Because of the availability of trees, log houses were the most common
type of house built in the Piney Woods during the 19th century. The most
typical style, still found today, is the “double-pen” construction, also
called “dogtrot” or “two-pens-and-a-passage.”
Scholars disagree on the origin of the dogtrot. Some have attributed it
to Scandinavian influence, while others have shown a close relationship
to the double-pen houses of Africa. Henry Glassie has suggested that the
dogtrot developed in the lower Tennessee Valley around 1825. However, a
description of a dogtrot in Mississippi as early as 1789 has been
recorded. In _Narrative of a Journey Down the Ohio and Mississippi in
1789-90_ (Cincinnati, 1888) Samuel S. Forman of New Jersey described his
uncle’s house that he visited on a plantation bordering St. Catherine
Creek, four miles from Natchez:
The place had a small clearing and a log house on it, and he put up
another log house to correspond with it, about fourteen feet apart,
connecting them with boards, with a piazza in front of the whole. The
usual term applied to such a structure was that it was “two pens and a
passage.” This connecting passage made a fine hall, and altogether
gave it a good and comfortable appearance.
It seems probable that the dogtrot construction was a natural physical
development, possibly happening in various countries simultaneously.
Shorter logs or timbers were more easily handled and the size of a cabin
possibly was determined by the length of logs the builder could handle.
Later when an additional room was needed, the corner timbering of the
log pen made it impossible to butt the units together. The space left
between the pens was made wide enough to be useful.
All of the log dogtrots studied in the Piney Woods were built in stages,
following the same pattern. The settler built a one-room log house or
“pen.” Later, as his family and fortune increased he built an identical
log pen and connected the two with a common roof, leaving a passageway
or “dogtrot” between the pens and providing an overhang for porches
front and back. One pen usually served as a kitchen and living room and
the other as a bedroom. The covered passage formed an area for household
activities, children’s play, and a cool sitting spot for summer
evenings. Today the passageway is more likely to house the “deep
freeze.” As the family grew and more rooms were needed, the sides of the
front or back porch were walled off and called “shed rooms” or “drop
sheds” (Fig. 1).
All log houses were not dogtrots, and dogtrot construction was not
limited to log houses. Many later frame houses were built in the popular
style. When Hulan Purvis of Rankin County decided to build a frame house
for his family in 1910, he emulated the construction of his father’s
dogtrot, using the same type of “long-strawed” pine, but pine that had
been planed at the sawmill rather than hewn by hand (Fig. 23).
Many of the early dogtrots have been remodelled, enclosing the
passageway for a central room (Fig. 25). Others have been abandoned or
destroyed. Not all houses with open passageways are dogtrots. The Bob
Goodloe house in Smith County is an example of a non-dogtrot because the
two sides of the house are not of equal size or symmetrical relationship
(Fig. 26).