Wool

The latitude of Whitewater was much colder than the more Southern clime where the earliest settlers came from, hence it was important to have warmer clothing than the fabric they could manufacture from the lint of the flax. They early stocked their new farms with sheep, for their wool (their flesh was seldom used). In raising sheep they experienced much annoyance from wolves, and sometimes from neighbor’s dogs killing them. An early settler who was, by the way, the first doctor on one of the streams of Whitewater, had two dogs; (most of the settlers had that many or more of various species, the lop-eared hound being kept for hunting purposes). One night his neighbor had nearly all his sheep killed, as he believed, by his neighbor doctor’s dogs. He shouldered his gun and went next morning over to the doctor’s, perhaps not in as friendly a mood as becometh a disciple of Fox, confronted the doctor at his door, saying, “Doctor, I have come to shoot thy dogs.” “Why so?” asked the doctor, he also being of the Friends Society. “They have killed my sheep, and I am going to shoot them right here in thy yard,” pointing his gun at the dogs. “Hold on,” says the doctor, having faith in the innocency of his dogs thus charged. Having likewise a strong faith in his emetics that he prescribed to the early settlers, when they were bilious, as many, if living, could testify to, he went back into his medicine room, procured some, and spreading it on bread he cast it to the dogs. Soon they made a copious discharge of mutton and wool; that settled it, and the old doctor had to part with his dogs. The wool was clipped from the sheep’s back with the sheep-shears alluded to. Now came the process of wool picking; not unfrequently the neighbors’ wives and daughters were invited some evening for this purpose which also afforded the young gents an opportunity to show their gallantry in seeing the latter safe home. It had to be carded as no carding mills were yet about Whitewater. This was done by hand-cards, with wires thickly placed on a board near a foot long and four or five inches wide, with handles; with two of these the operator, generally the women, placed one on her knee, put wool on it, and with the other drawn back and forth, some time, drawing the wool out and rolling it into rolls with the back of the cards. It was now ready for spinning. The most usual way was to have a wool-wheel, the wheel some four feet in diameter, attaching a pully and band that would rapidly whirl a spindle, the operator standing with a roll pointed to the spindle, then turning the wheel with her finger on one of the spokes, she moved swiftly backwards the whole length of the cabin to draw out the thread. If not belonging to the Friends Society while thus spinning, vocal music would generally enliven the occasion. Being spun, it was wound on to winding blades, a simple construction that revolved, and then taken off in hanks. The thread was wound on large spools, (made by Billy Williams, the preacher, and others,) then placed on warping-bars when it was ready for the loom to weave as before described. To have the thread colored to suit the fancy they might choose, it was done in various ways. Those who could afford it used Indigo, while others not of the first families resorted to log-wood, madder and walnut bark, &c. Reader, all could not afford to have the fabric composed all of wool any more than some of the present day, hence the chain was of linen with woolen filling, and was called linsey. This was very common for every-day wear in winter. But some did have all wool which was called flannel, colored, this mostly for womens’ wear, and was considered plenty good enough to go to White-water meeting in. Such, readers, were the common garments worn about the Whitewaters previous to 1820. For shoes, they tanned the leather in a trough, as best they could, till Morrisson started his tan-yard before alluded to. One old settler informed me he tanned squirrel skins and made moccasons. It was fortunate that David Beard’s hats, made in North Carolina. were so durable, else some of the earliest pioneers would have gone bareheaded a long time, for it was not till about 1820 that Eli Brown, the first hatter, made hats in Richmond. As a substitute, some platted rye and wheat straw and sewed them together in hat-shape to suit the fancy. As for shoemakers, nearly all could make or mend shoes, sewing the soles on with home-made thread. No such thing as ripping was heard of in those days.

