`PIONEER' BUILDS RURAL LOG SETTLEMENT

Nick Elfrink reads an old school book in the log home he has restored. The home, built about 1860, is open to the public.

This is how Nick Elfrink's two-story log home looked before it was moved from the William Alexander Green farm near Scopus.

Nick Elfrink has a time travel vision -- he wants to construct a Civil War-era backwoods settlement along a busy highway. And the first two log structures are up and looking old, which is good.

Elfrink, a principal at Marquand Schools, has been in the antiques business about 15 years. He and his wife, Geri, operate A.B.C. Antiques out of an old barn three miles east of Marble Hill on Highway 34.

He decided to delve into "large scale" antiques in the spring of 1992 when he bought a dilapidated two-story log home that dates to about 1860 -- and had it dismantled and rebuilt near his business.

The home is furnished with primitives and other items relevant to life in the woods 130 years ago. A wood-burning cook stove sits close to a wooden table that supports a large kerosene lamp. A lard press, a cream separator and a tin bathtub hang from nails in the walls. Upstairs, a feather mattress on a wood-frame bed beckons.

But when Elfrink bought the structure it wasn't so homey.

"It was in a sad state of repairs," said Elfrink, sitting at the kitchen table, smoking a pipe. "Cattle had been inside and hay had been stored in it. There was no floor left at all."

The home came from the William Alexander Green farm, about nine miles northwest of Scopus. Elfrink says no one knows the last time it was inhabited.

Elfrink hired two men to number the logs and dismantle the structure. While it was being rebuilt, it was noted some of the logs were no longer sturdy. Originally 15 logs tall, the home is now 13 logs tall.

"We got it under roof that first year," Elfrink said. "Then in the summer of '94 a fellow teacher at Marquand helped me chink it and finish it up."

The original chinking was done with mud, rocks and corn stalks, which a made fine home for insects. Elfrink re-chinked the building with a mortar mix, and to fill some gaps he pushed in Pepsi and Coke cans, but they're not visible.

Since the original windows and frames had long since disappeared, Elfrink built new ones. He also put in two new doors and a wood floor. A corner stairway leads to the second floor that serves as a bedroom. At one time, a door there led to a porch.

The home measures 16-by-24 and is home to a wealth of antiques.

"I wanted to get it to look as close to what we assume it looked like at one time," said Elfrink, motioning toward some chairs with hand-woven splint seats. "Most of the antiques are not for sale, such as the old tin bathtub on the wall. It's an unusual piece to find in this area."

Other antiques that pepper the interior are a manual coffee grinder, various baskets, old photos and a bugle. There's also a crank telephone and a table with a well-used checker board.

The other old building on the property is a 15-by-20 log cabin that Elfrink located about three miles east of his antiques store.

"People called it the old Freda Huskey kitchen, but my guess is that it was a one-room cabin at one time, and then was later used as just a kitchen.

"It looks exactly like the other building with the same type of notching on the logs ... probably about the same age."

When Elfrink found the cabin it wasn't standing -- "It was just a big pile of logs on the ground."

He had the logs brought to the "settlement" two years ago and began rebuilding it.

"It was a puzzle," he said, drawing on his pipe. "No one really knew how it looked but I talked to a man who remembered seeing it when it was standing. He described it for me."

Unlike the larger building, the interior of the cabin contains no antiques. Elfrink plans to use it as an art studio -- he paints with watercolors and sketches.

Elfrink, who describes himself as "kind of a history buff," plans to add more old buildings to his property. Another two-story home has been given to him -- "All we have to do is tear it down and bring it in." And yet another has been offered to him for sale.

Also, he recently purchased a stack of hand-hewn logs that he will fashion into a cabin.

Elfrink has about 15 acres that could be used to build his pioneer settlement.

"I'd like to get a smokehouse in here and build a structure that could be used as a blacksmith shop ... and get some craftsmen in here."

Elfrink says the highway that passes by his antiques shop and Civil War-era buildings is well traveled. People from such states as Texas and Alaska have stopped by in recent years to marvel at the old houses.

Many families, he says, gather around the old corn wagon there to have their picture taken.

Elfrink is not sure when his vision will be completely realized -- he plans to teach for four more years, "and it may be that long before I get more buildings built ... it's all pretty time consuming."