USA > Ohio > Champaign County > The history of Champaign county, Ohio, containing a history of the county; its cities, towns, etc.; general and local statistics; portraits of early settlers and prominent men; history of the Northwest territory etc > Part 22
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As this distance of time from the early settlement of the town and county, it is difficult to fix the line indicating when the pioneer settlement ceased to be such and a new order prevailed. The Pioneer Association recognize and accept as members all who are over fifty years of age, resident of the county. This,
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under existing circumstances, is well enough; but if the rule be carried forward from year to year, that which is now considered the distinguishing feature of the pioneer or old settler-that is, the settlement of the primeval country and preparing it for the civilization of to-day-is totally lost sight of. The asso- ciation is called by a misnomer, and becomes, instead, an historical society, for the collection of incidents and current history during the lifetime of its mem- bers. If an arbitrary line were to be drawn, it would range somewhere about the time when the invention and use of machinery in the workshop and on the farm separates the two periods. Making this the dividing line brings it down to a comparatively recent date ; yet it has been only within the past forty years that the marked and material changes have been made. Taking the pioneer rule as the test, it will include the names of many who cast their lot with the "unfenced " village and country-who, by their talents and labors, have materially contributed to make them what they are. Among these in the town may be named James Cooley, John H. James, Israel Hamilton, John McCord, Joseph White, Lewis Crain, William C. Keller, Henry Weaver and others who may hereafter be mentioned in the sketch of Urbana in its earlier days, and the names of Edward L. Morgan, Ezra Read, Joel Reed, Charles Lincoln, Anson Howard, Simon Earsom, John Earsom, Solomon Vause, Absa- lom Fox and many others, who located in the country and opened up the farms. These men and the sons of those who located prior to the war of 1812 were co-workers.
If a criticism were made of the character of the people of that generation and of that which preceded it, the common verdict would be that they were men and women of rare good sense, and with an utter contempt for all sham. There might occasionally be found a Roariny Ralph Stackpole, or a Hetty Gordon, delighted with her personal charms. These made the exception. Books and culture were, for the most part, limited to the clergy and lawyers, who were treated with a deference which the present day repudiates. Yet schools, at an early day, commanded general attention.
Rye and corn whisky was a common drink, and it was an almost universal practice "to treat." Men kept a bottle on the shelf or in the cupboard-yet delirium tremens was unknown. Both town and country taverns kept an open bar, where liquor was dispensed at retail, and public opinion had not pronounced so decidedly against the practice as in later days. It is commonly admitted that before chemistry had manipulated the "mash " with drugs, in order to pro- duce the largest yield from a given amount of grain, or an article called whisky and other spirituous liquors were compounded in the laboratory of the chemist, or rather in the cellar or outbuilding of the manufacturer, from ingredients fur- nished by the druggist and town pump, the spirits then distilled were compara- tively pure. There is no question that the drink would, and often did, intoxicate ; but it has been a mooted point whether drunkenness was as common then as now, and whether the country, in this respect, has not been going on from bad to worse. The best thing which can be said for the distilleries is that they afforded the best and almost the only market for the surplus grain, and usually paying several cents per bushel for corn more than could be obtained elsewhere. This advantage was offset by worse evils. So far as the producer was concerned, he always wanted a " little in the house," and the wagon-load of corn could be hauled back home in a jug; and, with the best of whisky, the character of the crowd that congregated at the distillery showed the character of the business.
