Panther in the Sky by James Alexander Thom

“Living on the remainders of a book advance, I couldn’t afford to hire help or rent machinery. I lived in a tent next to the building site, raised and fitted the logs with ropes and pulleys in the daytime hours, and at night typed the manuscript of my third historical novel by lamplight,” James explained. “In the spring of 1980, I began reconstructing the log house. In preparation for the cabin’s relocation, James dug a basement on the chosen spot on his property and hired Earl Siniard of Ellettsville to finish it with reinforced concrete. He could have the cabin’s logs, she told him, if he would remove them so she could plant a vegetable garden in that spot.ĭuring the three months it took James to dismantle the cabin, he happily discovered many things could be salvaged besides the logs: old doors and windows, the sassafras-log floor joists, chimney bricks and tiles and even the old sandstone foundation. Mary, who lived in a mobile home nearby, told James that when she moved out, the cabin tilted because its sill log was rotten. In 1979 James fortuitously met Mary Houk, an elderly widow who owned and had recently occupied the cabin that would become his home. He even knew the exact spot-on a ridge, overlooking a wide valley and several hill ranges, where the sunsets were exquisite.

James, who spent part of his childhood in nearby Spencer, had planned to build a home on the 25 acres off of Stogsdill Road, near the Monroe/Owen County line, ever since he inherited the land from his mother.

For the past 35 years, the nationally acclaimed author of historical fiction, including the novels “Long Knife,” “Follow the River” and “Panther in the Sky,” has lived in a pre-Civil War log house that he reconstructed using 19th-century tools. James Alexander Thom not only writes about 19th-century Indiana history-he lives in it.

Panther in the Sky by James Alexander Thom