Hubert Marsh, right, of the Marsh House task force visits the home of Bill Whitten, left, near LaFayette, Ga., on Monday. Whitten is building a representation of a slave cabin using heart pine from an old log cabin. Called the "helping hands" exhibit, cabin will be on the property of the Marsh House in downtown LaFayette.LaFAYETTE, Ga. -- Evelle Dana put out word two years ago that the Marsh House sought an old log cabin to install on its grounds as a replica slave quarters.
The cabin wasn't hard to find.
Dana, president of the volunteer task force that maintains and operates the antebellum mansion, got a call from her friend, longtime LaFayette resident Breck Parker.
"Don't you know I've got one right here not far from town?" she remembers Parker saying. "You want it? Just haul it off."
The Marsh House Task Force's volunteers spent a few weeks doing just that.
Now the hand-hewn cabin timbers are being reshaped free of charge into a 10- by 14-foot cabin by Bill Whitten at his Walker County home.
Whitten, who makes a living building log cabin homes and restoring classic cars, said the donated cabin's timbers are hand-hewn, tight-grained, slow-growing heart pine.
"Weather don't bother it hardly, and termites don't either," he said.
Architect David Cameron said the cabin was an outbuilding built more than 100 years ago.
He hopes the replica slave quarters will be erected in early October in time for the annual Marsh House Heritage Day Festival.
"We'd like to have it at least [standing]," Cameron said, adding that chinking, or filling in the spaces between the timbers, could come later.
Visitors won't be allowed inside, but they'll be able to look through iron bars at the cabin's furnished interior.
"We've got some furniture that we're going to use inside," said Mary Smitherman, Marsh House events coordinator.
Hubert Marsh is a descendent of Wyley Marsh, who was born a slave. "My great-granddad was born in one of the cabins," the Dalton, Ga., resident said. "He's counted as the first African American born in Walker County."
Wyley Marsh learned to read and write, worked as a carpenter, fathered eight children and became a pastor who helped found several churches, his great-grandson said.
Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tim omarzu@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6651.