CHAPTER XIX.
Condition of the early settlers as it respects the mechanic arts—Throwing the tomahawk—Athletic sports—Dancing—Shooting at marks—Scarcity of Iron—Costume—Dwellings—Furniture—Employments—The women—Their character—Diet—Indian corn.
Before having the subject of the actual condition of the early settlers in the West, we take another extract from "Doddridge's Notes," comprising his observations on the state of the mechanic arts among them, and an account of some of their favorite sports.
"MECHANIC ARTS.—In giving the history of the state of the mechanic arts as they were exercised at an early period of the settlement of this country, I shall present a people, driven by necessity to perform works of mechanical skill, far beyond what a person enjoying all the advantages of civilization would expect from a population placed in such destitute circumstances.
"My reader will naturally ask, where were their mills for grinding grain? Where their tanners for making leather? Where their smiths' shops for making and repairing their farming utensils? Who were their carpenters, tailors, cabinet-workmen, shoemakers, and weavers? The answer is, those manufacturers did not exist; nor had they any tradesmen, who were professedly such. Every family were under the necessity of doing every thing for themselves as well as they could. The hominy block and hand-mills were in use in most of our houses. The first was made of a large block of wood about three feet long, with an excavation burned in one end, wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, so that the action of the pestle on the bottom threw the corn up to the sides toward the top of it, from whence it continually fell down into the centre.
"In consequence of this movement, the whole mass of the grain was pretty equally subjected to the strokes of the pestle. In the fall of the year, while the Indian corn was soft, the block and pestle did very well for making meal for johnny-cake and mush; but were rather slow when the corn became hard.
"The sweep was sometimes used to lessen the toil of pounding grain into meal. This was a pole of some springy, elastic wood, thirty feet long or more; the butt end was placed under the side of a house, or a large stump; this pole was supported by two forks, placed about one-third of its length from the butt end, so as to elevate the small end about fifteen feet from the ground; to this was attached, by a large mortise a piece of sapling about five or six inches in diameter, and eight or ten feet long. The lower end of this was shaped so as to answer for a pestle. A pin of wood was put through it, at a proper height, so that two persons could work at the sweep at once. This simple machine very much lessened the labor and expedited the work.
"I remember that when a boy I put up an excellent sweep at my father's. It was made of a sugar-tree sapling. It was kept going almost constantly from morning till night by our neighbors for a period of several weeks."
In the Greenbriar country, where they had a number of saltpeter caves, the first settlers made plenty of excellent gunpowder by the means of those sweeps and mortars.
"A machine, still more simple than the mortar and pestle, was used for making meal while the corn was too soft to be beaten. It was called a grater. This was a half-circular piece of tin, perforated with a punch from the concave side, and nailed by its edges to a block of wood. The ears of corn were rubbed on the rough edge of the holes, while the meal fell through them on the board or block, to which the grater was nailed, which, being in a slanting direction, discharged the meal into a cloth or bowl placed for its reception. This, to be sure, was a slow way of making meal; but necessity has no law.
"The hand-mill was better than the mortar and grater. It was made of two circular stones, the lowest of which was called the bed-stone, the upper one the runner. These were placed in a hoop, with a spout for discharging the meal. A staff was let into a hole in the upper surface of the runner, near the outer edge, and its upper end through a hole in a board fastened to a joist above, so that two persons could be employed in turning the mill at the same time. The grain was put into the opening in the runner by hand. The mills are still in use in Palestine, the ancient country of the Jews. To a mill of this sort our Saviour alluded when, with reference to the destruction of Jerusalem, he said: 'Two women shall be grinding at a mill, the one shall be taken and the other left.'
"This mill is much preferable to that used at present in upper Egypt for making the dhourra bread. It is a smooth stone, placed on an inclined plane, upon which the grain is spread, which is made into meal by rubbing another stone up and down upon it.
"Our first water mills were of that description denominated tub-mills. It consists of a perpendicular shaft, to the lower end of which an horizontal wheel of about four or five feet diameter is attached, the upper end passes through the bedstone and carries the runner after the manner of a trundlehead. These mills were built with very little expense, and many of them answered the purpose very well.
"Instead of bolting cloths, sifters were in general use. These were made of deer skins in the state of parchment, stretched over a hoop and perforated with a hot wire.
"Our clothing was all of domestic manufacture. We had no other resource for clothing, and this, indeed, was a poor one. The crops of flax often failed, and the sheep were destroyed by the wolves. Linsey, which is made of flax and wool, the former the chain and the latter the filling, was the warmest and most substantial cloth we could make. Almost every house contained a loom, and almost every woman was a weaver.
