History of White County Illinois, Part 7

Author: Inter-State Publishing Company
Publication date: 1883
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 831

USA > Illinois > White County > History of White County Illinois > Part 7

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

"The working and voyaging dress of the French masses," says Reynolds, " was simple and primitive. The French were like the lilies of the valley [ the Old Ranger was not always exact in his quotations],-they neither spun nor wove any of their clothing, but purchased it from the merchants. The white blanket coat, known as the capot, was the universal and eternal coat for the winter with the masses. A cape was made of it that could be raised over the head in cold weather.

"In the house, and in good weather, it hung behind, a cape to the blanket coat. The reason that I know these coats so well is that I have worn many in my youth, and a working man never wore a better garment. Dressed deer-skins and blue cloth were worn commonly in the winter for pantaloons. The blue handker- chief and the deer-skin moccasins covered the head and feet gener- ally of the French Creoles. In 1800 scarcely a man thought him- self clothed unless he had a belt tied round his blanket coat, and on one side was hung the dressed skin of a pole-cat filled with tobacco, pipe, flint and steel. On the other side was fastened, under the belt, the butcher knife. A Creole in this dress felt like Tam O'Shanter filled with usquebangh; he could face the devil. Checked calico shirts were then common, but in winter flannel was frequently worn. In the summer the laboring men and the voyagers often took their shirts off in hard work and hot weather, and turned out the naked back to the air and sun."

" Among the Americans," he adds, "home-made wool hats were the common wear. Fur hats were not common, and scarcely a boot was seen. The covering of the feet in winter was chiefly moccasins made of deer-skins and shoe-packs of tanned leather. Some wore shoes, but not common in very early times. In the summer the greater portion of the young people, male and female,

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and many of the old, went barefoot. The substantial and universal outside wear was the blue linsey hunting shirt. This is an excel- lent garment, and I have never felt so happy and healthy since I laid it off. It is made of wide sleeves, open before, with ample size so as to envelop the body almost twice around. Sometimes it had a large cape, which answers well to save the shoulders from the rain. A belt is mostly used to keep the garment close around the person, and, nevertheless, there is nothing tight about it to hamper the body. It is often fringed, and at times the fringe is composed of red, and other gay colors. The belt, frequently, is sewed to the hunting shirt. The vest was mostly made of striped linsey. The colors were made often with alum, copperas and madder, boiled with the bark of trees, in such a manner and proportions as the old ladies prescribed. The pantaloons of the masses were generally made of deer-skin and linsey. Coarse blue cloth was sometimes made into pantaloons.

"Linsey, neat and fine, manufactured at home, composed generally the outside garments of the females as well as the males. The ladies had linsey colored and woven to suit their fancy. A bonnet, composed of calico, or some gay goods, was worn on the head when they were in the open air. Jewelry on the pioneer ladies was uncommon; a gold ring was an ornament not often seen."

In 1820 a change of dress began to take place, and before 1830, according to Ford, most of the pioneer costume had disappeared. "The blue linsey hunting-shirt, with red or white fringe, had given place to the cloth coat. [Jeans would be more like the fact. ] The raccoon cap, with the tail of the animal dangling down behind, had been thrown aside for hats of wool or fur. Boots and shoes had supplied the deer-skin moccasins; and the leather breeches, strapped tight around the ankle, had disappeared before unmentionables of a more modern material. The female sex had made still greater prog- ress in dress. The old sort of cotton or woolen frocks, spun, woven and made with their own fair hands, and striped and cross-barred with blue dye and Turkey red, had given place to gowns of silk and calico. The feet, before in a state of nudity, now charmed in shoes of calf-skin or slippers of kid; and the head, formerly unbonneted, but covered with a cotten handkerchief, now displayed the charms of the female face under many forms of bonnets of straw, silk and Leghorn. The young ladies, instead of walking a mile or two to church on Sunday, carrying their shoes and stockings in their hands until within a hundred yards of the place of worship, as formerly,

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now came forth arrayed complete in all the pride of dress, mounted on fine horses and attended by their male admirers."

