1825 log house in Mercer County gets new use

LEESBURG, PA. — They might have known one another, these three Mercer County settlers.

David Beil was a weaver from New Hamburg who made decorative coverlets from 1830 to 1860. He made them so well that one was presented to President Buchanan in the 1850s.

Samuel Geibner, who lived in the borough of Mercer, made chairs that are considered some of the finest in the country from his time period — 1820 to 1860.

Another of their contemporaries, a settler named John Steadman, built his two-story log house not far from them — in tiny Oniontown, about six miles north of Mercer and only one mile away from Beil’s weaving shop.

Steadman measured out the area for his house’s sandstone foundation in ax handles — six of them by eight of them, or 18 by 24 feet. That foundation and the hand-hewn hardwood logs he made into his home in 1825 would stand to house many families in the 1800s, 1900s and into the 21st century.

Did these three men’s paths cross? If so, they’re about to have a reunion of sorts: Beil’s and Geibner’s work will now be featured together in Steadman’s former home.

Not much information has survived about Steadman, not even what he did for a living, said Chris Tyner, who owns a furniture business in Leesburg and now also owns the Steadman house.

Research is being done to find out more about him, Tyner said.

But his house did survive because of Tyner, who said he bought it four years ago from owners who no longer wished to live in it and would have demolished it if no one wanted it. He found out about it “through the grapevine” when a customer mentioned it to him.

Tyner moved the original foundation and logs to his property on Leesburg Station Road, and he began rebuilding it there. It’s now back together and under roof in front of Neshannock Woods & Co., the furniture building and restoration business he began in 1981.

The house is a natural extension of Tyner’s business, which “is about the art and history of furniture,” specifically early eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, he said Thursday at his showroom that’s filled with a mix of antique and newly built pieces.