Privations of the Early Pioneers
My early life was primitive. For instance, there were no machine-made nails in this country. All nails were made by the village blacksmith from nail rods, and I often watched him while he wrought those I was sent to buy. All pins and needles were imported from England, and none of the pins had solid heads. They had wire-wound heads brazed upon the stems.
There were no shoe factories in the country, and no shoe stores in the villages. We were shod by itinerant cobblers, who made their lasts and pegs from maple wood from our wood pile. There were no rights or lefts, but each child had his own last. We children were so curious to handle the cobbler's tools that father authorized him to draw a chalk line around the corner where he worked, and use the knee strap, with which he held the shoe while pegging, to chastise us if we crossed it!
Farmers made their own brooms and axe helves from young hickory trees. We raised the wool and flax required for our clothing, all of which my mother spun, wove and fashioned, as did all other housewives. Stockings and mittens were all knit by hand; there were no knitting machines, sewing machines or cooking stoves. Practically everything necessary for existence was raised or made on the farms, save coffee, spices, tableware, hardware, glass and cutlery, which came from abroad and up the Mississippi by boat. Our nearest market was Cincinnati—two hundred miles away over rough and at times impassable roads.
There was then no Federal currency. Commerce was carried on with Spanish coin, and legal contracts were liquidated in "Spanish milled dollars." There were no postage stamps. Postmasters collected from writer or recipient ten cents for letters east of the Rocky Mountains and twenty-five cents for letters sent elsewhere. There were no envelopes. Letter paper had the fourth page unruled and was folded into an envelope, leaving the unruled page for the address. They were sealed with wax wafers.
There were no matches in general use. A Kentucky flint-lock rifle hung over the mantel, and this, with powder in the pan, was used to start fires by flashing the powder against tow or fine shavings. All farmers' boys became experts with these Kentucky rifles. Squirrels were so numerous that when the corn was maturing they would ruin three or four rows of corn next the fence. Partly to procure fresh meat and partly to protect the corn, it was our business to destroy these squirrels. I remember one Saturday I killed over sixty squirrels.
Carpenters learned their trade by five years' unpaid apprenticeship. A carpenter's chest of tools cost one hundred and twenty-five dollars, and contained approximately one hundred implements.