Western North Carolina; a history, 1730-1913, Part 24

Author: Arthur, John Preston
Publication date: 1973
Publisher: Spartanburg, S.C., Reprint Co
Number of Pages: 744

USA > North Carolina > Western North Carolina; a history, 1730-1913 > Part 24

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HISTORY OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA

SOME INSECT PESTS OF PIONEER DAYS. This same versa- tile and spicy writer makes these sage remarks concerning cer- tain wood insects that have since that time cost these United States millions of dollars: "The Tykes (ticks) are either Deer- tykes, or those that annoy Cattle. The first kind are long, and take a very Strong Gripe, being most in remote woods, above the Inhabitants. The other are round and more gen- erally insinuate themselves into the Flesh, being in all places where Cattle are frequent. Both these Sorts are apt to be troublesome during the Warm Season, but have such an aver- sion to Penny Royal, that they will attack no Part that is rubbed with the juice of that fragrant Vegetable. And a strong decoction of this is likewise fatal to the most efficient Seedtikes, which bury themselves in your Legs, where they are so small you can hardly discern them without a Microscope. [Surely the man is talking about "chiggers."]

HORSEFLIES AND MUSQUETAS. He says (p. 213) that Dit- tany "stuck in the Head-Stall of your Bridle" will keep horse flies at a "respectful Distance. Bear's Oyl is said to be used by Indians (p. 214) against every species of Vermin." He also remarks that the "Richer sort in Egypt" used to build towers in which they had their bed-chambers, in order to be out of the reach of musquetas, because their wings are "so weak and their bodies so light that if they mount never so little, the Wind blows them quite away from their Course, and they become an easy prey to Martins, East India Bats," etc. (p. 214).

FIRE-HUNTING. This Gentleman of Old Virginia (p. 223) de- scribes an unsportsman-like practice of the early settlers of set- ting the woods afire in a circumference of five miles and driving in the game of all kinds to the hunters stationed near the center to slaughter the terrified animals. The deer are said "to weep and groan like a Human Creature" as they draw near their doom. He says this is called Fire-Hunting, and that "it is much practiced by Indians and the frontier Inhabit- ants." This, however, is not what was later known as fire- hunting, which consisted in blinding the deer with the light from torches at night only, and shooting at their eyes when seen in the darkness.

PRIMOGENITURE REVERSED. So hateful and unjust to our ancestors seemed the English rule which gave the eldest son

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the real estate, that a custom sprang up of giving the young- est son the family homestead, which persists till this good hour. Each girl got a cow, a mare and sufficient "house- plunder" with which to set up house-keeping, but they rarely got any land, the husband being expected to provide that. This latter practice still exists, though girls now sometimes get land also.

GAME AND HUNTERS. According to Thwaite's "Daniel Boone" (p. 18), "Three or four men, with dogs, could kill from ten to twenty buffaloes in a day," while "an ordinary hunter could slaughter four or five deer in a day. In the autumn from sunrise to sunset he could kill enough bears to provide over a ton of bear meat for winter use; wild turkeys were easy prey; beavers, otters and muskrats abounded; while wolves, panthers and wildcats overran the country." "Throughout the summer and autumn deerskins were in their best condition. Other animals were occasionally killed to afford variety of food, but fur-bearers as a rule only furnish fine pelts in the winter season. Even in the days of abun- dant game the hunter was required to exercise much skill, patience and endurance. It was no holiday task to follow this calling. Deer, especially, were hard to obtain. The hab- its of this excessively cautious animal were carefully studied; the hunter must know how to imitate its various calls, to take advantage of wind and weather, and to practice all the arts of strategy" (p. 74).

COMMERCIAL SIDE OF HUNTING. "Deerskins were, all things considered," continues Thwaite (p. 74), "the most remunerative of all. When roughly dressed and dried they were worth about a dollar each; as they were numerous and a horse could carry for a long distance about a hundred such skins, the trade was considered profitable in those primitive times, when dollars were hard to obtain. Pelts of beavers, found in good condition only in the winter, were worth about two dollars and a half each, and of otters from three to five dollars. Thus a horse-load of beaver furs, when obtainable, was worth about five times that of a load of deerskins; and if a few otters could be thrown in, the value was still greater. The skins of buffaloes, bears, and elks were too bulky to carry for long distances, and were not readily marketable. A few elk hides were needed, however, to cut into harness and straps, and bear and buffalo robes were useful for bedding."

