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 19
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 19
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 19
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40
Some such ingenious and naturally skillful men there were in other trades too. Such persons made barrels, tubs, half-bushel measures and various other kinds of cooper work. Any person
14
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HISTORY OF HANOVER.
handy at making any kind of particular thing used on the farm, could get work at making that, and need not farm altogether for a living, for he could get all the farm produce he needed in exchange for his handiwork, and for less labor. Carpenters in these early times were not very numerous compared with the blacksmiths and shoemakers, for every man, almost, built his own house, at least up to the time of the second generation; but the wheelwright's trade was an important one, for a tradesman of that kind was a necessity. A wagon or cart was necessary on every farm, and re- pairs had to be frequently made, and that took tools and skill that but few possessed. There has been a time within the past forty years in some of the new settlements on our frontiers, where some foreigners have made and used a wagon, or cart or "vehicle," made by sawing off the end of a large log, and making a hole in the center for a wheel, and with an axle and a pair of such wheels made a cart, or with four wheels a wagon. Such a wheel was never seen here. They were always made with hubs, spokes and fellies, and bound together with iron. The wheelwright built the wood-work in his own way and at the price agreed upon for that part of the carriage, and then the blacksmith did the iron-work on it according to directions of the owner at the price they agreed upon. Each tradesman did his own work in his own way, not at all connected with each other. No paint was used on any such work in the early times, nor on houses nor furniture. Oil mills were early established to utilize the seed from their flax, and one is forced to wonder why they did not use paint. The fact is well enough known, but the reason for it is not.
Another kind of business was of great importance and of very great necessity in those days-now entirely out of date and out of use-that was the making of spinning-wheels for wool and flax, and shuttles, spools, bobbins and looms, with all their necessary other accompaniments. Spoons and dishes of wood have also dis- appeared from use. Bowls, trays, ladles, troughs, etc., are still made somewhere by hand, but none are made here. Spoons and dishes of wood were superseded by those made of pewter, how soon is not known, but probably as early as 1800. The wealthier people had pewter sets before the Revolutionary war; some of the fugitives after the Wyoming Battle and Massacre
2II
HANOVER TOWNSHIP.
buried their pewter before they fled, and recovered it after they returned. No wooden ware has been made here since 1845. Early in this century wooden pegs took the place, in a great measure, of flax thread for fastening on the soles of boots.
The millwright also had a good trade. Almost everything about a mill for grinding flour was made of wood, except the stones and spindle, and the mills were all run by water. They . never had heard of steam power. The miller took one-tenth of the grist as " toll" for grinding it, whatever it was, and there seems to have been doubt sometimes of their honesty, for there was a "saying" that "the miller's hogs are always fat;" but perhaps it was only a jest. Perhaps some millers sometimes "tolled" the grist twice from forgetfulness. In the earliest settlement and for three or four years afterwards there was no mill in the valley of Wyoming for grinding flouf, and they crushed their grain in a public mortar. The mills were all burnt at the time of the mas- sacre and expulsion, and for a year or less afterwards they had to resort to the mortar and pestle again. (It is not certain that the Nanticoke Mill was burned after the massacre.) They were too poor to rebuild the mills at once and so they pounded their grain in a big public mortar. It was the stump of a large tree that was used for the purpose. It was hollowed out by burning in the top until there was a large hole deep enough to hold the grain. A large stone was dressed and cut and made to fit and nearly fill the hole in the stump. A staple was fastened in the top of the stone and a chain attached and fastened to a young sapling tree standing near and bent down to serve as a spring-pole. When the grain was put into the mortar in proper quantity, the stone pestle, assisted by the spring-pole, was made to pound the grain, and thus they made a coarse meal for. flour. There was a mortar and pestle of this kind on the River Road in the hollow at the foot of the hill below the Red Tavern, near the Hurlbut house. The people of a neighborhood used to send a man sometimes, with a horse and as large a load of wheat in bags on his back as the horse could ' carry, to mill on the Delaware to have it ground into fine flour. When it was brought back it was divided out among the neighbors to be used on special occasions, to have something fine and rich for grand company and weddings, etc.
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HISTORY OF HANOVER.
