USA > Indiana > Wayne County > History of Wayne County, Indiana, from its first settlement to the present time : with numerous biographical and family sketches > Part 5
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39
52
HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY.
fully changed the aspect of farming, and increased incalculably the power of production.
In harvesting the change is most striking. Before the decay and removal of the stumps permitted the use of the grain- cradle, the cutting of grain was mostly done with the sickle, not at all used now for its original purpose. It was then a staple article of merchandise. In the old day-books and journals of the early merchants, if they could be found, might be seen the charge, "To 1 Sickle," under the names of scores of customers, followed, in many cases, by that other charge, "To 1 Gal. Whisky," an article then deemed by some as necessary in harvesting as the instrument itself. The cradle, which superseded the sickle, is fast giving way-indeed, has in some parts of the country already given way-to the reaper, an instrument then not more likely to be invented than the photographic art, or the means of hourly communication with the inhabitants on the opposite side of the globe. Single fields of wheat of one hundred to five hundred acres each, are not rare in some of the western states. Let a man imagine an at- tempt to cut these immense fields of grain by handfuls with the sickle, and he can not fail to appreciate the invention of the reaper.
Grain was threshed with a flail, which, in its rudest form, was made of a hickory sapling about two inches thick, and seven or eight feet long. About two feet and a half from one end it was roasted in the fire, and at this place it was bruised or beaten, so as to cause it to bend. With this, grain was beaten out on the ground, if there was no barn floor. Another way of making a flail was to tie a stick, two or three feet long and two inches thick, to one end of a staff of the size and length of a hoe handle, with a strong cord or leather string. A green ยท hand, with this instrument, seldom failed of getting his head hit with one end of the swingel. 'There were no fanning-mills to separate the grain from the chaff. No mill peddler had yet ventured so far west as Whitewater. To "raise the wind," a linen sheet was taken from the bed, and held at the corners by two men; and by a semi-rotary motion or swinging of one side of the sheet, the chaff was driven from the falling grain, the pure wheat lying in a pile ready to be garnered, or placed
53
EARLY TILLAGE.
under the bed for safe-keeping, until there was occasion to take it to mill. The tow-linen sheet was at length superseded by the fanning-mill. A single machine now receives the sheaves, and delivers the cleaned grain at the rate of several hundred bushels a day. A reaper is in use in some of the western states which carries two binders, and drops along its track the cut grain in sheaves, bound.
In hay harvesting, also, improvements would seem to have reached perfection. A lad of sufficient age to drive a team, mows from fifty to one hundred acres of meadow in an ordi- nary haying season; and the hay is all raked during the same time by a single hand.
An old settler, who has furnished the writer valuable infor- mation on several subjects, thus describes the method of har- vesting and cleaning wheat, supplying some slight omissions in the description already given :
Wheat was cut by hand with reap-hooks, [sickles,] bound, and put into shocks, and when sufficiently dried, into stacks. Before the farmer had a good barn floor, the wheat was threshed on the ground with a flail, a place having been pre- pared by beating down the clay with a maul. To separate it from the chaff, a riddle, [coarse sieve,] about 30 inches in di- ameter, was made by bending a wooden hoop 5 or 6 inches wide, and for a bottom, weaving splints across through holes made with a gimlet, and fastening them on the outside of the hoop. [Hosca C. Tillson, of Bethel, has yet in his possession a riddle of this kind made more than forty years ago.] A tow sheet was taken to make wind. This was done by two men, each taking an end, and whirling it over quickly. Another man holding up and shaking the riddle full of wheat in the chaff, the wind would blow the chaff from the falling wheat. About ten bushels were thus cleaned in half a day. After barns were built with floors, wheat was tramped out by horses. When the stubs and the small stumps had disap- peared, cradles and fanning-mills came into use.
Getting grinding done, continues our friend, was for several years attended with difficulty. The settlers in the north- eastern part of the county were dependent upon mills in the vicinity of where Richmond now is. The mill afterward built
54
HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY.
by Jeremiah Cox, Jun., six miles north of Richmond, afforded great relief to these northern settlers. But, like other early and cheaply constructed mills, it could not serve them in the dry and very cold seasons of the year. It was inclosed in a log building, and had two runs of stones. Having no elevators, the miller, when the wheat was ground, had to carry the flour in a sack up to the bolting chest. This mill was visited from a great distance by men and boys bringing grain on horseback along the new and winding paths through the woods.
