PIONEER HOME PRESERVED MARBLE HILL

The bedroom in the second story of the Massey Houseis filled with old comforters and quilts. A chamber pot sits on the floor by the bed.

Bollinger County Historical Society members, from the left, Jeanie Troy, Blanche Reilly and Freeda Huskey stand beside the sign noting the site of the Massey House, which was built in about 1869.

Verdetta Seabaugh, Historical Society member and tour hostess, sits at a foot-powered flax wheel in the living room of the Massey House. A fire burns in the fireplace.

Cathy Thompson of the Historical Society stirs water heating on the wood cook stove in the Massey House kitchen. The kitchen has been furnished with items common to kitchens of the post Civil War period.

In 1800, 20 Swiss-German families left North Carolina with Major George Frederick Bollinger and settled in the sylvan, rocky hills of what is now Bollinger County.

Henry Massey, 49 years later, ventured into the area from the Carolinas. He built a one-room cabin -- nothing fancy, just functional.

Around 1869, in the northwestern part of the county near Yount, Massey, who had prospered as a farmer, built a new home -- a four-room, two-story log house with front and back porches and a breeze way, back then called a "dog trot."

Massey and his wife, Isabella, raised nine children there, and for more than a century succeeding generations of his family would call it home.

In 1984, Bill and Lena Mae Fulton, who own the property the Massey family settled, donated the house to the Bollinger County Historical Society.

The house, a sterling example of post Civil War rural architecture, was dismantled and rebuilt on a perch of land near the courthouse in Marble Hill. It's been furnished with a myriad of antiques dating to that era -- and it's become a popular tourist attraction.

"We've had over 14,000 visitors at the Massey House," said Dixie Hopkins, Historical Society member. "Two Saturdays ago, during our fall festival, 300 people went through the house, and they were from 14 states. We've had people from foreign countries visit."

Jeannie Troy, corresponding secretary of the society, said the construction of the house is called "four-pen," meaning it has four rooms.

"It was a very nice cabin for back then," she said. "A lot of cabins then had dirt floors and some didn't have windows. This house was built with a lot of care."

The house was home to the Massey family until 1976, when Ed Massey moved out. Although an old crank-type telephone had been installed in the kitchen, there had never been electricity or running water.

The log walls had been covered with clapboard and a metal roof replaced the original shake shingles.

Moving the house in 1984 was the first project of the Historical Society. To date, about $60,000 has been spent on its "rebirth."

The society hired a contractor to dismantle and rebuild the house. Logs, chimney rocks, floor planks, doors and windows were tagged so reassembly would be accurate.

It was during this process that the uniqueness of the house became apparent.

The walls are made of oak logs, hand-hewn flat on two sides with a broad ax and secured with a lock-notch, or dovetail notch, at each corner.

The rooms are tied together with two roof plates -- 40-foot oak logs hewn to an 8"-by-8" square.

The windows and doors are held together with wooden pegs. The window glass is very old and is of interest because of its imperfections.

The six original doors are often referred to as Christian doors since the panels are in the pattern of an inverted cross.

Few changes were made in reconstructing the house. Whereas the cracks between the logs were sealed with red clay mud, cement now binds them. And the roof has been replaced with hand-split cedar shake shingles nailed onto plywood.

"It's a beautifully restored house," said Blanche Reilly, Historical Society treasurer. "We're all very proud of it."

Reilly said the society accepts donations to help maintain the landmark, and the sale of Historical Society history books have been an important part of funding the relocation project.

As well-maintained as it is on the outside, the inside has been graced with period furnishings.

Freeda Huskey, Historical Society historian, said all the furnishings are donations. "We've really been given some nice antiques for all the rooms."

The Living Room

In the living room is a Victorian table that was popular in the 1800s. A corner table made of spools of thread displays a pair of wool felt leggings and high-top shoes.

Next to a wall and under faded photographs of Henry and Isabelle Massey -- he died in 1932 and she died in 1906 -- is a parlor couch. When used in doctors' offices, these couches were called fainting couches.