There was little crime among these people, but such small crimes and misdemeanors as there were, were generally punished by a justice of the peace by fines. The judgments of these magistrates were always carried into effect. The public opinion of. the people always sustained their officers. And their officers were conscientious and God fearing Puritans or Presbyterians. There was imprisonment for debt in those times-now happily abolished. Very infrequently a case would be sent to the county court at Wilkes-Barre for trial. These people, we are justified in saying, in these early times were always distinguished for their law-abiding character. From the very first their respect for the civil authority amounted almost to a superstition. A sheriff was considered almost too awful a person to be in the least resisted; as witness Miner, and Chapman, and Pierce, how often a sheriff, whose juris- diction they did not acknowledge, could arrest twenty or thirty of them at a time with arms in their hands, and take them unresist- ingly to prison, away off more than sixty miles to Easton, or to Sunbury, all the way through the woods. Perhaps it was because those kind-hearted "Pennsylvania Dutch " or other Pennsylvanians ·would always bail them out of jail right away and send them back home again. It may be that these Lancaster County men did not submit so quietly to arrest. It would be interesting to know whether any of those bail bonds were ever forfeited and collected. This is, of course, speaking of the time before the Decree of Trenton, and their submission to the jurisdiction and laws of Pennsylvania. Then they were not always bailed "right away," but oppression, tyranny, and attempted robbery, if nothing worse, created a re- sistance which was fast growing, till the government of Pennsyl- vania came to its senses and stopped. .
During the jurisdiction of Connecticut over Wyoming the cur- rency in use here was called "Connecticut Currency," and was in pounds, shillings and pence; six shillings were equal to one dollar. All accounts were kept in that currency. Dollars and smaller `fractional coins in silver were in circulation to a very limited extent, of Spanish coinage, and were the only coins except occasionally a crown or half crown of British coin, and a "Joe" and "half Joe" Spanish gold. But there was almost a total absence of coined money of any kind. Whatever money was
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HANOVER TOWNSHIP.
used the account was kept of it in pounds, shillings and pence, Connecticut Currency, and not in Pennsylvania, nor sterling cur- rency. After we came under Pennsylvania jurisdiction, the same coin in the same very small amount was still in use, but the ac- counts were then kept in pounds, shillings and pence'in Pennsyl- vania Currency, but it took seven shillings and six pence of it to make a dollar. When one was paid a fifty-cent piece he gave credit in his account for 3s. and gd .*
In April, 1778, during the Revolutionary war, and before the Wyoming Massacre a town-meeting was held in Wilkes-Barre at which they fixed the price of "various articles of sale and service of labor:"-
"Good yarn stockings .. . IOS. = $1.662/3
"Laboring women at spinning, per week 6s .== 1.00
"Winter fed beef, per pound . 7d .= . 0918 13
" Metheglin, per gallon . 7s .= 1.1623
.08 1/3 "Shad, per piece . 6d .=
"Ox work, for two oxen, per day 35. = .50
"Good tow and linen, yard wide . 6s .= 1.00
"Good white flannel, yard wide . 5s. =
"Making, setting and shoeing horse all round . 8s. == 1.3373
"Eggs, per dozen . 8d .=
"Tobacco in hank or leaf, per pound . 9d .== .1212
The above is in Connecticut Currency, six shillings to the dollar, and is a quotation from Miner, except in the reduction to dollars and cents in the second column of figures. That was done by the writer to show at a glance the amount, in recognizable money, or currency. In the prices above named some things seem cheap, but ten shillings-$1.6633- seems a rather high price for a pair of stockings. At that time they were knit by hand, and came up to or above the knee as they were worn with knee breeches, and were ribbed or corded all the way up from the ankles; but still that
*Was it not fortunate for these people that they could all read and write, and so could buy and sell and have any kind of business transacted, and keep a regular account of it, and settle when they chose, instead of having to make an actual transfer of goods or property of some kind every time they had any dealings with one another as would have been the case if they could not keep a book account?
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HISTORY OF HANOVER.
seems to be a high price. It would take over three days' work by a man then to pay for one pair of stockings! War was going on and prices were high.