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HOW GAME AND PELTS WERE PRESERVED. Thwaite con- tinues (p. 75), "When an animal was killed the hunter skinned it on the spot, and packed on his back the hide and the best portion of the meat. At night the meat was smoked or pre- pared for 'jerking,' and the skins were scraped and cured. When collected at the camps, the bales of skins, protected from the weather by strips of bark, were placed upon high scaffolds, secure from bears and wolves. Our Yadkin hunt- ers were in the habit, each day, of dividing themselves into pairs for company and mutual aid in times of danger, usually leaving one pair behind as camp-keepers." Tow, rammed into the barrel of a "dirty" rifle took the oder of burnt powder, and was hung in trees near the fresh meat. This oder kept off wolves, wild cats, etc.

THE PLOTT DOGS. The motive which prompted the settle- ment of most of these mountain counties was the desire of the pioneers to hunt game. To that end dogs were necessary, the long bodied, long legged, deep mouthed hound being used for deer, and a sort of mongrel, composed of cur, bull and terrier, was bred for bear. The Plott dog, called after the famous bear hunter, Enos Plott, of the Balsam mountains of Haywood county, was said to be the finest bear dogs in the State. A few of them still exist and command large prices. Although most of the settlers were Scotch, collies and shepherd dogs did not make their appearance in these mountains till long after the Civil War. They are quite common now.

WHEN LAND WAS CHEAP. Land was plentiful in those primitive times and as fast as a piece of "new ground" was worn out, another "patch" was cleared and cultivated until it, in its turn, was given over to weeds and pasturage. In all old American pioneer communities it was necessary to burn the logs and trunks of the felled trees in order to get rid of them, and the heavens were often murky with the smoke of burning log-heaps. The most valuable woods were often used for fence rails or thrown upon the burning pile to be consumed with the rest. Fences built of walnut and poplar rails were not uncommon. "New ground" is being made now by scien- tific fertilization.

CRUDE CULTIVATION. The ploughing was not very deep and the cultivation of the crops was far from being scientific. Yet the return from the land was generally ample, the seasons

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usually proving propitious. There was one year, however, that of 1863, when there was frost in every month. There was still another year in which there could not have been very much rain, as there is a record of a large branch near the Sulphur Springs in Buncombe county having dried up completely. This was in August of the year 1830. (Robert Henry's Diary.)

UNERRING MARKSMEN. The flint-lock, long-barreled Ken- tucky rifle was in use in these mountains until the commence- ment of the Civil War. Game was abundant. Indeed, if the modern repeating arms had been in use in those days, the game upon which many depended, not only for food but for clothing as well, would have disappeared long before it did. The fact that the hunter could get but one shot from his gun resulted in making every Nimrod a sure marksman, as he realized that if he missed the first shot the game would be out of sight and hearing long before he could "wipe out" his trusty rifle, charge it with powder and with his slim hickory ramrod ram down the leaden bullet encased in buckskin, and "prime" his flint-lock pan with powder.

USEFUL PELTRIES. The hams of the red deer were cured and saved for market or winter use, while the skins of both deer and bears were "dressed" with the hair left on them and made into garments or used as rugs or mats for the children to play upon before the wide fireplace, for bed coverings, or cut into plough lines and bridles, or made into moccasins. Out of the horns and hoofs of cows they made spoons and buttons, while from hollow poplar logs they constructed bee- hives, cradles for their children, barrels for their grain, ash hoppers, gums for their bees and what not.

COTTON. Small patches of cotton were planted and culti- vated in sandy and sheltered spots near the dwellings, which generally reached maturity, was gathered and "hand-picked," carded and made into batting for quilts and cloaks, or heavy skirts for the women and girls.

JACKS OF ALL TRADES. The men were necessarily "handy" men at almost every trade known at that day. They made shoes, bullets and powder, built houses, constructed tables, chairs, cupboards, harness, saddles, bridles, buckets, barrels, and plough stocks. They made their own axe and hoe-han- dles, fashioned their own horseshoes and nails upon the anvil,

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burnt wood charcoal, made wagon tires, bolts, nuts and every- thing that was needed about the farm. Some could even make rifles, including the locks. and Mr. John C. Smathers, now (1912' 96 years old. is still a good rock and brick mason, car- penter. shoemaker. tinner. painter. biseksmith, piumber, har- ness and saddle maker. candle maker. farmer. hunter. store- keeper, bee raiser. glazier. butcher. fruit grower. hotel-keeper, merchant, physician, poulterer. iswyer. rail-splitter, politician, cook, school master. gardener. Bible scholar and stable man. He lives at Turnpike. halfway between Asheville and Waynes- ville, and brought the huge trees now growing in front of his hotel on his shoulders when they were saplings and planted them where they now stand. nearly seventy years ago. He can still run a foot race and "throw" most men in a wrestle "catch as catch can." He is the finest example of the old time pioneer now alive.