The last half century has doubtless witnessed changes quite a6 great as those set forth by our Illinois historian. The chronicler of to-day, looking back to the golden days of 1830 to 1840, and comparing them with the present, must be struck with the tendency of an almost monotonous uniformity in dress and manners that comes from the easy inter-communication afforded by steamer, rail- way, telegraph and newspaper. Home manufacturers have been driven from the household by the lower-priced fabrics of distant mills. The Kentucky jeans, and the copperas-colored clothing of home manufacture, so familiar a few years ago, have given place to the cassimeres and cloths of noted factories. The ready-made clothing stores, like a touch of nature, made the whole world kin- and may drape the charcoal man in a dress-coat and a stove-pipe hat. The prints and silks of England and France give a variety of choice and an assortment of colors and shades such as the pioneer women could hardly have dreamed of. Godey and Demorest and Harper's Bazar are found in our modern farm-houses, and the latest fashions of Paris are not uncommon.

FAMILY WORSHIP.

The Methodists were generally first on the ground in pioneer settlements, and at that early day they seemed more demonstrative in their devotions than at the present time. In those days, too, pul- pit oratory was generally more eloquent and effective, while the grammatical dress and other " worldly " accomplishments were not so assiduously cultivated as at present. But in the manner of con- ducting public worship there has probably not been so much change as in that of family worship, or "family prayers," as it was often called. We had then most emphatically an American edition of that pious old Scotch practice so eloquently described in Burns' " Cotter's Saturday Night:"

The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face They round the ingle formed a circle wide; The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace, The big ha' Bible, ance his father's pride; His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside, His lyart haffets wearing thin and bare; Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide; He wales a portion with judicious care, And " let us worsnip God," he says with solemn air.

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They chant their artless notes in simple guise ; They tune their hearts,-by far the noblest aim; Perhaps " Dundee's" wild warbling measures rise, Or plaintive " Martyrs," worthy of the name; Or noble " Elgin " beats the heavenward flame,- The sweetest far of Scotia's hallowed lays. Compared with these, Italian trills are tame; The tickled ear no heart-felt raptures raise: Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise.

The priest-like father reads the sacred page,- How Abraham was the friend of God on high, etc.

Then kneeling down, to heaven's Eternal King The saint, the father and the husband prays; Hope " springs exulting on triumphant wing," That thus they all shall meet in future days; There ever bask in uncreated rays, No more to sigh or shed the bitter tear,

Together hymning their Creator's praise, In such society, yet still more dear, While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere.

Once or twice a day, in the morning just before breakfast, or in the evening just before retiring to rest, the head of the family would call those around him to order, read a chapter in the Bible, announce the hymn and tune by commencing to sing it, when all would join; then he would deliver a most fervent prayer. If a pious guest was present he would be called on to take the lead in all the exercises of the evening; and if in those days a person who prayed in the family or in public did not pray as if it were his very last on earth, his piety was thought to be defective.

The familiar tunes of that day are remembered by the surviving old settlers as being more spiritual and inspiring than those of the present day, such as Bourbon, Consolation, China, Canaan, Con- quering Soldier, Condescension, Devotion, Davis, Fiducia, Funeral Thought, Florida, Golden Hill, Greenfields, Ganges, Idumea, Imandra, Kentucky, Lenox, Leander, Mear, New Orleans, North field, New Salem, New Durham, Olney, Primrose, Pisgah, Pleyel's Hymn, Rockbridge, Rockingham, Reflection, Supplication, Salva- tion, St. Thomas, Salem, Tender Thought, Windham, Greenville, etc., as they are named in the Missouri Harmony.

Members of other orthodox denominations also had their family prayers in which, however, the phraseology of the prayer was some- what different and the voice not so loud as characterized the real Methodists, United Brethren, etc.

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HOSPITALITY.

The traveler always found a welcome at the pioneer's cabin. It was never full. Although there might be already a guest for every puncheon, there was still "room for one more," and a wider circle would be made for the new-comer at the log fire. If the stranger was in search of land, he was doubly welcome, and his host would volunteer to show him all the " first-rate claims in this neck of the woods," going with him for days, showing the corners and advan- tages of every "Congress tract " within a dozen miles of his own cabin.