"Every family tanned their own leather. The tan vat was a large trough sunk to the upper edge in the ground. A quantity of bark was easily obtained every spring in clearing and fencing land. This, after drying, was brought in, and in wet days was shaved and pounded on a block of wood with an axe or mallet. Ashes were used in place of lime for taking off the hair. Bears' oil, hogs' lard, and tallow answered the place of fish oil. The leather, to be sure, was coarse; but it was substantially good. The operation of currying was performed by a drawing-knife with its edge turned, after the manner of a currying-knife. The blocking for the leather was made of soot and hogs' lard.
"Almost every family contained its own tailors and shoemakers. Those who could not make shoes, could make shoepacks. These, like moccasins, were made of a single piece on the top of the foot. This was about two inches broad, and circular at the lower end. To this the main piece of leather was sewed, with a gathering stitch. The seam behind was like that of a moccasin. To the shoepack a sole was sometimes added. The women did the tailor-work. They could all cut-out, and make hunting-shirts, leggins, and drawers.
"The state of society which exists in every country at an early period of its settlements, is well calculated to call into action every native mechanical genius. So it happened in this country. There was in almost every neighborhood, some one whose natural ingenuity enabled him to do many things for himself and his neighbors, far above what could have been reasonably expected. With the few tools which they brought with them into the country, they certainly performed wonders. Their plows, harrows with their wooden teeth, and sleds, were in many instances well made. Their cooper-ware, which comprehended every thing for holding milk and water, was generally pretty well executed. The cedar-ware, by having alternately a white and red stave, was then thought beautiful; many of their puncheon floors were very neat, their joints close, and the top even and smooth. Their looms, although heavy, did very well. Those who could not exercise these mechanic arts, were under the necessity of giving labor or barter to their neighbors, in exchange for the use of them, so far as their necessities required.
"Sports.—One important pastime of our boys, was that of imitating the noise of every bird and beast in the woods. This faculty was not merely a pastime, but a very necessary part of education, on account of its utility in certain circumstances. The imitations of the gobbling, and other sounds of wild turkeys, often brought those keen-eyed, and ever-watchful tenants of the forest within the reach of their rifle. The bleating of the fawn, brought its dam to her death in the same way. The hunter often collected a company of mopish owls to the trees about his camp, and amused himself with their hoarse screaming; his howl would raise and obtain responses from a pack of wolves, so as to inform him of their neighborhood, as well as guard him against their depredations.
"This imitative faculty was sometimes requisite as a measure of precaution in war. The Indians, when scattered about in a neighborhood, often collected together, by imitating turkeys by day, and wolves or owls by night. In similar situations, our people did the same. I have often witnessed the consternation of a whole settlement, in consequence of a few screeches of owls. An early and correct use of this imitative faculty was considered as an indication that its possessor would become, in due time, a good hunter and valiant warrior. Throwing the tomahawk was another boyish sport, in which many acquired considerable skill. The tomahawk, with its handle of a certain length, will make a given number of turns in a given distance. Say in five steps, it will strike with the edge, the handle downward; at the distance of seven and a half, it will strike with the edge, the handle upward, and so on. A little experience enabled the boy to measure the distance with his eye, when walking through the woods, and strike a tree with his tomahawk in any way he chose.
"The athletic sports of running, jumping, and wrestling, were the pastimes of boys, in common with the men.
"A well-grown boy, at the age of twelve or thirteen years, was furnished with a small rifle and shot-pouch. He then became a fort-soldier, and had his port hole assigned him. Hunting squirrels, turkeys, and raccoons, soon made him expert in the use of his gun.
"Dancing was the principal amusement of our young people of both sexes. Their dances, to be sure, were of the simplest form. Three and four-handed reels and jigs. Country dances, cotillions, and minuets, were unknown. I remember to have seen, once or twice, a dance which was called 'The Irish Trot,' but I have long since forgotten its figure."
"Shooting at marks was a common diversion among the men, when their stock of ammunition would allow it; this, however, was far from being always the case. The present mode of shooting off-hand was not then in practice. This mode was not considered as any trial of the value of a gun, nor indeed, as much of a test of the skill of a marksman. Their shooting was from a rest, and at as great a distance as the length and weight of the barrel of the gun would throw a ball on a horizontal level. Such was their regard to accuracy, in those sportive trials of their rifles, and of their own skill in the use of them, that they often put moss, or some other soft substance on the log or stump from which they shot, for fear of having the bullet thrown from the mark, by the spring of the barrel. When the rifle was held to the side of a tree for a rest, it was pressed against it as lightly as possible, for the same reason.
