Country's Oldest Log Cabin Sells In NJ After $2.6M Price Cut

GIBBSTOWN, NJ — The oldest log cabin in the Western Hemisphere that is still standing where it was built — in this case, some 380 years ago — has sold after owner Doris Rink agreed to chop $2.6 million from the asking price.

The pending $262,000 sale is a far cry from the $2.9 million she and her late husband, Harry, wanted for the National Register of Historic Places-listed C.A. Nothnagle Log House in Gloucester County.

That’s the cost of love.

The Rinks loved the cabin as if it were a child and saved it. It’s a gem that would have collapsed long ago if Harry hadn’t bought it in 1968 from his Aunt Bea and Uncle Charlie, listing agent Christina Huang, of Weichert, Realtors–East Brunswick, told Patch.

Doris Rink, now 80 and a widow of five years, held out for years for a buyer who would be the same passionate steward of the cabin that she and Harry had been.

When no acceptable offers came, she dropped the price by increments of hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years, hoping that would give buyers serious about historic preservation more flexibility to maintain the cabin and, especially, continue to open it as a community resource. It gave the Rinks great joy over the years to give schoolchildren sensory glimpses into the centuries-old history of the Scandinavian immigrants who settled in the New Sweden area to trap and farm.

The as-yet-undisclosed buyer’s promise to preserve the cabin and an attached Colonial house added a century after it was built isn’t everything. But it’s enough, said Huang, who has worked with Rink since 2015 and shares her passion for the historic cabin.

More robust offers carried too high a price — a bulldozer. Just preserving it “takes some building expertise and the gusto to do it,” and reassurance the buyer possesses both carried a lot of weight with her client, Huang said.

‘It’s Still Worth A Great Deal More'

The $2.9 million listing price included the priceless collection inside, “absolutely irreplaceable artifacts from the mid-1600s on, but the average buyer doesn’t have that kind of capital,” Huang said. “A lot of times, these historic homes have just so many difficulties that it costs too much to keep them maintained.”

The property was worth the $2.9 million the Rinks were asking, “and it’s still worth a great deal more” than $262,000, Huang said. “But again, it wasn’t a usual type of sale. That buyer would have had to be willing to open a museum and not make money.”

The farm machinery, the spinning wheels, the steamer trunks packed by immigrants for their journey overseas and other artifacts echoed the stories of the area’s earliest settlers. They were sold in estate sales, to buyers who will prize them, a comfort to Rink. But once the sale closes, the Nothnagle Log House will likely be a historic spot to be admired from the public right of way at 406 Swedesboro Road. The new owner does not have plans to open the cabin for public tours, Huang said.

Pieces Of Worlds Left Behind

Built sometime between 1638 and 1643, the cabin has stood these hundreds of years as a monument to determined Swedish and Finnish immigrants, whose descendants still live in the New Sweden area along the lower reaches of the Delaware River.

The first chapters of the Nothnagle Log House’s storied history, though, were likely written in the 1590s when immigrants boarded ships, taking with them what they could to establish their new lives, Harry Rink said in an interview with The New York Times in 2000.

“We know the ironwork for hanging pots in the fireplace is from the 1590s and was brought from Finland,” he said at the time. “The bricks in the fireplace were probably brought over as ballast on a boat that brought the immigrants. The logs are oak, which is what was in the area.”

The cabin had a dirt floor for nearly its first century of life, but the people who lived there were well off, Harry said in The Times interview. This cabin is 16 feet by 22 feet; similar cabins from the era were 12 feet by 12 feet.

“Some of the children would have slept in the space under the roof, which you got to by a ladder through an opening that is now sealed,” he said. “The rest of the family would have slept on rolled-out mats that could be taken up in the day. There were two logs on the side wall that were removable. They took them out in the summer and that created a draft that helped cool the cabin.”

Without Harry, Cabin Would Have Fallen

The cabin owes its longevity to those hand-hewn white oak logs, Harry told The Times. The old-school construction methods helped, too. The logs were dovetailed together, which made them a fortress against time and Gloucester County’s harsh winters.

It’s also still standing because Harry Rink loved the place and knew how to restore it, Huang told Patch.

“Harry was an engineer, and he knew how to do things with specialized mud, in a very specific way, to keep the house from falling down,” she said. “It was built with no nails. It’s not like Spackle and sheetrock.”

The cabin was in sorry shape when Harry bought it. Plaster was slathered over the interior walls, which were painted and covered with wallpaper, some of it dating to 1892. Outside, an explosion of ivy hid the historical gem behind it, compromising its structural integrity.

“I had to push some of the logs back in because they were bowed out from the ivy pulling on them,” Harry told The Times. “It would have collapsed eventually.”

The Rinks stripped the interior of modern wall finishings, returning the logs to their original condition. The removal of the floor for structural reinforcement uncovered a trove of artifacts — a 240-year-old boot, toys, a fork, an iron thimble and other treasures later displayed in a case in the cabin to help tell the early settlers’ stories.

Doris Is ‘At Peace With It’

Over the years, ambassadors, consulate generals, congressional representatives, governors, authors, professors, archaeologists and historians have added to the stories of the cabin, according to the Weichert Realtors listing of the property.

Harry told The Times that he wanted to shore up the cabin to attract the right buyer, who would continue his and Doris’ traditions.

“I want everything in place when I die so it will last a long time,” he said. “I like to have the schoolkids here, and I show them how people lived and what they grew in the area.”

Doris had hoped for the same. She did her best. But generations of Rink family ownership are coming to an end.

Harry lived alone at the property for several years after acquiring it and before marrying Doris, who had grown up on a farm in Illinois. They said their vows in the cabin. Together, they took the steps to list the Braman-Nothnagle Log House (its historic name) on the National Register in 1976. The cabin was their project, an extension of their love for each other. They loved Gibbstown, too. Harry was the mayor for a while. Doris was known as “Miss Gloucester County,” Huang said.

It’s a lot to let go of.

“She dedicated 50 years of her life to try to save it,” Huang said of the sale. “She’s at peace with it. She’s fine with it. It’s a decent scenario.”