The settler above alluded to also tells of a hand-mill that was resorted to in dry and cold weather. It was fixed on a square frame about as high as a table. In the upper stone, or runner, was a hole in which was put a staff, the upper end of which passed up through the floor overhead into the loft. Two persons standing opposite each other and taking hold of the staff, would whirl the upper stone round ; one of them feed- ing the mill by throwing in the grain by single handfuls. A few mills run by horse power were built. A person wanting grinding done, would hitch his own horses to the mill. The people of that section were at length relieved by the erection of a steam grist-mill at Newport Falls in 1833. A small mill had been built on Middle Fork, east of Bethel, in 1829, which did much grinding when water was plenty.
While by the invention of the cultivator and other labor- saving implements, the power and facility of producing corn has been greatly increased, in the harvesting there has been comparatively little improvement. To this operation the em- ployment of machinery would seem to be impracticable. Dif- ferent modes have been practiced here. In the fall, while yet in a greenish state, the blades were stripped from the stalks, bound in bundles, and housed or stacked for cattle and sheep in winter. Sometimes the stalks with the leaves on were topped, that is, cut off just above the lower end of the ear ; and these tops also were saved for fodder. When the corn was sufficiently dry, the cars were pulled from the stalks, and hauled into the log barn, or to the side of a rail pen; the rails having been notched down to make it tight enough to hold the cars when husked. The cattle were then turned into the field to feed on the stalks in the winter.
55
HOME MANUFACTURES.
The husking was performed by that ancient-now obsolete- institution called corn-husking, in which the neighbors, old and young, were invited to participate. The anticipation of a " good time " secured a general attendance. A good supper, which several of the "neighbor women " had assisted in pre- paring, was usually served at eight or nine o'clock. The " old folks" would then leave, and in due time the boys would gal- lant the girls to their homes. The recreation afforded to the young people on the annual recurrence of these festive occa- sions, was as highly enjoyed and quite as innocent as most of the amusements of the present boasted age of refinement.
Home Manufactures.
After a brief residence at their new homes, the settlers found themselves in need of new clothing, which some of them were unable to purchase. Even the few who had money, could not supply themselves without great difficulty. The inhabitants of Whitewater were yet shut out from the commercial world. The nearest market town was Cincinnati ; and the only mode of transportation was by wagons over roads almost impassable most of the year. The settlers were obliged to supply them- selves chiefly by their own hands. Farmers, even in the older states, manufactured their own cloth, both for summer and winter wear.
Flax was at first raised chiefly for the lint, for the reason, probably, that the seed would not pay for its transportation to market. When the seed was about ripe, the flax was pulled up by the roots, and spread on the ground to rot. The rotting is done by the rains and the dew. It does not impair the strength of the lint; it only makes the straw brittle, that it may be easily separated from the lint. In preparing it for spinning, it passes through the several processes of breaking, scutching, or swingling, and hackling, or hatcheling. The part combed out by this last process, is called tow. It was made into a coarser fabric, for men's shirts and trowsers for common wear. The warp of this tow cloth was often-perhaps gen- erally-spun from the fine flax, the filling alone being spun from the tow. The fine linen was more generally worn by
56
HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY.
women, but was sometimes made into men's undergarments for Sunday wear.
The spinning exercise is one which few of the present generation of our girls have ever enjoyed. The wheel used for spinning flax was called the "little wheel " to distinguish it from the "big wheel" used for spinning wool. These " stringed instruments " furnished the principal music of the family, and were operated by our mothers and grandmothers with great skill, attained without expense, and by far less practice, than is necessary for our modern dames to acquire a skillful use of their elegant and costly instruments. They were indispensable household articles in those days; and, fortunately, a maker of them was among the early settlers. This wheelwright, in the person of Daniel Trimble, was regarded as a common benefactor to the inhabitants for many miles round. He was a son-in-law of John Smith. A few years later came Wm. Williams, a man of the same craft, and equally useful, perhaps more so; for, being an esteemed preacher of the society of Friends, after six days' labor in supplying their temporal wants, he ministered the next day to their spiritual needs.