There is a small spinning wheel that was used to spin flax fibers into thread, from which linen was made. The spinning wheel belonged to a family that owned a lot of land and many slaves in the 1820s.

On chilly days, fires are built in the native rock fireplace. One rock in the chimney has the year 1849 inscribed on it.

A picture of Abraham Lincoln hangs near the fireplace. It dates to the post Civil War period and was the treasured possession of an old Union soldier in whose home it had hung during his lifetime.

Under a Massey family photo is an immigrants' trunk. Cathy Thompson, Historical Society member who gives tours of the house, says it came from Germany.

"It's old but in real good shape," said Thompson. "The lid of the trunk is curved, that's so other trunks couldn't be stacked on it during its trip across the ocean."

The trunk is put together with wooden pegs, and was brought to the area by a family who homesteaded three miles east of Marble Hill in 1840.

A Storey & Clark pump organ near the trunk has a pleasant tone. It is typical of those found in homes and churches in the late 1800s.

The Bedroom

The carpet on the floor of the upstairs bedroom was woven on an old loom that is in another room of the house. It was made with narrow strips of double-knit materials.

The master bed belonged to a family who were neighbors of the Masseys. It dates to the 1900s. A feather bed cover and one made of straw and corn shucks were used alternately on the bed. Feathers provided good warmth during winters and the straw and corn shuck cover was for use during summers.

An ironstone chamber pot sits at the foot of the bed, and there's a bowl and pitcher set on a nearby chest of drawers.

A set of quilting frames display several old quilts that were designed and hand-quilted by county residents. All the quilts are over 50 years old and one dates to the 1880s.

An iron-frame child's bed was bought in 1911 for a Bollinger County family that lived in Zalma. It was used by five of their six children over the years.

In the bed is a baby doll wearing a dress made in 1900. Thompson, the tour guide, said the lace on the doll's petticoat and panties "was found in a collection of old cotton laces, some of which had been kept in the same family for more than 75 years."

Also in the bedroom are coal oil lamps and curling irons. There's a Wheeler & Wilson sewing machine that has a patent date of 1878.

Books on a shelf include early editions of "Last of the Mohicans" by James Fenimore Cooper, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Harriet Beecher Stowe and "Little Women" by Louisa Mae Alcott.

The Loom Room

Located upstairs and across from the bedroom, the loom room is home to a large four-harness loom. It is flanked by the tools used to prepare fibers to be woven -- a hand-cranked cotton gin, flat hand cards, a high-wheel spinning wheel and a weasel.

The loom was restored to working condition and was used to weave the carpet on the bedroom floor.

Pieces of pottery are peppered around the loom room. In the early 1800s, pottery was made in northern Bollinger County, and the pieces in the room were found at the original pottery making sites.

Other items in the room include part of an old pulpit, a picture of the battle of Pilot Knob, a 48-star American flag, a World War I honor roll, an early picture of George Washington and a telephone used in the old Jamison House Hotel.

The Kitchen

A pioneer cook's paradise, the kitchen in the Massey house displays a cast iron cook stove. During chilly weather, Historical Society members "fire it up" and bake bread for visitors. The stove has a reservoir for heating water.

Heavy smoothing irons sit on the stove, as do pots and pans.

The table is set for supper and the tools of the domestic arts are arrayed on a kitchen cabinet. Lining the shelves are baskets, bowls and containers made of copper, wood, tin, glass and pottery.

There is an antique coffee grinder that works, and wooden molds for such things as butter, which was made from cream that rose to the top of milk obtained from the family's cow.

Hanging from the rafters are herbs and plants to include, mint, sage, hot peppers, pennyroyal, tobacco, peanuts, Indian corn and popcorn.

There is a dark piece of hand-made soap that dates to 1945. Fruit jars abound. There's an old crank-type telephone, coal oil lamps and a pie safe.

The Massey House is open for tours on weekends from Memorial day through the last weekend in October. Special tours may be arranged throughout the year.

It is often visited, say Historical Society members, by school groups, Girl and Boy Scouts and senior citizens groups. It is an important stop on area scenic tours.