The shoes worn in those early times and up to about 1800, were fastened on the foot by a large buckle over the instep. "Knee breeches," or "small clothes," as they were also called, were worn instead of trousers, and were fastened at the knee with a buckle instead of buttons, these and the shoe-buckles being frequently made of silver. The hat was a three-cornered or "cocked hat," the rim being in three parts or lobes, each lobe fastened up to the crown of the hat by a button, hook, ribbon, tassel or feather. The coat was long, generally, and of the style called "shad belly" with a broad cuff turned up from the end of the sleeve. .. These things were of more or less fine materials according to one's ability to pay for them, and the difference between fine and coarse then was much greater than it is now. There was imprisonment for debt, and people seldom ran in debt to make a fine show. Sheets, pillow-cases, and under-clothing, etc., were made of linen, manu- factured at home in private houses by persons who did not make their living by spinning and weaving, but did this as part of the work on a farm, and as a consequence the linen was not very fine; but it was valuable as may be seen by the fact that even tow-and- linen was worth, in 1778, 6s. per yard, that is, one dollar. It grew cheaper after the war and could be bought for fifty cents per yard.
The women wore pretty much the same kind of cloth in their clothing that the men did, but as none of the dresses of the women of that time have come down to our times, to the writer's knowledge, they cannot be described. The coats in some cases, and small cloths when made of leather, were made the same in style as when made of cloth, except that some parts might be of a different kind of leather, as the collar and lapel and pockets of the coats. Leather clothing was worn as late as 1815. A coat called a "hunting shirt," made of leather, was almost universally worn in the country. After leather went out of use this popular garment was made of linen, and frequently quilted in fancy figures, the body of it being of two thicknesses and wadded with wool; and it could be worn either side out.
.
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HANOVER TOWNSHIP.
In 1778, on the fourth of July, the day after the battle and mas- sacre, an old man, one of the Reformadoes in the Wilkes-Barre fort, fled through the wilderness to Connecticut, and remained there till 1790, when he returned and took possession of his farm again in Wilkes-Barre. Two extracts are here made from his account book kept in Connecticut, and one after he returned to Wilkes-Barre. They are introduced to show the price of labor at that time, and the kind of currency, or denomination of money that was used.
"LEBANON, July, 1779. [Connecticut.] " MAJOR JEEMS CLARK-Dr.
"To one day reaping . £o 3s. od .= $ 50
"To two days' mowing 0
"To one day and half cutting wood . O
3 9 = 6212
"To one day's work at brick kiln . O 3 0"= 50 "LEBANON, July and Aug., 1784.
"MAJOR HYDE-Dr .. .
"To one day's work mowing. £o 3s. od .= $ 50
"To six days' picking corn 0 I5 0 = 2.50
"To one day reaping . O
3 0 = 50
"To one day threshing . O 2
O 33 73
"WILKES-BARRE, 1797.
"DANIEL DOWNING-Dr.
"To one day's work . £o
"To one pound and one quarter of butter . 0
"To my oxen one day and half O 4 6 = 60 6"= 1.00
"To cash, one dollar . O 7
35. gd .= $ 50
I 8 = 22§
The writer has reduced this currency of both Connecticut and Pennsylvania to dollars and cents in a separate column. These ac- counts go back to a short time after the massacre, and they are in- troduced to show the prices of labor and the kind of currency or money the accounts were kept in, both in Connecticut and Pennsyl- vania. It is strange that such a currency should have been used when they had no coin nor paper to represent it. The only coins they had were Spanish, it seems. There may have been occasion- ally a British silver crown and perhaps an American cent after the war. The Spanish coins were dollars, half dollars, quarter dollars
·
6 0 = 1.00
.
1
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HISTORY OF HANOVER.
and pistareens (18 cents), eighths and sixteenths of a dollar. . These last two were called here "levies" and "fips" in . Pennsylvania phraseology, "for short," but their full names were "eleven-penny- bit" and a "five-penny-bit," this last frequently called a "fippennybit." In New York Currency these two were called "shilling" and "six- pence," and it took just eight of the shillings to make a dollar. The New Yorkers still use the word shilling, meaning thereby twelve and half cents. In accounts, these coins when received or paid out were charged or credited in pounds, shillings and pence in each of the colonies before the Revolution, and in the states after- wards until 1806. After 1806 accounts were kept in either, and sometimes in both currencies at once. Here is a specimen of the double order.
" HANOVER, 1806.
"JOHN MILLER-Dr.
DOL. CENTS.
