Dave,
That depends on what pioneers you are talking about.
For you in Massachusetts the pioneers are a whole different set of people and a totally different time period then it would be for me in Indiana. The pioneers here came by in the 1830's, with maybe a very few earlier. Here, these pioneers used the big 12" axes. In Mass. they would probably not have done so. However, my experience is with what is local to me, so I can't speak beyond that. Brad is in Illinois, so I am assuming that the history is similar to that of my area, and also assuming the picture.
I do have plenty of evidence that my pioneers did things with the big axe, including the fact that many of their very axes are still to be found in the barns of their descendents.Also, the timbers they cut show distinct evidence of this.
The only buildings we have of these pioneers are the cabins they built. And most of this are disguised. It was customary in Indiana for log houses to be boarded as soon as they were built, though not near universal. These cabins show signs of the big axe in many cases -some hewn so smooth that you can't even see the axe marks.
Interestingly enough, cabin building in most of Indiana was a professional trade. The cabins weren't built by the settlers themselves. I have heard it said, and observation supports this, that all of the original cabins in central IN were built by one man. Trademarks of this man are very smooth timbers and an unusual v-notch at the corners.
Past the cabins, the oldest buildings around are typically barns from the 1870's and later. The barns built before this time were small, and were all torn down and replaced. However you can find their timbers reused in the newer barns. There are a few older barns around, mostly forebay barns built by the early Amish settlers in the 1850s and 60s (the Amish community here was founded in 1849)
as a result of the late settlement and late dates of our buildings, there are few barns that are totally hewn. The most common setup is for most of the timbers to be sawn, with the long timbers that wouldn't fit on the saw carriage hand hewn. After about 1915 or so they switch to all sawn.
So that is the historical background of my statement, Dave. In you are thinking of pioneers of the early 1700s, then you may have a much different picture...
DLB