INDUSTRIOUS WOMEN. But it was the women who were the true heroines of this section. The hardships and constant toil to which they were generally subjected were blighting and ex- acting in the extreme. If their lord and master could find time to hunt and fish, go to the Big Musters, spend Saturdays loafing or drinking in the settlement or about the country "stores," as the shops were and still are called. their wives could scarcely, if ever, find a moment they could call their own. Long before the palid dawn came sifting in through chink and window they were up and about. As there were no matches in those days, the housewife "unkivered" the coals which had been smothered in ashes the night before to be kept "alive " till morning, and with "kindling" in one hand and a live coal held on the tines of a steel fork or between iron tongs in the other, she blew and blew and blew till the splinters caught fire. Then the fire was started and the water brought from the spring, poured into the "kittle," and while it was heating the chickens were fed, the cows milked, the chil- dren dressed, the bread made, the bacon fried and then coffee was made and breakfast was ready. That over and the dishes washed and put away, the spinning wheel, the loom or the reel were the next to have attention, meanwhile keeping a sharp look out for the children, hawks, keeping the chickens out of the garden, sweeping the floor, making the beds, churn- ing, sewing, darning, washing, ironing, taking up the ashes,

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and making lye, watching for the bees to swarm, keeping the cat out of the milk pans, dosing the sick children, tying up the hurt fingers and toes, kissing the 'sore places well again, making soap, robbing the bee hives, stringing beans, for win- ter use, working the garden, planting and tending a few hardy flowers in the front yard, such as princess feather, pansies, sweet-Williams, dahlias, morning glories; getting dinner, darn- ing patching, mending, milking again, reading the Bible, prayers, and so on from morning till night, and then all over again the next day. It could never have been said of them that they had "but fed on roses and lain in the lilies of life."

FASHION ON A BACK SEAT. There was little thought of "finery," no chance to display the latest fashions, few drives or rides for pleasure, and only occasionally a dance, a quilt- ing party or a camp meeting. No wonder the sons and daugh- ters of such mothers are the best citizens of the "Old North State"!

PEWTER PLATTERS AND POTTERY. The early settlers "burned their own pottery and delftware,"" but most of their dishes and spoons were of pewter, though horn spoons were also in evidence. "They made felt hats, straw hats and every other article of domestic consumption." Most young people never saw a bolster, and pewter plates are tied up with blue ribbons these days and hung on parlor walls as curiosi- ties.

FRONTIER KITCHENS AND UTENSILS." "Dishes and other utensils were few-some pewter plates, forks and spoons; wooden bowls and trenchers, with gourds and hard-shelled squashes for drinking mugs. For knife, Boone doubtless used his belt weapon, and scorned the crock plates now slowly creeping into the valley, as calculated to dull its edge." Grinding corn into meal, or cracking it into hominy, were, as usual with primitive peoples, tasks involving the most machin- ery. Rude mortars and pestles, some of the latter ingeni- ously worked by springy "sweeps," were commonly seen;7 a device something like a nutmeg grater was often used when the corn was soft;8 two circular millstones, worked by hand, were effective, and there were some operated by water power.

MEDICINE AND SUPERSTITION. "Medicine was at a crude stage, many of the so-called cures being as old as Egypt, while others were borrowed from the Indians. The borderers firmly W. N. C .- 17

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believed in the existence of witches; bad dreams, eclipses of the sun, the howling of dogs, the croaking of ravens, were sure to bring disasters in their train."' Teas made of bur- dock, sassafras, catnip, and other herbs are still in use. Lye poultices were considered sovereign remedies for wounds and cuts. Hair bullets shot from guns against barn doors were sure to drive away witches. Tangled places in a horse's mane or tail were called "witches' stirrups," in which the witches were thought to have placed their feet when riding the animals over the hills.10 Mullein was cultivated for medicine for horses and cows.

NAILLESS HOUSES. Nails were scarce in those days and saw mills few and far between, rendering it necessary for them to use wooden pins to hold their ceiling and shelving in place and to rive out their shingles or "boards" for their roof cov- ering and puncheons for their door and window "shutters" and their flooring. Thin boards or shingles were held in posi- tion upon the roof rafters by long split logs tied upon them with hickory withes, or held in place by laying heavy stones upon them. There is still standing in the Smoky mountains a comfortable cabin of one large room, floored and ceiled on the inside, and rain and wind proof, in the construction of which not a single nail was used. This cabin was built in 1859 and is on the Mill Creek Fork of Noland Creek in Swain county.

