USA > North Carolina > Chowan County > Economic and social history of Chowan County, North Carolina, 1880-1915 > Part 3
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The first separate enumeration by counties of the foreign born was in 1860. That year there were 12 in the county from foreign lands. Two decades later there were only 6 of this class, and the highest recorded for any census year is 23 for 1890. The average for the six decennial years for which these data were gathered is only 16. In 1870,
1 It was during this decade that the first railroad reached Edenton and that the first big saw-mill was erected there. Much other construction work was also gotten under way during this period.
2 Cf. table 5, p. 265.
3 Cf. Griffith J. McRee, Life and Correspondence of James Iredell (New York, 1857), pp. 30-36, passim.
4 Cf. table 5, p. 265.
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for the first time, account was taken of the native born of foreign and of mixed parentage. There were just 24, the highest number recorded for any decennial year. In the 1880 census, this item was left out. The average was under 17 for the three censuses following.1
Origin, Color and Nativity of Present Inhabitants .- From the foregoing it is quite clear that the growth of Chowan's population for at least the past one hundred years has been overwhelmingly by natural increase from the native stock. But this is only what one might expect. Em- bracing part of the oldest settled portion of the state, being naturally one of the most accessible sections and one of those most favored by nature in general, Chowan, as a matter of course, was one of the first counties to fill up. Those who have come in during the past three-quarters of a century have come in for special purposes. The labor of the one cotton-mill in the county is largely from other parts of the state. Those coming from Virginia in the seventies and eighties were mostly colored laborers who came to work at the saw-mills, in the lumber woods, and on the railroads. The whites from other states have been in- terested primarily in lumbering, saw-milling, railroading and manufacturing, while the few from foreign countries have been nearly all traders of some sort or other. There is now only one farmer of foreign birth in the county.
In 1910 the foreign born and the native born of foreign and of mixed parentage totaled only 34, about three-tenths of one per cent of the entire population. In other words, 305 out of every 306 of the inhabitants of the county were native stock of more than two generations back. In fact these people are descended from Americans for so many generations back that probably less than one per cent of them
1 Calculated from table 5, p. 265.
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POPULATION
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outside of Edenton, and comparatively few there, know from just what part of the world their ancestors came. The pro- genitors of probably 98 per cent of the present population came either from Africa or the British Isles. Slavery was well established in the colonies when Albemarle first began to be settled.1 The blacks came in along with the whites, and at every census except the second (1800), the colored population has outnumbered the white, the average excess for the thirteen decennial censuses being 10 per cent.2
From the foregoing pages, even though nothing further were said, one could form a fairly good idea of the nature of the present population. The pages following, however, por- traying as they do the life of these people for the past three and a half decades, will give to him who has the interest to continue, their character in considerable detail.
1 Whites, Indians, and Negroes were all held in bondage at this time. Ashe, op. cit., p. 84.
2 Cf. table 4, p. 264.
A
PART II DEVELOPMENT OF ECONOMIC LIFE
CHAPTER III
AGRICULTURE IN THE EIGHTIES 1
GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE OCCUPATIONS OF THE PEOPLE
CHOWAN in 1880 was (and continues to be) preemi- nently a farming county. The other industries were largely what might be termed " bye-industries "-occu- pations followed intermittently by the farmer when he felt that he could leave his farm for a few days or weeks. In fact, as these were carried on, many of them might almost be said to have constituted part of farming, so undifferentiated were they from, and necessary to, the actual farm work. Few of the various occupations had called into being special classes who followed them and them only; consequently the farmer was forced to carry them on himself in order that his farming might go on to the best advantage. The agricultural interests of the millers, merchants, carpenters, cobblers, schoolmasters, and blacksmiths not infrequently yielded them a larger return than did their trade. Even many of the profes- sional men (lawyers, physicians, clergymen) received a considerable portion of their income from their own farms, some of them actually doing farm labor.
With the exception of those living at the county-seat, a town of less than fourteen hundred, the entire popula- tion of the county (in 1880, 7,900) lived on farms, and
1 The " eighties " in this volume will always refer to those of the nineteenth century.
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the vast majority of the townspeople had farming inter- ests.
