I’d no sooner opened my book of Robert Frost’s poetry to start the morning right when Neighbor J drove up. A wind had downed trees in his pasture, and he was sawing one up when his chainsaw had gotten pinched — “Can you help me get it out?” A “pinch” happens when the tree trunk suddenly sags or shifts, clamping the saw bar tight in the kerf like gigantic wooden jaws. 

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in The Smoky Mountain News in July 2004.

I recently read about a log cabin built in Jackson County approximately 140 years ago. I’m interested in this particular cabin because it was reputedly constructed from a single huge tulip poplar tree. I’m devoting this installment of Back Then to that cabin in the hopes that a reader will know if it still exists.