Cooper Cabin

JEFFERSON TWP — If you're looking for a chance to get away from the rat race, look no farther than the log cabin in Cabot known as Cooper Cabin.

With electricity but no indoor plumbing, the cabin is a quiet place to learn about pioneer living 1800s style: raising food, shoeing horses, making apple butter.

Pat Collins, president of the Butler County Historical Society, based in the Shaw House in Butler, said volunteers for Cooper Cabin complete many tasks that sound like day-to-day chores, such as mowing, weeding and dusting.

But then on the weekends, volunteers act as hosts for visitors who come to check out farm life.

Cooper CabinBuilt in 1817, the cabin was home to original Butler County homesteaders, the Cooper family.Descendants lived there until 1963, with the last and the most memorable being Nancy Cooper, who lived to be 100 years old.Collins said programming for the cabin is to introduce visitors to what life would have been like for homesteaders in Butler County in the 1800s.That includes Civil War re-enactors as well as blacksmithing and pioneer cooking demonstrations.The property features the cabin, but also family artifacts and period pieces, a spinning house, a springhouse, an extensive herb garden and a nature trail.

Herb gardeningShirley Kennedy Keller, who grew up in Butler County and then spent 35 years in the Washington, D.C., area for work, moved back home about five years ago and became a Cooper Cabin volunteer."My grandmother, while I wouldn't call her an herbalist, she was interested in the ways we use herbs, and I've always been interested in that," she said.Keller joined the Herbal Thymes Club, which plans and grows the herb garden at Cooper Cabin."We started with the things that were already growing there and have since added herbs that would have been used in the 1800s including medicinal, culinary and ornamental herbs," she said.Keller said volunteering at the cabin is a relaxing way to not only give back to the community, but to do something that is already a part of her interests."As you get older, you look to what's important to you," Keller said, adding that while living in D.C. she always said she would love to live on a farm and grow herbs."In this way, I get to do that," she added.

Finding volunteersCollins said recruiting and keeping volunteers is one of the harder parts of her job and that she is always looking for people."If you can do it, we need it done," she said, adding if someone can do electrical work or plumbing, the historical society probably has a need for it."We always need people to sit and take money on weekends as visitors arrive," Collins said.Those small jobs that end up having a big impact will really be needed if the expansion of facilities at Cooper Cabin takes place."We're talking about it," Collins said. "We'd like to build the blacksmith shop and expand some of the other buildings to better represent the way life was back then."But if the cabin doesn't interest you, give us a call. We have four sites, and we always need someone," she added.Those interested in volunteering or learning more about the historical society or Cooper Cabin should call 724-283-8116. To learn more about the Herbal Thymes Club, go to www.herbalthy-mesclub.org.