Perrin Log Cabin
Decatur, Wise County, Texas
Marker Inscription
William Perrin and his wife, Charlotte, along with two other families, left Rock Castle, Kentucky in the fall of 1853, arriving forty days later in the Peters Colony near Dallas. They moved west again, arriving in Wise County on Christmas Eve 1854 and settling on 160 acres southeast of Decatur. They sold that land in 1860 to blacksmith Joseph Dannelley for $1,000. The Perrins located this homestead south of town on the banks of Martin’s Branch and Center Creek, along the eastern boundary of the Samuel Isaacs survey. Here they built this two-room dogtrot log cabin sometime between 1855 and 1861. In 1861, Perrin obtained clear title to the land by paying Samuel Smith of Walker County $960 for 320 acres. The warranty deed cites “so as to include the residence and farm of said Perrin.” The Perrin family lived in the house continuously from its construction until 1990. Upon the death of William Perrin in 1875, his son, Temoleon (T. Perrin), became the owner, and later grandson Earl Perrin acquired the house and land. Around 1940, Earl covered the house with siding, effectively preserving the log cabin and protecting it from the elements for decades. The historic cabin was restored in 2007 based on historic photographs and architectural evidence. Original materials utilized in the restoration included the original stones for the fireplace, original chinking and nearby clay for daubing, and original logs for the v-notch walls, rafters, and floor supports. The cabin is the most intact structure of its kind in Wise County, being the only double log cabin restored and still at its original location. It is a testament to pioneer craftsmanship and the memory of a pioneering family. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2013
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1853 William and Charlotte Perrin left Rock Castle, Kentucky, joining the westward stream into the Peters Colony near Dallas before pushing on to Wise County on Christmas Eve 1854. On the banks of Martin's Branch they built a two-room dogtrot log cabin, a classic frontier form, sometime between 1855 and 1861. The Perrin family lived in it continuously until 1990, and a 2007 restoration used the original stones, chinking, and v-notched logs to bring it back.
Why it matters
The cabin is a rare, still-standing testament to pioneer craftsmanship and the multi-generational settlement of North Texas.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the fall of 1853, William and Charlotte Perrin joined one of the defining movements of the American nineteenth century: the westward migration. They left Rock Castle, Kentucky, in the company of two other families and spent forty days on the road before reaching the Peters Colony near Dallas — a land-grant settlement that had been drawing families into North Texas since the previous decade.
Texas in the 1850s was still a young state, admitted to the Union only in 1845, and its northern reaches were genuine frontier. The land was open, the population thin, and the promise of acreage pulled families ever farther from the settled East. For many, the Peters Colony was only a waystation, not a destination.
So the Perrins pushed on. On Christmas Eve of 1854 they arrived in Wise County and settled on 160 acres southeast of Decatur. This was the edge of settlement, a country of creeks and open range where a family's survival depended on its own hands, its own tools, and the timber and stone it could work from the land around it.
People & events
The Perrins were restless improvers of their own fortunes. They sold that first 160 acres in 1860 to a blacksmith named Joseph Dannelley for a thousand dollars, and relocated to this homestead south of town, on the banks of Martin's Branch and Center Creek along the eastern edge of the Samuel Isaacs survey. Here, sometime between 1855 and 1861, they built the two-room dogtrot log cabin that still stands.
In 1861 William Perrin secured clear title to the land, paying Samuel Smith of Walker County nine hundred and sixty dollars for 320 acres. The warranty deed was careful to include, in its own words, the residence and farm he had already made — a legal blessing on the home the family had built with their hands.
What follows is a story of remarkable continuity. When William died in 1875, his son Temoleon took ownership, and later his grandson Earl acquired the house and land. Around 1940 Earl covered the cabin with siding — an ordinary act of maintenance that, without anyone quite intending it, sealed and protected the original logs from the weather for decades. The Perrins lived here without a break from the cabin's construction until 1990, more than a century in one home.
Its place in the American story
The dogtrot cabin is one of America's great vernacular house forms: two log pens set a short distance apart under a single roof, with an open breezeway — the "dogtrot" — running between them. It was a practical answer to a hot climate, giving a family a shaded, ventilated space at the heart of the home, and it spread across the frontier South as families carried the design westward.
That this particular example survives, on its original site and built of its original materials, is genuinely rare. The 2007 restoration used the original stones for the fireplace, the original chinking and nearby clay for daubing, and the original v-notched logs for the walls, rafters, and floor supports. Little of what you see is a reproduction; most of it is the thing itself.
It is called the most intact structure of its kind in Wise County — the only double log cabin restored and still standing where it was raised. In an age when so much of the frontier past survives only in photographs, a cabin you can walk up to and touch connects the nation's settlement story to a specific family who lived it, generation after generation.
If you visit
Come to see the breezeway — the open passage between the two log pens that gives the dogtrot its name. Stand in it and feel how the shade and the moving air would have offered relief on a scorching Texas afternoon. This was outdoor living room, workspace, and passage all at once, and it is the heart of the design.
Look closely at the joinery. The v-notched corners, where the logs cross and lock, are frontier engineering at its most honest — no nails needed, just the weight and the fit of the timber. Much of what you are looking at is original wood, shaped by hands in the years around 1860.
Think, too, of Earl Perrin's siding. It is a quiet lesson in how history survives: not always by careful preservation, but sometimes by a practical grandson nailing boards over the old logs to keep the rain out. If you are traveling the back roads of North Texas, this cabin rewards the detour — a real pioneer home, on its real ground, that a single family kept alive for well over a hundred years.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · William Perrin
- · Charlotte Perrin
Themes & tags
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