History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 42

Author: George Dallas Albert, editor
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We have heard said that in times of great scarcenews a sprinkling of hickory ashes was used in lieu of salt.

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HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

woodland had been consumed for this purpose. The pumping was originally done by blind horses, and the salt sold, as the books show, sometimes at five dollars per bushel, retail, but as the wells multiplied the price fell very considerably. With the increase of trade came new machinery and new appliances for the man- ufacture. The unwieldy kettles were dispensed with, and large pans of half-inch iron, some twenty feet long, ten to eleven feet wide, and eight inches deep, were used. The blind horses staggered into obscurity, and the steam-engine was henceforth used for boring and pumping. The place was called the Great Con- emaugh Salt-Works, and a post-office was soon estab- lished there. Four miles on the western side of the river are the James McLanahan and Andrew Boggs well, a well which is one of the oldest, and which produced a great deal of salt down to 1858, when it was abandoned; next the Samuel Reed well ; the M. Johnston and A. Stewart ; next the Nathan M. D. Sterrett and David Mitchell wells, both of them good, the last named not abandoned till 1855; the Deep Hollow, Pete Hanmer well, forty rods from the river, rather new, and not considered to be profitable, was abandoned; the Walter Skelton well made a great quantity of salt while in blast; the Winings & Morri- son works are of recent date, and produce a small amount of good salt. Of these only two are in blast, -the Waddle group, owned by Samuel Waddle, and the Winings, owned by Winings. The wells enu- merated are named after their original owners. The seven wells along the river on the western side were all put down prior to 1822 or 1820, and from that date till 1830 the group of hills on both sides of the river was like a great bee-hive. . . But it is strange that very few men engaged originally in the production and manufacture of salt attained to affluent circumstances. Most of them died poor. The expenses of production in many instances exceeded the income. The coal and machinery had to be hauled from Pittsburgh by wagon, or brought by the river in keel boats. These means of transportation were too expensive.

The brackishness of the water and the licks along Jacobs Creek, at one time called " Salt Creek," and in the swamps of the Sewickley were early known to the settlers. The properties were never developed, and it was not till 1808 or 1809 that salt may be said to have been first discovered along the Sewickley. William Beck was the first operator. Its presence there was evinced by the deer-lick and by the gases, which in escaping from the recesses of the earth disturbed the waters of the creek. The first well sunk there was bored by hand. Eight men lifted by force of their arms the boring tools, and letting them drop, these by their own weight bore slowly down towards the deposit. This lies five hundred feet below the surface, and the men working were three years in reaching it. This plan was improved upon by the application of the spring-pole and tread- board and wooden pole-tools. This method continued |

for twenty-five years before the rope was thought of and used. A well of five hundred feet can now be bored in thirty days. The first well was only two inches at the bottom, now the hole is five and a half inches at the top and four inches at the bottom. The salt at first was boiled down in large kettles, and these continued in use for a number of years, till Col. Israel Painter, the proprietor of the most extensive of these works, with his accustomed sagacity, brought into use the large and shallow pans in which it is now manufactured.

There was of course very little money in circula- tion among the first settlers. Money was not needed, only for the payment of taxes and for the purchase of a very few of the necessaries, such as salt and powder. The currency legalized during the Revolu- tion was fluctuating in value, and towards 1779 and 1780 had scarcely any purchasing power. From the order-book of the Ohio County Court-one of the three Virginia courts in Pennsylvania-for 1780 it is seen that an order was issued to the ordinary keepers in the county to sell at appended rates, which were as follows : half a pint of whiskey, six dollars; break- fast and supper, four dollars; lodgings, with clean sheets, three dollars; or a horse and hay overnight, three dollars; one gallon of whiskey, six dollars.1 For the same time in 1780 whiskey was eight dollars and a half per pint. This was of course in Conti- nental money. But this may give an idea of the unstable valuation put upon everything the value of which was regulated by money. In 1779, all things in the way of provisions being scarce, the flour and meat for the garrison at Pittsburgh had to be brought across the mountains. Bacon there was worth oue dollar a pound, and deer was bought for the use of the army.' At this time, and the year previous, 1778, flour was worth sixteen dollars a barrel. The money to purchase these things was paid by Congress. Com- mercial restrictions were tried, and combinations and promises entered into among the officers and business men to make the money go at a stated valuation, but with a useless result. This trouble in the currency and in the worthless value of the money, or what purported to be the money, was as severely felt after the war as during it. The soldiers who had been in the service and the contracts made for the army were paid off in this currency. The people were, in 1788 and 1784, nearly destitute of cash in gold or silver. In good money, in 1785, salt was worth five dollars a barrel, and it was, indeed, no uncommon thing for the price of a bushel of salt to be equivalent to a cow and calf; so five or seven dollars probably in cash would purchase a cow.