Making Flour

Having in a brief summary way shown how early settlers managed to clothe themselves and families, and how they raised their first corn, etc., I will inform the reader how they procured flour, from wheat, for it must be borne in mind there was in this present century on Whitewater a few years before the first settlers came to Whitewater, that there was no wheat raised. The wheat was sown broad-cast, by hand, and brushed or plowed in to cover the seed. When it matured ready for harvesting, the grain was cut with a hooked knife, called a sickle, with sharp teeth. (I omitted to note that the sickle was one of the staple commodities in Smith’s store.) With this it was reaped by hand and tied in bundles and placed in dozen shocks, as in the present day. Some in their impatience to get a taste of wheat bread once more, would watch the golden coloring of the heads perhaps on some knoll, where a more ripened spot appeared a little in advance of the general ripening, and with a sickle cut a few bundles to dry by the fire; then rubbing the grain out between his hands, the grain was separated from the chaff and carried in a pillow-case to mill. While grinding he watched the miller at the flour-chest and the pet lamb at the hopper to prevent his small grist from being more diminished, and then he carries home a little in advance of his neighbors. A very aged veteran recently told the writer, when he was a boy, a customer came to his father’s blacksmith shop. Dinner was announced by the smith’s family. The new-settler, who lived south of Richmond, on Whitewater, was invited to dinner; he was not backward to accept. The family had for dinner what was familiarly called “pan-cakes,” or, in other words, “flitters,” made of flour. The old man, in relating this story, says it done him good to witness how the invited guest hid away those flitters—making the pile rather diminitive for the second table.

The wheat being gathered into the barn or stacked, after waiting a short time for the grain to go through a sweating process, it would be thrashed out by laying the opened sheaves on the barn floor and threshed with a flail; this was simply a small hickory sapling, heated in the fire or hot ashes, a distance of about two feet from one end, then pounding the burnt part so as to mash the tender fibres, that it might be flexible in the hands of the thrasher. With this, two or more would stand opposite and flail away till all the grain was separated from the head of the stalk, or straw. Some, more ingenious, had two separate pieces, and fastened them together with a leather string. With this flail a green hand was liable at first to get his ears cuffed. The straw was then separated from the chaff and wheat with wooden forks and a wooden-tooth rake and placed in a pile in the middle of the floor. To get the chaff from the wheat they would take a sheet from a bed (I forgot to say in the proper place it was made from the tow linen); two men or a man and woman as the case might be, would place the sheet in proper position by holding the corners standing on each side of the pile of grain, and tossing it up with much dexterity and a semi-rotary motion, this would raise the wind and blow the chaff to the four winds. Let us now view a pile of pure wheat, two bushels or more, lying on the floor. This, reader, is no fancy sketch but a reality, founded on facts. It is then measured up in a half bushel, made by an early cooper with hoops and staves, and the grist placed in a safe place, perhaps under the bed, till they had time to take a pilgrimage to the mill.

Pioneer Food

When the first wheat flour came to be used on the Whitewaters, it was a rare luxury, most too scarce to be used every day. At first they had wheat cakes on Sunday mornings with store coffee from Smith’s store, perhaps occasionally during the week, especially if there should be “company” or when the preacher came on a pastoral visit. Then the yellow legged chickens would also be killed. It was a joyful time among the youngsters when the preacher would leave the table. Corn bread was the staple bread of that day; it was cooked or baked in various ways. The most primitive way was to get a smooth clapboard two feet or more long, make up dough and place it on this board about an inch thick, and set the board in a leaning position before a hot fire; when partially baked, turn the other side of the half-baked dough to the fire then, while hot, it was ready for the table. Others would make the dough into lumps and place them in a Dutch oven or skillet with lids, putting fire coals under and on top. The former of these were called “Johnny cakes” and the latter “dodgers.” Then again the dough was raised by yeast, and placed in the oven as above, three inches or more in thickness. This was called ”pone.” When eaten warm with milk and butter, it really was a luxury. Another mode was common, which was to simply sprinkle the meal through the fingers into boiling water into a pot, stirring it at the same time quickly with a paddle until it became of the required thickness. The dish is known in the East as “hasty pudding,” but in the West as “mush.” It was eaten with milk in bowls, &c., with spoons, and often using with it the fat of pork or molasses. The writer has a recollection of being sent on an errand one morning to a neighbors, where he found the family sitting around the table, a dozen or more, but the head of the family a stout, robust man, was eating his mush and milk by the fire-place out of a tin bucket.