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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
While Indian corn was the leading agricultural product, and for many years the main dependence of the settlers for bread, wheat was grown very early in the settlement of the country. Between 1803 and 1808, three grist-mills were started in the county on King's Creek, about a mile apart. These were a tub- mill by Arthur Thomas, a tub-mill by Joseph Petty, and an overshot mill by John Taylor. Adam Kite also had an overshot mill on Mad River, where Par- ker Bryan's mill now is. To Kite's and Taylor's mills were attached saw-mills. In the same section of the county and on Nettle Creek, a little later, other tub- mills were started. At this day, it is hardly necessary to describe an overshot mill, though in the changes which have been effected by the "turbine " wheel and steam, the " overshot " is being done away with, and probably will be as lit- tle known to the next generation as the tub-mill is to this. The " tub " was a simple modification of the overshot, the wheel, instead of turning on a shaft, moved by the overshot of water from the head race into troughs or buckets con- structed in the circumference of the wheel to which was geared the machinery for grinding, turned in a tub, horizontally, with a spindle placed vertically, the lower end of the spindle turning in a socket in the bottom of the tub, and the upper end in a cross-beam. The water was let into the tub by means of a sluice or mill-race, which, impinging against flanges or buckets in the rim of the wheel, turned the machine and found escape through an opening on the opposite side of the tub into a " tail-race." Midway between the tub and the cross-beam, the buhr-stones were placed, revolved by the motion of the wheel in the tub. In the earlier settlements, the mill-stones were manufactured out of the common limestone rock of the country, and not until years afterward were they displaced by the French buhr. In nothing are we more impressed with the singular adaptability of the people of that day to the stress of surrounding circumstances. A mechanical ingenuity supplied a remedy for almost every difficulty. It may have been, and probably was, rude and rough, and not to be compared with the finished article made and dressed by machinery, but it answered the purpose for which it was intended. We see this same inventive faculty and adaptability to the condition of things in the preparation and making of the clothing and other articles of domestic use. In grinding, the miller did not consider it always necessary to stay at the mill. The corn was placed in a box or hopper, care- fully covered to protect it from the blue-jays and sap-suckers with which the country abounded, opened the sluiceway and went to his corn-field or elsewhere to work, to return about the time the grist was finished, and perhaps to find sev- eral at the mill, waiting their turn.
EARLY MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.
The young men and women of to-day have very little conception of the mode of life among the early settlers of the country. One can hardly conceive how great a change has taken place in so short a time. In no respect are the habits and manners of the people similar to those of sixty years ago. The clothing, the dwellings, the diet, the social customs, have undergone a total revolution, as though a new race had taken possession of the land.
In a new country, far removed from the conveniences of civilization, where all are compelled to build their own houses, make their own clothing, and pro- cure for themselves the means of subsistence, it is to be expected that their dwellings and garments will be rude. These were matters controlled by sur- rounding circumstances and the means at their disposal. The earliest settlers
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constructed what were termed "three-faced camps," or, in other words, three walls, leaving one side open. They are described as follows : The walls were built about seven feet high, when poles were laid across at a distance of about three feet apart, and on these a roof of clapboards was laid, which were kept in place by weight poles placed on them. The clapboards were about four feet in length, and from eight inches to twelve inches in width, split out of white-oak timber. No floor was laid in the "camp." The structure required neither door, window nor chimney. The one side left out of the cabin answered all these purposes. In front of the open side was built a large log heap, which served for warmth in cold weather and for cooking purposes in all seasons. Of course there was an abundance of light, and, on either side of the fire, space to enter in and out. These "three -- faced camps " were probably more easily con- structed than the ordinary cabin, and was not the usual style of dwelling-house. The cabin was considered a material advance, for comfort and home life. This was, in almost every case, built of logs, the spaces between the logs being filled in with split sticks of wood, called " chinks," and then daubed over, both inside and outside, with mortar made of clay. The floor, sometimes, was nothing more than earth tramped hard and smooth, but commonly made of " puncheons' or split logs with the split side turned upward. The roof was made by drawing in the top, gradually to the ridge-pole, and, on cross-pieces, laying the " clap- boards," which, being several feet in length, instead of being nailed, were held in place by poles reaching the length of the cabin, laid