USA > New York > Erie County > Sardinia > History of the original town of Concord : being the present towns of Concord, Collins, N. Collins, and Sardinia, Erie County, New York > Part 11
USA > New York > Erie County > Collins > History of the original town of Concord : being the present towns of Concord, Collins, N. Collins, and Sardinia, Erie County, New York > Part 11
USA > New York > Erie County > Concord > History of the original town of Concord : being the present towns of Concord, Collins, N. Collins, and Sardinia, Erie County, New York > Part 11
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113
PROCESS OF MAKING SUGAR.
or bounded over them as they went whirling among the stumps. Accidents sometimes happened, but it was a wonder that the number was not increased tenfold.
As the day draws to a close a thick cloud covers the field, through which are seen a host of sooty forms, four-legged ones with horns, and two-legged ones with hand-spikes, pulling, run- ning, lifting and shouting, until night descends, and the tired, yet still excited laborers clothed in blackness, return to their homes.
If the weather was favorable, the log heaps were frequently set on fire that evening, and, within a few hours, the thirty or forty brightly blazing piles glimmered in the darkness and illu- minated the heavens similar to the burning buildings of a vil- lage or city. If left alone while burning the heaps would all burn out in the center, leaving some parts of logs and brands at the sides and ends that would not burn up, so it was neces- sary for men to go around and "put up " the heaps, that is, roll the logs in together and throw on the brands. After the several heaps had burned all they would, there would still be a few brands remaining, and the "fallow " had to be " branded up," and they were drawn from all parts of the fallow into one or more places and re-piled and set on fire and kept burning until entirely consumed.
SUGAR-MAKING.
The very earliest settler followed the practice of making more or less sugar every spring. All over the country grew the sugar-maple and there was hardly a lot large enough for a farm on which there was not a "sugar bush." The first thing the pioneer had to do when preparing for sugar-making was to make a lot of " sap-troughs," they were generally made of cucumber, basswood, ash, butternut or cherry timber. Trees from twelve to eighteen inches in diameter were cut down and logs from two and a half to three feet in length cut off, and split open through the center, then the inside portion was dug out, leaving the sides and bottom an inch or an inch and a half thick, and the ends two or three inches thick and cach trough large enough to hold from one to two pails full of sap. "Store troughs," for storing sap were generally made from large cu- cumber trees, from two to three feet in diameter and from
7
114
GATHERING THE SAP.
twelve to twenty feet in length, and it required from one to three to each "sugar bush." Trees were tapped by cutting a notch in the side of the tree inclining downwards and inwards with a narrow axe and driving a wooden spout about a foot long into an orifice made by a tapping gauge, just below the lower end of the notch. The sap was boiled by the early set- tlers sometimes in cauldron kettles, but mostly in kettles hold- ing five pails or three pails, and of smaller size generally made of iron, but sometimes of brass. The boiling place was rigged by setting two posts into the ground ten or twelve feet apart
SUGAR-MAKING.
and seven or eight feet high with crotches at the top, and lay- ing a strong pole into the crotches from one post to the other, then hanging chains to the pole or hanging on large wooden hooks with notches cut near the lower ends, in which to hang the kettle bails. Sometimes a half dozen or more kettles of different sizes would hang in a row, with a large log ten or twelve feet long, rolled up on the back side, and another on the front side until they touched or nearly touched the kettles, then fine split wood was placed under and around the kettles and a fire started, and shortly the boiling would commence.
115
CLOSE OF THE SUGAR SEASON.
The sap was "gathered " or brought to the boiling place in sap buckets carried by the aid of a sap-yoke, which was made to fit the neck and shoulders of the person carrying it.
Sugar-making sometimes commenced when the snow was two feet deep in the woods, and then gathering sap with a sap- yoke was a very laborious and difficult job. Sometimes there would be a crust on the snow in the morning and the sap- gatherer would start out forty or fifty rods and fill his buckets and walk carefully and slow towards the boiling place on the crust, when suddenly one foot would break through and go down to the ground in a twinkling and the sap would fly in every direction, and give the bearer a wetting down.
Such accidents happened quite frequently, and it is feared that in some instances they might have called forth exclama- tions that would hardly be proper to repeat in a Sabbath School or print in a book.