"Feb. To one shoat
9s. 4d .- I 25
"To three pecks of beans 5 7 -0 75
"To five pounds hog's lard . 5
0 -0 66
"To six yards and half tow and linen 6 0 -3 45 50"
"To 15lbs of rye flour at 3d per Ib . 3 9
-0
.
The above is not always correct to a fraction. It is, of course, in Pennsylvania and United States Currency. After this till about 1820, accounts were kept in either currency, but not often in both at once. These were farmer's accounts. Merchants may have kept theirs in one invariable manner. New York Currency was used in some parts of Pennsylvania so far as to use sixpences and shillings, until within the past twenty years. This was the case with that part of our state where their dealings were almost wholly with New York.
Tobacco was from the beginning one of the important crops. It was used by nearly every man and was raised on nearly every farm. It was manufactured by the farmers at home into "plugs" and sold, as well as in leaf. The plug was worth about twice as much as leaf per pound. Tobacco and iron were frequently used to pay small debts in place of money. Tobacco and iron they had, but money they did not have. Money did not circulate here to any ex-
217
HANOVER TOWNSHIP.
tent. There was almost a total absence of gold and silver and any paper representative of it until after the canal was built-1830. Iron was made at Nanticoke and was used as a partial substitute for money. Persons who had no use for iron themselves took pay in iron for their work and paid it out to others in the same way. There was no profit charged by these dealers in iron. It was always transferred from one to another at the same price. This use of iron continued till 1830. All labor was paid for in kind, unless this shall be considered payment in money or currency.
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CHAPTER XI.
SETTLERS' FIRST WORK.
N the early times in Hanover, the trees cut down in clearing up the land were split into rails about eleven feet long for fences. It was a way to get rid of the logs, and at the same time get a fence. These fences were called "worm-fences." The rails were split to about four, five, or six inches in diameter-of, course, they were triangular in shape. A sufficient number would be split to make a fence around the lot, or to inclose a lot beside another lot or field, and to make such cross fences as were desired. These fences were always not less than seven rails high, "staked and ridered," the top rail or " rider" being heavier than any of the others. This kind of fence was laid up from the ground by first laying a rail on the ground-a stone was put under the ends, if stones were handy-diagonally across the line of direction of the fence, the next rail was laid with one end of it across the end of the first one, and in a diagonal direction the other way across the line of direction of the fence, the ends of the rails crossing each other within a foot of the end of each, the further end lay upon a stone or upon the ground. This continued around the field, or to the end of the contemplated fence, would be one course and would be zigzag. Now other courses were laid on these to the number of five in the same way, and then the staking was set up. This was done by taking a stake, just like a rail, only that it was but six or eight feet long, and placing it leaning against the fence at the corner where the rails cross each other, with the bottom of it sunk a foot or more in the ground about eighteen inches or more from the fence. Another stake is sunk in a hole in the ground on the opposite side of the fence at the same corner, and the two stakes crossing each other over the fifth rail making a crotch. A light rail was then laid on, one end in the crotch made by the
.
219
HANOVER TOWNSHIP.
crossed stakes and the other end on the rail at the corner next beyond. Then that corner is staked in the same way and a rail laid in, and so on to the end. Then the last or seventh rail, called a rider, a heavier rail than the others, is laid on each panel all the way round and that finishes the fence, Each length of seven rails high is called a panel, and two panels thus laid make about one rod. The "zigzag" in the panels makes it stand, and the stakes and heavy riders hold it firm. Such a fence will last ten or twelve years and most of the rails a great deal longer, but it takes so much wood to make such a fence, that, as wood becomes scarce such fences are no longer built in Hanover. No new ones of this kind have been built in Hanover for twenty or thirty years. They are made now of posts and boards, the boards being nailed on. A kind of fence used to be built many years ago called "post and rail." In this fence the posts were hewed thin above the ground and holes mortised through and thin and wide rails were put in the holes, the rails for two panels meeting by the side of each other in the mortises in the posts.
"Fence Viewers" were elected by each township to see that the fences had no spaces between the rails of more than a certain width, and that they were not less than seven rails high when they were worm-fences, for if the owner violated the rules or laws as to these matters he could not recover any damages for the trespassing of other people's cattle, hogs, sheep, horses, etc., on his crops or in his garden. If the fence was "lawful" the damage, whatever done, to fences and crops must be paid for heavily by the owner of the animals. Some such fences are still in use, of old rails made long ago, and perhaps, occasionally, a very few rails of the same kind are still made for the repair of such old fences.