FIRST HOUSES. A single room was as much as could be built at first, then followed a shed, a spring house, a stable and crib. Then would come the "double" log house. In some of these houses there might be as many as six rooms, including two garret or loft rooms above the two main rooms of the house, and two shed rooms or lean-tos. After saw mills became more general, frame houses were erected, often of from eight to twelve rooms, with the kitchens detached from the main dwelling. But the log cabin in which Abraham Lincoln was born, and now enshrined in a marble palace at Hogdensville, Ky., is a fair sample of the average home of pioneer days.

"CHINKED AND DOBBED." The walls of these log houses were "chinked and daubed." That is, the spaces between the logs were filled with blocks or scraps of wood and the interstices left were filled with plain, undisguised mud-lime being too expensive to be used for that purpose.

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THE GREAT "WAR GOVERNOR'S" HOME. The house in which Hon. Zebulon Baird Vance, the great War Governor and statesman of the Old North State lived for many years is on Reems Creek in Buncombe county. It consisted of a single large room below and a garret or loft above, reached by rude stairs, almost a ladder, running up in one corner near the chimney. There was also a shed room attached to the rear of this house. Some of us are quite "swagger" nowadays, but we are all proud of our log-cabin ancestry. *

UNGLAZED WINDOWS. Windows, as a rule, were scarce. The difficulty and expense of glazing them were so great as to preclude the use of many. Most of those which found place in the walls of the house were made by removing about 18 inches from one of the wide logs running the length of the house and usually opposite the huge fire place. It rarely con- tained any sash or glass and was closed by a sliding shutter running in grooves inside the wall. It was rare that upstairs or loft rooms contained any windows at all.

PRIMITIVE PORTIERS. Privacy was obtained by hanging sheets or counterpanes from the overhead sleepers or "jists," as the joists were almost universally called. Behind these screens the women and girls dressed when "men folks" were present, though their ablutions were usually performed at the "spout" or spring, or in the room after the male element had gone to their work. Sometimes a board partition divided the large down-stairs room into two, but as this made a very dark and ill-ventilated bedroom far removed from the light of the front and back doors and cut off from the heat of the fire place, this division was not popular or general.

THE LIVING ROOM. Usually, in more primitive days, the beds, mostly of feathers, were ranged round the room, leav- ing a large open space in the middle. The dining table stood there or against a wall near the fireplace. The hearth was wide and projected into the room two feet or more. A crane swung from the back of the chimney on which pots were hung from "pot hooks, "-familiar to beginners in writing lessons- and the ovens were placed on live coals while their lids, or as they were generally called "leds," were covered with other live coals and left on the broad hearth. In the kitchen of the old Mitchell Alexander hotel or "Cattle stand," eleven miles below Asheville on the French Broad, there is still standing

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and in daily use a deep old fireplace ten feet wide, the hearth of which projects into the room eight or nine feet. The water bucket with a curved handled gourd stood on a shelf just inside the door. Usually there was no wash pan, the branch or spout near by being deemed sufficient for all purposes. A comb in a box under a small and imperfect looking-glass was usually hung on the wall over the water bucket. Around the walls behind the beds on pegs were hung the skirts of the girls and women; and, if the men of the house owned any extra coats or trousers, they hung there, too. On the tops of boxes or trunks, usually called "chists," were folded and piled in neat order the extra quilts, sheets and counterpanes. Some of these counterpanes or "coverlids" were marvels of skill and beauty in color and design and all were woven in the loom which stood at one end of the porch or shed in front of the house. There was also a wooden cupboard nailed against the wall which contained racks for the plates and dishes. Beneath this was a place for the pots and pans, after the cook- ing was over.

WHERE COLONIAL ART SURVIVES.11 Mrs. Eliza Calvert Hall has discovered recently that "in the remote mountains of the South, where civilization has apparnetly stood still ever since the colonial pioneers built their homes there," they still make coverlets that are rich "in texture and coloring" and are "real works of art." Of course we are also told that this art was first brought to America through New England; but she fails to state that it was also brought to Philadelphia, Charles- ton and every other American port through which English, Scotch or Irish women were admitted to America. That it has perished everywhere else, and still survives among us, might indicate that civilization instead of having stood still, in the mountains has at least held its own there, while it has receded in New England. That, however, is immaterial. Cer- tain it is that Mrs. Finley Mast of Valle Crucis is now at work on an order from President Wilson, and expects soon to see specimens of her handiwork in the White House of the nation.

