History of Crawford County, Ohio, and representative citizens, Part 12

Author: Hopley, John E. (John Edward), 1850-
Publication date: 1912
Publisher: Chicago,Ill., Richmond-Arnold Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1302

USA > Ohio > Crawford County > History of Crawford County, Ohio, and representative citizens > Part 12

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AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS

the various ways of cooking gave a different taste to the bread. There were times after the husband had returned from one of his long journeys to the mill that the good house wife became the envy of her neighbors by actually serving them with wheat bread when they called.

Potatoes, both Irish and sweet, were baked in the ashes, and although the ashes had to be brushed off, this manner of cooking was then, as it is today, the most palatable and whole- some way of preparing the food. A haunch of venison, a piece of pork or beef, and turkeys were cooked by suspending in front of the fire, and constantly turning them, while beneath was a pan which caught the drippings.

Before mills were within easy reach, every pioneer was his own miller, and ground his own grain. His mill consisted of a solid stump into which he cut or burned a hole in the shape of a mortar, and in this placed a quantity of corn, and with a heavy block of wood or stone pulverized the grain by constant pounding. A more advanced way was to have the pounder attached to the end of a pole like a well-sweep, so that heavier pounding could be done and a larger quantity of grain pulverized more rapidly. In this way sometimes half a bushel of corn could be placed in the hollowed out stump at one time. The grain once pulverized it was sifted into three different grades for use, the coarser grade requiring six to eight hours of cooking before it was thoroughly prepared for food. These stump mills were known as Indian mills, and for centuries all the grain used by the Indians had been ground by the squaws in this manner.

If the pioneer had not located beside a stream or spring, his first business was to dig a well; water was generally to be found in this county at a very few feet. The well was lined with stones of all sizes, plastered with clay, and a well-sweep easily constructed ;- a long heavy pole hinged in a fork at the top of a tall pole, and a rope or chain to which the bucket was attached. It was a very simple contrivance and the water could easily be drawn from the bottom of the well. In parts of the county, notably the plains, the wells were made by sinking a hollow sycamore into the ground, but the water was a very poor

article, and generally very unhealthy; some- times the well was made of wood.

Having prepared a place in which to live, the next business of the pioneer was the clear- ing of his land, and the trees were felled and cut into logs. He then secured game in abun- dance from the surrounding forest, went to the nearest settlement, sometimes a two days' journey, where he secured what provisions he must buy, and the whisky, which was re- garded as a necessity in those days. Every- thing being in readiness, the neighbors came from miles around, and willing hands soon rolled the heavy logs into piles, making sport of the work by dividing the party into two sides and separating the logs equally, each side endeavoring to be the first to pile up their logs, the victors being rewarded by the first drink from the jug, while the thirsty van- quished patiently awaited their turn. The im- mense piles were set on fire, and walnut and wild cherry, oak and maple, and ash and hickory, worth more today many times over than is the land itself, were burned as useless. Inside the cabin the women had not been idle, and the rough hand-made table was covered with good wholesome food to which perfect health and the best of appetites did ample justice, and a dance generally followed, in which old and young alike joined. To these gatherings at the call of some new neighbor, every pioneer was glad to respond. They gave their time willingly, and freely and frequently. One of the pioneers in his notes of these early days says that in one year he put in twenty- nine days responding to calls for assistance at cabin-raisings and log-rollings .*

The wifely duties did not stop at the cook- ing. To her also fell the preparation of much of the clothing for the family, she doing the spinning and the weaving. The spinning wheel was to be found in nearly every cabin on which the yarn or the flax was spun. Some early settlers brought sheep, but there was no protecting them from the wolves, and it was years before any sheep could be raised in the county. From Knox county, and what is now Morrow, the pioneers made long journeys through the wilderness, and brought back a few pounds of wool. This was carded and

*John O. Blowers, Liberty township.

HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY

made into rolls by hand cards, and the rolls spun on the wheel. A common article of ap- parel was the linsey-woolsey, the chain warp being linen and the filling or woof of wool. This made the dresses for the women and girls, and jeans were woven for the men's clothing. The skins of the deer and the coon were made into garments for the men, and even the little girls sometimes had dresses of fawn skins, colored and fringed and prettily picturesque. These homemade fabrics were dyed with walnut, indigo or copperas, and striped or checkered goods were easily made by dying the yarns the different colors before they were placed in the looms.