"Rifles of former times were different from those of modern date; few of them carried more than forty five bullets to the pound. Bullets of a less size were not thought sufficiently heavy for hunting or war."
Our readers will pardon the length of these extracts from Doddridge, as they convey accurate pictures of many scenes of Western life in the times of Daniel Boone. We add to them a single extract from "Ramsay's Annals of Tennessee." The early settlement of that State took place about the same time with that of Kentucky, and was made by emigrants from the same region. The following remarks are therefore perfectly applicable to the pioneers of Kentucky.
"The settlement of Tennessee was unlike that of the present new country of the United States. Emigrants from the Atlantic cities, and from most points in the Western interior, now embark upon steamboats or other craft, and carrying with them all the conveniences and comforts of civilized life—indeed, many of its luxuries—are, in a few days, without toil, danger, or exposure, transported to their new abodes, and in a few months are surrounded with the appendages of home, of civilization, and the blessings of law and of society. The wilds of Minnesota and Nebraska by the agency of steam, or the stalwart arms of Western boatmen, are at once transformed into the settlements of a commercial and civilized people. Independence and St. Paul, six months after they are laid off, have their stores and their workshops, their artisans, and their mechanics. The mantua-maker and the tailor arrive in the same boat with the carpenter and mason. The professional man and the printer quickly follow. In the succeeding year the piano, the drawing-room, the restaurant, the billiard-table, the church bell, the village and the city in miniature, are all found, while the neighboring interior is yet a wilderness and a desert. The town and comfort, taste and urbanity are first; the clearing, the farm-house, the wagon-road and the improved country, second. It was far different on the frontier in Tennessee. At first a single Indian trail was the only entrance to the eastern border of it and for many years admitted only of the hunter and the pack-horse It was not till the year 1776 that a wagon was seen in Tennessee. In consequence of the want of roads—as well as of the great distance from sources of supply—the first inhabitants were without tools, and, of course, without mechanics—much more, without the conveniences of living and the comforts of house-keeping. Luxuries were absolutely unknown. Salt was brought on pack-horses from Augusta and Richmond, and readily commanded ten dollars a bushel. The salt gourd, in every cabin, was considered as a treasure. The sugar-maple furnished the only article of luxury on the frontier; coffee and tea being unknown, or beyond the reach of the settlers, sugar was seldom made, and was only used for the sick, or in the preparation of a sweetened dram at a wedding, or the arrival of a new-comer. The appendages of the kitchen, the cupboard, and the table were scanty and simple.
"Iron was brought, at great expense, from the forges east of the mountain, on pack-horses, and was sold at an enormous price. Its use was, for this reason, confined to the construction and repair of plows and other farming utensils. Hinges, nails, and fastenings of that material, were seldom seen.
"The costume of the first settlers corresponded well with the style of their buildings and the quality of their furniture. The hunting-shirt of the militiaman and the hunter was in general use. The rest of their apparel was in keeping with it—plain, substantial, and well adapted for comfort, use, and economy. The apparel of the pioneer's family was all home-made, and in a whole neighborhood there would not be seen, at the first settlement of the country, a single article of dress of foreign growth or manufacture. Half the year, in many families, shoes were not worn. Boots, a fur hat, and a coat with buttons on each side, attracted the gaze of the beholder, and sometimes received censure and rebuke. A stranger from the old States chose to doff his ruffles, his broadcloth, and his queue, rather than endure the scoff and ridicule of the backwoodsmen."
The dwelling-house, on every frontier in Tennessee, was the log-cabin. A carpenter and a mason were not needed to build them—much less the painter, the glazier, or the upholsterer. Every settler had, besides his rifle, no other instrument but an axe, a hatchet, and a butcher-knife. A saw, an auger, a froe, and a broad-axe would supply a whole settlement, and were used as common property in the erection of the log-cabin. The floor of the cabin was sometimes the earth. No saw-mill was yet erected; and, if the means or leisure of the occupant authorized it, he split out puncheons for the floor and for the shutter of the entrance to his cabin. The door was hung with wooden hinges and fastened by a wooden latch.
