The Log Cabin Myth

Pioneers lived in log cabins... right? Well, it really depends on the period and the area in question. It also depends on your understanding of the definition of what constitutes a "log cabin". These excerpts from Hugh Morrison's Early American Architecture: From the First Colonial Settlements to the National Period help to explain:

Log House in Orillia Township, Ontario
1844 Picture by Titus Hibbert Ware

"By 'log cabin' we mean a dwelling built of round logs, laid horizontally on one another, with notched corners and protruding ends.... Spaces between logs, if any, are chinked with moss, clay, or oak chips.... the log cabin did not exist in any of the English colonies in the seventeenth century and was used very little throughout most of the eighteenth century. Neither did the Dutch use it in New Netherland, nor the French in Canada. It was a form of construction unknown in England, France, Holland, and southern Europe generally; it was likewise unknown to the American Indian.
...
It is tempting to believe that our early ancestors, gifted with ingenuity as well as courage, invented such an admirable solution to their urgent problem of quick and durable shelter. 
Apparently they did not. The English colonists did built blockhouses and prisons using logs hewn square and notched at the corners for either lapped or dovetail joints. This is indeed a superior type of construction, but it requires many tools and much skill and more time. The log cabin, if it had been known, would have supplanted the flimsy dugouts and cabins and wigwams the pioneer settlers actually built.
True log-cabin construction is thought to have been introduced into this country [the United States] by the Swedes when they settled Delaware in 1638.... In the eighteenth century, German settlers in Pennsylvania built large numbers of log houses, using both squared-log and round-log construction. Since most of the Germans entered the country by way of the Delaware valley, they must have acquired the technique from the Swedes...." (12-13)

Sources
Hugh Morrison's 1987, Early American Architecture
Harold Robert Shurtleff's 1939, The log cabin myth: a study of the early dwellings of the English colonists in North America

Further Reading
History News Network 2015, "Top 10 Myths About Thanksgiving"

John Galt and the Elgin Marbles

This is an example of one of those times when I've very audibly (and embarrassingly) shouted "NO way!" while doing research. This is also an example which proves just how small and interconnected our world really is. It's the story of how many of the Elgin Marbles came incredibly close to being known to us today as the Galt Marbles.

Portion of the east side of the Parthenon pediment,
on display at the British Museum

John Galt was doing what any 19th century man of his means would do when under the weather, or otherwise evading creditors or looking for distraction; tour the continent. He left London in 1809, and by 1811 had found himself in Italy and in Greece. The Mediterranean was a popular place at the time, especially for Romantic poets and writers eager for inspiration from the "East". Lord Byron, one of Galt's contemporaries and sometimes travel companion, was also in Greece at this time. It is Galt's connection to Byron that introduces him to the world of opportunistic art sales.

In his book Byron and Scotland: Radical or Dandy, Angus Calder describes Byron's friendship with Signore Luseri, an Italian Agent and artist-in-residence in Athens for Lord Elgin. Luseri had been working with Elgin for almost a decade in Greece on the documentation and eventual removal of the Parthenon sculptures to Britain. Despite Byron's protests that such removals of ancient artefacts were tantamount to rape,  he continued his friendship with Luseri.


It is during the second shipment of the marble statues out of Athens that John Galt becomes involved to the point where his morals are set firmly aside.  He learns from Luseri that Elgin is having financial issues, and may be unable to pay the freight (the cost of the ship, etc.) when it arrives in Malta. The ship would then of course confiscate its cargo in lieu of payment, and deal with the sculptures as the captain sees fit. Galt is not the only one to hear of this desperate news, however, for the French as also keen to add to their collection.

Monsieur Favelle, the French Consul in Athens, had been instructed to remove any and all possible works of antiquity from Greece and supply them to the Musee Napoleon (the Louvre) for permanent and glorious display. Upon hearing of Elgin's money woes, Favelle sees a chance to seize the shipload and claim the pieces for the Emperor. Galt decides (aboard the very ship that the marbles are travelling on) that he will pay the freight, save the day for Britain, and make a tidy sum for himself once he sells the cargo to eager and illustrious buyers in London.

John Galt, from his Autobiography in 1833

The plan could have worked wonderfully. The British Museum could now be in possession of the Galt Marbles, as well as the Elgin Marbles. Galt could have been an even wealthier man - would he have spent those funds creating more settlements in Upper Canada? Luseri, however, was a man of business and persuasion. He managed to alleviate the debts of Elgin in Malta and retain possession of the Greek artefacts; eventually sending them all the way to Britain. Galt was admittedly conflicted by this outcome. While he was saddened by the loss of fortune and fame that the sculptures would bring him back home, he was also steadfast in his agreement with Byron that the works were taken wrongfully in the first place.

Sources
The British Museum 2014, "What are the 'Elgin Marbles'?"
John Galt's 1833, The Autobiography of John Galt
Angus Calder's 1989, Byron and Scotland: Radical or Dandy?
Ozlem Caykent's 2010, "John Galt's Travels"

Further Reading
Encyclopaedia Britannica 2014, "Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin"
Biography.com 2014, "Lord Byron Biography"
Metropolitan Museum of Art 2014, "Romanticism"