After fifteen or twenty years from the time of the first set- tlement, wooden sap-buckets began to be used in place of troughs ; and the number of cauldron kettles was increased, and trees began to be tapped with a small auger or bit instead of an axe, and the sap began to be gathered with a team instead of a sap-yoke.
The glory of sugar-making was in the great bush, where hundreds of trees were tapped, where a shanty was erected, where the sap was brought to the central fires in barrels or casks on ox-sleds, where cauldron and smaller kettles boiled and bubbled night and day, where, after a sufficient quantity had been " syruped down " a day was set to " sugar off." When the boys and girls and young men and maidens would gather in, and with dishes and spoons or a flattened stick.
" Would taste and eat, and lap and lick,"
and if any part of a snow bank remained in striking distance. chunks of it were procured and the warm sugar spread on and made into wax and then eaten.
About thirty or forty years ago, large flat-bottomed sap-pans, with low sides and made of sheet iron, and set in arches, began to be used for boiling sap. And about the same time tin
116
THE FIRST WELLS-THEIR FIXTURES.
buckets began to take the place of wooden buckets and troughs for catching sap, and large tubs were made and used for storing it, instead of store " troughs."
PIONEER WELLS.
The early settlers were not always successful in finding a location for their cabins near a spring, and in such instances a well had to be dug, which like almost everything else was done by the proprietor himself, with the aid of his boys if he had any large enough, or a neighbor, to haul up the dirt. Its depth of course depended on the location of water, but that was generally to be found in abundant quantity, and of good
PIONEER WELL.
quality at from ten to thirty feet, but occasionally a well had to be dug to the depth of forty or fifty feet. Plenty of stone of good quality was to be found all over the country; and the pioneers here were not compelled to do what the pioneers of some parts of the western country have been : to stone up their wells with cottonwood or other plank.
The well being dug and stoned up, it was completed for use by a superstructure, then almost universal, but is now almost entirely a thing of the past. A post ten or twelve inches in diameter and some ten feet high, with a crotched top was set in the ground a few feet from the well. On a stout pin run- ning through both arms of the crotch, was hung a heavy pole
II7
WINDLASSES AND PUMPS INTRODUCED.
or "sweep," often twenty feet or more long, the larger end resting on the ground, the smaller end rising in air, directly over the well. To this was attached a smaller pole, reaching to the top of the well ; at the lower end of this pole hung the bucket, the veritable " old oaken bucket, that hung in the well," and the process of drawing water consisted in taking hold of the small "well-pole" and pulling down the small end of the " sweep" till the bucket struck the water and was filled, and then letting the butt end pull it out with some assistance. A board curb about three feet square and nearly the same height was placed around the top of the well to prevent children and others from falling in.
The whole formed, for a long time, a picturesque and far- seen addition to nearly every dooryard in this section of coun- try. Once in a great while some wealthy citizen would have a windlass for raising water, but for over a quarter of a century after the first settlements, a farmer never thought of having a pump. Sometimes there was no well-sweep erected, but the water was drawn up by hand with a pail, and a small pole with a crotch or hook on the lower end. And sometimes it was drawn up with a pail and rope. At a later date water was sometimes raised with a long rope running over a pulley with a bucket attached to each end, and when one bucket came up the other went down. At the present time water is nearly all raised from wells by pumps of different kinds.
THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET.
How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood ! When fond recollection presents them to view : The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wild-wood, And every loved spot which my infancy knew; The wide-spreading pond and the mill that stood by it The bridge, and the rock where the cataract fell, The cot of my father, the dairy house nigh it, And e'en the rude bucket which hung in the well;
The old oaken bucket -- the iron-bound bucket- The moss-cover'd bucket which hung in the well.
That moss-covered vessel I hail as a treasure- For often at noon, when return'd from the field,
I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure,
The purest snd sweetest that nature can yield.
How ardent I seized it with hands that were glowing,
I18
THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET.
And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell : Then soon, with the emblem of truth overflowing.
