Trammel's Trace Cabin
Marshall, Harrison County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built before 1842. Hand-hewn logs, chinked with pipe clay. For strength has butterfly mortising on log ends and beams with tee-braces. Was part of a 2-pen dog-trot house. Moved here, 1938, by Mr. and Mrs. Hobart Key, Jr. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1965
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This cabin, raised before 1842, was built of hand-hewn logs chinked with pipe clay and joined with butterfly mortising and tee-braced beams for strength โ part of a two-pen dog-trot house typical of the region's early settlers. It stood near Trammel's Trace, the pioneer road that funneled settlers into Texas from the north. In 1938 Mr. and Mrs. Hobart Key, Jr. moved the structure here to preserve it as a relic of Republic-era frontier building.
Why it matters
It preserves the log-building craft of Texas's earliest Anglo settlers and their ties to Trammel's Trace, a key road that carried immigrants into the young Republic.
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Related people
- ยท Hobart Key, Jr.
Themes & tags
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