USA > New Hampshire > Sullivan County > Cornish > History of the town of Cornish, New Hampshire, with genealogical record, 1763-1910, Vol. I > Part 3
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CHAPTER III. PIONEER LIFE-EARLY CUSTOMS, ETC.
THE early customs, manner and means of living in all the towns of New England were so similar that a record of them in any one town would not be unlike that of other towns in the same section. Recognizing this, the writer takes the liberty of quoting somewhat from contemporaneous writers on the subject, being careful to mention only such things as have often been verified by tradition and observation. The histories of Charlestown, Keene, Richmond, Washington, Bristol, Plymouth, Warren and others have contributed their aid to this department; for which the writer hereby renders his grateful acknowledgment.
When the pioneer settlers first started for their new home in the unbroken wilderness, they generally left their families behind them in comfortable homes in the older settlement. They usually went in small parties of two, three or more. This they did for protection and mutual aid, as wild beasts and Indians might be encountered at any time. Each man took his trusty gun with a supply of ammunition, an axe, knife and tinder-box, and such other articles as might be most needed, together with a liberal supply of provision.
This was the outfit of the first party who came up the Connec- ticut River from Walpole in the spring of 1765 and landed on the meadows now owned by the heirs of the late C. C. Beaman, Esq. (See Settlement.) It is said by historians of other towns that a liberal supply of rum and tobacco was counted among the necessaries or essentials brought into the new settlements or towns; but no such tradition is known to exist regarding the first settlers of this town, although those articles were subse- quently used quite extensively.
After the arrival of the settlers upon their lot, one of the first things was to provide a shelter for themselves and their effects. The spring was the most favorable time of year for them to make a beginning. At this time hemlock would readily peel. After felling and peeling a tree or two, the bark was placed on
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opposite sides of a pole which was supported at each end by crotched stakes six or eight feet long. In this way a very good temporary shelter was quickly prepared. From this same pole their kettle was suspended for cooking purposes. Excepting a few dishes and utensils brought with them, the dishes at the first were of the rudest kind,-all wooden; plates, bowls, platters, etc., being split from small logs, and then hollowed and curved as best they could with the axe and knife. At first they slept upon the ground or on beds of leaves in their rude shanties, using such scant covering as they had.
These extreme conditions generally lasted only while land was being cleared, prepared and seeded for the season's crop. This, being done, their next thought was the building of a log- house. Abundance of timber of the right kind was ever near at hand. The houses were built of straight, smooth logs, hewed on upper and lower sides and locked together at the corners so as to bring the logs into close contact. The unavoidable cracks between the logs were filled with mud or clay. Some- times, when they could afford it, the logs were hewn smooth inside, but generally they were left round. One opening was left for a door and one for a window. Each of these were to be closed by shutters made of slabs split from logs, as there were no boards or sawmills at first. The roofs were covered with bark supported by poles. After the first season many of the roofs were thatched with rye straw. The earth still formed the floor, which was rendered hard and smooth by use. Gener- ally there was but one room, sometimes two, partitioned by logs like the walls.
The chimney was the hardest problem to solve; sometimes, none at all, with simply a hole in the roof for the escape of smoke; sometimes, with stone, topped out with short logs, built like the walls and plastered inside with clay, and generally built outside the cabin at one end of it. At other times, when the weather would permit, the open fire was used wholly outside the house. In this case a pole was supported on crotched posts from which the kettles were suspended by wooden hooks with the fire beneath.
Poles were laid across overhead, in the cabin, for storing articles. Sometimes the loft was made a sleeping apartment for children or hired man. This was reached by a ladder.
For a cellar, an excavation was generally made outside of
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sufficient depth and covered with logs and dirt, so that articles stored should not freeze.
The first farming tools of the early settlers were few and rude, but their stock of these gradually increased in quantity and improved in quality. At first they were chiefly hand-tools, as hoes, spades, mattocks, forks, etc. The ground at this time could not be plowed, neither were there teams at first to do it.