For desert, they had pumpkin pies, and pumpkins were used in various ways for sauce, many kinds of wild fruits, and honey found in the woods in trees that were hollow. Many a fine, tall poplar tree was fallen to rob the honey deposited in it by wild bees, as well as others to catch a coon whose hide was worth a silver quarter dollar. When my father was about to sell his large farm to an Ohioian, the man thought it strange that so many valuable trees were cut down and left decaying on the timbered land. My father had neighbors that were not scrupulous about observing the lines that divided their lands from his. No fences were around their lands at this day, consequently their cattle and hogs roamed at large, but to discriminate them from their neighbors’, each new settler had his particular mark by cutting in various ways the ears of the cattle and hogs. Hogs generally fattened on beech-nuts and other kinds of mast. One day, late in the fall, my elder brother, then in his teens, was sent out to hunt his father’s hogs (instead of that other animal we read of in the good book.) After looking in all the likely places and failing to find them, he bethought himself of a neighbor’s hog pen. Upon going there, he discovered his father’s identical earmarks on some of the hogs that were in the pen, and in his unsophisticated way told the neighbor “them are father’s hogs in the pen.” The neighbor was a stout, robust man, and would not quietly submit to be accused in that way by a beardless youth, knowing too that a short time before he had joined the Quakers, as the neighbors deridingly called them, so he took advantage of his supposed non-fighting proclivities, and made demonstrations as if he were about to give my brother a severe drubbing, but he comprehended the situation, thinking discretion the better part of valor, made good his retreat home and told the story. Another younger brother who had a strong tendency in his nature, perhaps received by inheritance, to act in self-defence, wanted father to allow him to go and let the hogs out of that neighbor’s pen; but father said “no; let us have peace.” It was not long after that event this neighbor sold his land and moved to the far West.

“Coaly”

My sketches will now necessarily be somewhat rambling, and having many incidents yet to relate within the limited number of these pages, brevity will have to be observed. In connection here, I wish to give a brief history of my father’s black horse, as he was contemporary with myself in age. As I have out-lived that horse I shall, before closing these sketches, note his death. When I was of sufficient age I was sent to the mill on a grist of grain on the back of that black horse. He was a noble animal, above the ordinary size, black as a coal, and “Coaly” was his name. My father kept a team of four horses and he allowed an older brother to team to Cincinnati to haul goods for the first stores in Richmond. Coaly was the main stand-by in a team, being the lead horse. Not a few young colts were broke to work under his guiding-ship. I have said he was a noble horse, in fact, I thought he was the most sensible horse in the neighborhood among all the horse kind, but he was remarkably mischievous; yet with all his good horse sense he had contracted one fault pretty early in life, which was, he would run away every chance he could get. Perhaps when I relate how he came to run away the first time, you would not blame him so much, as almost any spirited horse would under similar circumstances run away. One day my father sent me out in a deadning with Coaly and a docile bay mare hitched to a sled to haul some summer wood. I got along well till getting into the deadning I happened to stop them over a yellow jacket’s nest. In their stamping off the flies they stirred up the insects. The horses did not wait for the order of going, and made quick time for home, scattering the wood and sled along the road. I was never trusted with him much afterwards, but as my older brother was quite a teamster he had no fears of the horse running away with him. However, one day he hitched all four to the road wagon to haul rails and went after them in the woods. From some cause they started and got away from him, Coaly in the lead, coming towards the house at a two-forty speed scattering the rails promiscuously. As they neared the barn yard a neighbor, who happened to be at my father’s blacksmith shop, ran before them with a fence rail and stopped them in their flight, which had caused but little damage to the wagon, but it learned the young colts just broke to work, the same bad trick. Some of his mischievous tricks were, he would run at every live animal and fowl that would be allowed in the barnyard. One day he took after a calf running it around the lot till finally he caught it by the nape of the neck and threw it over the fence into another lot. At another time he caught a goose by the neck and threw it on the barn roof. It was not long after my parents attended that appointed meeting at Whitewater, they took to going to that meeting pretty regularly five miles, through an unbroken bridle-way on horse back. My father being somewhat a mechanical genius, built him a carriage, doing all the work about it himself, made the wood work, ironed it, painted it, made the body, (a Jersey pattern,) setting it on bolsters; what springs it had were inside of the body. He made the curtains and trimmed it, covered the top with half inch boards tongue-and-grooved and thoroughly painted so as to turn water, had the seats of deer skins dressed and stuffed, &c. And having some knowledge of shoe-making or working in leather, he made his own harness, buying the harness leather of Morrisson. I always believed my father took pattern from Gilbert’s carriage that he saw at meeting at Whitewater, but he far excelled it in looks and workmanship. His was the first carriage made on the Whitewaters and was, of course, the finest. After finishing his carriage he blazed and cleared out a road from his place on one of the forks of Whitewater to the meeting-house. To ensure safety from a run-a-way, he made a bridle-bit very strong, having a lever to it of six or eight inches long, attached the check lines to a ring at the end of the lever, and made a wrought-iron chain to go under the lower jaw, with links similar to a log-chain, only more diminutive in size. My father could hold him let him do his best, after that. I have a recollection one day when coming home from meeting, all the family in the carriage, some of the young Whitewaterians came galloping up on horseback, and as they were on their new hog’s-hide saddles, they may have felt a little up in the world. This movement roused the spirit in Coaly. I believe that raccoon bridle-bit saved a run-a-way and a smash-up of our new carriage, and perhaps the killing or crippling of some of the family.