on them, called weight- poles. For a fire-place, a space was cut out of the logs on one side of the room, usually about six feet in length, and three sides were built up of logs, making an offset in the wall. This was lined with stone, if to be had conveniently, if not, then earth. The flue or upper part of the chimney, was built of small split sticks, two and a half or three feet in length, carried a little space above the roof and plastered over with clay, and, when finished, was called a " cat-and-clay chimney." The door space was also made by cutting an aperture in one side of the room of the required size, the door itself being made of clapboards secured by wooden pins to two cross-pieces. The hinges were also of wood, while the fastening consisted of a wooden latch catching on a hook of the same mate- rial. To open the door from the outside, a strip of buckskin was tied to the latch and drawn through a hole a few inches above the latch-bar, so that on pull- ing the string the latch was lifted from the catch or hook, and the door was opened without further trouble. To lock the door, it was only necessary to pull the string through the hole to the inside. Here the family lived, and here the guest and wayfarer were made welcome. The living-room was of good size, but to a large extent it was all-kitchen, bedroom, parlor and arsenal, with flitches of bacon and rings of dried pumpkin suspended from the rafters. In one cor- ner were the loom and other implements used in the manufacture of clothing, and around the ample fire-place were collected the kitchen furniture. The clothing lined one side of the sleeping apartment, suspended from pegs driven in the logs. Hemp and flax were generally raised, and a few sheep kept. Out of these the clothing for the family and the sheets and coverlets were made by the females of the house. The country abounded with the weed called Spanish-needle, which seemed to grow everywhere and in immense quantities. Instances are given where this plant was pulled and treated precisely as flax, making a beautifully white and substantial goods. Over the door was placed the trusty rifle, and just back of it hung the powder-horn and hunting-pouch. In the well-to-do fami- lies, or when crowded on the ground floor, a loft was sometimes made to the
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cabin for a sleeping-place, and the storage of " traps " and articles not in com- mon use. The loft was reached by a ladder secured to the wall; generally the " bed-rooms " were separated from the living-room by sheets and coverlets sus- pended from the rafters, but, until the means of making these partition walls were ample, they lived and slept in the same room, Rev. Hugh Price, in the former part of his ministry at Buck Creek, was sent by his synod as a mission- ary to one of the "waste places," where the people lived after this primitive fashion, used to give an amusing account of his embarrassment and the expe- dients he resorted to to get into the bed assigned to him in the presence of the family and a bright light from the fire-place filling the room. The morning ablu- tions were made at the trough near the spring, sometimes from a pewter basin on a stump near the door.
Familiarity with this mode of living did away with much of the discom- fort, but as soon as the improvement could be made, there was added to the cabin an additional room, or a " double log cabin " was constructed, being sub- stantially a " three-faced camp," with a log room on each end and containing a loft. The furniture in the cabin corresponded with the house itself. The arti- cles used in the kitchen were as few and simple as can be imagined. A "Dutch oven " or skillet, a long-handled frying-pan, an iron pot or kettle, and some- times a coffee-pot, constituted the utensils of the best-furnished kitchen. A little later, when a stone wall formed the base of the chimney, a long iron " crane " swung in the chimney-place, which on its "pot-hook " carried the boiling kettle or heavy iron pot. The cooking was all done on the fire-place and at the fire, and the style of cooking was as simple as the utensils. Indian or corn meal was the common flour, which was made into "pone," or "corn-dodger," or " hoe-cake," as occasion or variety demanded. The "pone " and the " dodger " were baked in the Dutch oven, which was first set on a bed of glowing coals. When the oven was filled with the dough, the lid, already heated on the fire, was placed on the oven and covered with hot embers and ashes. When the bread was done, it was taken from the oven and placed near the fire to keep warm while some other food was being prepared in the same oven for the forth- coming meal. The "hoe-cake " was prepared in the same way as the dodger- that is, a stiff dough was made of the meal and water, and, taking as much as could conveniently be held in both hands, it was molded into the desired shape by being tossed from hand to hand, then laid on a board or flat stone placed at an angle before the fire and patted down to the required thickness. In the fall and early winter, cooked pumpkin was added to the meal dough, giving a flavor and richness to the bread not attained by the modern methods. In the oven from which the bread was taken, the venison or ham was then fried, and, in the winter, lye-hominy, made from the unbroken grains of corn, added to the frugal meal. The woods abounded in honey, and of this the early settlers had an abundance the year round. For some years after settlements were made, the corn meal formed the staple commodity for bread.
