenery Hill, who was working with Folk Park. Lord O’Neill and Eric Montgomery, dignitaries from Northern Ireland, came to Greene County to look at the Hupp log cabin.
The cabin was dismantled and hauled to Baltimore and then shipped to Ireland, where the logs were put into storage for 13 years before being reassembled and opened in 1999.
Pastorius donated copies of Glassie’s report, “Log Architecture of Southwestern Pennsylvania,” to the Genealogical Society and Greene County Historical Society.
There will be an open house for the Genealogical Society Sept. 26 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and everyone is welcome. The next meeting will be Oct. 13 at 7 p.m. with Clay Kilgore, executive director of Washington County Historical Society, with a program about Ulysses S. Grant. On Nov. 10, there will be the 40th anniversary banquet at the East Franklin Grange. Tickets are $20 and available in the library of the Society.