To his neighbors the pioneer was equally liberal. If a deer was killed, the choicest bits were sent to his nearest neighbor, a half- dozen miles away, perhaps. When a " shoat " was butchered, the same custom prevailed. If a new comer came in too late for " crop- ping," the neighbors would supply his table with just the same luxuries they themselves enjoyed, and in as liberal quantity, until a crop could be raised. When a new-comer had located his claim, the neighbors for miles around would assemble at the site of the new-comer's proposed cabin and aid him in " gittin'" it up. One party with axes would cut down the trees and hew the logs; another with teams would haul the logs to the ground; another party would " raise " the cabin; while several of the old men would " rive the clapboards " for the roof. By night the little forest domicile would be up and ready for a " house-warming," which was the dedicatory occupation of the house, when music and dancing and festivity would be enjoyed at full height. The next day the new-comer would be as well situated as his neighbors.

An instance of primitive hospitable manners will be in place here. A traveling Methodist preacher arrived in a distant neigh- borhood to fill an appointment. The house where services were to be held did not belong to a church member, but no matter for that. Boards were raked up from all quarters with which to make tem- porary seats, one of the neighbors volunteering to lead off in the work, while the man of the house, with the faithful rifle on his shoulder, sallied forth in quest of meat, for this truly was a " ground-hog " case, the preacher coming and no meat in the house. The host ceased not the chase until he found the meat, in the shape of a deer; re- turning, he sent a boy out after it, with directions on what "pint " to find it. After services, which had been listened to with rapt at-

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tention by all the audience, mine host said to his wife, "Old woman, I reckon this 'ere preacher is pretty hungry and you must git him a bite to eat." " What shall I git him ?" asked the wife, who had not seen the deer; "thar's nuthin' in the house to eat." " Why, look thar," returned he; " thar's a deer, and thar's plenty of corn in the field; you git some corn and grate it while I skin the deer, and we'll have a good supper for him." It is needless to add that venison and corn bread made a supper fit for any pio- neer preacher, and was thankfully eaten.

TRADE.

In pioneer times the transactions of commerce were generally carried on by neighborhood exchanges. Now and then a farmer would load a flat-boat with beeswax, honey, tallow and peltries, with perhaps a few bushels of wheat or corn or a few hundred clap- boards, and float down the rivers into the Ohio and thence to New Orleans, where he would exchange his produce for substantials in the shape of groceries and a little ready money, with which he would return by some one of the two or three steamboats then run- ning. Betimes there appeared at the best steamboat landings a number of "middle men " engaged in the "commission and for- warding " business, buying up the farmers' produce and the tro- phies of the chase and the trap, and sending them to the various distant markets. Their winter's accumulations would be shipped in the spring, and the manufactured goods of the far East or dis- tant South would come back in return; and in all these transac- tions scarcely any money was seen or used. Goods were sold on a year's time to the farmers, and payment made from the proceeds of the ensuing crops. When the crops were sold and the merchant satisfied, the surplus was paid out in orders on the store to labor- ing men and to satisfy other creditors. When a day's work was done by a working man, his employer would ask, " Well, what store do you want your order on?" The answer being given, the order was written and always cheerfully accepted.

MONEY.

Money was an article little known and seldom seen among the earlier settlers. Indeed, they had but little use for it, as they could transact all their business about as well without it, on the " barter " system, wherein great ingenuity was sometimes displayed. When

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it failed in any instance, long credits contributed to the conven- ience of the citizens. But for taxes and postage neither the barter nor the credit system would answer, and often letters were suffered to remain a long time in the postoffice for the want of the twenty- five cents demanded by the Government. With all this high price on postage, by the way, the letter had not been brought 500 miles in a day or two, as is the case nowadays, but had probably been weeks on the route, and the mail was delivered at the pioneer's postoffice, several miles distant from his residence, only once in a week or two. All the mail would be carried by a lone horseman. Instances are related illustrating how misrepresentation would be resorted to in order to elicit the sympathies of some one who was known to have " two bits" (25 cents) of money with him, and pro- cure the required Govermental fee for a letter.

