For two generations, group members gathered for walks in the woods and New Year’s Day hikes along St. Andrew Ridge toward the Valley of Lost Cabin. For years, we would sit in the adjacent barn’s hayloft on icy January mornings, where Bob Freeman would uncork bubbly and pass out cups. While overlooking this rare 2-story pioneer cabin we toasted the New Year, simultaneously feeling the presence of generations of an isolated family making its life in this snug valley. Their rare two-story cabin, made of oak logs, with neatly cut English style, half dovetail corners, had the look of permanence. The competently trimmed logs bore precise broad axe marks, a symbol of the dedication of a mid-nineteenth century craftsman. In the kitchen stood the ancient wood-burning range that probably had been carted up Coon valley from Rosedale’s river landing. It was easy to visualize the heavy iron piece being unloaded from a side-wheeler from New Orleans, and perhaps originating from a distant northeastern factory.

On October 1, this year, not a soul turned out for this planned Saturday walk, an apparently ominous portent. So I set off myself on this beautiful morning, along the Appalachian-style ridge, on a personal pilgrimage, mind open to nature. As I approached the old hill farm nothing was visible behind the barrier of high invasive brush, taking full advantage of site abandonment. 

Suddenly, in full view, logs in a collapsed pile, many protruding chaotically beyond the edge of the rusty iron roof. A year ago the cabin was tilting, still I was surprised and saddened by the loss. William Faulkner said “The past is never dead. It’s not even past”. Was he wrong in this case? So little remains to provide visual connection with local history, and here, little is left to trigger awe. Rest in peace, cabin. “The rest is silence.”—Hamlet