And dripping with coolness, it rose from the well; The old oaken bucket-the iron-bound bucket-
The moss-cover'd bucket arose from the well
How sweet from the green, mossy brim to receive it. As poised on the curb it inclined to my lips! Not a full, blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it, Though filled with the nectar that Jupiter sips. And now, far removed from the loved situation. The tear of regret will intrusively swell,
As fancy reverts to my father's plantation,
And sighs for the bucket which hangs in the well;
The old oaken bucket-the iron-bound bucket-
The moss-cover'd bucket which hangs in the well.
PIONEER FENCING.
As the pioneer had more or less stock when he commenced growing crops, some sort of fence was required. Probably the records of every town organized in the Holland Purchase, down to 1850, would show that at its first town meeting an ordinance was passed, providing that horses and horned cattle should be free commoners. Hogs, it was usually voted, should not be free commoners ; while sheep held an intermediate position, being sometimes allowed the liberty of the road, and some- times doomed to the seclusion of the pasture. These ordi- nances were changed from time to time as circumstances seemed to require. The fence that was constructed the easiest and cheapest by the pioneers and one that was frequently used was a brush fence, or a "slash fence." It was made by felling trees in together in a line in the desired direction. Where the timber was thick and the trees large a brush fence could be made that would answer a good purpose for two or three years. Another style of fence used was a log fence, which was made by laying the logs one above the other in a line with the ends lapping by each other, and resting upon sticks four to six inches in diameter, and three or four feet long, laid cross-ways under the ends of each tier of logs. Log fence was sometimes made by cutting logs the proper length and laying them after the fashion of the common crooked rail fence. But as settle- ments increased, the crooked rail fence or the " Virginia rail
119
RAIL, BOARD AND WIRE FENCES.
fence," became the standard protection for the growing crops. Rail splitting constituted an important part of the pioneer's work. Equipped with ax, beetle and wedges, he would spend weeks and months in transforming the noble ash and cherry into rails twelve feet long.
In the Spring these were laid in fence, the biggest at the bottom, one end of each rail below and the other above, and each " length" of fence forming an obtuse angle with that on either side. Four and a half feet was the usual height pre- scribed by the town ordinances, but the farmer's standard of efficiency was a seven-rail fence, staked and ridered. Two stout stakes were driven into the ground and crossed above the sixth rail, at each corner, while on the crotch thus formed, was laid a large rail, serving to add to the height and to keep the others in place. Such a fence would often reach the height of six feet. This fence, somewhat modified, forms to this day a considerable portion of the fence on many farms in the south part of the county ; but the adoption of other styles of fence and the scarcity of timber is fast driving the rail splitter and his occupation from the field (or rather from the forest). The kinds of timber from which rails were made, were chestnut, oak, cherry, white ash, black ash, pine, hemlock, elm, basswood. and sometimes beech and maple.
About 1830, board fences began to come into use ; they were generally made of boards sixteen feet long and six or eight inches wide. The posts were six and one-half or seven feet long, and set in the ground about eight feet apart, and the boards nailed on. Posts were sometimes made from small trees hewed on one side, sometimes they were sawed. and sometimes split out. The kind of timber used for posts was generally cedar, oak, hemlock, cherry, chestnut and red beech. Another kind of fence was made of posts and rails; rails being used instead of boards. Holes were mortised through the posts and the ends of the rails fitted in.
Within the last few years wire fence has been introduced and used to some extent. Posts are set in the ground and the wire strung from post to post and fastened. Wire fence is made of plain and barbed wire. The amount of barbed wire fence in use is being increased considerably at the present time. Cattle,
120
THE OLD-FASHIONED BARNS.
horses, and other domestic animals are not now allowed by law to run loose and feed along the highways, consequently fences along the roads in front of meadows and cultivated fields are frequently dispensed with.
FRAME BARNS.
After the pioneer had built his log house and had a piece of land cleared and fenced, the next thing he needed was a barn. Log barns were sometimes built but it was difficult to make them large enough to store any considerable amount of wheat, oats, rye and hay, and frame barns were generally built as soon as lumber could be procured, anywhere in reasonable distance, to enclose them.
Plenty of excellent timber was growing in the forest near by, and was quickly "got out," that is, cut down, scored and hewed by the pioneer and his boys or hired help. The kinds of tim- ber used in barn frames were generally rock elm, cherry, red beech, ash, cucumber and pine. The timber was drawn on the spot, and framed, and raised, and enclosed with hemlock or pine boards, all running up and down.