Peltries came nearer being money than anything else, as it came to be custom to estimate the value of everything in peltries. Such an article was worth so many peltries. Even some tax collectors and postmasters were known to take peltries and exchange them for the money required by the Government.

When the first settlers first came into the wilderness they generally supposed that their hard struggle would be princi- pally over after the first year; but alas! they often looked for "easier times next year" for many years before realizing them, and then they came in so slily as to be almost imperceptible. The sturdy pioneer thus learned to bear hardships, privation and hard living, as good soldiers do. As the facilities for making money were not great, they lived pretty well satisfied in an atmosphere of good, social, friendly feeling, and thought themselves as good as those they had left behind in the East. But among the early set- tlers who came to this State were many who, accustomed to the advantages of an older civilization, to churches, schools and society, became speedily home-sick and dissatisfied. They would remain perhaps one summer, or at most two, then, selling whatever claim with its improvements they had made, would return to the older States, spreading reports of the hardships endured by the settlers here and the disadvantages which they had found, or imagined they had found, in the country. These weaklings were not an unmiti- gated curse. The slight improvements they had made were sold to men of sterner stuff, who were the sooner able to surround them- selves with the necessities of life, while their unfavorable report deterred other weaklings from coming. The men who stayed, who

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were willing to endure privations, belonged to a different guild; they were heroes every one, -men to whom hardships were things to be overcome, and present privations things to be endured for the sake of posterity, and they never shrank from this duty. It is to these hardy pioneers who could endure, that we to-day owe the wonderful improvement we have made and the development, almost miraculous, that has brought our State in the past sixty years, from a wilderness, to the front rank among the States of this great nation.

MILLING.

Not the least of the hardships of the pioneers was the procuring of bread. The first settlers must be supplied at least one year from other sources than their own lands; but the first crops, however abundant, gave only partial relief, there being no mills to grind the grain. Hence the necessity of grinding by hand power, and many families were poorly provided with means for doing this. Another way was to grate the corn. A grater was made from a piece of tin, sometimes taken from an old, worn-out tin bucket or other vessel. It was thickly perforated, bent into a semicircular form. and nailed, rough side upward, on a board. The corn was taken in the ear, and grated before it got dry and hard. Corn, however, was eaten in various ways.

Soon after the country became more generally settled, enterpris- ing men were ready to embark in the milling business. Sites along the streams were selected for water-power. A person looking for a mill-site would follow up and down the stream for a desired loca- tion, and when found he would go before the authorities and secure a writ of ad quod damnum. This would enable the miller to have the adjoining land officially examined, and the amount of damage by making a dam was named. Mills being so great a public neces- sity, they were permitted to be located upon any person's land where the miller thought the site desirable.

AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS.

The agricultural implements used by the first farmers in this State would in this age of improvement be great curiosities. The plow used was called the " bar-share " plow; the iron point consisted of a bar of iron about two feet long, and a broad share of iron welded to it. At the extreme point was a coulter that passed through a beam six or seven feet long, to which were attached handles of cor- responding length. The mold-board was a wooden one split out of

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winding timber, or hewed into a winding shape, in order to turn the soil over. Sown seed was brushed in by dragging over the ground a sapling with a bushy top. In harvesting the change is most striking. Instead of the reapers and mowers of to-day, the sickle and cradle were used. The grain was threshed with a flail, or trodden out by horses or oxen.

HOG KILLING.

