This 3-sided hand hewn, rustic fireplace mantel beam can from an old 1830s log cabin. It is a gingerbread brown color accented with some tawny shades and dark character marks — just a very nice warm palette of color.  There is some great, stable character on the top side accented with some hints of gray. If you look closely, there’s also a few shiny square nails encircled by a dark iron rings. It is indeed hand hewn on 3 sides. The back was actually tree-like, but it was cut flat to create a nice mounting surface.

So not only does this old mantel beam have great character, but great history as well. This particular log came from a log cabin that was located just south of Madison, Wisconsin. That area was settled as early as the late 1830s. This date makes sense as America were generally settled from East to West. The story goes that 4 of the sons of the original settlers went off to fight in the Civil War. For us here in Minnesota, it is pretty neat because most of the old hand hewn material (only) dates to about 1870s – 1890s.

While we like to preserve log cabins for reuse as log cabins, often times they have cut-outs for doors and additions that just don’t make that practical. Like many of these old log cabins, we got lots of short pieces, i.e. “shorts” out of this one. By the time we knew about the cabin, it was a pile of logs as the owner built a new house in that spot.

It is pretty incredible to own a piece of American history like this. I’m tempted to keep this one for our house

We can shorten this beam at no charge. It is a pretty incredible piece.