The pioneer was also his own shoemaker and hatter, tanning his own hides in a vat made of a hollow log sunk in the ground, and in the evening by the fireside making his own shoes, and those for the family.

The costume of the men was a hunting- shirt hanging loose, made of skins or of woolen made by his wife. It was a sort of blouse, belted at the waist, and inside this loose blouse was the storehouse for his day's provisions and any small articles he might need; his breeches were of deer skin, comfortable and warm in dry weather, but in wet weather very uncomfortable and disagreeable, and then it was that at night he never threw them on the floor, but when he succeeded in getting them off, leaned them against the wall for use in the morning, when he again put them on with the same ease and comfort that a man might ex- perience in incasing his legs in a couple of stove pipes. His shoes were of his own make, as heavy a sole as possible, with the tops made of skins reaching above the ankles and laced with thongs of deer skin. In summer he used the softer moccasin. His head was covered with a coonskin cap, or a hat made of the skin of some animal, cured and pressed by himself, and made into whatever shape or style that best suited his fancy.

The women were clothed mostly in linsey woolsey garments made by themselves of the raw material; a linen waist of flax they them- selves had spun; heavy shoes and stockings, all home made, and in winter gloves of buck- skin made by themselves.

As late as 1845 a young boy came to Bucyrus

from one of the townships to get the advan- tage of the better schools the village afforded and he wore his coonskin cap and buckskin breeches, his shoes being home-made by his father or himself, and forty years after this a familiar figure on the streets of Bucyrus was one of the pioneers always wearing his deer- skin vest .*

On his first cleared land the pioneer planted wheat, corn and potatoes, a few other veg- etables, and a small patch of flax from which to make the clothing. Some had a crude plow they had brought with them; others made their own, and the harrow was also of their own make, sometimes rough brush drawn over the ground. The grain was harvested with a sickle or scythe, the former being the most con- venient on account of the many stumps, and near these stumps the hunting knife was used. The wheat was threshed by spreading it on the barn floor, and having the patient oxen tramp it out, or the pioneer with his heavy shoes doing the work himself by tramping, or with a flail. It was winnowed by taking a heavy sheet and with men at the corners swing it rapidly over the grain, creating a wind to blow away the chaff, if the pioneer had to depend on himself alone, he selected a day with a good wind, and filling a bucket with the grain held it as high above his head as his arms could reach, and slowly poured it out, the wind blow- ing away the chaff. Two or three pourings soon had the heavier wheat fairly separated from the lighter chaff.

Prior to 1820 there was not a grist mill in Crawford county, so the pioneer pounded his own grain into the best flour he could in his hollow stump, sometimes using a hand mill similar to our old-fashioned coffee mills. In this it took an industrious housewife several hours to grind a very little quantity of meal. Another device for corn in an emergency was the grater-jagged holes punched in a piece of tin or iron, and taking an ear of corn rubbing it over the rough edges. It took about four hours by this process to get enough meal to give each member of the family a very small taste of corn-bread in the morning. Some of the pioneers state there were times when the

*Thomas Fuhrman, father of Mrs. Geo. Donnen- wirth and Mrs. A. J. High.