These following illustrations are given to show the equivalent of merchantable things with each other and their value in money. Pennsylvania currency was always variable in value. In 1780, in West-

1 For June 6, 1780.

" Craig's History of Pittsburgh.

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SALT, WHISKEY, EARLY MILLS, AND FURNACES.

moreland County, in the settlement of the commis- sionera of that year, confirmed by the court upon the report of the auditors, thirty dollars were said to be equal to three shillings sixpence in specie. Paper money, or the money of legislation, was worth little compared with specie at any time down till after the end of the Revolution. From the changeable prices an idea will be got of the scarceness and consequently of the dearness of money.

The terms offered by Franklin for wagons, horses, and wagoners for Braddock's army in 1755 were for each wagon with four good horses and driver fifteen shillings per day, for each able horse with pack-sad- dle or other saddle and furniture two shillings per day, for each able horse without a saddle eighteen pence per day.1

President Reed, June 9, 1781, in a letter to David Duncan, the commissioner, etc., writes as follows :

"814,-Being appointed a commissioner of purchases for the county of Westmoreland, you are to proceed in that duty with all despatch so as to supply the garrison at Fort Pitt and such troops as may be drawn forth under the authority of Council for the defence of the frontiers. The amount of your yearly purchases is to be limited to 816 barrels flour, 5000 gallons of whiskey, 200,000 pounds beef or pork, 1000 bushels of corn or 2000 bushels of oats, which you will purchase with as much economy as possible, and at such periods as will be most necessary and convenient. Until next harvest you are not to exceed the following prices, viz., flour, 30s, per cwt. ; wheat, per bushel, 10s .; Indian corn, 5s .; whiskey, 7s. (shillings) 6d. (pence) per gall., etc."

David Duncan then in a letter to President Reed, June 9, 1781, says,-

"I have bought stall-fed beef at one shilling per pound, State money. I have bought whiskey at six, and from that to seven shillings per gal- lon, and have it delivered in the store, and wheat at one dollar, and de- livered in the mills. I had men last week in the glades trying to pur- chase beef, but not one would sell without hard money."

The depreciation of paper currency or Continental money had become towards the latter end of the Rev- olution a very serious burden to the people all over the country, and great ingenuity was exercised to discover a remedy. Embargoes, commercial restric- tions, tender laws, and limitations of prices were all tried, but in vain. Prices still sank. "I had money enough some time ago," said an anonymous writer, "to buy a hogshead of sugar. I sold it again, and got a great deal more money than it cost me; yet when I went into the market again the money would only get me a tierce. I sold that too at great profit, yet the money received would only buy a barrel. I have now more money than ever, yet I am not so rich as when I had less.""?

The store-book of William Johnston, Saltsburg, date of 1794, etc., contains some things not uninter- esting. Out of a long list of articles, with the current prices, we take the following. The account is kept in pounds, shillings, and pence :

Wool Hat.

11e.

3d. : 1 Pr. Mockaina ... PO

Bandana Hdkf.

Sd. ; 16 qr. Paper

1 .. 62.

16 Mb Cut & Dry.

2 pipes

1 Skillet.

122

16 Mb Jead.

111/d.

2 yde. Culico ..

17 Bush. Salt

64.

616d. : 1 10 lead .....

1& 1016d.

816 mbe. Bacon.

88.

od. . 216 yde. Muslin. ....

1 1b Coffee ..

6d. 112 yds. Calico ......

94.

2 hd. Tacks.

9d. 47 tos. Iron ...........

£1 19s.

1 hd. Quills.

84.

1 Paper Pins.

3g.

Whiskey, from 6 to 15 shillings per gallon.

In 1797, on five consecutive pages, there is counted sixty-nine separate and distinct charges for whiskey. On Dec. 26, 1798, Charles Campbell (General) is credited with 1 barrel of salt, seven pounds and ten shillings.

During this time wheat was allowed for at 1 shil- ling per bushel; corn, 6 pence; rye, 1 shilling; buck- wheat, 1 shilling ; oats, 6 pence ; tallow, 2 pence; lard, 2 pence; pork, 4 shillings per hundred weight; beef, 1 to 2 pence per pound.

