Cash was scarce and much of the trading was on a barter basis. To buy items such as tea, coffee, leather, lead, powder, and iron, required either money or certain items which were considered of cash value—linen cloth, feathers, beeswax, and deerskins.
Here are some examples of prices charged in 1815: linsey $1 per yard; cambric $2.25 per yard; darning needles 6¼c each; lead pencils 31c; nutmegs 18c each; pewter dish $2.25; tea $2.50 per pound; 8-penny nails 21c per pound; calico 87½c per yard; salt $13 per 100 pounds; flour $1.50 per barrel; wheat 25c per bushel; oats 10c per bushel.
Because of the high prices of coffee and tea, many housewives served “flour chocolate,” a beverage made from corn, wheat and rye, or tea made from spices, sassafras or sage. The housewife had to pulverize her own spices, powder the salt, roast and grind the coffee, and make her own yeast and soap.
Although some of the non-essentials were high in price, no one lacked for food. Nearly every household had at least one cow, some chickens, and some pigs. In 1810, records show that beef could be bought for 3c a pound and pork for 3½c. Chickens were worth 75c a dozen and potatoes 25c a bushel.
Wild turkeys, pheasants, rabbits, squirrels, ducks, geese, and deer abounded in the forests. There was plenty of corn for hoe cakes, hominy and mush; beans; blackberries; grapes; nuts; honey; and maple sap for sugar.
For breakfast the man of the house might find on his table ham, eggs, corn pone and fried potatoes, in addition to the standard dish, mush and milk. For a variation, or if meats were not handy, hominy and mush might be cooked in sweetened water with bear oil or grease from fried meat added. For supper he might have wild turkey, smoked sausage or venison, cheese, peaches or pears, and vegetables. Once a week in most households the supper consisted of “pot luck,” made of meat and various vegetables, cooked together in one big pot.
In almost every house there was a store of cider, brandy, rum or whiskey, but the men seldom overindulged except at weddings and funerals. It was not uncommon at such affairs for an argument to ensue and end in a fist fight.
Schools followed the establishment of churches in the township. The school building was a log cabin with a fireplace at one end, and it often was erected in a single day. Desks were made of puncheons and seats of flattened saplings. The children usually wrote with pens made of goose quills, for pencils were too scarce and too expensive. Ink was made from maple bark and copperas.
The school curriculum was confined to the “three R’s”: reading, ’riting, and ’rithmetic, and no high standards were required of the teachers. More often than not, the teacher was selected because of his or her physical inability to do other work rather than an ability to teach. Each patron paid his proportionate share of the cost of operating the school, even to the point of boarding the teacher for a certain length of time. The unfortunate teacher, like the pauper, was looked upon as a person merely to be tolerated. All that was expected of the pupils was the ability to write legibly, to read the Bible or an almanac, and to compute the value of a load of produce.