Little house on the plateau
August 7, 2008
By Phil Dougherty
Pioneer log cabin still stands in Sammamish
This week is the first portion of an article about the Bengston Cabin, the oldest extant pioneer structure in Sammamish.
The Bengston cabin still stands today. Photo contributed
The cabin gets its name from James Bengston (1845-1896) and Johanna Isackson Bengston (1852-1946), both Swedes.
They met and married in Denmark, then went to Germany. Their great-niece and great-nephews, Lorraine Isackson Mills and Duane and Lloyd Isackson, tell us that while in Germany the Bengstons both worked for Kaiser Wilhelm I (ruler of Germany at the time).
James Bengston
Johanna was a chambermaid, and James was a teamster, driving freight wagons.
The Bengstons subsequently immigrated to America.
James’ certificate of naturalization survives today, and it shows that he became a U.S. citizen in October 1887 in Troy, N.Y. Sometime afterward he and Johanna packed up and headed west.
They settled on a 160-acre homestead encompassing an area roughly between today’s Northeast 26th Street and Northeast 30th Place on both sides of 244th Avenue Northeast.
Johanna Bengston
James Bengston subsequently transferred 80 acres of the homestead to his brother-in-law, Charles Isackson (Johanna’s younger brother), when Isackson arrived on the Sammamish Plateau in 1893. Part of the 80 acres that Bengston kept is today’s Broadmoore Estates.
Soon after their arrival, the Bengstons built a log cabin, which survives today as the oldest-standing pioneer structure in Sammamish.
The cabin, which faces east, is a rectangular building measuring approximately 15 feet by 21 feet on its outside (13 feet by 19 feet on the inside). It was built from fir trees “and maybe a hemlock or two,” adds Duane Isackson.
When the cabin was built, the gaps between the logs were chinked with moss. Some of this moss is still there, while in other places the gaps have been patched with concrete or old newspapers. A few gaps are now open to the elements. Many of the square nails used to build the cabin are still plainly visible in the building.
The cabin is built from hand-sewn logs ranging from six to nine inches in diameter, notched on their ends for a secure fit.
While some log cabins of the era were built with iron spikes driven through adjoining logs to provide greater structural stability, there appear to be no iron spikes connecting the logs of this cabin.
The cabin’s floor is a tongue and groove floor of 1 inch by 4 inch boards. The ceiling is made of 4-foot long cedar boards about half an inch thick, and these ceiling sections can be pushed aside to store goods in an attic.
Today, the ceiling is barely 6 feet above the floor, but the cabin has settled as much as eight inches since it was originally built.
The bottom log that the cabin was originally built on has rotted away over time (remnants of this log can still be seen on the northwest exterior corner of the cabin), causing the cabin to settle onto what was originally the second log from the ground.
There is a small closet in the cabin on its northeastern side. The cabin has two windows in its front, one on each side and both a front and back door.
Part of a shake roof (not the original) survives on the front side of the roof, but the back part of the roof has been replaced with tin.
The cabin originally had a chimney on its southwest corner, but Duane Isackson removed it some years ago since rainwater was getting into the cabin through the chimney and speeding up the cabin’s gradual deterioration. The cabin has electricity, although it probably wasn’t added before the 1930s, when electricity first reached this area of the plateau.
Next week: more information about the cabin and its surroundings, and the Bengstons deal with a tragedy.
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Dear Phil,
I am writing about an article you wrote in the May 28, 2008 article regarding Anna Fortescue, and the Clark farmhouse.
“The Clark farmhouse survives today, although it was moved in the late 1970′s about one-half a block west, to its present location at 420 222nd Ave NE.”
My husband Kevin Hinkley and I own the house now, and understand that it is 100 years old this year. We currently live in the house and operate a small portrait photography business. Would you be interested in writing anything further about the house, the past owners, or the boundary of the original homestead etc? The other day I met Rose Harig, grandaughter of Anna Fortescue, who lives a few blocks away from us.
Kevin purchased the house in 2003 from the Kelsey’s who now live in Redmond.
Sincerely,
Deb