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS

cornmeal was so scarce that the family were all put on an allowance .* With the early set- tlers the nearest mill was miles away, the prin- cipal ones being at New Haven in Huron county; Fredericktown and Mt. Vernon in Knox county; one three miles southeast of Mansfield, and another at Lexington in Rich- land county. There were no roads, only trails through the forest, and the settler loaded his sacks of grain on the horse and started for the mill, leading his horse the entire distance, sometimes compelled to wait his turn at the mill. The trip took two to four days. The return journey he might ride, as the load of the horse was much lighter the miller having taken from a fourth to a half of the grinding as his share. If the pioneer had no horse, he made the long journey on foot, carrying what grain he could on his back. Very soon mills were started nearer home, generally a horse mill, run by horse or ox power, erected by some enterprising settler for his own use; to this the neighbors came, using their own horses or oxen to furnish the power to run the mill. The mills were very crude in construction, and sometimes four horses had to be attached to move the clumsy machinery. It was also slow work and the meal ground very coarse. Water mills were built along the little streams, but on account of the smallness of the streams in this county when there was enough water to run the mills, the ground was almost impass- able, and during the summer season when the trails could be used, there was no water in the streams and the mills were idle, and in the dead of winter the streams were frozen, so the pioneer had difficulty in keeping a supply of meal on hand. It was years before the condi- tions of the roads improved in many sections, and as late as 1845, E. B. Monnett now living in Bucyrus, started with a four-horse team from his father's farm in Dallas township with half a dozen sacks of wheat to be ground at the mill at Wyandot. Small as the load was the team was stalled, and he had to secure ad- ditional help to get the wagon through the marshy ground. As late as 1837 when the farmer took his load of grain to Sandusky it took from six to seven days to make the trip on account of the bad roads; he received his

50 to 60 cents a. bushel for his wheat, and brought back a consignment of goods for some merchant for which he was paid about 50 cents a hundred pounds. Goods for the eastern part of the county and some for Bucyrus were hauled overland from Philadelphia and Balti- more. Generally for Bucyrus they came by water to Sandusky, and were hauled from there by land. The freight charges reached as high at times as four dollars a hundred pounds so nothing but absolute necessaries could be shipped.

With the early pioneers there was an abun- dance of game, but as the county became more populated game became scarcer, but the pioneer had brought with him cattle and hogs. The hogs ran at large, fattening on the nuts and grass of the forest; on the rattlesnakes and small vermin, and they became wild. While wolves prevented the raising of sheep, experience soon taught them to let the wild hogs severely alone, and even the few bears found discretion the better part of valor and left the hogs to root in peace, and unless very hungry never molested them. Each farmer had a special mark for his hogs, but in their wild state they were very prolific, and many of them were practically common property. As to those marked and half wild, sometimes a pioneer was near-sighted and failed to recog- nize the mark of his neighbor on the hog he had shot-but in the main they were honest and the wild hogs of the forest and the rapidly increasing stock of cattle made up for the con- stant lessening of the wild game.

Another plentiful thing was honey, which could be gathered by the pioneer himself or purchased of the Indians or the bee-hunters. The Indians also supplied the pioneers with an abundance of cranberries when in season. Many of the pioneers became experts in bee- hunting, marked the trees in the summer, and in the autumn gathered the harvest, which was not only a welcome addition to the family pro- visions, but was an article almost sure to bring cash in the market, 50 cents a gallon.

There was very little money in those days, business being carried on by exchange, the storekeeper being the clearing house. He gave the pioneer credit of about a cent a pound for the hogs he delivered, and two cents for his cattle; 25 cents each for his coon and mink

** Lewis Cary, Bucyrus.

HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY

skins, and $1 for a deer hide; 40 cents a bushel for his wheat and three cents a dozen for his eggs and the same price per pound for his but- ter, and sometimes would not take his butter and eggs at any price, but he was glad to get the honey at fifty cents per gallon. In return he charged his customer with $2 to $3 a pound for tea, and very few charges too as not many could afford the luxury of tea; 75 cents a pound for coffee; $5 for a barrel of salt that weighed 50 pounds; $2 a pound for powder and 25 cents a pound for lead; $I a yard for calicoes and prints; and the only cheap thing was the whisky at fifty cents a gallon. Every- body used it in those days and it was regarded as more of a necessity in the house than tea or coffee, and few social gatherings were complete without it. Money was not an absolute neces- sity as even the county officials, with a salary of $50 to $100 a year, were in some other business, and taxes could be, and were, paid in skins or produce, which the treasurer turned into cash. The merchant, too, when he sent his skins and produce to the market, exchanged them for the goods he needed, paying or re- ceiving the balance in cash.