Hogs were always dressed before they were taken to market. The farmer, if forehanded, would call in his neighbors some bright fall or winter morning to help " kill hogs." Immense kettles of water were heated; a sled or two, covered with loose boards or plank, constituted the platform on which the hog was cleaned, and was placed near an inclined hogshead in which the scalding was done; a quilt was thrown over the top of the latter to retain the heat; from a crotch of some convenient tree a projecting pole was rigged to hold the animals for disemboweling and thorough cleaning. When everything was arranged, the best shot of the neighborhood loaded his rifle, and the work of killing was commenced. It was con- sidered a disgrace to make a hog " squeal " by bad shooting or by a "shoulder-stick," that is, running the point of the butcher-knife into the shoulder instead of the cavity of the beast. As each hog fell, the " sticker " mounted him and plunged the butcher-knife, long and well sharpened, into his throat; two persons would then catch him by the hind legs, draw him up to the scalding tub, which had just been filled with boiling-hot water with a shovelful of good green wood ashes thrown in; in this the carcass was plunged and moved around a minute or so, that is, until the hair would slip off easi- ly, then placed on the platform where the cleaners would pitch into him with all their might and clean him as quickly as possible, with knives and other sharp-edged implements; then two stout fellows would take him up between them, and a third man to manage the " gambrel " (which was a stout stick about two feet long, sharpened at both ends, to be inserted between the muscles of the hind legs at or near the hock joint), the animal would be elevated to the pole, where the work of cleaning was finished.

After the slaughter was over and the hogs had had time to cool, such as were intended for domestic use were cut up, the lard " tried " out by the women of the household, and the surplus hogs taken to market, while the weather was cold, if possible. In those days almost every merchant had, at the rear end of his place of

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business or at some convenient building, a " pork-house," and would buy the pork of his customers and of such others as would sell to him, and cut it for the market. This gave employment to a large number of hands in every village, who would cut and pack pork all winter. The hauling of all this to the river would also give employment to a large number of teams, and the manufacture of pork barrels would keep many coopers enfployed.

Allowing for the difference of currency and manner of market- ing, the price of pork was not so high in those days as at present. Now, while calico and muslin are ten cents a yard and pork two to four cents a pound, then, while calico and muslin were twenty-five cents a yard pork was one to two cents a pound. When, as the country grew older and communications easier between the seaboard and the great West, priccs went up to two and a half and three cents a pound, the farmers thought they would always be content to raise pork at such a price; but times have changed, even con- trary to the current-cy.

There was one feature in this method of marketing pork that made the country a paradise for the poor man in the winter time. Spare-ribs, tenderloins, pigs' heads and pigs' feet were not con- sidered of any value, and were freely given to all who could use them. If a barrel was taken to any pork-house and salt furnished, the barrel would be filled and salted down with tenderloins and spare-ribs gratuitously. So great in many cases was the quantity of spare-ribs, etc., to be disposed of, that they would be hauled away in wagon-loads and dumped in the woods out of town.

In those early times much wheat was marketed at twenty-five to fifty cents a bushel, oats the same or less, and corn ten cents a bushel. A good young milch-cow could be bought for $5 to $10, and that payable in work.

Those might truly be called "close times," yet the citizens of the country were accommodating, and but very little suffering for the actual necessities of life was ever known to exist.

PRAIRIE FIRES.

Fires, set out by Indians or settlers, sometimes purposely and sometimes permitted through carelessness, would visit the prairies every autumn, and sometimes the forests, either in autumn or spring, and settlers could not always succeed in defending them- selves against the destroying element. Many interesting incidents are related. Often a fire was started to bewilder game, or to bare

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Courthouse Square when 1828 Courthouse was still standing.

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When 1883 Courthouse was new.

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a piece of ground for the early grazing of stock the ensuing spring, and it would get away under a wind, and soon be beyond control. Violent winds would often arise and drive the flames with such rapidity that riders on the fleetest steeds could scarcely escape. On the approach of a prairie fire the farmer would immediately set about "cutting off supplies " for the devouring enemy by a " back fire." Thus, by starting a small fire near the bare ground about his premises, and keeping it under control next his property, he would burn off a strip around him and prevent the attack of the on-coming flames. A few furrows or a ditch around the farm con- stituted a help in the work of protection.

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History of White County Illinois, Part 7

Author: Inter-State Publishing Company Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Number of Pages: 831

Author: Inter-State Publishing Company
Publication date: 1883
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 831