The Squirrel Hunters of Ohio; or, Glimpses of Pioneer Life

by N. E. Jones

The hunter states that he dressed the game, left a turkey in the doctor’s cabin, and then assisted Grace in placing a twenty pound bird on a wooden spit to roast for dinner.

Before noon the invited guests came and after pleasantly reviewing army scenes and political, social and literary prospects of the people coming to the unbroken wilderness of the North-west, dinner was announced from the kitchen dining-room and parlor; and a more intellectual and jolly company has probably not assembled at a Christmas dinner since 1798. The guests had filled important positions in the general government, and were both natives of New York; while the host was from Dublin, and hostess an English lady, a former resident of London—all educated people, and knew how to entertain and partake of social and mental enjoyments.

The good pioneer became schooled to a quiet, but heroic submission to the unavoidable; and in this virtue Grace was recognized a model throughout the settlement. Still she manifested the greatest sorrow one could well express in the loss of the souvenir she had so carefully preserved and protected from damage during the long and perilous journey to Ohio. A large English Bible, printed in the infancy of the art, containing the family coat of arms and record for over four hundred years, with a chart of unbroken line of descent for near one thousand years. All was lost in the burning of their cabin in 1812.

The pioneer and his good wife lived to enjoy with these three children and grandchildren, forty-six returns of the Star of Bethlehem, near where the first Christmas day was seen in Ohio; and the writer has often heard the aged couple recite with feelings of delightful remembrance the first Christmas in Ohio as the dearest and most enchanting of all others.

A country by nature so lovely exerted no little influence on the civilization and character of its early, but mixed inhabitants. They all were, or soon became, genial, warm-hearted, kind, neighborly and obliging, in a sense unknown to phases of civilization connected with affluent circumstances. They generally settled at short distances from each other, to better enable them to render mutual assistance, and also protection in times of danger. Much of the labor necessary to open up a new country of this character could not be performed “weak-handed” as “rolling logs,” building cabins, opening roads, etc.; and when a new arrival appeared in the settlement and announced his desire to remain, all the neighborhood would cheerfully turn out, and with shovels, axes and augurs assemble at some designated spot in the forest, and work from day to day until a domicile was completed. Although entirely gratuitous, the construction of these log-houses was a business of experience. First, trees were cut down sufficiently to make an opening for sunlight, and site to place the cabin; then logs of determined diameter and length were cut and placed in position, one above another, and by notching the corners in a manner calculated to make them lie closely together, the whole became very substantial and binding. Cross-logs made sleepers and joists, and similar logs of different lengths formed the gables, and which were held together by supports for the roof in a way truly primitive and ingenious. It was covered with clap-boards four or five feet long, split from oak timber, placing them in the usual way to turn rain, and securing their position by a sufficient number of heavy poles or split pieces of timber reaching the length of the roof at right angles to the boards. The weight pole at the eaves was made stationary by the projecting ends of the top logs at the corners of the building, and the others were prevented from rolling down and off the building by intervening blocks of wood placed parallel with the clap-boards, one end resting against the pole at the eaves and the other end acting as a stop to the pole next above; and so on to the comb of the roof. The floor, if not of earth, was made of puncheons or long clap-boards. The door was constructed of heavy pieces of split timber, joined to the cross-sections, or battens with wooden pins. One end of the lower and upper battens was made to project far enough beyond the side of the door, and large enough to admit an auger hole of an inch and a half to form part of the hinge for the door. The battens and hinges were placed on the inside, also the latch, to which a strong string was attached, and passed through a small hole a short distance above, terminating on the outside. By pulling the string the latch was raised and the door opened by persons without. At night, the string was pulled in, which made a very secure and convenient fastening, in connection with the two great wooden pins that projected on the line of the top of the door to prevent it from being raised off the hinges when closed. It is quite probable, as has often been suggested, this primitive latch and lock combination gave rise to the saying “you will find the latch-string always out.”

There were no windows; but, if one was attempted, it consisted of a small opening without frame, sash, or glass, and was covered with a piece of an old garment or greased paper. The chimney formed the most important, as well as singular, part of the structure. It was built upon the outside, and joined to the cabin some five or six feet in height at the base, and then contracted, forming a stem detached from the building and terminating short of its height. The materials used in its construction consisted of sticks and mud, and when completed resembled somewhat in shape an immense bay window, or an overgrown parasite. The logs of the building were cut away at the chimney so as to give a great opening into this mud pen for a fireplace, and which sometimes had a back-wall made of clay, shale, or stone. The crevices between the logs were filled with small pieces of split wood and clay mortar, both on the inside and outside. Numerous augur holes were bored in the logs, and pins driven in to hang articles of apparel and cooking utensils on. Two pins in particular were always so arranged as to receive the gun, and perhaps under which might be seen a pair of deer antlers to honor the powder-horn and bullet pouch.

To erect a rude cabin of this kind would frequently occupy all the persons in a neighborhood three or four days; and, when finished, made a very humble appearance in the midst of the natural grandeur of its surroundings. Even after the occupants were domiciliated, the addition of their worldly goods added but little to the unostentatious show of comfort. In the absence of facilities for transportation, the pioneer was obliged to leave most every thing behind; or, worse perhaps, had nothing but family, dog, and gun to bring with him; so the furniture of his new home consisted of a bedstead made of poles—a table from a split log;—a chair in the shape of a three-legged stool;—a bench, and a short shelf or two. The utensils for cooking were quite as limited and simple, and corresponded in usefulness and decoration most admirably with the furniture; generally consisting of a kettle, “skillet,” stew-pan, a few pewter dishes, and gourds. These with an occasional souvenir, or simple article that could be easily carried from the “Old Home,” made up the invoice of the inside of the cabin of the pioneer.

Notwithstanding the apparent scanty comforts in the house, they were more imaginary than real. It required but little exertion to keep the larder supplied with the choicest beasts, birds, and fish, which with hominy, or, still better, the corn dodger, shortened with turkey fat or bear’s oil, and baked in the ashes—or that climax, the “johnny-cake” well browned and piping hot on the board in front of a grand open fire—constituted a substantial diet that might be envied by those of the present day. In addition to these, there was no lack of pumpkins, potatoes, turnips, beans, berries,[1] honey, and maple sugar, and the early settler had little reason to sigh for the delicacies of a more advanced civilization.

Sugar making was an attractive calling and one of the pioneers’ money-making industries, although sugar groves were scattered over the entire state. The trees, by nature, were gregarious, growing in clusters from hundreds to thousands so thickly set over the ground that few if any other varieties could find room to maintain a standing. There are a few of the older crop of sugar trees still remaining; but the great “camps” that furnished sweets in abundance have, with other varieties of timber, fallen victims to the woodman’s ax.