David Mast Cabin

		Private 1st Class Joseph Francis Lorenz United States Army 150th Machine Gun Battalion, 42nd Rainbow Division
		David Mast Cabin
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In the summer of 1914 the family, consisting of Frank, wife Rosa, son Joseph, and daughters Luella and Josephine, moved into a log cabin in Butler Township, about ten miles north of Dayton. The two oldest children, Anthony and Rose, were employed in the city and stayed in Dayton.

The cabin itself was one of five cabins built by Colonel David Mast in 1802. It was built of large square hewn logs, and by 1914 it had been covered with wooden clapboards. It sat back about an eighth of a mile from the road.

Along the east of the property ran the Old Church Road, and beyond that was a century-old cemetery with gravestones that marked many folks as having been born in England.

Josephine in front yard of Lorenz
farmhouse. Circa 1918

The cabin had no indoor plumbing and presumably no electricity. The only running water was from a pump outside the house. There was a root cellar in the ground near the front of the house. The nearest village was Little York; Polk Church, which still exists today, was located a short ways up their road to the north.

Joseph with dog Carlo, Luella, and Anthony in front row
Frank, Rose, and Rosa holding Josephine in back. 1916

Rose remembered that her family had moved so far out in the country that she had to take a "trolley" (traction car or horse-drawn?) to get there. She said she would write a postcard ahead of time telling the family when she was arriving, and her father would meet her at the trolley stop, which was the last stop at the very end of the line.

Road Rights dated March 30, 1914, permitting access to the property, are in the names of Frank and Rosa Lorenz. Their postal address was RRD #13, later it became Kershner Road, and today the cabin sits on the property of the house at 2151 Kershner Road.

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