There are several pioneer barns still standing and in use that are more than sixty-five years old and the frames are " just as good as new," the beams in which are fourteen inches deep and twelve inches thick, and the size of the sills and posts and other timbers are in proportion. They are still covered with the same old boards that first enclosed them, which are held on by the same nails first driven. These barns were generally forty feet long and thirty feet wide with posts from fourteen . to sixteen feet high, and the roof put on with a "quar- ter pitch." They were nearly all constructed after the same pat- tern, with a threshing floor and drive-way near the center run- ning crosswise of the building, being generally twelve feet wide by thirty long, with a stable at one end from ten to twelve feet wide and thirty feet long, and about seven feet high, with a scaffold overhead for grain, and on the other side of the thresh- ing-floor was a bay, sixteen or eighteen feet wide and thirty feet long, used for storing hay. In those days, horse-forks had not been invented, and hay and grain were pitched on and off by hand-forks, and when the barn was nearly full it had to be
121
HOUSEHOLD FURNITURE, ETC.
pitched up over the "big beam," which was about twelve feet above the floor.
A great many of those old-fashioned barns are still standing and in use, but within the last twenty-five years-since dairying has become the principal business of the farmers here and many of the farms have been enlarged, and the number of cows kept has been greatly increased-new and larger barns have been built, some of them one hundred feet long and forty feet wide : large enough to stable fifty to one hundred cows, and to hold fodder enough to Winter them. The old-fashioned barns were single-boarded, but barns built now are generally double boarded or battened.
PRIMITIVE HOUSEHOLD FURNITURE AND COOKING UTENSILS. THE OVEN-THE OPEN FIRE-PLACE -- THE OLD KITCHEN.
Household furniture was oftentimes limited as to variety, and all told would show but a meager invoice. The first, an indis- pensable article, was bed and bedding. Cooking utensils were next in order, and these were at first chiefly such as the family brought with them, with such additions as the skill and resources of the head of the family could improvise. Beds and bedding consisted of one or more feather beds and straw ticks filled with straw, husks or fine boughs, with such covering as the family means would permit. In many cases the feather bed was want- ing and the straw tick filled with straw. husks or the boughs of hemlock or pine were substituted, and in some cases the straw ticks were wanting. In such a case the boughs were skillfully prepared and spread in some convenient locality that the tenement would permit. Often times the sleeping room for the younger members of the family was located in the loft or upper story of the house, and access was had by means of a ladder. This upper lodging room was enjoyed only by those whose building was high enough between the floors and roof. Sometimes some other or less expensive room was provided. The trundle bed was in frequent use, and when not being used was pushed under the bed occupied by the older members of the family. Bedsteads were of various patterns ; small poles were cut of suitable length for the purpose, and an axe and auger in skilful hands did the work. Cooking utensils were
122
DOMESTIC IMPROVEMENTS.
limited in numbers. The " Johnny-cake board" was a board about two feet long and from eight to ten inches in width and about one and one-fourth or one and one-half inches in thick- ness split out of some hard wood, generally white ash, and planed smooth, set up obliquely before the fire. On this the dough, which had been mixed very thick so that it would stay on, was spread and kept there until it baked sufficiently. There were cast-iron kettles of various kinds with legs three inches in length, the tea kettle, the spider with three legs, to keep the bottom above the ashes when set upon the coals on the hearth, sometimes the long handled frying pan and the iron bake ket- tle. This kettle when in use was placed on a bed of coals and coals piled on the iron cover, did the family baking. Some- times when the weather permitted a hole was dug in the ground out of doors and a fire made in it. When the ground was properly heated the coals and ashes were removed in part and the kettle with its contents placed therein and hot coals piled upon the cover, and in due time the baking was done. Some- times a stone oven was built out of doors, and this became a favorite family institution. After brick could be had they were built of this material, and sometimes they would be used in common by the near neighbors. Other household utensils were of similar primitive patterns. Wooden dishes, bowls and plates of rude construction were often used and some- times pewter plates, basins and platters. Chairs and tables were of various patterns. A seat made of boards with a high back some five or six feet long and called a " settle," was used frequently for children. Shelves arranged along the walls of the house performed the work of cupboards, closets and bureaus. And sometimes, where there was no stand, the old family Bible lay on the shelf. But as the years went by the busy hands of the pioneer told upon his surroundings. Broad and fertile fields took the place of patches, and large frame barns that were burdened from foundation to ridge-pole with the products of the soil had supplanted the log hovels. Meantime the good wife's thrifty hands had not been idle. The flock of geese that she had reared and cared for, had sup- plied her with the materials for several " spare beds," and the loom and wheel had been the means of her laying up a goodly
123
THE LONG WINTER EVENINGS.
store of woolens and linens to furnish a more comfortable abode.
