USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Nanticoke > History of Hanover Township : including Sugar Notch, Ashley, and Nanticoke boroughs : and also a history of Wyoming Valley, in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania > Part 17
USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Ashley > History of Hanover Township : including Sugar Notch, Ashley, and Nanticoke boroughs : and also a history of Wyoming Valley, in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania > Part 17
USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Sugar Notch > History of Hanover Township : including Sugar Notch, Ashley, and Nanticoke boroughs : and also a history of Wyoming Valley, in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania > Part 17
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Some neighbor might help to roll up these logs for this man, and receive his help in return to roll up his own into the walls of a house. Now, help or no help :-
Two logs are first rolled into position on the ground the proper distance apart and parallel for the sides, or front and rear of the house, cut on the upper side near the ends of each like an inverted V thus A. This was the shape. Now two logs for the ends of the house, to lie on these, are rolled on, notches are cut in each near the ends V-shaped to fit down upon the inverted V (A). They are rolled on the place and fitted down as closely as need be with the axe. This is one course, and will be more than a foot and a half high unless very small logs were used. Course after course is rolled up on skids and laid in the same manner until the height of the first story is reached (about seven feet), and that was about all the story there was to these first houses. Now lighter logs, peeled, are laid on these upper ones across the house for joists for the attic or garret, and on these, rafters are set up at a very steep pitch like a Gothic roof. Across these rafters poles are pinned, in- stead of roof boards, about three feet apart, and on these double thicknesses or courses of bark are spread out so as to break joints. Course after course is laid on, the lower ends of the course above resting on the upper ends of the course below as they went up, each course of bark, or double course, had a light log laid on it
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and pinned to keep it and the bark on. The gable ends had lighter logs laid up, one above the other, and fitted and pinned to the end rafters to keep them in position. Doors and windows were sawed through and heavy hewed jams put in and strongly pinned to the ends of the logs. The joints or spaces between the logs were filled with split wood pinned in and covered over inside and out with yellow clay to close the cracks. This was called "chinking," but stone was used in place of wood for chinking in later times. In these earlier houses, and in all during the Revolutionary war, loop- holes were cut for the purpose of watching and firing upon an enemy in case of being attacked. The door and window shutters were made of hewed planks fastened to a strong hickory frame like a gate, and hung to the jams or "door post" and window post (when the window was made large enough), with a strong piece of hickory, bent around the upright piece of the frame, one at the top and one at the bottom, and the ends driven into holes bored in the jams, and securely wedged. Sometimes they had another plan for hanging doors and window shutters .* Both were hung alike. There was no casing, but only very heavy jams strongly pinned against the ends of the logs. These were intended to resist an enemy for some time in cases of sudden attack. They were made for security as well as comfort, if such a word as comfort can properly be used in connection with such houses, or cabins. Glass was for years here an unknown comfort and convenience. Their . \floors were at first made of earth, but such industrious, persistent and energetic people as these were not long without floors of hewed timbers or split logs, with a place dug out beneath them for a cellar .; The earth remaining inside these cellars was afterwards utilized, as has been told in previous pages, in making salt-peter. The door was fastened with a wooden latch. The handle and catch were all of wood. A small hole was bored through the door
*In most of the earlier houses, and in many of the later ones, the window was only a hole cut between two logs, being about one foot high -- up and down-and about two feet wide-horizontally. A white cloth could cover this and still let in a little light, or a greased, paper when they had paper to grease.
tThere was no saw-mill in Wyoming Valley till the fall of 1773, more than four years after the first settlement. All houses after that had floors of the very best yellow pine. In the same year the first grist-mill was built. All this time there had been no lumber used except what had been hewed out with the axe; and no flour except such coarse meal as could be made by beating in a mortar with a stone pestle. They had no hand mills.
