Built in the 1830s by Josiah Mathews, this two-room log cabin is an example of the kind commonly built by early 1800s settlers who came from the Carolinas and Georgia on the Federal Road to Clarke County. Its center dogtrot, or breezeway, captured breezes that helped people stay cool during hot summer months. Josiah Allen Matthews, born in 1803, married Lucy Martin, born in 1805, in South Carolina in 1821, and they came to Clarke County around 1830. They raised fifteen children: Joshua Lewis Mathews, David Mathews, Martin Mathews, Nancy Ann Celia Mathews Hicks, Elizabeth Mathews Harrison, Lucy Mathews Summers, Josiah (Joe) Matthews, Jr., Emaline Eleanor Mathews Green, Frances Posey Mathews, Mary Mathews Morgan, Axeth (Axel) Mathews, Elizah (Lige) Mathews, Marion E. Mathews, Amanda Mathews Green, and John Mathews. Josiah died of heart failure in 1859. By 1865, five men who had grown up in the cabin—David, Elijah, Marion, Josiah (Joe), and young John—had fought in the Confederate Army, mostly in the 32nd and 24th Alabama Regiments, and after the war both Elijah's and David's families were among those receiving rations of corn and salt, while Lucy was listed in January 1865 as a dependent of Elijah. David's oldest daughter, Ellenor (Ellen) Elizabeth Mathews, married Monroe Hallford on August 14, 1873, and they then lived in the old home place, which had by then been moved from its original site east of the Mathews Cemetery to about one-half mile west along Mathews Cemetery Road. According to Lucy Oliver Dortch and her son Bill, the Halfords had four daughters—Daisy Hallford Allen, Linnie Hallford Odum, Zillah Hallford Oliver, and Minnie Halford, who never married. After Zillah died, her daughter Lucy, only 26 days old, was raised by Minnie in the house and lived there thereafter; she is credited with the cabin's survival for more than 170 years. The structure was donated to the Clarke County Historical Society in 2005, moved to its present location, and extensively restored in 2008.