GETTING LAND READY FOR CULTIVATION
At the time that this account begins no large amount of land was being cleared, but many of the more substan- tial farmers were taking in some new ground every few years ; a few cleared a little practically every year. So, in order to obtain a complete picture of agriculture, and obtain it in is proper chronology, let us first look at the process of getting land under the plow.
Timber .- At this time timber, except the very finest of heart and such other timber as was near streams large enough to float it, had little or no value. On land that was to be cleared it was simply an incumbrance to be gotten rid of with the least possible cost. The larger trees, except what few were used for rails, boards, and building purposes on the place, were generally "deaded." 1
Deading .- There were two or three reasons why the trees were "deaded " rather than cut immediately. In the first place, it was thought that if the trees were deaded, instead of being cut down green, some of the strength drawn by the tree from the soil would flow back to it. Again, trees would season better standing than when lying on the ground, and so were more easily burned. Lastly, the deaded pine trees were frequently left stand- ing for a few years after the ground had actually been brought into cultivation. Since the larger stumps were never removed till after the land had been farmed for years, it caused no added inconvenience in working the land to leave the entire dead trees standing for one or
1 The " deading" process is simply the chopping of a line some two inches deep around the tree with an axe. This line is anywhere from 18 inches to 4 feet above the ground.
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two seasons," and had the advantage of allowing one to put his ground in cultivation more quickly. The trees could be taken care of later when the farmer had more time, and besides, they made most excellent firewood. As a rule, however, the trees were all cut and burned before the land was put under the plow. The larger trees were deaded from one to three winters before the begin- ning of the actual clearing, which started with the cut- ting and burning of the smaller trees and undergrowth. Later the larger trees were cut down, cut into sticks that could be handled, and with the assistance of the neigh- bors heaped together. This process of heaping was known as "log rolling." ?
Roots and Stumps .- After everything was burned off, the ground was hoed, every inch of it, by hand, with an ordinary grubbing hoe. On an average this required from twelve to fifteen days to the acre, and at that, re- moved only the roots and smaller stumps, the larger ones being left. All except the pineheart stumps rotted within a few years. These latter were "lightwood " 3 and were good for from twenty-five to one hundred years, or longer, if they were not removed. The only way the farmer knew of doing this was to dig them up. If this had been attempted at any time within two or three years after clearing (before sufficient time had elapsed for the rotting away of the sap), the getting up of the worst of them would have taken one man a week or
1 Those who followed this practice often left the trees so long that the limbs would rot, fall off, and tear up the growing crop. In case of winds, whole trees would sometimes blow down, doing considerable damage.
2 Cf. infra, p. 181 for the social features of "log-rolling."
3 " Lightwood " is pine wood that is thoroughly saturated with turpen- tine. The best of it will last almost indefinitely, either in the ground or out of it.
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more. Even after they had stood for ten or fifteen years it frequently required a half-day or more to get one up. For this reason they were left for years, occupying much space and interfering with cultivation. The prevalence of stumpy land was and is one of the factors making for the slow introduction of improved farm tools and ma- chinery. Many a plow has been wrecked on these stumps, and many a plowman's patience severely tried by them. Many horses will not plow in stumpy ground, especially if they are fretful and have a tendency to kick. Often when plowing a fractious horse, as you pulled the plow out to go around a stump, he would strike a trot and perhaps jerk the plow against the stump or an un- covered root, causing the handles to fly up and deliver you a "solar plexus" if you were a man, and an "upper- cut" on the jaw if you were a ten- or twelve-year-old lad, either of which was of sufficient force to have caused you to "take the count," had it not been that you were hanging on to the plow handles for dear life.
The " grubs" (roots and small stumps hoed up) were raked together and burned. In this way much of the vegetable matter was taken off the land at the start, in- stead of being allowed to lie and rot and thus increase the humus. The method followed doubtless gave a better crop for the first year or two, but the land wore out and washed away far more quickly than it otherwise would have done, besides yielding, after the first few years, a smaller annual return.
Fencing .- The land cleared, the next thing was to fence it. This, too, was a slow and laborious process. To cut and split two hundred ten-foot rails in average-splitting timber was considered a fair day's work.' Far more fell
1 Unless otherwise stated, a "day's work " always means a day's work for the average able-bodied man.
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below this number than went above it. In this section "mauling" (splitting) rails has for generations been synonymous with " hard work."