Early Education

Perhaps the reader may be interested in learning something of my schoolboy days and our log school-house. First, I note a considerable accession to our neighborhood between the Eastern and Middle Fork streams by a number, mostly of the Friends’ persuasion and from the Eastern States, between the years 1818 and 1820. Among these earliest comers was a maiden lady who had the requisite qualifications to teach a primary school. She was employed by the neighbors, and they collected together and built a log-house about one mile from my father’s home. This school-house was, of course, constructed similar to the cabins for dwellings; they had benches for seats, with legs to them sufficiently high as to be sure to clear the tallest scholars’ feet from the floor. For a writing desk pins were drove in the logs and a board rested on them the length or width of the room, having a bench with legs still higher from the floor. In this log school-house my first preceptor, an excellent lady, gave me the rudiments of an education. I made good progress, going two summers, advancing from A B C’s until I was able to spell “baker.” I believe after teaching these two summers she got married and lived many years on Whitewater, when she passed away full of years. The remembrance of her even at this writing remains vivid in my mind.

The next year a young man came from Pennsylvania into the neighborhood, who had also the requisite qualifications to teach a common school. To him and to this same log school-house I was sent six months more. This young man proved to be equal to the emergency, and taught a good school. When he took charge of the school those who were advanced enough to read were required by their parents to take to school a Bible and Testament to read verse about in, that Jewish history had, since the reformation, been revised and printed in that way for the use of schools. When I had progressed so as to read, I was introduced to this book or history, to read from, standing up with the class in single file and reading verse about. I recollect in these early times it used to make my cheeks tingle to read some verses therein. But our school-master (for that was the name we called him,) had brought with him from the East a new kind of schoolbooks to read in. To introduce them he sent some copies by the scholars to their parents, to buy them if they approved of them. They were the “Introduction” and “English Reader.” Perhaps there are some of this day who may recollect them. I gladly bore them to my parents, but they were rejected and sent back the next morning, saying they did not want such new things. Others did the same, especially those earliest settlers. The eastern comers were favorable to using them in the school instead of the Bible and Testament. Subsequently, a meeting was called of the employers to consult about it; my father attended. Upon listening to the pro and con in the matter, finding they were generally used among Friends east, the objectors submitted to have them introduced, and my father bought both copies. To me this was joyous news, and the Bible was laid on the shelf. Some incidents occurred at this school worth relating. Our young school-master had some knowledge of the natural sciences. Among other things he brought with him from the East an electrical apparatus. One day he had all the scholars to come to his boarding-place, near by, took them up stairs where he had his apparatus, in one corner of the room, and had us all stand joining hands around the room. Among the company was an older brother of mine who, for experiment, or, more likely to have some fun, caught the tom-cat and held it, having another school-mate hold its paw. Being ready, we were all shocked; some were scared, but none perhaps were more so than the cat and my brother, for they both ran down stairs. While attending this school under this master, the custom was to stand up in a class to spell. When the master saw any of us careless and inattentive to the spelling, he had a way of pretending to have business behind us, and while thus standing his beech gad would suddenly come in contact with the legs of the careless scholars. But he soon discovered that it was not altogether safe to treat the larger boys thus when they began to make belligerent demonstrations, and was afterwards cautious in applying the rod. There was a custom in those early times at holiday-times, to shut or bar the master out of school till he was compelled to treat. This sometimes caused some altercation, but as I was too young to take part, I will pass that by. My oldest brother, who claimed father’s hogs in a neighbor’s hog-pen, had become quite studious, often sitting up to late hours at night, pouring over the Bible history and the Rise and Progress of the Quakers, using hickory bark to make a light. For a change, my father bought in Richmond Captain Cook’s voyage around the world, in two volumes. My brother eagerly perused it. Afterwards, as I had learned to read, this was the first history I ever read, unless I except the Bible. That book seemed to demonstrate one thing to my youthful mind, that if the world could be explored around it, the Bible account could not be true; but as that history has been written so long ago probably whoever the writers were, may have concluded it had four corners, or was flat like a trencher.