The loom was not less necessary than the wheel. Not every house, however, in which spinning was done, had a loom. But there were always some who, besides doing their own weaving, did some also for those who could not do it for themselves.
Woolen cloth also was a household manufacture. Settlers having succeeded in raising some sheep despite the devouring wolves, they commenced making cloth. The shearing of sheep was attended with trouble and delay, as that indispen- sable article, sheep-shears, was not owned by every farmer. One sometimes performed the circuit of a neighborhood. There being at first no carding machines, wool was carded and made into short rolls with hand-cards. These rolls were spun on the "big wheel," which may still be seen in the houses of some of the old settlers, being occasionally used for spinning and twisting stocking yarn. It was turned with the hand, and with such velocity as to give it sufficient momentum to enable the nimble mother, by her backward
57
HOME MANUFACTURES.
step, to draw out and twist her thread of nearly the length of the cabin. Woolen cloth was woven on the loom used for weaving linen. A common article made was linsey, also called linsey-woolsey, of which the warp or chain was linen, and the filling woolen.
Several years elapsed before fulled cloth was made, there being no fulling mills and cloth-dressing establishments. Flannel, all wool, was also made, and worn by the mothers and daughters. Flannel for women's wear, after dye-stuffs were to be had, was dyed such color as the wearers fancied. It was sometimes a plaid made of yarn of various colors, home-dyed. To improve their appearance, these flannels were sent to a cloth-dressing mill for a slight dressing, which was finished by a powerful pressing between large sheets of smooth pasteboard, to give it a glossy surface.
Long after the country had passed its pioneer state, the farmers' houses continued to be miniature linen and woolen factories, in which the labor was chiefly performed by the wife and mother until the daughters were able to assist. Where there was more spinning to be done than the wife could do in addition to her housework, and where the daughters were too young to help, spinsters were employed to come into families to spin flax and tow in the winter, and wool in the summer. These itinerant spinsters received a "York shilling " [12] cents] a day-the day's work ending at early bed-time. Some will be surprised when told that many of these women had money to show at the year's end. It was to some extent a custom to count a certain number of "cuts" of yarn as a day's work. This had a tendency to accelerate the motion of the wheel, and lessen the hours of labor. These small earnings would not go far toward clothing Whitewater farmers' daughters of the present generation. Then young women were dressed in cloth of their own manufacture, except the calico for the summer Sunday dress, six yards being a full pattern for a woman of ordinary size.
The linen made in families was not all worn in its brown or natural color. That which was intended for certain uses was bleached. It was spread on the grass, wet by sprinkling
58
HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY.
several times a day, and dried in sunshine. By this alternate wetting and drying, it was soon bleached to a perfect white.
Much dyeing, too, as has been already intimated, was done in the family. Dye-woods and dye-stuff's formed no small portion of a country merchant's stock. Barrels of chipped Nicaragua, log-wood, and other woods, and kegs of madder, alum, copperas, vitriol, indigo, etc., constituted a large part of teamsters' loading for the merchants. Many, doubtless, remember the old dye-tub standing in the chimney corner, covered with a board, and used as a seat for children when chairs were wanted for visitors, or when new supplies of furniture failed to keep pace with the increase of the family. Mr. Goodrich, [Peter Parley,] describing early life in his native town in Connecticut, speaks of this "institution of the dye-tub," as having, "when the night had waned, and the family had retired, frequently become the anxious seat of the lover, who was permitted to carry on his courtship, the object of his addresses sitting demurely in the opposite corner." We have no authority for saying that it was ever used here on such occasions.
Nearly all the cloth worn was "home-made." Rarely was a farmer or his son seen in a coat made of any other. If, occasionally, a young man appeared in a suit of "boughten" cloth, he was an object of envy to his rustic associates; or he was suspected of having got it for a particular occasion which occurs in the life of nearly every man. Few, except merchants, lawyers, doctors, and some village mechanics, wore cloth that had not passed through the hands of the country cloth-dresser. Hence merchants kept very small stocks of broadcloth. Cloths of the finer qualities they sometimes bought in small pieces, containing a certain number of patterns-one, two, or three-to avoid loss on remnants.