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above the latch three or four inches, and a string fastened to the latch hung out through the hole, so that a person outside could lift the latch by pulling the string when he wanted to come in. If there was a knock on the door outside, no one went to open the door if the string hung out, but called out "Come in." There was reason in this, and the arms of the proprietor or inhabitant were alwas "handy" or near at hand. The joists were about six or seven feet above the lower floor, and on these joists were fastened wooden hooks for the gun to lie in, and the owner had only to raise his hands up to these beams or joists to get his gun for instant use. The gun was always kept loaded. To lock the door they pulled in the string. Of course they had still stronger bars also for securing the doors and windows in those Indian times of which we are speaking.
They had no fuel then but wood, which was "all too plenty." They knew nothing about coal at that time for domestic use. They did know about coal, but they called it "stone coal" on account of its hardness,* and they never knew how to use it for household domestic purposes till 1808. A citizent of Wilkes-Barre dis- covered that it could be burnt in an open grate, set up in an ordinary fire-place built for the burning of wood.
The chimney of such a house was made large, and was gener- ally, but not always, built inside the house. When it was a small house an opening was cut through the logs in one end of the house large enough for the chimney and fire-place, and the chimney was then built on the outside tight up against the end of the house, closing this opening. It was generally built of stone laid up with yellow clay for mortar,-but was sometimes built of wood from the upper beams to the peak of the roof and out. It was always built large so as to carry off the smoke and was well lined with yellow clay inside. It was frequently very large below so that seats could be put inside the jams of the fireplace at the ends of the fire. They would all smoke, for people did not then know how to build chimneys that would "draw." An American-"Count Rumford" -after the Revolutionary war discovered, that by making a throat, smaller than the chimney above it, down behind the mantel piece
*Blacksmiths used it here from the first.
+Jesse Fell.
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in the chimney, would cause a draught. Wood was abundant and large fires were needed in such houses in cold weather, as much heat could go out through the roof as well as up the chimney. These houses were never plastered.
Such were the houses, or rather "cabins," of the first settlers.
Now, having a house over their heads, the next thing was food. They had to produce their own or starve. There was none to buy, and they had nothing to buy with. Hunting and fishing would produce some, but no time could be spent at that when it was possible to work in the soil; no time for sport, food was something not to be dispensed with for a single day. Hunting and fishing were matters of business the same as farming was, and the proper season and time were matters of thought, experience and knowledge just as much as the other, for it did not do to waste time and labor.
The clearing of a farm of trees and brush for cultivation was no small job. The trees and brush had to be all cut down, and the limbs of the trees cut off and piled in heaps. Trees large enough and fit for rails were split into fence rails, and parts not fit for rails were cut into cord wood and piled up for winter use. The refuse and remainder was piled into heaps, and when dry enough was burnt. The cleared ground was then fenced with the rails made, and plowing was done, as well as it could be among the stumps and roots, and seed of some kind sowed or planted. Such a piece of "new ground" was got in order if possible by July, and turnips sown. With good cultivation with the hoe after they came up, a good crop could be produced the same year on such new ground of several hundred bushels per acre, by the time of late frosts. Artichokes and mustard were sown along the fence in the corners. Another early crop, that is, a crop the same year the ground was cleared, if it could be got in early in July, was buckwheat. By hard work and faithful industry the husbandman generally got these two crops the first year - always providing he was not driven away in the fall and his crops taken by somebody else. This was too often the case as has been related in previous pages.
It took about two weeks to clear off an acre of ground lightly timbered, and longer if heavily timbered, and split the rails to fence it. It would take about 800 rails and stakes to fence an acre of
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ground on an average-less rails if the fields were large, more if they were small. The stumps and roots were not dug out, but were left to rot in the ground till they could be pulled out with a team. The small roots were dug out or partly dug out with the grub hoe where the plow could not be pulled through. It took a number of years to get such ground into good working order. On the flats, where these first settlers built the first houses, there was considerable land already cleared, and that was used for the first few years in common.