The fence was laid in the form of a continuous suc- cession of "w's" a bit flattened out, the corners or angles being a little more than right angles. This is what is known as the "worm fence." A legal fence was ten rails high, scotched, and as the phrase went, "pig tight, bull strong, and horse high." On this basis a good man could cut and maul enough rails in a day to run forty yards of fence, provided he had fair timber.
Ditching .- If the land was to be ditched, it was com- monly done the year it was deaded. Had there been more ditching done there would have been fewer drowned-out crops, especially, upon the type of soils known as the "Portsmouth series."' The few ditches used were not only open-tile draining being unknown -but were too shallow to properly take off the water.
SIZE OF FARMS
Altho in 1880 Chowan had a few large farms, it was primarily a county of small ones, the average number of acres of improved land per farm being 50.3. For 45.1 per cent. of farms the average was 14.6 acres, or less, and for another 23.2 per cent. the average was only 31.5 acres.2 The average number of acres of improved land per "standard work animal" 3 (the equivalent of a mature horse or mule) at this time was 34, which may be re- garded as constituting a one-horse farm. Measured then in terms of " standard work animals" used to till them, more than two-fifths of the farms averaged less than half-horse in size, and almost another quarter averaged
1 Cf. supra, p. 18.
2 Cf. table I0, p. 273.
3 Cf. infra, pp. 51, 274.
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under one-horse, leaving fewer than one-third of the farms (31.7 per cent.) that were more than one-horse.
FARM IMPLEMENTS
Amount and Value .- Agriculture here was distinctly a hand industry carried on with few and simple tools. With the possible exception of the cotton planter, there was nothing among the farmer's implements that would be classed as a machine. There were no weeders, no cultivators, no mowers, no manure spreaders, no peanut planters-in short, no machinery of any kind-just a few simple tools. Commercial fertilizers were all distributed with the hand, and all other manures were spread by hand with a shovel from a cart, fifty loads ' being counted a good day's work. The average value of tools and ma- chinery per acre of improved land for the whole county was 64.5 cents .? If on this basis each farm is credited with tools and machinery in proportion to its size, more than 45 per cent of them had less then $9.50 worth of farming implements, and more than another 23 per cent. less than $22.50.3 As noted in the previous paragraph, less than one-third of the farms (in fact little more than three-tenths) were more than one-horse in size, and yet, as a rule, it was only on a two-horse farm that all the implements necessary for even the low standard of cul- tivation then in vogue were found. Such implements as cradles (known also as scythes) and cotton-planters were owned by only a few. Frequently there were only two or three of each in a whole neighborhood of five or six square miles. This state of affairs necessitated a consid- erable amount of borrowing among the smaller farmers.
1 A "load," in this treatise will always mean a load for a one-horse team.
2 Calculations made from table 6, p. 269.
3 Calculations based on tables 6 and 10, pp. 269, 273.
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The number and kind of implements commonly found on a representative two-horse farm were about as follows :
Two carts and wheels
One rail-cart body
Two turn-plows
One cotton plow
Two sets of plow gear
Two sets of cart gear
One spade
Two shovels
One pitchfork
One grubbing hoe
Six weed hoes
One hand rake
One harrow
One grass blade
Carts .- The cart is a two-wheel vehicle having a body five feet long, three feet wide, two and one-half feet high, the two sides permanently boarded up to within six inches of the top rail and the front end boarded up about halfway, while for the remainder of the front end and entire hind end there are boards (one fore board and two hind boards) that can be put in and taken out at will. When it is desired to close the six-inch space be- low the top rails, a thin board is either wattled in or tied on. The wheels are five feet high and two inches on the tread. £ The axle, while now occasionally of iron, in former days was practically always of wood. The body rests directly upon the axle, the putting of springs under a cart never even being considered.1
1 Occasionally there was seen what was known as a "spring cart," but this was a light affair just for "knocking about in " (driving around to the store, or elsewhere, with only a small load).