Soon after the third Pennamite and Yankee war ended, the back land began to be cleared up for farms. It took a great deal of labor; the soil in many places was stony, and everywhere thin and poor, at least as compared with the flats. Good crops of wheat, rye, corn, potatoes, flax, buckwheat and oats could be raised by manuring and the strictest cultivation.
Farming was the only business carried on here from the first up to about 1830, excepting only such other business and trades as were necessary to farmers (and a small export of coal down the river
1
220
HISTORY OF HANOVER.
on arks). A farm was seldom less than a hundred acres, with per- haps sixty acres under cultivation for grain, vegetables, hay and pasture for cattle and sheep. Few farmers had more than one horse. They used oxen. Such a farm would be divided by fences into eight or ten fields, with nearly one-half used for hay and pasture.
A garden of about half an acre was attached to each house, and was the first thing manured and plowed in the spring. The kitchen back door usually led into the garden. The house was situated, if possible, near a spring, but if no such spring and satisfactory place for the house could be found near together, a well was dug near the house. Water could be found almost anywhere by digging · fifteen or twenty feet. A team of oxen would plow about one acre of ground in a day of twelve hours. The ground was plowed as early in the spring as it was fit to plow, and when prepared for the seed, oats were sown broadcast by hand, and in the case of corn and potatoes the whole family, even to children only six or seven years old, went into the fields to plant. Nobody was idle then. Flax was sown broadcast, and as it grew the women and children frequently went into the field and pulled out the weeds. They did this also in the corn and potato field sometimes, but these could be kept in pretty clean condition by the shovel-plow and the hoe.
The "cultivator" as known now had not then been invented. Beans were generally planted in the garden in hills, and at the proper time, when the beans had nearly finished their growth, the ground between the hills was dug slightly and turnip seed sown in. Thus two crops were raised on this ground in one season. The sheep were sheared in June, and from that time there was the work of carding the wool-by hand, of course-for carding machines were not known till 1814 in Hanover. At the same time the spinning followed right along with the carding. The spinning-wheel had but one spindle, and only a single thread was spun at a time. The jenny and mule were not known at that time. Then followed the dying and weaving of woolen cloth. In the fall the flax was pulled, dried, stripped of seed, rotted, broken, swingled, hetcheled, spun, (on a flax spinning-wheel; of course, the wheel for wool would not spin flax) woven, and in the winter made
HANOVER TOWNSHIP. 22I
up into sheets, pillow-cases, towels, table-cloths, under-clothing and all the "thousand and one" things such cloth was used for.
The crops were harvested in the summer and fall, and the cellar filled for the coming year's use with potatoes, turnips, cabbages, apples, beets, carrots, pork, beef (corned), vinegar, cider, cider royal, metheglin. Apples, potatoes, cabbages and turnips were also bur- ied in large heaps in the earth in the garden to be preserved through the winter. The winter was a no less busy time than the summer, for threshing was all done by hand with the flail, the corn was shelled by hand, all grain, such as wheat, rye, oats, buckwheat had to be cleaned of its chaff by hand. A "fan," as it was called, was used for this purpose, taking advantage at the same time of any draught of air passing across the threshing floor. And then with all the labor put upon it, it was not very clean. Fanning mills for cleaning. or separating the grain from the chaff were not introduced here earlier than 1825, and the times intended to be represented above are those previous to 1800.
These people worked hard, all of them, unless it was those going to school and those too young to go to school. They had abundance of such things to eat and for clothing as they could raise themselves on their own farms, but there was a great scarcity of everything produced elsewhere that was necessary for them to have. Salt was two dollars and forty cents a bushel, and poor at that. Now, in 1885, salt of a better quality can be bought at thirty-five to fifty-six cents per bushel, this last being the best pro- duced now. The thirty-five-cent salt is probably much better than these people could get then for two dollars and forty cents. But whatever it cost they had to have it to preserve their meat and fish for the year's use. Furs were caught and exchanged for such articles as salt and other things that had to be procured abroad, for they had no money to buy with .*
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