Clothing was one of the necessities as well as food, for man, woman and child, though pretty much all went barefooted about their homes and farms in the summer time. These settlers brought flaxseed with them, and always, as soon as a crop could be pro- duced it was necessary to produce it. These were ingenious people, for with iron and a blacksmith to make a spindle they would soon make a spinning-wheel and spin their own flax and wool. They had to have a room for a loom and all the other necessary machinery for preparing the yarn for weaving, both flax and wool, for they were never without sheep. They made their own looms and all the necessary accompaniments at home, and the wheel and shuttle seemed to be in never-ending use. Each farmer had a plot of grass-sod of an acre or so, lying near a spring or brook, where he rotted his flax and bleached his cloth. Such plots were almost constantly covered with bleaching cloth except in winter-all this when they were not driven out by the enemy. All this could be seen in 1773 and down to 1830, and on some farms as late as 1840. Linen cloth was bleached by sprinkling it every day with water and letting it lie in the sun. Flax was rotted in the same place that the bleaching was done, and in much the same manner-by spreading out the flax in thin swarths on the grass and turning and sprinkling it every day once or twice with water. The treatment of flax was in this wise :- When ripe in the field, it was pulled, dried, the seeds stripped off, rotted as described above until the woody part was brittle and would easily break and separate from the fiber, then broken, swingled, hackled, or hetcheled, spun, woven, bleached,-now it was linen cloth.
The men could and did wear leather clothing, and it was neces- sary therefore, that tanneries should be early established, and they
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were, and public officers elected in general town-meeting to see that their work was properly done. These officers were called Leather Sealers. Tanneries were established at least as early as 1774, the year of the election of the first Leather Sealers, but probably tanneries had been established the year before.
Some kind of furniture was necessary in the house, and for the first three years-till better roads were made-none could be carried on horses and oxen through the woods along mere paths. It all had to be made here, and every man made his own or had none; but there were no men here then that could not make their own. It did not take long for such people as these to make pretty good furniture. When building their houses and clearing their land they had selected out the particular kinds of woods wanted for the different kinds of furniture, and laid it away to season for use, and afterwards at night. and on rainy days they worked at some article of furniture. Hickory was used for chairs, the splint bottomed kind was made, and they were very good and serviceable. Wild cherry was saved for tables and various other articles. Hickory was also saved for wagon spokes, and red oak for barrel staves, and such woods as were of the proper kinds for tubs, bowls, trays, troughs, plows, ladles, spoons, dishes, cups-for everything almost was made of wood-and all the different kinds were at once and without delay hunted for, found and prepared for season- ing and use, and were made into such articles as they needed, in the evenings, on rainy days and in the winter time. In the mean- time, parts of trees or logs were sawed off the proper length for stools and used as chairs. Boards were made for a table by splitting a log and hewing it down-this, of course, was before 1773, for it was possible for all to get sawed lumber after that, except that for about four to six years from the Wyoming Mas- sacre, when they had no mills again-1778 to 1782-5. They had to accommodate themselves to circumstances, and what they could not make for themselves they had to do without. Having no furniture they had to get along without until they could make it themselves. Splint bottomed chairs were generally used, but rushes were to be found in plenty and were also used for chair bottoms. Their furniture was altogether unpainted, unstained and unvarnished.
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The greatest trouble was that for three years in the beginning, they had to continue to make it over and over again, as, when they returned after being driven out, they would find their buildings all burnt and all their furniture carried off or destroyed, and they had very similar experiences in Patterson's and Armstrong's time, from the beginning of 1783 to 1785. It is no small job by any means, to build such a house as has been described above, and all the furniture that to these people seemed necessary, and a loom and all its necessary accompaniments- big wheel, little wheel, quill wheel, reel, swiffs, big and little spools, quills, warping bars, reeds, shuttles, harness, and many other things necessary with the loom, and plows, harrows, wagons or carts, rakes, forks, flails, fans, tubs, barrels, and every necessary thing about a farm, especially where they had to raise on their own ground everything they wore as well as everything they ate. And all had to be made over again by themselves, year after year, for three years. This was very dis- couraging, but these were very persistent people. Probably no other people ever lived that would thus have continued the struggle and won. This was good land according to their notion, better than they had ever seen in Connecticut, and they had settled it, and they were determined to have it and keep it, and they did.