Brother, Part 1

My brother joined in wedlock quite early in life, to an amiable Quakeress girl, and settled down by building a cabin in the midst of a forest. In tribute to his memory I will say, in youth he was above the mediocrity of young men of that day, in piety, sobriety and religious turn of mind. For this peculiarity, when growing to manhood, among the neighbors, where they were frequently thrown together at house-raising and log-rollings, sometimes attempts would be made, by the men older and less scrupulous, to impose on his good nature. One day at a log rolling, (where the custom was to place handspikes under the logs they wished to carry, when each would vie with others who could straighten up the easiest at his end of the spike,) a neighbor managed to have my youthful brother take the opposite end of his spike; in attempting to raise his end he broke down. Another neighbor whose feelings were favorable to the Quakers, his wife being of that persuasion, took my brother’s part. The two neighbors came near having a fight over it.

Making a Bell

Having before mentioned that the earliest settlers had ear-marks on their cattle and other stock that roamed at large, to keep them from being claimed by their neighbors, bells were also hung on the necks of the animals. The curious may inquire how they procured these bells, and how were they made? As I happened to be an eye witness in seeing them made, I will describe the process briefly. All implements at that day made of iron were hammered from wrought bar iron, by the smith, so the material for bells was pounded to the thickness required and the size they wished the bell. When it was shaped to their fancy, having a staple inside to hang the clapper on, it was brazed. This was done by hunting up old pieces of copper and placing them inside the bell, then making mortar of clay and enveloping the bell to the thickness of an inch or more (first wrapping the bell with rags;) the bell thus enclosed in clay mortar, it was placed in the forge fire and a heap of charcoal thrown over it, then blowing it to a sufficient heat to melt the copper in the bell, which required about an hour, the whole mass was removed from the forge and placed on the ground floor of the shop, it being frequently turned over. For sudden cooling it would be thrown into the slack-tub. On breaking the burnt clay away from the bell and removing the charred rags, behold there is a brazen bell that rings like a charm! These were hung with a leather strap and buckle, on the cow’s neck, the sheep or horses, as the case may have been. These bells seemed to have each a peculiar sound, at least, early settlers could readily distinguish the sound when they went to hunt their cows. The American Agriculturist of the present date, in one of its numbers, recommends those raising flocks of sheep to place bells on a number of their flock, as a protection in the night season when invaded by sheep-killing dogs, as the running of the sheep would make a noise sufficient to wake the farmer from his drowsy bed in time to save his flock, and probably get a shot at his neighbor’s dogs.