On the arrival of a neighbor a trail was blazed through the woods so the nearest fam- ilies could visit back and forth without getting lost in the forest, and the women folks made their friendly calls. Then it was the hostess did the honors, proudly displaying all her little cabin possessed. In one case all the newcomer could boast of in the line of a cooking vessel was a solitary pewter pot, but it was bright and glistening from the polishings it received through its constant use. But to her it was enough. She placed it on the fire, and in it the pork was tried into lard, and in the same ves- sel the cakes were fried in the lard; it was washed and cleaned and in it the short cakes were baked; then it was used as a bucket, taken to the spring and filled with water, again placed on the fire and the water boiled, and it being her first "state occasion" a little tea was taken from her meagre store and the meal served to her first guest in her new home, all prepared in the one and only cooking vessel she possessed.

Strangers were always welcome and every traveler received a hospitable reception. If he was in search of a location he was doubly wel-

come, and the pioneer dropped his work to show his visitor all the best sites in the neigh- borhood that were yet on the market, and if the stranger did enter land in that section he was welcome to bring his wife and family of half a dozen children to make their home with him until he and his sons and the neigh- bors had erected a cabin for the newcomer. If a settler arrived in the fall the neighbors all kept a careful watch that he suffered for noth- ing until he could clear his ground and raise a crop of his own. It was not uncommon to make the newcomer a present of land to induce him to locate in their neighborhood, and in one case in this county a pioneer induced a man to remain by selling him eighty acres off his own land for $100, taking his pay in a note due in one hundred years without interest .* The note is not yet due, but will be in 1920.

The homes of the early settlers were indeed far in the wilderness for it took from two to four weeks for their mail to reach them from their old homes in the East, and when a letter did arrive it was marked "due 25 cents," .for postage in those days need not be paid in ad- vance and the charge was according to distance. Neither was the letter always sent to where the addressee lived, but to the nearest postoffice. Prior to 1823 the postoffice of residents of Crawford was Mansfield or Delaware, and the pioneer store-keeper going to one of these places brought back whatever letters were there for any one in his neighborhood. When a postoffice was established at Bucyrus in 1823, that little village received the letters for resi- dents for miles around, those of Whetstone, Liberty, Sandusky, Chatfield, Lykins, Holmes, Texas and Tod townships all getting their mail at Bucyrus. When a letter did arrive for some settler the watchful postmaster requested some man who happened in from that section to notify his neighbor that a letter had arrived for him. The pioneers were generous; they shared with those in need; of the stock or game killed many a neighbor received a por- tion; but he could not put up the 25 cents for the letter due, because money was something he did not have. But he was still the true neighbor, and after reaching home, when the evening work was done, he went through the woods to the home of his neighbor, several

*Benjamin Sharrock, Polk township.

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miles away, and notified him that there was a letter in the postoffice for him. Now the scene of anxiety is transferred to the little farm; they have nothing to dispose of, but the post- age must be raised to secure the news from home, so the hens are "summoned to duty," and after patient watching and waiting eight dozen eggs are gathered and the pioneer goes to Bucyrus and exchanges his eight dozen eggs for the "24c due" letter, and returns to his clearing to read over and over again the news from the old home anywhere from a month to six months old.

There was no class of people more welcome among the pioneers than the traveling min- ister. Long before the first white man had ever dreamed of settling in this wilderness, these faithful servants of God had risked their lives, and many lost them, too, in preaching the Gospel of Christ to the savages. And when the settler came, these ministers, on foot or on horseback, wandered through the sparsely settled region, and the largest cabin or barn was the meeting place of the settlers for miles around to hear once more the word of God. It was not denominational preach- ing; sometimes it was one creed, sometimes another, but a minister of any denomination was welcome, and although a man may not have been a professing Christian, if his cabin were the larger or the more central it was used for the services, and it was an honor and pleas- ure to him to entertain the minister. Later the different denominations became numerous enough to hold services of their own special creed at irregular intervals. Violent pulpit oratory was regarded as more necessary in those days than at the present time, and the preacher soared to his highest flights in pictur- ing the terrors and horrors of a brimstone hell. The construction of his sentences, as far as grammar was concerned, was a secondary con- sideration, and frequently was a neglected art. The loudest in their oratory, both in preaching and in prayer, were looked upon as the better Christians, and when one of these became thoroughly warmed up to his work his prayer could be heard for half a mile.