Hear what John Robinson, the first minister of the first settlers in New England, said of them soon after their landing-and these were the progenitors of the first settlers in Wyoming :
"We are well weaned from the delicate milk of the mother- country and inured to the difficulties of a strange land; the people are industrious and frugal. We are knit together as a body in a most sacred covenant of the Lord, of the violation whereof we make great conscience,, and by virtue whereof we hold ourselves strictly tied to all care of each other's good and of the whole. It is not with us as with men whom small things can discourage."- (Green's History of the English People).
Sheep were brought here by the first settlers in 1769. They were driven all the way from Connecticut and much of the way through pathless, deep, dark woods, the eastern part of which was mostly beech, birch, bass-wood, maple and hemlock. They were brought here for the purpose of producing the materials for the winter clothing of our fathers and mothers, whether from their
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wool or from their skins, and not so much for their flesh. Buck- skin, when it could be got in sufficient quantities was used for clothing in preference to sheepskin, but it must be understood that it took a good many skins to clothe a family and it cost half the skin for tanning, unless the family could tan them at home. The cost of tanning a buck-skin or sheep-skin, if one paid for it, was three shillings, Connecticut Currency, (50 cents), the price of a full day's work of a skilled mechanic at that time. The value of a full sized . deer-skin untanned, was from eight to ten shillings Connecticut Cur- rency, ($1.3373 to $1.662/3). In an old account book of 1800 is a credit to a debtor :- "Dec. 19, 1800-By two deerskins at three dollars and a half, to be four dollars if they last two years without patching=£1 6s. 3d. Pennsylvania Currency."
Oxen were used for farming and teaming purposes in the early settlement more than horses, and for more than forty years after- wards. The oxen were yoked together by a short wooden yoke for plowing or hauling, with a bow for the neck of the ox at each end, so that the yoke rested upon the neck and shoulders and not upon the head and horns. A "long yoke" was used to plow the corn and potatoes after they were sprouted high enough above the ground to be hoed. They had in this case two rows between them. In all cases oxen were driven without any guiding lines. They went ahead, or back or to the right or left by the command of the driver-as "g 'long," "back," "haw," or "gee." This has a strange sound to ears of this day. No oxen have been used in Hanover for farming now for more than thirty years. Pigs were also brought along and have never failed since. Cows and oxen, of course, were with the first comers. The Indians had chickens, geese, and ducks when the first whites came, and turkeys ran and flew wild in the woods in flocks of a dozen or more in each flock. No wild turkeys have been seen here now for more than forty years (1885).
"The valley itself is diversified by hill and dale, upland and in- tervale. Its character of extreme richness is derived from the ex- tensive flats, or river bottoms, which in some places extend from one to two miles back from the stream, 'unrivalled in expansive beauty, unsurpassed in luxuriant fertility. Though now generally cleared and cultivated, to protect the soil from floods a fringe of trees is left along each bank of the river- the sycamore, the elm,
t
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and more especially the black walnut, while here and there scatter- ed through the fields, a huge shell-bark yields its summer shade to the weary laborer, and its autumn fruit to the black and gray squirrel, or the rival plow-boy. Pure streams of water come leap- ing from the mountains, imparting health and pleasure in their course ; all of them abounding with the delicious trout." It has been long since this was the case-the mines having been pumping the mine water into the brooks and streams of the valley for many years past, there is not a trout or any other kind of fish in one of them, as no fish or anything else can live in such water. But to. proceed with the quotation from Miner's History, now forty years old :
"Along those brooks and in the swales, scattered through the uplands, grow the wild plum and the butternut, while wherever the hand of the white man has spared it, the native grape may be gathered in unlimited profusion. I have seen a grape vine bending beneath its purple clusters, one branch climbing a butternut loaded with fruit, another branch resting on a wild plum, red with its de- licious burden, the while growing in their shade the hazel-nut was ripening its rounded kernel." Such things are no longer to be seen.
