The Andy Lynch cabin was built in 1840 on a farm located on Little Sugar Creek in nearby Brightwater, Arkansas. It’s owner was Andy Lynch, an early Benton County settler. Generations of Lynch family members called the cabin home until the late 1970s. The family kept a vegetable garden, grew their own herbs, and raised farm animals on their property. A descent of the original owners, Nuel Lynch, donated the cabin to the foundation and in 1993 each timber was carefully marked, moved, and reassembled on the grounds of the Peel Museum & Botanical Garden. Today, the cabin serves as the Peel Museum Store for the Peel Museum & Botanical Garden.
![logs-1121798_1920](https://www.peelcompton.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/logs-1121798_1920.webp)
The cabin was built from native white oak and split and cut by broadax, with some logs measuring up to 16 ft. in diameter. To insulate the cabin, a “chinking” of clay and mud mixed with bark and horsehair was pushed into the spaces between the logs.
During the late nineteenth century, cabins were often built for settlers, and normally included just one large room for the family to live, sleep, and eat together – referred to as a “pen.” To enlarge a home, one would often build another pen attached to the current pen, creating a “double pen” cabin. The Andy Lynch cabin is an unusually large double pen cabin, build with two rooms downstairs, as well as a sleeping & storage area upstairs with a corner staircase.
![90-24-1](https://www.peelcompton.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/90-24-1.jpg)
Ozarks Double Pen Example
John Latta’s two-story double pen log home, Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park (Washington County), about 1990. Mary McGimsey, photographer. Shiloh Museum Collection (S-90-24-1)
![2012-24-2](https://www.peelcompton.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/2012-24-2.jpg)
Ozarks Double Pen Example
Samuel Merritt Bland’s home, Larue (Benton County, Arkansas), about 1903. Jewel Dye (left) with Amanda, Merritt, and Alonzo Bland. Betty Rendon Collection (S-2012-124-2)