One of the first crops grown by the settler was rye, the seed having been obtained from some older settlement. This was "scratched in" the first autumn, using a pronged hoe for the purpose. Corn would also be planted the following spring, by opening the soil with a hoe or spade and putting in a "hill" wherever there was room for it among the rocks and stumps. Pumpkins, peas, beans and vegetables were planted in like manner. Crops of all these were generally satisfactory. The soil was new and fertile, yielding abundantly. The cultivation of the crops was but trifling, as there were no weed-pests at first to prevent full development of the crops. Potatoes were scarcely known and but little used at the time the town was settled. In two or three years the farmer would have grass on his place and there was always browsing and some native grass on the lowlands, so he could keep a cow, which added quite a little to the support of the family. He could soon have young cattle and a yoke of steers and a few sheep. Hogs and poultry he could have from near the first, but the horse was a luxury that usually came later. Seeds would be brought at the first, and one of his first acts was to plant a nursery of fruit trees, and a few years would bring him an abundance of apples, plums, and other fruits; and the women never forgot to bring a few seeds of their favorite flowers, also bulbs and roots for the garden. Every mother knew the medicinal qualities of many herbs and plants and was thus qualified to become her own family physician.
The "sweetning" of the pioneers was wholly made from the sap of the sugar maple, caught in troughs made from small logs, split in halves and hollowed out. At the close of the sap season these troughs were inverted under the trees. and so were ready for use the following year. Such troughs were still used for that purpose within the memory of some people still living. The sap was boiled down in kettles suspended from poles, over an open fire, and when reduced to a syrup, was carried to the kitchen
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to be further boiled and clarified by the good wife. This furnished the only kind of sugar used by the families during all the earliest years.
Later in the spring came soap-making. The waste grease was tried out and boiled with lye, and a sufficient amount of soft soap was made to last the family a year.
Mechanics of all kinds were very important members of the community; for all tools and implements had to be made by hand. Scarcely any ready-made article could be bought. Coopers were much relied upon for making all sorts of wooden vessels. They not only made casks, tubs, barrels, buckets, but also the keeler, piggin, noggin, and all other wooden vessels in common use.
Farming tools of all kinds were made by hand, and were generally of a clumsy make, and hard to obtain at first as no manufactories were convenient. Nearly everything had to be made at home from necessity. Even the entire clothing of the family was made within its own home. The cloth was made of wool and flax, spun and woven at home and made up by some good tailoress who came and spent several days in the family, doing up the family sewing for a year. The shoemaker, too, with his kit of tools and bench made his annual visits to each family, usually in the fall of the year and made up the necessary foot-wear for the entire family. The good housewife, aided perhaps by one or more of her daughters, was expected to do all the knitting for the family. Each woman, too, was always expected to be her own milliner and dressmaker. Few were the ornaments worn in those early days, except the beautiful ornaments of self-reliance and independence, coupled with con- tentment.
When the settler first built his house he took care that it should be located near a fine spring, or by a running brook of pure water. The supply of water was brought from the spring or brook in buckets or pails. To furnish a more constant supply, and more even temperature, a well was dug, and the water drawn by a bucket fastened to the end of a long, slender pole with a spring. Later the "well-sweep" was erected, and the "oaken bucket" attached.
As time progressed, the carpenter and brick-maker appeared in the settlement, so that framed or brick houses could be built
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when desired; but the log-cabin remained for many years. The entrance to these cabins was secured by a heavy latch on the inside, to be raised from the outside by a raw-hide string running through the door. To fasten against intruders the string was pulled in, but this was seldom done, even at night, except in time of hostile Indians. The phrase, "The latch string out," is still used as an expression of hospitality.
During the first season of the settlement, while the men were "roughing it," their wives and children usually remained at home in the old settlement where they could enjoy better privileges and remain in safety. Very seldom did the wife and children accompany the husband and father during his "shanty life"; but after the log house appeared and provision secured for their support, they rejoined him in the wild, and their real life as a pioneer family began.