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On a farm where there were two carts one was invari- ably a "tumbler" (tip cart), built especially for haul- ing dirt and other materials that were to be dumped. This differed from the other cart only in that its load could be dumped without unhitching, and that the wheels were frequently from six to twelve inches lower than the regulation height, a feature which made loading much easier. This cart was used not only for hauling dirt and manure, but for all rough or dirty work. The first cart described was known as the "Sunday" or "best" cart. Possibly one farmer in fifty owned a wagon, and one in a hundred a buggy. Hence, with the exception of rails, lumber, and sometimes bales of cotton, the vast majority (more than ninety-five per cent)' of all hauling and traveling was done in carts. A "seat board" could be arranged so as to seat two persons comfortably, that is, as comfortably as it is possible to be when sitting on a hard board in a spring- less vehicle running over rough roads. This was simply a plain board some eight inches wide, extending across the body of the cart and resting upon the bottom rails on either side of the body, the rails being some twenty inches above the flooring of the cart. The seat board could be put in and taken out at a moment's notice. When more than two grown persons were riding, it was generally taken out and all hands stood up, or else some chairs were put in and all sat down. The latter was usually the case when there were women riding who had passed the girlhood stage. Sometimes, in order to make the board a bit easier, a folded bedquilt, an old coat, or an old sack, was spread on it. Occasionally a quilt was spread on the cart bottom, and everybody
1 My own estimate.
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curled up on it. A cart would hold six or eight adults. If this many were riding together they lined up on both sides, using the top rails as hand-holds.
In each top rail were either five or six slits, or five or six staples. Into these were placed hoops upon which was stretched a canvas. When thus arranged it was usually known as a "covered-cart," but sometimes as the "Gates county buggy."I Covered carts were used chiefly by the " carters "2 in hauling to and from Nor- folk, and were a familiar sight along the principal roads leading to that city.
The description of the cart has been given thus min- utely because it has played, and continues to play, such an important rôle in the lives of these people, and be- cause it seems to be a product of this section. So far as I have been able to learn, this type of vehicle is known nowhere except in Chowan and the three or four adjoin- ing counties, and I am not aware of a description of it anywhere else in print.3 It seems to have originated in Gates, the county just north of Chowan.
Rail-carts .- The rail-cart body was simply two long shafts held together by cross-bars, into the ends of which were placed "rounds " (wooden pegs eighteen to twenty inches long) to hold in the rails, lumber, or other material. The rail-cart was comparatively little used except at certain seasons of the year, so had no set of wheels of its own. When it was needed, the carts were "shifted "-one of the regular cart bodies taken off the wheels and the rail-cart body set on in its stead.
1 Cf. Harper's Magazine, vol. xiv, p. 443 (March 1857). The writer says further, "The buggy, so called, probably in derision, is a cart covered with a white cotton awning."
2 Cf. infra, pp. 135-8.
3 There are some pen sketches of the covered cart on p. 447, vol. xiv. of Harper's Magazine, but no verbal description.
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Plows .- The turn-plow was used for plowing all crops, except the first and second plowing of cotton. The cotton plow was used for cotton only.
Hoes .- The weed hoe generally used was the sort known as the " ellwell." This was a hoe which, instead of having a small shank or neck fitted into a helve, had an eye two inches or more in diameter, into which the helve was fitted. This big eye, reinforced, covered a quarter or more of the back of the hoe, making it about twice as heavy as an ordinary shank, or goose-neck, hoe, and causing to collect on it a great mass of dirt, which still more increased the weight. This feature was especially aggravating if the dirt was a bit sticky. The grubbing hoe was used for hoeing new ground and for hoeing up dirt that was to be hauled into the field.
Pulverizers .- The only varieties of pulverizers used were the clumsy harrows and rakes. The frame of the harrow was made of wood, and frequently also the teeth. If the ground was at all rough, it choked up very badly, and in general was very inefficient. The rake, a hand affair, often of wood, was used for raking up straw, and for raking up roots in clearing new ground.
Gearing .- A cart gear consisted of a pair of hames, a collar, a bridle, a saddle, a back band, a pair of lines, and a pair of tugs, the latter being usually of leather in 1880, tho now iron chains are used almost exclusively.
The plow gear was simply a cart gear minus the sad- dle, back band, and tugs, plus a special back band, a singletree, and traces, which in the eighties were fre- quently of leather. At present, few, if any, use anything other than chains.
