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| THE HUNTER'S CABIN - At the south end of Wooded Island was a log house with clay
floor and stick chimney which was built by Theodore Roosevelt, of New
York, a lover of huntsman's sports, as a museum and memorial in honor
of Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett. A rope divided the large room of
the building into a public and a private compartment. On chilly days
a fire blazed in the broad fireplace, and in that regard the interior
exactly resembled the houses of pioneers in timbered regions forty
years ago. Otherwise the furnishings were more comfortable than
those enjoyed in northern Indiana when Pierce and Buchanan were in
the White House. The skins of wild animals covered the floor, and
the beds and settees were made of streched skins. A double-bunk
afforded two wide and easy couches. A stool was made out of a
section of log, and primitive cooking apparatus and tin dishes and
candles gave a realistic appearance to the domicile. To complete
this picture, a hunter in long hair and wide-brimmed felt hat made
his home in the cabin and answered the questions of many visitors,
for there was a charm about the premises, pioneers loving to recall
the vanished days, and younger inquirers seeming pleased to see
before them the picture so often drawn in the tales of their
grandsires and this chapter of their romances. Between the Hunter's
Cabin and Marie Antoinette's bed-chamber
in the French section was a wide divergence. |