All the food at this time was the product of the farm, forests and waters of the vicinity. No fancy dishes of food adorned their rude table at the first, but only plain, substantial food such as the farm produced. Pork was the usual meat, varied occasionally by poultry or mutton or wild game. Wheat and corn bread, hot rye cakes with maple syrup, bean porridge- made of the broth of meat and vegetables, thickened with beans -"good hot or cold, but best when nine days old," were the first staple articles of food. After the advent of the cow, their diet was more varied and bread with milk, butter and cheese and pumpkin pie were then the daily articles of food the year around.
Rude as were the habitations of our forefathers and apparently devoid of what we term luxuries, and even necessaries, they were, nevertheless, the abodes of contentment and happiness to a degree as great as is enjoyed in the more luxurious homes of the present.
These homes all had huge fireplaces, in which, during the long winter evenings there was kept up a blazing fire that threw a ruddy glow over the healthful countenances of the happy group seated around. There were fire-sides then, and influences going out from them that are lost since the gloomy stove has taken their place. There may be centers of attraction in our homes now, but there are none equal to the "fire upon the hearth." "The fire upon the hearth is the center and symbol of the family
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life. When the fire in the house goes out, it is because the life has gone out. Somewhere in every house it burns in constant service, and every chimney that sends its incense heavenward speaks of an altar inscribed to Love and Home."
The social gatherings during winter evenings in these rude homes, in which the young men and maidens met, clad in their homespun attire and engaged in their innocent sports, were seasons of enjoyment and mutual interest in each other not less true and pure than similar gatherings now, in which there is more display and more tyranny of fashion.
Simplicity of dress, manners and equipage continued to be a characteristic of our forefathers until after the Revolutionary War. As wealth increased, the home-made garments, vehicles, etc., gave place to those of a more modern type.
There were but few ornaments that adorned those cabin walls or shelves. The day of bric-a-brac had not arrived. The trusty gun and powder horn seemed to occupy the post of honor above the fire-place, while around the walls of the cabin hung crook- necked squashes, festoons of red peppers and medicinal herbs, and apples on strings, "quartered and cored," while on poles overhead were rings cut from the yellow pumpkin, all drying for winter use. Practical articles like these constituted the chief ornaments of these homes.
The fireplaces were at first the only sources of heat for the entire household. If the house had other apartments than the kitchen, the sleeping rooms in the winter would be like the frigid zone, and the children sleeping in such rooms would often feel- the snow sifting in their faces during violent storms, and find their beds covered with it in the morning, and have to wade through small drifts with bare feet to get to the kitchen; and as the family gathered around the rousing fire, their faces would be nearly scorched while they shivered with the cold from the rear. But as wood was plenty, the householder took care that the fires were liberally supplied, and an air of comfort soon pervaded the kitchen, or "living room." Warming pans were sometimes used to warm beds situated in rooms remote from the fire. These consisted of a covered brass pan with a long handle attached. Coals of fire were put in and then it was inserted and slid about in the bed by the good housewife until the bed
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became warm and comfortable, when it was ready for its occupant. But this was a luxury too expensive to be afforded by all.
The fireplace was also the principal source of light for the family at night. This was generally ample for the "living room," so that the family could see to read and sew, and perform nearly all of their household labors. Pine knots were much used to obtain an increased light by throwing one or more of them upon the fire in the fire-place. But if a member of the family had occasion to go to some other room or to the cellar, some other light was needed. The tallow-dip or candle was the light generally used for this purpose. These were made by suspending wicks at proper distances apart on slender rods which were dipped in melted tallow in cold weather when the tallow would adhere and quickly cool. These were suspended between two poles. After repeated immersions the tallow dips would grow to a proper size and be ready for use. These candles were the main light aside from the fire-place. Oil and lamps did not come into general use for several years.
