A 1900s Transylvania County Home: R.H. Scadin
We’ve mentioned local turn-of-the-century photographer R.H. Scadin before. Through an impressive body of photographic work (now in a collection housed at UNC-Asheville), he captured much of the original mountain resort development in our area by the Toxaway Company.
R.H. Scadin striking a pose at his home (notice the curtain is identical to one in an interior photo below).
While that record is extremely important to our local history, some of his personal photographs, especially in conjunction with the journals he kept, are equally compelling for the story they tell about 1900s home life at the time.
The Scadin Story
By early 1897, Scadin, a Michigan native, had already spent time in the region, employed by the Toxaway Company to document construction of the resorts and lakes then being built (later, his photography also helped to promote them).
Scadin believed the Sapphire area had good potential for farming and fruit growing and tried to purchase a tract of land from the local Miller family in partnership with another local, W.A. Burlingame. Aside: Those familiar with the current Burlingame community will recognize both of those family names; a private residential park area is located within the former Miller family tract, and the waterfall there is named Miller Falls.
Thursday, February 11, 1897 — This has been a Red-letter date for Kate & me as I have agreed verbally to buy a little home here near Sapphire. Mr. Burlingame & I expect to buy Mr. Alfred Millers place & divide it, as it is practically two places now. I am to pay $600 for about 70 acres which is the home place.
Unfortunately, the purchase was delayed by the seller for some months, and eventually, Scadin, frustrated that photography work had slowed, returned north.
Near year-end, however, Scadin had returned to Historic Toxaway (without Kate, who was then pregnant); and, again with an assist from Burlingame, made a different deal to purchase adjacent land owned by another member of the Miller family.
Scadin wrote of this second opportunity:
Sunday, December 5, 1897 — This afternoon I went with Mr. Burlingame to his place. We met Dave Miller on our way back, so we turned about & went up to his land adjoining Mr. B’s and before we came back I had bargained for 20 acres for an orchard site & possible home.
There are no diary entries for the following year (1898). Presumably, Scadin returned north and stayed there, especially since his son Dewey was born that May.
When he resumed his journal-keeping in 1899, he was in Michigan and about to depart alone to claim his new homestead. Soon after, he writes that upon arrival Dave Miller introduced him to the “new cabin,” reporting that “it really looked better than I expected it to” — which sounds as if the small home was constructed for him rather than by him.
In short order, the Scadins decided to build an addition to the small home, then quickly determined that an entirely new home was a better idea, leaving the cabin as Scadin’s photography workshop (rather than leasing a studio as he had been).
They spent the remainder of the year hard at work, raising their son, meeting neighbors, cultivating the land, and slowly constructing their larger home as finances allowed for the cost of labor and building materials (see a typical monthly ledger, above). By the new year, the couple was ready to move into the cottage.
Sat. January 13, 1900—We are getting very anxious to move into the new house, but have set no day to go as yet.
Wed. January 17, 1900 —We spent most of the day in tearing up things in the cabin and moving over to the new cottage, where we are going to sleep tonight.
Thurs. January 18, 1900—We got more things over from the cabin. Ate our first meal in the new cottage this morning.
Scadin also notes that he built a kitchen table, cupboards, and a kitchen table for the new home.
As the weather warmed into spring, he spent much time and care on plantings on the homestead that included grapevines and apple, peach, plum, and other fruit trees.
He also constructed a darkroom in the original cabin and later photographed the exterior of the new home in Sapphire.
Photo, left: Young Kate Scadin. Also notice Kate and Dewey on the porch in the photograph below.
According to a study of housing trends by the National Association of Home Builders, a typical new American home built in the early 1900s was usually two stories, featuring 700 to 1,200 sq ft of living space, two or three bedrooms, and one or (just as likely) no bathrooms.
Wood and stone were easily at hand in rural areas like ours and made natural structural choices for this home.
Also common to the time were low-pitched roofs and wide front porches, with exposed rafters and beams inside. Similarly, interior woodwork and trim were generally unfussy but abundant.
Fireplaces were a main focal point in the living room, with a large chimney on the exterior.
Meanwhile, the Victorian sensibility (with its signature elements of order and ornamentation) was meant to indicate refinement. This typically translated into lots of “accessories” such as statues, bowls, lamps, as well as layers of fabric and/or lace on nearly every available surface. Carved legs and backs on furniture, as well as thick patterned draperies and/or draped seating completed the look.
Notice the details in many of the interior images in the gallery below. Several show that rooms are decorated first one way, then another, usually with one or two items remaining in place to help confirm both pictures are of the same room in the home.
Aside: The older woman in several of the photos is suggested to be Kate Scadin’s mother in the UNC collection; however, based on the journal entries and the approximate age of Dewey Scadin, it’s more likely that this woman is her mother-in-law, who joined the household in the summer of 1902 after her husband passed away in Michigan.
Scadin’s brief journal entries provide a glimpse into much that went on from 1897 through 1918 in both his home state of Michigan and his adopted home of western North Carolina. It’s interesting reading as he remarks on the weather and various locales; local, regional, and even national news (President McKinley’s death); births, weddings, and funerals; his farming and home-building projects; how the world of transportation was changing with the advent of railroads and automobiles; and also family, friends, and neighbors. He also catalogs many of his photography efforts, whether large-scale projects such as the resort construction by the Toxaway Company or simple portraiture of local residents or visitors passing through the area.
Click the graphic at right to read the entire diary – but be forewarned, at 500+ pages, it may take some time (each entry is short and scannable, however).