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WORK ANIMALS
Oxen .- In 1880, 14.3 per cent of the "work animals " (all mature oxen, horses, and mules) of the county were oxen. In calculating the number of "standard work animals" the mature horse and the mature mule are both considered "standard work animals" and two oxen are reckoned as equivalent to one of them.ª As a matter of fact, however, for many purposes this is far too high a rating. For instance, in plowing, two oxen will do about as much in a day as will one horse. Now, if a person could work twice as many oxen as horses, two oxen would be worth as much for work as would one horse. But it so happens that one man can plow just as many horses as oxen, which means that in plowing oxen one has to feed and pay two hands (if working hired labor, and if one's own force, it amounts to the same) to get the plowing of one horse done. Thus, for plowing, the value of the ox dwindles to rather small proportions. When it comes to hauling and traveling beyond very short dis- tances, his value is again quite small, tho for short hauls he is good, and especially so if the ground is either very rough or very muddy. The chief advantages in working him are the following : first, he can be fed much stuff which many horses will not eat; second, when not at work he can be let loose and allowed to forage for his own living ; and third, when incapacitated for work he can be turned into beef.
Horses and Mules .- What mules and horses there were, were mostly light-weights of medium quality, and frequently in too thin order to do their best possible work. But even if they had all been first-class animals, and if two oxen were equal to one good horse, there would still
1 Cf. table II and foot-note to same, p. 274.
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have been far too few for the proper tilth of the acreage under cultivation. In 1880 there was one "standard work animal " to every 34 acres of improved land.1
SOIL PREPARATION
Plowing .- Seldom, if ever, was the ground properly prepared for planting, In the first place it was scratched from three to five inches deep, rather than plowed. The vast majority of all plowing was done with single animals, most of which, as noted in the previous paragraph, were small, and many of a rather poor quality. In some sec- tions a person seen plowing a two-horse team would have created no small excitement, and one caught plow- ing his land twelve or fifteen inches deep would have been considered by many a fit subject for the lunatic asy- lum. When first cleared, the soil, except that in the swamps and bottoms, ranged from six to thirty inches deep, with comparatively little of it more than ten inches.2 The manner of cultivation, instead of increasing the depth, served only to decrease it. It was thought to be almost a crime to turn up any clay, or yellow dirt; sub- soiling was little known, and practically nothing was done to prevent the continual washing away and leaching out of the soil. Consequently, after a few years' cultivation, much soil became so thin and its productivity so low, that it would be allowed to grow up again into forest. 1
Pulverizing .- Disc harrows and other modern soil pul- verizers had not yet put in their appearance. Even the inefficient ones above described were little used, since the value of making the soil fine and loose was not ap- preciated. It was no rare thing to see the hard, close variety of lands covered with clods ranging as high as
1 Cf. table II and foot-notes to same, p. 274.
2 Field Operations, Bureau of Soils, op. cit., p. 229 et seq.
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ten inches or more across. The harrows of that time had little effect on such land, even when used on it, and so it was frequently necessary to take hoes and beat a few clods to pieces in order to get enough loose dirt to cover the seed.
MANURING
Commercial Fertilizers .- As for manure, comparatively little was used. In 1880 the average expenditure for commercial fertilizers per acre of improved land in the county was approximately fourteen cents 1-for all farms, an average of $7.04 each.
Barnyard Manure .- Counting horses, mules, and work oxen, there was, on an average, one work animal to every 31.6 acres of improved land.2 These constituted the principal stock from which any manure was made. What few cattle there were, other than work oxen, mostly ran loose in the woods, and frequently for months at a time were never seen by their owners. Those that did happen to come up were rarely penned, but instead, lay out in the road in front of the gate, befouling the approach to one's home, and in general, making of themselves a nuisance, when they might have been making some much-needed manure. Many of the farmers made no manure at all, except that from their one or two work animals, and possibly a load or two in the hen house. The more in- dustrious, however, made a bit wherever they could. For instance, where hogs were penned for a few weeks before killing, they would be penned 3 upon forty or fifty loads of dirt hauled in from the woods. Some made an- other forty or fifty loads of pretty fair manure at the back door of the kitchen where the dish-water and other
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