Making Charcoal

In noticing the use of charcoal to melt the copper in time bell, perhaps some of the present generation may be curious to learn how it was made. The stone, or bituminous coal of the present day, is generally known to be found embedded near the outer crust or shell of our globe in many parts of both hemispheres, but we find scientific men are yet not a unit as to its formation. But the writer can demonstrate how charcoal was made, as an eye witness. It was simply cutting up wood about cord-wood length, and splitting, principally sugar-trees; then build a three-square pen of small split timber the height designed for the pile of wood, by setting around this small pen the wood two tiers or more, tapering it to a point, sugar-loaf fashion, containing several cords, as may be required for the size of the coal pit; then cover the wood a foot or more thick with dirt, leaving a hole at the top to place in kindlings. Set fire to the combustibles in the bottom of the pen and center of the pit, covering up the hole at the top, and wait the slow process of combustion which took several days. Care had to be taken to keep it from having air holes sufficient to cause it to break out into a blaze, as the wood must be slowly charred by the heat. Attention is also given to pound with a maul the dirt close to the wood; if a large pit, a person had to get up on the coal pit to maul the dirt, causing the size of the pit to be greatly diminished. This was rather a dangerous business, lest the collier fell in the pit. I recollect seeing my father performing that operation, but no serious accident occurred to him. After it was sufficiently burnt the pit was allowed to stand a few days longer that the fire might be smothered out. Then commencing at the base and removing the dirt with shovels, and drawing the coal back with an iron-tooth rake in a row or pile around the pit, the coal was all drawn out. Care had to be taken lest the coal when exposed to the air would ignite and burn. I recollect in a few instances inexperienced coal-burners, after they had thus burnt the coal, lost all their coal in one night, by being burnt to ashes.

Previous to 1820 a log meeting-house was built near the east bank of Middle Fork of Whitewater, where the earliest settlers of the Carolina Friends congregated. There Edward Bond lived, and his several sons and daughters with families, also lived, with a number of other relatives. This was called an “indulged meeting,” tributary to Whitewater meeting. In this log meeting-house the first school was taught, by James Wright, or perhaps one Robert Bratton, an unmarried man that came to the settlement in 1807. This meeting place was about two miles from my father’s home; the road to that meeting was a winding dirt road, and upon the new arrival of the eastern comers above mentioned, that log meeting-house of about twenty feet square was filled with a promiscuous company. Among the arrivals was the large family of the Graves’s, four brothers, all large, robust men in the meridian of life, having correspondingly buxom and healthy wives and large families each. Their heavy wagons and large horses that they brought their families to Whitewater with, contrasted muchly with the Carolina wagons, carts and tacklings that have been faintly described.

Making Sugar

I have omitted to mention how sugar and molasses were made. At first they were lavish in mutilating the sugar-trees, so called, by chopping a good sized notch with an ax, that would hold near a pint of sap, then they bored an auger hole slanting into the notch below it, and placed a “spile” in, made of split elder stalks, taking out the pith, or paw-paw. To save the sap, they split out of straight timber, blocks cut about two feet long, and with their axes chopped out a trough to hold about a bucket full; this was set under the spile on the ground. But, as before stated, all the cattle and hogs roamed at large; they caused trouble by the troughs being rooted over by the hogs and the sap drank by the cows. To remedy this, some had legs to their sugar troughs and leaned the troughs against the trees some four or five feet from the ground. Then they dug a hole or furnace in the ground among the trees, and placed the sugar kettles alluded to over the furnace, carrying or hauling the water in a barrel on a sled to the “camp” to fill the kettles with the sap. Those who could afford it had several kettles and large pots, the smallest always at the rear; a roaring fire was kept up, and the sap was boiled down for hours, occasionally filling up as it would evaporate, till the sap became diminished in quantity and sweeter, when it was called syrup, and taken out; when sufficient syrup was boiled it was “stirred off” or grained and became sugar. This sugar was very pleasant to the taste and sometimes pretty fair. When molasses only was wanted, the syrup was boiled merely to the required thickness. It was considered a most delicious desert to an unsophisticated pioneer; indeed it was a luxury far superior to the cane molasses, with all the refining it is put through of late years. Sorghum is no comparison.