THE FIRST GENERATION
Being the children of the first pioneers, who settled in Peenpack at a time when there was was no other production in this part of the country for them to live on than the meat they could obtain of the wild animals, fowls and fishes before they raised grain or other productions for their diet, and we have reason to infer that after raising grain they only pounded it fine to answer for meat soups and such bread or cakes as they could make of it, to eat with those meats, and that these were their chief or only eatables for some years before they became enabled to have any other diet. They may, in the first instance, have obtained some meal from Rochester or vicinity, but after raising enough for their use it is probable they would rather use it pounded than to take it to the nearest mill, at that time, to get it ground, in which latter case the bran remained in the meal and as they could obtain good pounding stones and blocks from the Indians to pound their grain, and as the bran in grinding as well as pounding would remain in the meal, and as the nearest mill must have been about 25 or 30 miles from their neighborhood, we have reason to believe that they pounded their grain for soups and bread before mills were erected in this town; and that the greatest difference between the diet of those families and that of the Indians, was that the former ate a greater proportion of vegetable productions than the latter. The men of this generation of descendants were generally stronger than those who succeeded them, from which it appears their eatables were healthful and that their drink, which was the best of spring water, also promoted health, and that all other circumstances which attended them were also of a healthful character, to wit: a pure air of the atmosphere, not impregnated with the exhalations from bad, stagnant waters; brooks and small streams of clear water running down the mountains into the Neversink, creating a river of clear water passing through this valley; such log houses as would let the fresh air of the atmosphere pass freely into them towards the large fire they kept up in cold weather, and their continual exercises in their boyhood with the Indian children in hunting, fishing, &c., and in all their sportive exercises of running, wrestling, &c., all had a tendency to promote health and strength and fit them for the labor they had to perform as they advanced in growth and after arriving to manhood, in respect to which however some parents were more indulgent than others, and those of the most persevering business character compelled their children to labor harder than those parents who were less persevering.
SECOND GENERATION.
My own recollection reaches no farther back than the time in which all of them had families and when most of their children were small, but I have understood that their bread was made of unbolted wheat meal sifted through hand sieves to take out the coarse bran, until after they had grown up to years of maturity, and that after bolting meal was first introduced some persons said it was too extravagant to use only the fine flour to eat and to use all the rest for feed. During this time, and until all had families, many deers, bears, raccoons, wild fowls and fishes continued to exist, and the inhabitants were furnished with many meats, in consequence of which they did not make use of as much pork and beef as they did after those wild creatures and fishes became scarce.
As far back as I remember, being from about the year 1774, in my father's family mush made of Indian meal and milk (generally buttermilk), bread and milk, buttermilk pop of two kinds and bread and butter was a very general diet, not only of his family but of all those in the forts during the war and for some years thereafter throughout this neighborhood. It was also very common to have a dinner pot of pork and beef, or either of these boiled together with peeled potatoes, turnips or other sauce. The bread used during this time was rye bread, not as white as we generally now have it. It was very common to have a pot of sweet milk thickened with wheat flour lumps boiled every Sunday morning for breakfast and for a part of the dinner. These were the most general diet during the warm season of the year. In winter, a greater proportion of meat, potatoes, turnips and other vegetables, dried apples, pumpkins, beans, &c. were eaten, and less milk diet; yet the supper generally consisted both summer and winter of mush and milk or buttermilk pop, except in families during a time where cows happened to be all dry. The supper was had without any addition except in the long summer days when bread and butter was added. Some buckwheat pancake was generally eaten in winter. Now, in addition to those common diets, they sometimes had as a rarity, wheat flour shortcakes, doughnuts boiled in hog's lard, pancakes baked thin in a frying pan, puddings and dumplings boiled in water and eaten with a palatable gravy, chicken pot-pie, chicken soup, eggs boiled or fried and sometimes used in other different ways; many apple pies and huckleberry pies were made when these fruits and berries were plenty. They also had for winter rarity sausages of hog's meat, &c.
In respect to the other attendants of air, water and exercise which have heretofore been mentioned, this generation enjoyed all these in the same manner as the first, but, these had superior dwellings which were comfortable stone houses which every farmer, with very few exceptions, in this town possessed before the Revolutionary War commenced. These were closer than the first dwellings erected here, but still not very tight houses. Each room generally had an outside door, and all the rooms generally were on the lower floor; the chamber above these was used for granaries, flour barrels, and to store many different articles. The cellars were used for their milk and dairy articles, meat casks, cider barrels, winter apples, potatoes, turnips, and other vegetables. These cellar articles were not salable in former times, but were generally used by the families who produced them.
The table furniture generally consisted of ordinary table knives and forks, pewter plates, pewter basins and platters of different sizes, pewter spoons, and a pewter mug which would contain about two quarts of cider, on which was a cover to open and close by means of a hinge, which last article was generally brought on the table for drink when the meal consisted of meat and hearty victuals but was not used with their milk diets.
In the time of the war many of those articles were destroyed, and wooden plates, wooden bowls and dishes of different sizes were manufactured with a turning lathe and used for table furniture.