The wearing apparel of our ancestors was likewise all home- made, and the materials were home-grown. Every farmer kept, at least, a few sheep and raised his own wool for family use. The sheep were sheared at the proper time and the wool stored. When the women were ready for the work, the wool was sorted, scoured and carded into rolls and spun into yarn, all by hand. Wool was spun on a large wheel turned by hand, the spinner walking back and forth to draw and renew her thread. The yarn thus made was knitted into stockings and mittens, and woven into cloth for the clothing and bed clothing of the family. Some of the woolen yarn was dyed, and the indigo blue dye pot stood in the chimney corner always ready for use, potent with its vile odors whenever it was stirred. Other dyes were used for other colors, as the butternut, sumac and golden rod. These with other combinations furnished all the varieties of color the artistic housewife needed for the family. Cotton goods were almost an unknown article. Many years elapsed after the settlement of the town before cotton fabrics were generally used in it. Flax was raised for the family linen. This is a plant grown like wheat or oats. When matured it was pulled up by the roots and, after threshing, was laid in gavels to "rot," so that the woody part of the stalk would separate from the fiber.
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Then it was gathered and stored. The winter's work of the farmer was to break his flax with a break, swingling it on a swingling board so as to remove the woody part. This latter work must be done on a clear, cold day. It was then hatchelled and ready for spinning. This was done on a foot-wheel, the spinner sitting, furnishing the power by the foot. The flax was wound on a distaff and carefully fed to a spindle. From the spindle, the yarn was reeled off into knots and skeins and was then ready for weaving. All farmers' daughters learned to spin and weave and they usually made their own marriage outfit. The following lines by Ebenezer Morse, in the history of Walpole, N. H., have a significance here:
' "The boys dressed the flax, the girls spun the tow And the music of mother's foot-wheel was not slow. The flax on the bended pine distaff was spread With the squash shell of water to moisten the thread. Such were the pianos our mothers would keep Which they played on while spinning their children to sleep. My mother, I'm sure, must have borne off the medal, For she always was placing her foot on the pedal. The warp and the filling were piled in the room, Till the web was completed and fit for the loom. Then labor was pleasure and industry smiled. While the wheel and the loom every trouble beguiled. And here at the distaff the good wives were made, Where Solomon's precepts were fully obeyed."
Leather breeches of deer or sheep-skin were much worn by men for heavy work, also leather aprons. The women also used the strong, coarse cloth made of tow, or the combings of flax. The Scotch-Irish brought with them the art of making striped frocking, and it became an article of universal wear for farmers and laboring men, and was made in nearly every family.
In the early days the woman's work was not only spinning, weaving, making butter and cheese and doing general housework, but they milked the cows and fed the hogs and poultry and gathered the vegetables for the table. During the Revolutionary War the women took almost the whole care of the farm and stock and performed the labor of the field during the absence of their husbands and brothers. It must not be inferred that the men
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were idle. Far from it. The farm needed and received the incessant and vigorous labor of the men to cut, clear, fence and prepare land for the future crops, and then to care for the same.
The farmer had but little food-stuff to buy. Nearly every thing needed in the family was raised on the farm. He soon began to raise a surplus from his fresh and unworn soil, and this sold for good prices. Every thrifty farmer was supposed to make at least one trip annually to Boston to dispose of the surplus products of his farm. In winter there might be seen, almost any week-day one-horse pungs and two-horse box sleighs winding their course to Boston. The body of the load consisted of dressed poultry, butter, cheese, beans, peas, grain, dried apple on strings, woolen mittens and stockings, woolen yarn and sometimes woolen and linen cloth made by the thrifty women. Sometimes there were pelts, furs and skins of various animals. Frequently such loads were "topped out" with one or more dressed frozen hogs. Frequently a number of neighbors started at the same time and kept company on the road. They carried their food with them-bread, cheese, cooked sausage, and frozen bean- porridge. Sometimes they trudged along on foot and sometimes on the circular step in the rear of their pung. When night came they paid ten cents or so for the privilege of warming their porridge by the tavern fire and sleeping on the bar-room floor.