There were also tailoresses who came into families to make up men's and boys' winter clothing. The cutting was mostly done by the village tailor, if there was a village near. "Bad fits," which were not uncommon, were generally charged to the cutter. Hence the custom of tailors, when inserting in their advertisements, "Cutting done on short notice, and
59
HOME MANUFACTURES.
warranted to fit," to append the very prudent proviso, "if properly made up." These seamstresses charged twenty-five cents a day for their work. This was thought by some em- ployers rather exorbitant, as the common price of help at housework was but one-half as much.
The need of leather soon became pressing. The shoes brought in by the settlers were worn out. Large boys and girls had to go barefoot the greater part of the year, even to meeting. Tanneries of limited capacity were established. Some, having waited impatiently for the tanners to turn out leather, set up for themselves, and tanned the hides of their slaughtered cattle in a trough. Others substituted for shoes the cheaper article of moccasins, similar to those worn by the Indians. Skins of various kinds of animals were tanned for this purpose. Moccasins were sometimes sewed with leather thongs. An early settler yet living says, that in the days of his boyhood he tanned squirrel skins in a sugar trough, and made moccasins for himself; and he thought himself a little above his companions when he wore them to Whitewater meeting. Shoes for both feet were made on one last. "Rights and lefts" were unknown in those days. Boots were little worn by men, except in the winter season.
We have spoken of houses as linen and woolen factories. Some were also shoe-shops. In some parts of the country there was, in almost every neighborhood, a circulating shoe- maker, who made his annual autumnal circuit with his "kit." The children had a happy time during his sojourn, which lasted one, two, or more weeks, according to the number of feet to be shod. This custom, it is believed, never prevailed so generally here as in some other places. Many made shoes for themselves and their families. Men's boots and shoes were usually made of coarse leather, commonly called cow- hide. Occasionally a young man attained the enviable dis- tinetion of appearing in a pair of calf-skin boots made by a regular workman. In this department of dress, as in others, in respect to style and expense, the past and the present ex- hibit a remarkable contrast.
We only add, a marked and general revolution in house- hold labor has been effected since the days of our mothers
60
HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY.
and grandmothers. The substitution of cotton for flax, and of the various kinds of labor-saving machinery for hand- cards and family spinning-wheels and looms, has vastly lightened the labor of women. One of the results of these improvements is the opportunity they afford for mental and intellectual culture. That the mass of American women duly improve these opportunities will hardly be affirmed.
In confirmation of what has been said in relation to the des- titution of early settlers, and of the difficulty of obtaining com- fortable clothing, an old settler in a northern township of this county writes : " I remember when I got the first pair of boots I ever had. I got them to travel in when I went abroad to preach. I was called proud because I had boots. Women also who wore checked cotton dresses every day, were called proud. We then had no idea how people would dress as soon as they were able. On account of the difficulty of protecting sheep from the wolves, few were kept; and many families were un- able to supply themselves with woolen clothes. For men's and boys' winter clothing, recourse was had to tanned and dressed deer-skins. When grown stiff by getting wet, they were limbered by whipping them on a log or a post. Some wore coats made of undressed skins."
From another northern township an old settler writes: "I have frequently seen families go to meeting barefoot. I have often heard it said of a preacher on the circuit when this was a wilderness, that the people went to hear their 'new preacher' on a week day. Being neatly dressed, and wearing a pair of fine boots, they thought him too much of a fop to preach. After he had closed his sermon, a laboring man who had left his field and come to meeting barefoot, got up and gave a warm and stirring exhortation, under the effects of which a good old brother shouted, 'Lord! send us more barefooted preachers.'"
It is presumed this anecdote, kindly furnished by our friend, was intended simply as an illustration of the destitute con- dition and some of the characteristics of the early settlers and not at all as justifying the vulgar prejudices indulged by some in those days against persons better dressed than them- selves. Happily the days have gone by when "good clothes "
61
SUGAR MAKING.
are regarded by any as a badge of dishonor, or as evidence of one's unfitness for any position or calling. Many a poor, per- haps shoeless pioneer has, by hard labor and proper economy, become a "lord of the soil," and, if yet living, is himself one of that class upon whom he once looked with envy or distrust.