"Such was the habitation of the pioneer Tennessean. Scarcely can one of these structures, venerable for their years and the associations which cluster around them, be now seen, in Tennessee. Time and improvement have displaced them. Here and there in the older counties, may yet be seen the old log house, which sixty years ago sheltered the first emigrant, or gave, for the time, protection to a neighborhood, assembled within its strong and bullet-proof walls. Such an one is the east end of Mr. Martin's house, at Campbell's Station, and the centre part of the mansion of this writer, at Mecklenburg, once Gilliam's Station, changed somewhat, it is true, in some of its aspects, but preserving even yet, in the height of the story and in its old-fashioned and capacious fire-place, some of the features of primitive architecture on the frontier. Such, too, is the present dwelling-house of Mr. Tipton, on Ellejoy, in Blount County, and that of Mr. Glasgow Snoddy, in Sevier County. But these old buildings are becoming exceedingly rare, and soon not one of them will be seen. Their unsightly proportions and rude architecture will not much longer offend modern taste, nor provoke the idle and irreverent sneer of the fastidious and the fashionable. When the last one of these pioneer houses shall have fallen into decay and ruins, the memory of their first occupants will still be immortal and indestructible.
"The interior of the cabin was no less unpretending and simple. The whole furniture, of the one apartment—answering in these primitive times the purposes of the kitchen, the dining-room, the nursery and the dormitory—were a plain home-made bedstead or two, some split-bottomed chairs and stools; a large puncheon, supported on four legs, used, as occasion required, for a bench or a table, a water shelf and a bucket; a spinning-wheel, and sometimes a loom, finished the catalogue. The wardrobe of the family was equally plain and simple. The walls of the house were hung round with the dresses of the females, the hunting-shirts, clothes, and the arms and shot-pouches of the men.
"The labor and employment of a pioneer family were distributed in accordance with surrounding circumstances. To the men was assigned the duty of procuring subsistence and materials for clothing, erecting the cabin and the station, opening and cultivating the farm, hunting the wild beasts, and repelling and pursuing the Indians. The women spun the flax, the cotton and wool, wove the cloth, made them up, milked, churned, and prepared the food, and did their full share of the duties of house-keeping. Another thus describes them: 'There we behold woman in her true glory; not a doll to carry silks and jewels; not a puppet to be dandled by fops, an idol of profane adoration, reverenced to-day, discarded to-morrow; admired, but not respected; desired, but not esteemed; ruling by passion, not affection; imparting her weakness, not her constancy, to the sex she should exalt; the source and mirror of vanity. We see her as a wife, partaking of the cares, and guiding the labors of her husband, and by her domestic diligence spreading cheerfulness all around; for his sake, sharing the decent refinements of the world, without being fond of them; placing all her joy, all her happiness, in the merited approbation of the man she loves. As a mother, we find her the affectionate, the ardent instructress of the children she has reared from infancy, and trained them up to thought and virtue, to meditation and benevolence; addressing them as rational beings, and preparing them to become men and women in their turn.
"'Could there be happiness or comfort in such dwellings and such a state of society? To those who are accustomed to modern refinements, the truth appears like fable. The early occupants of log-cabins were among the most happy of mankind. Exercise and excitement gave them health; they were practically equal; common danger made them mutually dependant; brilliant hopes of future wealth and distinction led them on; and as there was ample room for all, and as each new-comer increased individual and general security, there was little room for that envy, jealousy, and hatred which constitute a large portion of human misery in older societies. Never were the story, the joke, the song, and the laugh better enjoyed than upon the hewed blocks, or puncheon stools, around the roaring log fire of the early Western settler. The lyre of Apollo was not hailed with more delight in primitive Greece than the advent of the first fiddler among the dwellers of the wilderness; and the polished daughters of the East never enjoyed themselves half so well, moving to the music of a full band, upon the elastic floor of their ornamented ball-room, as did the daughters of the emigrants, keeping time to a self-taught fiddler, on the bare earth or puncheon floor of the primitive log-cabin. The smile of the polished beauty is the wave of the lake, where the breeze plays gently over it, and her movement is the gentle stream which drains it; but the laugh of the log-cabin is the gush of nature's fountain, and its movement, its leaping water.'" [[51]]
"On the frontier the diet was necessarily plain and homely, but exceedingly abundant and nutritive. The Goshen of America[[52]] furnished the richest milk, the finest butter, and the most savory and delicious meats. In their rude cabins, with their scanty and inartificial furniture, no people ever enjoyed in wholesome food a greater variety, or a superior quality of the necessaries of life. For bread, the Indian corn was exclusively used. It was not till 1790 that the settlers on the rich bottoms of Cumberland and Nollichucky discovered the remarkable adaptation of the soil and climate of Tennessee to the production of this grain. Emigrants from James River, the Catawba, and the Santee, were surprised at the amount and quality of the corn crops, surpassing greatly the best results of agricultural labor and care in the Atlantic States. This superiority still exists, and Tennessee, by the census of 1850, was the corn State. Of all the farinacea, corn is best adapted to the condition of a pioneer people; and if idolatry is at all justifiable, Ceres, or certainly the Goddess of Indian corn, should have had a temple and a worshipers among the pioneers of Tennessee. Without that grain, the frontier settlements could not have been formed and maintained. It is the most certain crop—requires the least preparation of the ground—is most congenial to a virgin soil—needs not only the least amount of labor in its culture, but comes to maturity in the shortest time. The pith of the matured stalk of the corn is esculent and nutritious; and the stalk itself, compressed between rollers, furnishes what is known as corn-stalk molasses."