Sixty years ago frame houses began to take the place of the log ones. In structure they differed but little from those of to-day-save in one feature-every main room in the house whether parlor, sitting-room or kitchen, was supplied with an open fire-place. That in the kitchen was much larger and always so arranged that it contained a brick oven in one of the jambs. This oven was used as often as once a week to do the family baking, and around the kitchen fire, usually, the family passed the long winter evenings. The children in reading or con- ning lessons that must be recited to the district pedagogue the following day, in peeling beech nuts or roasting chestnuts in the embers, or cracking butternuts in the corner.
Perhaps an elder member of the family would read aloud "Tales of the Arabian Nights." "Thaddeus of Warsaw," or the fate of poor "Charlotte Temple." But change, inexorable change is stamped on everything that pertains to kitchen life of 60 years ago. The range and cook stove have supplanted the fire place of our father's time, with its ruddy and welcome cheer, and in its banishment vanished many of the fondest joys that belong to childhood's home and years. The good wife's household burdens may have been greatly ameliorated by the new order of things, but when modern improvement invaded the old-fashioned kitchen, and banished the "ingle side," we felt it to be sacrilege, and as a descendant of the pio- neers, we feel called upon to earnestly protest against the change. Think of listening to "folk-lore," or fairy tales by the side of a coal stove, or playing "blind man's buff," and "hunt the slipper" around a range. No, we say it, and with- out fear of contradiction, that when the fireplace was banished from our American homes, one of its sacred and most endear- ing altars was destroyed. The old fireplace with its endearing associations has attuned many a lyre, and poets have sung its praises. No fool of a poet ever attempted to immortalize a coal stove or cooking range in verse; nor ever will. Coal and cast-iron are too practical and only used to "save fuel." We are not in enmity to the cook stove in its proper place, but the family sitting-room should be supplied with an open fire.
124
THE DYE-HOUSE OF EARLY TIMES.
either of wood or coal. It is far healthier and a thousand times pleasanter.
CARDING, SPINNING AND WEAVING.
The first process in manufacturing wool into cloth, after proper cleansing, was to pick and card it, or prepare it for spinning. This work had to be performed by hand for there were no carding-machines in operation at the time we speak of. Hand-cards were of simple construction : similar in shape to the horse-card of the present day, only larger and of finer wire. Two cards were required, a right and left, and the wool was worked or manipulated between these into rolls. The mother. or the grandmother, or the maiden aunt generally performed this duty, and these rolls were spun into threads on the "big wheel." After which the yarn was reeled from the spindle into skeins, again scoured, and it was ready for coloring. The domestic colors were of different shades. If "sheep's grey." the color was obtained by taking two fleeces of white wool and mixing it with one fleece of black. If brown was desired, it was obtained by boiling the yarn in a solution of butternut bark, copperas and alum. If purple, Nicaragua wood obtained at the store entered largely into the composition of the dye. If blue, it was immersed in "ye" ancient dye-tub, and was called coloring "indigo bluc." What juvenile of those days can ever forget the odors that arose when the process of wring- ing out the yarn was going on. Madder red was one of the favorite colors, a color that was more or less worn by the family during the winter. The materials for producing this color had to be obtained at the village store. Flannel cloth of different colors, woven after the manner of "Scotch plaid," was much worn by women and girls. The noise of the spin- ning wheels would commence in early fall, and its low, busy, humming drone would be heard far into the Winter. A mother or an elder sister's busy feet usually trod to and fro to its music, and generally her voice in "Silver Street," or "Camden," or some other of those dear old melodies of the olden time would accompany it. Ah! ye boys and girls with silver locks, who number the seasons that have come and gone to you in the sixties, at the mention of this, do not your thoughts turn back
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