Among the more religiously inclined morn- ing and evening services were held, the head of the house reading a chapter from the well-worn family Bible, giving out a hymn in which all

joined in the singing, and closing with one of his far-reaching prayers. If a guest were pres- ent, known to be a Christian, by courtesy he was asked to lead in the family services, and if he failed to "loosen the rafters" in his in- structions to the throne of grace, the thorough- ness of his conversion was doubted, and he was never again invited to lead in prayer in that household. Many others were milder in their forms of worship, but among the more zealous the religion of most of the milder class was looked upon with suspicion, and hopes and prayers were freely offered that the scales might fall from their eyes and they become truly converted. But as sure as "the groves were God's first temples," so the purest and truest of religion existed in the hearts of these pioneers. No destitution was so severe in his own family that he ever failed to share the lit- tle that he had with his poorer neighbor; no sickness ever invaded any family in his section when he failed to respond with sympathy and with succor; and when the icy hand of death had robbed some poor struggling family of a loved one, every pioneer's heart beat in sym- pathy with his sorrowing neighbor, and every pioneer's hand tendered assistance and relief. They were true Christians in the broadest and best sense of the word, and in the books above where the recording angel has written the list of those who loved their fellow men, the names of these early pioneers will be found leading all the rest.

Each settler was his own doctor, and the minor diseases were cured by their own simple remedies. In the loft of each cabin, or in the cabin itself along the wall, hung the worm- wood and pennyroyal, sassafras and sage, tan- sey and catnip, and other herbs and barks gathered and dried for sickness, and the minor cases were cared for with these simple ingre- dients. In each neighborhood some man was depended upon to set a broken leg or arm, and it was fairly done with no charge, the patient on his recovery as a remembrance of the kindly act sending around a deer he had shot. But there were times when the disease or the acci- dent was beyond the knowledge or the skill of the household or the neighbors. Then it was one of the family or a kindly neighbor started through the woods anywhere from ten to forty miles for medical aid, and a day or two later

HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY

returned with the doctor on horseback, with his saddle-bags containing his wonderful medi- cines, who gave what treatment he thought the patient needed, and left advice for future care, for the distance was too great to make a second call possible. He was paid for his trip, if there was anything to pay with-a little cash, or some skins or some provisions; perhaps nothing, and a year or two later receive a wagon-load of potatoes or of corn, some choice skins, or a cash payment from the pioneer who had not forgotten his faithful services. The doctor was satisfied; he had gone the toilsome journey as an errand of mercy and as a profes- sional duty, and the pecuniary reward was a secondary consideration.

But the pioneers had their pleasures as well. They had their cabin-raisings and their log- rollings; and they had their shooting matches, for markmanship with the rifle was their high- est sport. Then there were the quilting-bees and the husking-bees, and after the work was over many provisions were eaten and much whisky drank. Whatever the occasion for the gathering may have been it was followed by a most bounteous meal of the wholesome provi- sions that the forest and the farm could supply, and always enjoyed, for good appetites were never lacking in those early days. The natural result of these gatherings and the dances with which the occasions closed, were the weddings, where the bride was complimented and ad- mired, resplendent in a new calico gown that cost $I a yard and was made by herself out of five yards of goods; the happy groom, en- vied and congratulated, his hair smoothed and plastered to his head and polished and glisten- ing with a superabundance of bear's grease. And after the wedding the feast, the long table so crowded and covered with the good things prepared that no one could see that a table cloth was lacking. After the feast all the young folks escorted the bridal couple to their new home, which was another little log cabin in the forest, but its building and furnishing had been the willing work of the young hus- band for many an evening after his day's work had been completed on his father's farm.

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History of Crawford County, Ohio, and representative citizens, Part 12

Author: Hopley, John E. (John Edward), 1850- Publication date: 1912 Publisher: Chicago,Ill., Richmond-Arnold Publishing Company Number of Pages: 1302

Author: Hopley, John E. (John Edward), 1850-
Publication date: 1912
Publisher: Chicago,Ill., Richmond-Arnold Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1302