Speaker Meeting - Doug Reed - Sep 10, 2026, 7:00pm
Allison-Antrim Museum, 365 South Ridge Avenue, Greencastle, Pennsylvania 17225 resumes its monthly speaker meeting on Thursday, September 10, 2026, in the German Bank Barn beginning at 7 p.m. The facility is wheelchair accessible.
Doug Reed, speaker, will present a PowerPoint on the 17th to early 20th century European immigrants who settled America. Few Americans associate log cabins with frontier settlement and the establishment of small farms full of log cabins, stables, and barns. And we know very little of the history that fostered the cabins and even less of why so many 17th to early 20th century immigrants left their ancestral homelands to come to the New World – a place of cheap land with plenty of opportunity. To fully appreciate our log cabins, we need to understand the context within which they were built. Reed’s presentation will focus on the conditions that created the opportunity for immigrants to build log cabins.
The Continental power elite of interconnected roles and shared interests was responsible for the exodus that drove hundreds of thousands of English and Europeans to abandon everything with which they were familiar. Why would anyone want to travel to the New World in search of an opportunity to establish themselves? Universally, everyone wants to own their own land, grow their own crops, make their own money, and retain their hard-earned profits for their own desires and purposes.
Quite literally, in centuries past, there was little chance of earning any living that would advance a family’s prospects in Europe. Come and learn why Europe was so undesirable that it could not hold their best and brightest.
Learn how immigrants came to America, how the immigrants chose the land they settled upon, and how they successfully established farms in the vast forests of the New World. All those little family farms became the massive underpinning that ultimately established the United States of America. Had it not been for the immigrants who bet their lives and gambled on their move to our country, we would not be celebrating 250 years of democracy.
About Doug Reed
Doug Reed has been an ardent student of log and other types of wooden buildings for well over the past half century. An accomplished craftsman who learned to build traditional log houses, he went on the create a company that restored hundreds of America’s log cabins, barns, and other log buildings. He has studied log constructions throughout Europe. Reed has inspected dozens of European Open-Air Museums, and he was invited to present day courses on wooden buildings and their meaning for today in two Estonian universities. He was, also, an invited keynote speaker at Lithuania’s national museum’s 50th year celebration. In the US, several universities have invited Reed to make presentations to their students.
Reed was never satisfied to learn just how to build and repair the log buildings known throughout the entire world. He wanted to know where they came from, who developed them, and how the various cultures and societies provided the context that fostered the existence of log buildings throughout the US. Today, Doug Reed is a sought-after consultant assisting owners with appropriate repairs, maintenance and long-term preservation of log structures both here and in Europe. Reed is also developing several books concerning log buildings, their history, means of repair and best methods for long term preservation.
America’s 250th Anniversary
To celebrate America’s 250th Anniversary, Allison-Antrim Museum has chosen from its collections five of the oldest documents, plus a photograph taken on January 6, 1902, when the Liberty Bell train stopped in Greencastle’s square. Additionally, a model of Independence Hall is displayed. It was created by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1937. The oldest document is the Governor James Logan document which was signed on March 10, 1716 – 310 years ago.
Allison-Antrim Museum is open Tuesday and Wednesday, 10 am to 2 pm, Thursday and Friday, noon to 4 pm, and Saturday, 11 am to 1 pm. The facility is wheelchair accessible.
For more information, call the Museum at 717-597-9010.
There is no charge for admission, but donations are greatly appreciated.
