Pioneer Log Home

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Historic Homes, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, utah

Deuel Log Home

Pioneer Log Home –

Residence of Osmyn and Mary Deuel and Osmyn’s brother, Amos, from fall 1847 to spring 1848.
This historic structure is one of the two surviving log homes built by Mormon pioneers upon arrival in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. Originally it was part of the north extension of the pioneer fort by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints one mile southwest of here.

The home, 15 feet by 20 feet, was constructed of Douglas fir and lodgepole pine brought from the mountains east of the city. As restored by the Museum of Church History and Art, its furnishings reflect the lifestyle of the Deuels. Osmyn and Mary were among the most prosperous of the 1847 pioneers.
Osmyn was a blacksmith but he also farmed.

Another log structure owned by the Deuels in the fort’s north enclosure probably served as the blacksmith shop. The Osmyn and his brother William H., whose family lived next to Osmyn and Mary, carried on their trade. It is supposed that Amos worked in the shop also. The Deuels tilled and planted fourteen acres their first season in the valley and also had a garden plot near their homes.

The Deuels were natives of New York. A number of this extended family were Latter-day Saint converts in the early 1830s. They lived in Kirtland, Ohio, and Nauvoo, Illinois, before emigrating west.

After the Deuels left the log home to settle in Centerville, Utah, it is reported the cabin was used briefly as a militia armory. In 1849 Albert Carrington, later an apostle in the Church, purchased the home and moved it to his property one and one-half blocks north of here. In was acquired by the Deseret Museum in 1912. From 1919 to 1976 it was exhibited on Temple Square, then stored until it was moved to its present site where, amidst a landscape of pioneer and native Utah plants, it was opened 19 November 1985.