1805 Log Home: Historical Marker

John Batiste Trombly arrived in Chazy as early as 1786 when he was a child with his parents and six siblings. Here, Trombly's parents would have three more children making them a

complete family of thirteen living in a small, one room cabin. These crowded conditions led John Batiste to build a two-room log home for his family later on! It is unclear when John B. Trombly built his log home, but it was somewhere between 1795 and 1805, although, most evidence supports the 1805 claim.

The log home was described as being "made of squared off logs and consisted of a general purpose living room and a bedroom loft overhead which was reached by a ladder. The floor of the cabin was of hard packed earth...It had only one door which faced inland to watch for Indians, and only one window..." As the Trombly family grew, they became pressed for space. First the family expanded to having two trundle beds in the main room, then they added bed ticks to the loft. When the loft became too full as well, they added planks to just below the peak of the house to add additional beds on a makeshift third floor.

The log cabin was most likely meant to simply be a temporary home where settlers would spend only live in for a few months or a few years while they built a sturdier home. This was not the case for the Tromblys! They lived in that small log home until their youngest child, Lawrence, was seven years old, in 1827 when John B. Trombly built a stone home. About ten years later, John B. Trombly opened his home to Canadian soldiers during the Patriotic War of 1837 when Canada attempted to gain independence from Great Britain. Many north country settlers, like John B. Trombly, opened their homes to these rebellious Canadians. However, the rebellion was quelled by the British.

John B. Trombly remained in the stone home until his death on December 5, 1848, and Lawrence Trombly took ownership of the home. Over the following decades, ownership of the log home and its stone companion would change hands several times until the mid-1920s when Fred L. Porter and his wife became interested in the home. One day as they were inspecting the property they discovered the little log cabin hidden beneath clapboards. The Porters decided that they needed to save this artifact from the past and began to restore the log and stone home. The Porters started off by moving the log home closer to the stone home and building a breezeway between the two. Over the next several years the Porters would continue to add on to the original stone and log homes while preserving their original beauty.

In 1932, the Porters welcomed Daniel T. Trombly, well-known author and grandson of John B. Trombly, into their home. The Porters and Daniel T. Trombly celebrated Trombly's 83rd birthday and Trombly was so overjoyed with the occasion that he wrote a poem. Over the next several years the property continued to change hands and with each new owner came additional improvements to the original stone and log homes. This historical marker was erected by the Town of Chazy.