CLOTHING.
The clothing of the early pioneers was as plain and simple as their humble homes. Necessity compelled it to be in conformity to the strictest economy. The clothing taken to the new country was made to render a vast deal of service until a crop of flax or hemp could be grown-out of which to manufacture the household apparel. The prairie wolves made it difficult to take sheep into the
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settlements, but, after the sheep had been introduced and flax and hemp raised in sufficient quantities, it still remained an arduous task to spin, weave and make the wearing apparel for an entire family. In summer, nearly all persons, both male and female, went barefoot. Buckskin moccasins were commonly worn. Boys of twelve and fifteen years of age never thought of wearing anything on their feet, except during three or four months of the coldest weather in winter. Boots were unknown until a later generation. After flax was raised in sufficient quantities, and sheep could be protected from the wolves, a better and more comfortable style of clothing prevailed. Flannel and linsey were woven and made into garments for the women and children, and jeans for the men. The wool for the jeans was colored from the bark of the walnut, and from this has come the term " butternut," still common throughout the West. The black-and- white wool mixed varied the color, and gave the " pepper-and-salt " color. As a matter of course, every family did its own spinning, weaving and sewing, and for years all the wool had to be carded by hand on cards from four inches broad to eight to ten inches long. The picking of the wool and carding was work in which the little folks could help, and at the proper season all the little hands were enlisted in the business. Every household had its big and little spinning- wheels, winding-blades, reel, warping-bars and loom. These articles were indis- pensable in every family. In many of the households of Champaign, stowed away in empty garrets and out-of-the-way places, may be still found some of these almost forgotten relics.
The spinning-wheels, and probably other articles connected with their use, were made as late as 1834, by Joseph Clark, who lived in the little frame house on the west side of Locust, near Court street, where, some years prior to the time stated, he did a thriving trade in this line. The preparations for the family clothing usually began in the early fall, and the work was continued on into the winter months, when the whir of the wheels and the regular stroke of the loom could be heard till a late hour of the night. No scene can well be imagined so abounding in contentment and domestic happiness. Strips of bark of the shell- bark hickory, thrown from time to time in the ample fireplace, cast a ruddy, flickering light over the room. In one corner, within range of the reflected light, the father is cobbling a well-worn pair of shoes, or trying his skill at making new ones. Hard by, the younger ones are shelling corn for the next grist. The oldest daughter whirls the large spinning-wheel, and with its hum and whir trips to the far side of the room, drawing out the thread, while the mother, with the click of the shuttle and the measured thump of the loom, fills up the hours-the whole a scene of domestic industry and happiness rarely elsewhere to be found.
It is well for "Young America " to look back on these early days. It in- volved a life of toil, hardship and the lack of many comforts, but it was the life that made men of character. Champaign County to-day has no better men than the immediate descendants of those who built their cabins in the hazel- brush and by patient endurance wrought out of the wilderness the landmarks for a prosperous commonwealth. One of these writes that " the boys were re- quired to do their share of the hard labor of clearing up the farm, for at the time the country now under the plow was in every direction heavily timbered or covered with a dense thicket of hazel and young timber. Our visits were made with ox teams, and we walked or rode on horseback or in wagons to 'meeting. The boys 'pulled,' 'broke' and 'hackled ' flax, wore tow shirts and indulged aristocratic feelings in fringed 'hunting-shirts ' and coon-skin caps ; 'picked'
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and ' carded' wool by hand, and ' spooled ' and ' quilled ' yarn for the weavin till the back ached."
Industry such as this, supported by an economy and frugality from which there was then no present escape, necessarily brought its own reward. The hard toil made men old before their time, but beneath their sturdy blows they saw not only the forest pass away, but the fields white with the grain. Change and alteration were to be expected, but the reality has distanced the wildest con- jecture, and, stranger still, multitudes are still living who witnessed not only the face of nature undergoing a change about them, but the manners, customs and industries of a whole people almost totally changed.
