A New Guide for Emigrants to the West

by John Mason Peck

The axe, auger, froe, drawing knife, broad-axe, and crosscut saw are the only tools required in constructing these rude edifices;—sometimes the axe and auger only are employed. Not a nail or pane of glass is needed. Cabins are by no means as wretched for residences as their name imports.

They are often roomy, comfortable and neat. If one is not sufficient to accommodate the family, another is added, and another until sufficient room is obtained.

3. Furniture and mode of living.—The genuine backwoodsman makes himself and family comfortable and contented where those, unaccustomed to his mode of life, would live in unavailing regret, or make a thousand awkward apologies on the visit of a neighbor or traveller. A table is made of a split slab and supported by four round legs. Clapboards supported by pins stuck in the logs answer for shelves for table furniture. The bedstead is often made in the corner of the room by sticks placed in the logs, supported at the outward corner by a post, on which clapboards are laid, the ends of which enter the wall between the logs, and which support the bedding. On the arrival of travellers or visiters, the bed clothing is shared with them, being spread on the puncheon floor that the feet may project towards the fire. Many a night has the writer passed in this manner, after a fatiguing day's ride, and reposed more comfortably than on a bed of down in a spacious mansion. All the family of both sexes, with all the strangers who arrive, often lodge in the same room. In that case the under garments are never taken off, and no consciousness of impropriety or indelicacy of feeling is manifested. A few pins stuck in the wall of the cabin display the dresses of the women and the hunting shirts of the men. Two small forks or bucks-horns fastened to a joist are indispensable articles for the support of the rifle. A loose floor of clapboards, and supported by round poles, is thrown over head for a loft which furnishes a place to throw any articles not immediately wanted, and is frequently used for a lodging place for the younger branches of the family. A ladder planted in the corner behind the door answers the purpose of stairs.

The necessary table and kitchen furniture are a few pewter dishes and spoons, knives and forks, (for which however, the common hunting knife is often a substitute,) tin cups for coffee or milk, a water pail and a small gourd or calabash for water, with a pot and iron Dutch oven, constitute the chief articles. Add to these a tray for wetting up meal for corn bread, a coffee pot and set of cups and saucers, a set of common plates, and the cabin is furnished. The hominy mortar and hand mill are in use in all frontier settlements. The first consists of a block of wood with an excavation burned at one end and scraped out with an iron tool, wide at top and narrow at the bottom that the action of the pestle may operate to the best advantage. Sometimes a stump of a large tree is excavated while in its natural position. An elastic pole, 20 or 30 feet in length, with the large end fastened under the ground log of the cabin, and the other elevated 10 or 15 feet and supported by two forks, to which a pestle 5 or 6 inches in diameter and 8 or 10 feet long is fixed on the elevated end by a large mortice, and a pin put through its lower end so that two persons can work it in conjunction. This is much used for pounding corn. A very simple instrument to answer the same purpose, is a circular piece of tin, perforated, and attached to a piece of wood like a grater, on which the ears of corn are rubbed for meal. The hand mill is in the same form as that used in Judea in the time of our Savior. Two circular stones, about 18 inches in diameter constructed like ordinary mill stones, with a staff let into the runner or upper stone near its outer edge, with the upper end inserted in a joist or board over head, and turned by the hands of two persons while one feeds it with corn. Horse mills follow the mortar and hand mill in the scale of improvement. They are constructed variously. A hand mill is the most simple. A large upright post is placed on a gudgeon, with shafts extending horizontally 15 or 20 feet. Around the ends of these is a band of raw hide twisted, which passes around the trundle head and turns the spindle and communicates motion to the stone. A cog mill is formed by constructing a rim with cogs upon the shafts, and a trundle head to correspond. Each person furnishes his own horses to turn the mill, performs his own grinding, and pays toll to the owner for use of the mill. Mills with the wheel on an inclined plane, and carried by oxen standing on the wheel, are much in use in those sections where water power is not convenient, but these indicate an advance to the second grade of society.

Instead of bolting cloths, the frontier people use a sieve or as called here, a "search." This is made from a deer skin prepared to resemble parchment, stretched on a hoop and perforated full of holes with a hot wire.

Every backwoodsman carries on all occasions, the means of furnishing his meat. The rifle, bullet pouch and horn, hunting knife, horse and dog are his constant companions when from home, and woe be to the wolf, bear, deer or turkey that comes within one hundred and fifty yards of his trail.

With the first emigration there are few mechanics; hence every settler becomes expert in supplying his own necessaries. Besides clearing land, building cabins, and making fences, he stocks his own plough, repairs his wagon and his harness, tans his own leather, makes his shoes, tables, bedsteads, stools or seats, trays and a hundred other articles. These may be rudely constructed, but they answer his purpose very well.

The following extracts from the graphic "Sketches of the West," by James Hall, Esq. completes this extended picture of backwoods manners.

"The traveller, accustomed to different modes of life, is struck with the rude and uncomfortable appearance of every thing about this people,—the rudeness of their habitations, the carelessness of their agriculture, the unsightly coarseness of all their implements and furniture, the unambitious homeliness of all their goods and chattels, except the axe, the rifle, and the horse—these being invariably the best and handsomest which their means enable them to procure. But he is mistaken in supposing them indolent or improvident; and is little aware how much ingenuity and toil have been exerted in procuring the few comforts which they possess, in a country without arts, mechanics, money, or commercial intercourse.

"The backwoodsman has many substantial enjoyments. After the fatigue of his journey, and a short season of privation and danger, he finds himself surrounded with plenty. His cattle, hogs, and poultry, supply his table with meat; the forest abounds in game; the fertile soil yields abundant crops; he has, of course, bread, milk, and butter; the rivers furnish fish, and the woods honey. For these various articles, there is, at first, no market, and the farmer acquires the generous habit of spreading them profusely on his table, and giving them freely to a hungry traveller and an indigent neighbor.