Out of the blue comes someone else who has seen this type of construction as a common practice. Thank you Mr. Truax.
I thought it had something to do with shortage of long timber. And Mr. Hume had mentioned that this "connected girt" (CG as Truax calls it), as a step toward modularization... All good information and entirely sensible.
Thank you for shedding light on my little conundrum. Yet it seems there is still plenty of mystery in regards to square/scribed rule and methods/dates of milled lumber, etc.
Incidentally, there is a sash-saw mill (up and down) not far from here that operated till 1969. Folks are trying to restore it, even replacing the dam in the river so they can have waterpower again... but folks are not about to let them dam the river and harm fish populations. It's a battle at the moment.
Again, thank you Truax and Ken, and all of you, for your help here. The forum is a great resource. I'm glad to have found it.
