Historic log home lost in fire
By SHARON KERR Staff Writer

Courtesy photo UNDER CONSTRUCTION - Builder Ronnie Bryan received a truckload of logs numbered with metal tags, to reassemble the 1840's log cabin shipped from Mud Lick, Kentucky. At the far right, framework is just going up for the two-story limestone master suite.

Jasper County lost a landmark with a long history when the log home of Lum Hawthorn burned down last week.

Fire Marshal Stephen Williamson said he was at a city council meeting April 15 when the call came in for a structure fire off County Road 101 near Bevilport. Even though it is outside the city limits, local volunteer fire departments support each other and units from the Angelina River Volunteer Fire Department, Jasper, Tricommunity and Lake Rayburn responded.

Family member William Seale, who lives nearby, said, "It was an inferno. It went really fast."

Williamson said he performed an initial investigation and photographed the scene, but that the insurance company will finish the inspection and have an engineering firm evaluate the damage.

Early estimates valued the loss at more than $600,000. Laws require that for a loss of more than $100,000 the state be notified, and for a loss of more than $500,000 the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) be notified.

Courtesy photo WHEN ALL THAT HEART PINE in Lum Hawthorn's log home caught fire, firefighters reported the heat was incredible.The stone fireplace and limestone wing of the house were so hot that water because steam before even reaching the fire.The next day firefighters were still battling hot spots amid the rubble.

Hawthorn said he inherited the 36 acres along Indian Creek from his great-great-great-grandfather Andrew Smyth, who followed his brother George to Jasper in the 1830's. Manygreat uncle George Smyth signed the Texas Declaration of Independence and the Texas Constitution and was the first land commissioner of Texas.

Andrew Smyth trained as a surveyor and surveyed the original Jasper County. He purchased land near Bevilport and set up a lumber mill. As with many early settlers, he had a hand in several businesses, eventually building rafts and transporting cotton down the Angelina and Neches rivers to Sabine Pass. At the coast, Andrew would sell the cotton, dismantle the rafts and sell the lumber, and then return to Bevilport.

When the war for independence began, Andrew Smyth served in the Texas Revolutionary Army, and after, as District Judge in Jasper during the civil war. He eventually bought a paddlewheel steamboat and took passengers and cargo to Sabine Pass and Galveston.

The Jasper Library has a copy of William Seale's book, "Texas Riverman," published in 1966 that details the life and contributions of Andrew Smyth. Seale lives in Andrew Smyth's house and has restored numerous historical homes across the country.

Cousin Lum Hawthorn built a small house on nearby acreage in 1993. It was a small red barn, a second home he used as a camp to get away from his busy law practice in Beaumont.

"We enjoyed staying there on the weekends so decided to expand," Hawthorn said. "The expansion consisted of a log cabin, large dining room, tower, and stone cabin that was our bedroom."

The log cabin was made in Mud Lick, Kentucky, in 1840, hand-hewn from yellow poplar. Hawthorn had the cabin disassembled and moved to the property where it was attached to the other structures.

The overall design was by an architectural professor at the University of Texas, but built by a local man, Ronnie Bryan, "who lives around the corner," according to Hawthorn.

"Ronnie hand-built all the windows and doors out of heart pine that I purchased from a warehouse in Orange built in the 1890's," Hawthorn said. "All of the floors, much of the ceiling, and many walls were made from heart pine."

Bryan said they took wire brushes to clean and freshen old timbers, all but one timber that had a brand burned into it from Southern Pine Lumber Company in Delaware. That timber was placed above the master bed.

Bryan said he and the stonemason who built the master bedroom section visited historic homes in Fredricksburg to study the construction methods of the era.

No metal nails were used. Bryan put together a crew to hand-whittle wooden pegs, and that's how everything from joists to door jambs was joined. For electric outlets, they drilled logs so no wiring showed.

Bryan was one of the first to arrive on the scene while the firefighters were still trying to save the home. He said it was so hot that he couldn't get within 70 yards of the structure.

ARVFD volunteer Chad Dominy confirmed that the blaze was so hot, "we had to pull a redline." That's a 1 ? inch hose to cool the equipment and men. He said water from the firehoses vaporized before reaching the fire. With several tankers on the scene, he estimated they pumped between 50-60 thousand gallons that night.

Bryan said even after he completed the "cabin," he was frequently called upon to open the house and let workmen in. Seeing the house go up like that, he could not help but think of what else was burning, like the dining room set that Lum Hawthorn made himself as the house was being built.

"He hand-made each of 10 chairs and dated the bottom of each one," Bryan said. He estimated that Hawthorn spent four or five years working on that project, and when he finished the dining room, he started on a canoe. "It was so fine," Bryan said.

All that is gone now. This was the home used as Hawthorn's base when he represented Shawn Berry during one of the James Byrd Jr. trials. It was there that Hawthorn met with Dan Rather for a 60 Minutes story on the case. It was there that the family gathered for holidays, for comfort and relief.

Seale said many family portraits, books, and memorabilia were lost in the fire. "The property itself is beautiful. Indian Creek has a white sandy bottom here and almost runs clear, unusual for this part of Texas," Seale said.

"My family and I really enjoyed the property," Hawthorn said. "We are going to rebuild, but not anything nearly as elaborate."