"Such were the common scenes when the white people first came to Wyoming, which seems to have been formed by nature a perfect Indian paradise. Game of every sort was abundant. The quail whistled in the meadow; the pheasant rustled in its leafy covert; the wild duck reared her brood, and bent the reed in every inlet; the red deer fed upon the hills, while in the deep forest, within a few hours' walk, was found the stately elk. Several persons now -1844-delight to relate their hunting prowess in bringing down this noblest of our forest inhabitants." All these have long ceased to inhabit our woods and waters. "The river yielded at all seasons a supply of fish. The yellow perch, the pike, the catfish, the bass, the roach, and in the spring season myriads of shad."
"From various points the valley can be seen to advantage, but from Inman's Hill," (Dilley's Hill in Hanover) "the eye embracing part of Hanover and the broad expanse of the Wilkes-Barre and Kingston meadows, the prospect is eminently picturesque pre- senting a scene rich in a single aspect, but in detail studded with in- numerable beauties." And speaking of the river shad in.a note he
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says :- "The fact is worth recording that this fish, excellent as it was justly esteemed, caught in the Chesapeake Bay or at the mouth of the river, attained to a superior size and flavor when taken as far up as Wyoming. In point of fatness and excellence there could be no comparison. Possibly only the largest and strongest could stem the current for so great a distance, but a better reason, I ap- prehend, is to be found in a favorable change in quantity and quality of congenial food. In 1778 a haul was made at Nanticoke of uncounted thousands. The fishermen threw on shore while pur- chasers could be found, and gave to those who were unable to buy. The supply of salt being exhausted, the seine was raised and the rest allowed to escape."-Miner.
The present generation knows nothing about any yellow bass, shad, or pike in the river. Since the dams for the canal were put in the river, there have been no shad, and all other kinds of fish seem to have been nearly exterminated, at least in the valley above Nanticoke dam. Black bass have lately been introduced, but are scarce above the dam. They are caught in moderate numbers below the dam at Nanticoke, with hook and line.
CHAPTER X.
THE EARLY TRADESMEN.
S to tradesmen, the blacksmith stood at the head of all in this new country. He never need be idle. Almost every- thing made of iron in those early days in Wyoming Valley was made by the blacksmith. He made the plows. The cast-iron plow was invented and patented in 1814 by Jethro Wood. Before that they were made of wood and sheathed in iron. He ironed off . the wagons and carts-two wheeled vehicles that the farmers used mostly with oxen. He made scythes, reaping-hooks, axes, knives in general, chisels, drawing knives, shears, sheep shears, garden hoes, grub hoes, spades, shovels of all kinds, hammers, rakes, harrows, pitchforks, stable forks, and-irons, flat-irons, door handles, latches, hinges and locks, barn door hinges, cow-bells, shod horses and oxen, made the irons of hames and harness, steel for "flint and steel"-for striking and kindling fires before "friction matches" were invented-("lucifer matches" they were first called) -iron lamps for burning lard, nails of all kinds, griddles, tongs, pokers, sled shoes, skates, cranes for the chimneys, pot hooks, cranks for grindstones, and flax spinning-wheels, and for saw-mills occasionally, and other irons for mills, spindles for spinning wool, and flax, chains, and thousands of other things that one cannot re- member and that have long been out of date, or are made now by other tradesmen or by machinery and in other ways, and the suc- ceeding generations have lost the tradition of them. The gun and locksmith was a different trade, and not altogether in iron and steel.
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If the work to be done was heavy, the employer of the black- smith frequently had to help him. He had to blow the fire and wield the sledge. The writer remembers hearing one tell of going to the blacksmith with some iron to have a griddle made. He blew the bellows and wielded the sledge while the blacksmith handled
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and heated the iron and hammered with a smaller hammer. They worked hard a half day together, beating that iron into shape, welding it and flattening it out, and fashioning and finishing that griddle, handle, swivel and all to the end. It was a good griddle for either wood or coal fires, and has been in constant use from that day to this, more than ninety years, and the writer has eaten buck- wheat cakes baked on it this very day, and he also thinks, if his memory serves him, that the same person said he dug the ore out of his own farm and took it to the furnace, or "forge" it was called, and it was made into iron for him. At all events he dug ore and took it to the forge at Nanticoke and got iron for it. Iron thus procured was used, among other things, to pay for work done.
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