SLANDERS BY THE "UNCO' GUID." Because in the spring of 1912 the Allen family of the mountains of Virginia "shot up" the court at Hillville, the entire "contemporary mountaineer" is condemned as resenting "the law's intrusion, " partly, per-

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haps, because he himself enjoys few of the benefits of civilized society.12 We regret the ignorance of this self-styled "national weekly" and others who defame us, and in view of the exploits of the "gunmen" of Broadway a few months later1ª recall with complacency the louse that gave occasion for that im- mortal prayer : "Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us." Little of good about the mountain whites is ever published North of Mason and Dixon's line. The Watauga Democrat of July 10, 1913, records the fact that a few days before a journalist of New Canaan, Conn., and a photographer and illustrator of New York, had visited Boone, and that they had distinctly stated that their sole object in visiting these mountains was to look up "the des- titution, ignorance and vice among the mountain whites." They were surprised to learn that the Applachian Training School was located in Boone, and wanted no facts as to the good it was accomplishing. Their names were stated in the Democrat. In "The Child That Toileth Not," Thomas R. Dawley, Jr., (1912) has presented many photographs of the most destitute and degenerate of the mountain population, ignoring the splendid specimens of health and prosperity he met every day. About 1905 a "lady" from New York had two photographs taken of the same children at Blowing Rock. In the first they were dressed in rags and outlandish clothing; in the second, they wore most tasteful and becoming garb. She labeled the first "Before I Began," and the second, "After Three Weeks of Uplift Work." She had offered a prize to the child who should appear for the first picture in the worst clothing, and another prize for the child who should dress most becomingly for the second. The work of Miss Prudden and of Miss Florence Stephenson is appreciated by us; but our slanderers only make our blood boil. For, in the Outlook for April 26, 1913, appeared "The Case of Lura Sylva, "show- ing the filth, destitution, depravity and degrading surround- ings of a twelve-year-old girl "which" we are told is "not an unusual" story of similar conditions "in a prosperous farming community of the Hudson river valley." Nothing worse has ever been written of any of the "mountain whites" than is there recorded of this girl. Let your charity begin at your own home. Charles Dudley Warner made a horseback trip from Abingdon, Va., to Asheville in August, 1884. He saw

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absolutely nothing on that trip which he could commend. ("On horseback," 1889) except two pianos he found in the home of the Worths at Creston. He was, however, lavish with his fault finding.

EVERY HOME A FACTORY. Manufacture means hand-made. Therefore, since few homes manufacture anything today, we have made no progress in manufactures, but have receded from the time when every home was a factory. We have instead simply adopted machinery and built factories.

SOME LOST ARTS. Those who never lived in a mountain- ous country are often surprised at the sight of what we call sleds, slides or sledges, made of the bodies of small trees with crooked ends, turning upward like those of sleigh runners, though much more slumsy and heavy. As these runners wore down they were "shod" by tacking split saplings under them. Sleds can be hauled on steep hill-sides where wheeled vehicles would turn over or get beyond control going down hill. Our "Union" carpenters of this day could not build a house with the materials and tools of their pioneer ancestors, nearly all of whom were carpenters. Modern carpenters would not know what "cracking" a log was, for instance; and yet, the pioneer artizans of old had to make their boards by that method. It consisted in driving the blade of an ax or hatchet into the small end of a log by means of a maul, and inserting wooden wedges, called "gluts." On either side of this first central "crack" another crack was made, and gluts placed therein. There were usually two gluts placed in each crack and each was tapped in turn, thus splitting the log uniformly. These two riven pieces were next placed in "snatch-blocks," which were two parallel logs into which notches had been cut deep enough to hold the ends of these pieces, which were held in position with "keys" or wedges. The upper side of this riven piece was then "scored" with a broad ax and then "dressed" with the same tool, the under edges being beveled. The length of these pieces, now become puncheons, was usu- ally half the length of the floor to be covered, the two ends resting on the sleeper running across the middle of the room. The beveled edges were placed as near together as possible, after which a saw was run between them, thus reducing the uneven edges so that they came snugly together, and were air tight when pinned into place with wooden pegs driven through

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Western North Carolina; a history, 1730-1913, Part 24

Author: Arthur, John Preston Publication date: 1973 Publisher: Spartanburg, S.C., Reprint Co Number of Pages: 744

Author: Arthur, John Preston
Publication date: 1973
Publisher: Spartanburg, S.C., Reprint Co
Number of Pages: 744