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[Photo]
The Irving-Hamrick Log House, a rare example of a once common type of house in western North Carolina during the 18th and early 19th centuries

Photo courtesy of Uptown Shelby Association

The Irvin-Hamrick Log House is a small dwelling of half-dovetail notch construction, a type of building which once housed thousands of small farmers in the Piedmont and western North Carolina. It is a rare surviving example of the type of house most North Carolinians lived in during the 18th and early 19th centuries, and one of the very few that has seen consistent maintenance and for which there is a genuine hope of continued preservation. The small rectangular gable roof house is built of hewn logs joined with half-dovetail notches, the dominant corner-timbering method in western North Carolina for many generations. Weatherboards cover the logs in several sections and the entire house may have been clad in weatherboards at some time. One fireplace warmed the two interior rooms, and a small enclosed stair lead to an unfinished attic. James Irvin, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, probably built the house sometime after his purchase of 200 acres along Beauerdam Creek in 1794. Irvin married Rebecca Hardin of Lincoln County, and the couple raised 10 children in the tiny house--five boys and five girls, providing for them through land deals and working farms. After Irvin's death in 1845, the house and land passed to his children, who sold the property to Cameron Street Hamrick in 1850.

[Photo] The Irving-Hamrick Log House--James Irvin, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, probably built the house around1794
Photo courtesy of Uptown Shelby Association

Hamrick and his wife, Elmire Bridges, raised six sons in the house. Hamrick was a disciplinarian who believed that his sons should remain in the home until 21 years of age, and consequently, the family added the present frame rear addition sometime after the Civil War. All of the Hamrick's sons raised large families and their descendants remain in great numbers in Cleveland County and neighboring areas of the western Piedmont of North and South Carolina. The house has never left Hamrick family ownership. In 1951 it was acquired by the Cameron Street Hamrick Memorial Association, a family organization dedicated to the preservation of the homestead and the maintenance of the adjacent family cemetery.

The Irvin-Hamrick Log House is located at Beaver Dam Church Rd. The annual Cameron Street Hamrick Reunion is held at the house each year, the 4th Sunday of August.

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