The return freight would be salt, molasses, a few gallons of the indispensable rum, a little salt fish, tobacco, a few spices, a little tea and a few yards of dress goods and ribbons for the wife and daughters. The arrival home of the thrifty farmer at these times brought joy to the whole household. In this way the goods and luxuries of the city came to be known and appreciated by those living in the wilderness.
Cooking was mostly done by the open fire and the brick oven. Cakes were often baked on the hot stones of the hearth, and potatoes roasted in the ashes. Meat was roasted by being hung before the fire and kept constantly turning. In every good fire-place a large iron crane was hung which supported all kettles hung upon it. It was constructed on hinges, so that pots and kettles suspended from it could be swung backwards over the fire, or forward whenever desired. By this means all boiling of food, clothes washing, etc., was readily done.
Stoves did not come into general use until near the middle of
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the nineteenth century. The brick oven was also a great aid to the housewife, which turned out its great loaves of brown bread, its pots of beans and pork, its roasts of beef, fowl and mutton, its delicious mince and pumpkin pies-all put in at night, and taken out steaming hot in the morning, the materials of which were all produced on the farm except the salt and spices. The modern butcher and baker were yet unknown. A little later they began to raise wheat, but that was a luxury, and the econom- ical housekeeper would make the upper crust of her pies of wheat flour and the under crust of rye. From that custom came the term "upper crust" as applied to aristocratic society.
As before stated the fire on the hearth was seldom allowed to go out. To prevent this, a large brand was buried in the embers each night for a bed of coals the next morning. If by any chance the fire was lost, coals had to be brought from a neighbor's, perhaps over long distances; or by flashing powder with a flint- lock gun. Friction matches were then unknown, and were not used until about 1830. Clocks and watches were not generally owned, but the hour-glass, sun-dial or noon-mark were used, and when an evening meeting was announced, it was called at "early candle-lighting."
The kitchen was the sleeping apartment of the farmer and his wife, the bed standing in one corner, with the wheel or loom in the opposite corner. The children slept in the loft above, or in a trundle-bed drawn from beneath their parents' bed. The only brooms the good housewife had, were made of hemlock brush tied in a bundle around a handle, or one of "birch-peel." These were made by cutting a yellow birch about three inches in diameter, and four or five feet long, taking off the bark of about a foot of the upper end, then peeling that end into thin narrow strips for the brush, and using the other end, shaved down, for a handle.
The Bible and an almanac constituted about all the literature found in their homes .- No libraries, no newspapers.
The sports of today were unknown a hundred, or more, years ago. Then it was working bees, raisings, wrestling matches, corn-huskings, etc. Women visited, but worked, taking their work with them. Quilting and carding bees were much their employment during the daytime. In the evening, both sexes came in for a jolly good time, the occasion often ending up with
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a dance in the big kitchen. The huskings were delightful fes- tivities, closing with a supper of pumpkin pie, "nut-cakes," cheese, apples and cider. A red ear of corn husked by a young man entitled him to go the rounds with kisses, and one husked by a girl gave her the right to kiss the lad of her choice, or, if her courage failed, to be kissed by every lad present. The only light furnished for these occasions was a tallow dip in a perforated tin lantern, which gave only a feeble light. Later in the season came the paring bees, where the apples were pared, quartered and strung to dry. After the feast came the social hour, usually devoted to playing of games; all games having fines and all fines being paid with a kiss. After these jolly frolies each young man was expected to "beau" his "best girl" home.
Postal facilities were very limited in those days, even to the close of the eighteenth century. Mail was at first carried on horseback, once in two weeks or so; and this only along the principal routes. These routes were very few, and but few post offices were established at first. Farmers living away from these routes often had to travel many miles to obtain their mail. The condition of the roads, too, was very unfavorable. In the earliest days oftentimes a bridle-road afforded the only means of communication between neighbors. After highways were laid out the roads were made in better condition, so that carriages became more common, and travel more rapid.
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