Sugar Making.
Not until after the settlers had supplied themselves with the more needful articles of clothing and with edibles of various kinds, did wheat bread become a common article of food. It had not been "daily bread," but had been eaten only occasionally, as on Sundays and when visitors came. Then one would get a little of this luxury, with some "store coffee." Fortunately, there was not the same lack of sweet- ening material. The sugar maple furnished an abundance of sugar and molasses.
Trees were "tapped " in various ways. Generally a notch was cut into a tree with an ax, or a hole bored with an auger, below which a spile, or spout, was inserted to conduct the sap into a trough. Troughs were made from easy splitting trees 12 to 15 inches in diameter. They were cut into pieces about two feet long, which were split exactly through the center. Of each of these halves was made with an ax a trough, holding about a common pailful of sap. The sap was generally carried in pails or buckets to the boiling place, and emptied into a reservoir, which was a long trough made of a large tree, and holding many barrels. Sometimes a number of empty barrels or casks were taken to the bush, and used for that purpose. The kettles were hung against the side of a large log or fallen tree, and the sap was boiled down to a thin syrup and strained. The straining and final boiling were usually done in the house. For molasses, it was boiled to the proper consistency ; for sugar, until it was granulated, when it was poured into dishes to cool, and taken out in solid cakes.
Great improvements on the carly mode of sugar-making have been made. Wooden and tin buckets have been sub- stituted for the rough, uncouth trough which could not be emptied without waste. Kettles are sometimes set in tight
62
HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY.
furnaces of stone laid in lime mortar. Coals, ashes, and other dirt are thus kept out of the kettles, and clean, light- colored sugar is produced. The first settlers had no market for their surplus sugar and molasses. Each made for himself; and there was no store in all the valley; nor, if there had been, would a merchant have taken sugar at a remunerative price, even in exchange for goods, as it would not have borne transportation to market. The nominal price was 5 or 6 cents a pound, though its cash value was probably, for a time, scarcely half that price. Those who have spared their sugar- trees, have, for several years past, received a fair reward for their labor in its production.
Early Stores.
One of the great needs of the early settlers was a store. This was partially supplied by John Smith, who, in 1810, com- menced the keeping of a small store in a log building near the present public square, south of Main street. Smith is said to have brought his first stock on horseback, on pack saddles, from Cincinnati. But the late Cornelius Van Arsdale, an old merchant in Eaton, Ohio, has been heard to say he sold to Smith his first goods. These were probably the goods sup- posed to have been brought from Cincinnati on horseback. The early merchants got their supplies from that town. Goods were brought on wagons over roads almost impassable; the time required to make a trip being from about six to ten days.
Although the inhabitants rejoiced at the establishment of a store, the great expense at which goods were transported, the high prices necessarily charged for them, and the low prices of produce so far from market, made it almost impossible for some to purchase the goods they most needed. The following is a statement of prices, as found in Dr. Plummer's History of Richmond :
"In 1810, bacon sold at 23 cents per pound ; corn, 20 to 25 cents per bushel ; but there was a season of great scarcity, when it sold for $1.25 per bushel-probably in 1819. Sugar was manu- factured from the sugar-tree in large quantities, and sold here at 3, 4, and 6 cents per pound, while hogsheads of it were taken to the South in exchange for raw cotton, which was in
63
EARLY STORES.
great demand here. It was spun and woven by the women, and the fabrics were sold at the stores. Butter for a long time sold at 3, 4. and 6 cents per pound ; wheat at 37} to 50 cents ; oats, in 1820, were 8 cents per bushel. Apples, at the earliest periods, were brought from Redstone, Pa., by way of Cincin- nati, and sold at $1 to $1.50 per bushel. 'Many a time,' said an old woman, ' have I paid Robert Morrisson fifty cents a yard for muslin, which can now be bought for eight and ten cents ; and I paid for it, too, with butter and sugar at six cents a pound.'"
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.