AGRICULTURE.
In a preceding portion of this sketch we have given an outline of the "lay " of the county, taken mainly from the geological report issued by the State. By reference to that description of the county, the reader will readily infer that, although covering but a small area of territory, compared with other counties, few, if any, possess finer agricultural advantages. In the earlier set- tlement of this section, ponds, marshes and swamps abounded where to-day are found fertile and cultivated fields. The low and flat places were avoided for the higher grounds, not only on account of the wetness but for sanitary reasons. The proximity of a spring, also, had much to do with the location of the cabin ; but in the selection of places for the erection of other buildings, convenience was the ordinary test. The corn-crib, made of rails or poles, and covered with clapboards or prairie hay, as convenience suggested, was as apt to be in close prox- imity to the "front door" as at the rear of the building or near the stable. The latter was as primitive as the country. In the matter of stables and corn- cribs, very little improvement was made until long after material changes had been made in the dwellings, and we wonder, at this day, at the want of consid- eration shown not only in the general arrangement of these outbuildings, but of many things connected with the household work which now are considered of prime importance. Agricultural implements were, at the first, necessarily rude, and the agriculture of corresponding character. Even had such a matter been known, there was little need for "scientific " agriculture. The soil was new and productive. It was a question simply of home supply, and for many years the markets within reasonable distance scarcely repaid the labor of hauling. The methods and implements employed fully answered the purposes for which they were intended.
The first substantial inclosures were constructed of rails, in the form still used, called the " Virginia rail " or worm fence, in a new country, with abun- dance of timber, the cheapest, most substantial and durable fence that may be built. After the sod was broken, the ground was mellow and plowed with oxen. The plow in common use was a long wooden one, somewhat after the shape of the plow now in use, with an iron sole and point and an iron cutter. The immi- grant brought his plow with him, but subsequently they were made by a man named Wesley Hughes, in Salem Township.
If the field was too full of stumps and roots, the mattock and hoe were required to do good service, and the field was planted to corn. The corn was dropped by hand-in which work the girls commonly took part-and was cov- ered and cultivated with the hand-hoe. Many farmers as late as 1840 followed the same method. After that date, the horse-hoe or shovel-plow had begun to
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be used, and gradually worked its way into general use, to mark out the rows and cross-furrows for the " dropper " and to follow after to cover the seed ; and finally, with the two-shovel plow, or " double-shovel," drove the hand-hoe from the corn-field-the horse, with the changes in implements, superseding the ox. Invention has kept pace with the demand for better and improved machinery. After the lapse of eighty or one hundred years, the science of corn-raising- that is to produce the maximum yield per acre at the least expense-is still in its infancy. Though great changes have been made in modes of planting and cul- ture and in the style of the implements used, it is questionable whether larger corn crops are raised than were produced fifty or sixty years ago. Mathemat- ically, the "breaking," or " bar-shear " plow, is perfect. Preferences are made for different manufactures, but the preference arises mainly from use in a soil for which a plow may be specially adapted. The future will probably show material changes in methods, rather than in the form of the machinery. The past ten years have made great changes in both respects. To-day, save in the " cutting," "shocking " and " husking," the use of machinery enters into every process. Invention has come to the help of the farmer, as it has come to all other industries, and lifted from his life the drudgery of toil; yet it is a matter for surprise that none of the great labor-saving agricultural implements have been invented by farmers.
We have used the term " corn," instead of maize or Indian corn, as being the word in common use to designate the latter-named grain. The kind usu- ally planted was an eight-rowed variety, called the Harness corn; but the " Hackberry," a rough-capped dent-corn, and the "calico," a spotted or vari- ous-colored species, were planted ; but there was little pains taken to prevent the corn " mixing," and the result was a "mixed multitude." No special pains were taken to ascertain the quantity raised to the acre; but the estimate is that the product ranged in good seasons from fifty to seventy-five bushels.
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