"This grain requires, also, the least care and trouble in preserving it. It may safely stand all winter upon the stalk without injury from the weather or apprehension of damage by disease, or the accidents to which other grains are subject. Neither smut nor rust, nor weavil nor snow-storm, will hurt it. After its maturity, it is also prepared for use or the granary with little labor. The husking is a short process, and is even advantageously delayed till the moment arrives for using the corn. The machinery for converting it into food is also exceedingly simple and cheap. As soon as the ear is fully formed, it may be roasted or boiled, and forms thus an excellent and nourishing diet. At a later period it may be grated, and furnishes, in this form, the sweetest bread. The grains boiled in a variety of modes, either whole or broken in a mortar, or roasted in the ashes, or popped in an oven, are well relished. If the grain is to be converted into meal, a simple tub-mill answers the purpose best, as the meal least perfectly ground is always preferred. A bolting-cloth is not needed, as it diminishes the sweetness and value of the flour. The catalogue of the advantages of this meal might be extended further. Boiled in water, it forms the frontier dish called mush, which was eaten with milk, with honey, molasses, butter or gravy. Mixed with cold water, it is, at once, ready for the cook; covered with hot ashes, the preparation is called the ash cake; placed upon a piece of clapboard, and set near the coals, it forms the journey-cake; or managed in the same way, upon a helveless hoe, it forms the hoe-cake; put in an oven, and covered over with a heated lid, it is called, if in a large mass, a pone or loaf; if in smaller quantities, dodgers. It has the further advantage, over all other flour, that it requires in its preparation few culinary utensils, and neither sugar, yeast, eggs, spices, soda, potash, or other et ceteras, to qualify or perfect the bread. To all this, it may be added, that it is not only cheap and well tasted, but it is unquestionably the most wholesome and nutritive food. The largest and healthiest people in the world have lived upon it exclusively. It formed the principal bread of that robust race of men—giants in miniature—which, half a century since, was seen on the frontier.
"The dignity of history is not lowered by this enumeration of the pre-eminent qualities of Indian corn. The rifle and the axe have had their influence in subduing the wilderness to the purposes of civilization, and they deserve their eulogists and trumpeters. Let paeans be sung all over the mighty West to Indian corn—without it, the West would have still been a wilderness. Was the frontier suddenly invaded? Without commissary or quartermaster, or other sources of supply, each soldier parched a peck of corn; a portion of it was put into his pockets, the remainder in his wallet, and, throwing it upon his saddle, with his rifle on his shoulder, he was ready, in half an hour, for the campaign. Did a flood of emigration inundate the frontier with an amount of consumers disproportioned to the supply of grain? The facility of raising the Indian corn, and its early maturity, gave promise and guaranty that the scarcity would be temporary and tolerable. Did the safety of the frontier demand the services of every adult militiaman? The boys and women could, themselves, raise corn and furnish ample supplies of bread. The crop could be gathered next year. Did an autumnal intermittent confine the whole family or the entire population to the sick bed? This certain concomitant of the clearing, and cultivating the new soil, mercifully withholds its paroxysms till the crop of corn is made. It requires no further labor or care afterward. Paeans, say we, and a temple and worshipers, to the Creator of Indian corn. The frontier man could gratefully say: 'He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. Thou preparest a table before me in presence of mine enemies.'
"The sports of the frontier men were manly, athletic, or warlike—the chase, the bear hunt, the deer drive, shooting at the target, throwing the tomahawk, jumping, boxing and wrestling, foot and horse-racing. Playing marbles and pitching dollars, cards and backgammon, were little known, and were considered base or effeminate. The bugle, the violin, the fife and drum, furnished all the musical entertainments. These were much used and passionately admired. Weddings, military trainings, house-raisings, chopping frolics, were often followed with the fiddle, and dancing, and rural sports."