" Prices of Provisions as Approved by Gen. Les for the Use of the Army during the Whithey Insurrection.

"NOVEMBER 1st, 1794.

" We, the undersigned, inhabitants of the counties of Washington, Allegheny, and Westmoreland, requested by the Commander-in-chief of the army now in and near the said counties to declare the prices of sun- dry articles necessary for the army, are of the opinion that the prices undermentioned are sufficient for the following articles, being as much as they usually command in the country :ª

Rye, per bushel ..

3/0

Whiskey, per gallon .....

3/0 to 3/5

Oats. (i.e., 2 shillings 6 pence)

2/6

Mutton, per D.

0/316

Corn.

218

Fresh Pork, per Ib

0/8

Flour, cummon

22/8

Potatoes, per bnabel.

210

Ditto, fine ..

....

25/0

Turnips, per bushel ... Turkeya, each ..

0/9 to 0/10 2/6 to 3/9

Hay, por ton ...

50/0

Ducka, per head.

........

Cabbage, per 100.

.... 10/0 to 16/6

Geese, per head. ....

2/6

Fowls, cach

0/6

Butter, per I ......

0/8 to 0/

Onions, per bushel ..

6/6 to 9/6

Cheese ....

0/8 to 0/0

Cyder, per barrel.

30/0

"The price of transportation of onta, hay, corn, whiskey, flour, and meal is not considered, and must depend on distance ; milk not being usually sold, the price is difficult to ascertain; two pence a quart will, however, be an ample price.

" DAVID REDICK,

" THOMAS MORTON,

"WM. FINDLEY."

The people had a great time paying their preachers after they had promised and subscribed for their salary. Sometimes it was impossible, and in the stead of money, to remedy it, they came forward and delivered their farm produce at a rate fixed upon by themselves. From a subscription paper of the con- gregation of Fairfield in 1789, the subscriptions were to be paid in money or grain, at the rate of, wheat at four shillings per bushel, rye or corn at two shillings and sixpence per bushel. These sums were due quar- terly, and to be sued for as lawful debts. From a similar paper of the Sewickley congregation of August, 1792, by which one-half of the subscription was to be paid in cash, and the other half in produce, at these rates, to wit: wheat at four shillings per bushel, rye at three shillings per bushel, and corn at two shillings and sixpence per bushel. The rye here was higher than the corn, for this was in a region where about this time their surplus rye was worked into spirit, and

1 " Western Pennsylvania," Appendix, 97.

? As to the system of regulations adopted by the offices, etc., at Pitts- burgh, 1779, to control speculators, etc., see Craig's " Pittsburgh," p. 146, el seg.

" The figures in the price-list , epresent shillings and pence.

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Indian Meal.

2/6

Bacon

Ditto, superfine

27/6

Straw ..

11d.

16 16 Gunpowder ... 5.

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HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

sold in a diluted form as whiskey, in which it fetched a higher price.1

A good brother in Israel, a Father Laban, has been canonized for a shrewd speculation. Under Rev. Joseph Smith's' pastorate at Cross Creek and Upper Buffalo, the congregation getting behind in their salary and no prospect of catching up, this shrewd old elder proposed to take their wheat down the river to the New Orleans market. The wheat at home was worth twelve and a half cents. The venture was suc- cessful, and the wheat, ground into flour and sold in that market, fetched twenty-seven dollars the barrel. The elder received three hundred dollars, each of the young men who accompanied him one hundred dol- lars apiece, the back salary of the minister as well as the salary for the coming year was paid off, and thus the congregation was relieved of its burden.

When the manufacture of whiskey began to be profitably carried on, say 1787 to 1792, a whiskey- still became an article of some value. In 1785 a good still of one hundred gallons might purchase two hun- dred acres of land, and that even within ten miles of Pittsburgh.'

Land itself was very cheap. The stories told of the purchase and sale of valuable lands are so marvelous that sometimes they are not credible. But any one who goes to the trouble to look over the old records will see by the transfers that in many in- stances the consideration was merely nominal. A still, a horse, a rifle has been known to be the price paid for farms which now are of the most valuable in our whole county.'

At the time of the Whiskey Insurrection and for some years previous thereto iron and steel cost from fifteen to twenty-five cents a pound, the cost of trans- portation being from five to ten dollars per hundred- weight. At that time wheat was so plenty and of so little value that it was the custom to grind the best quality and feed it to the cattle, and as for rye, corn, and barley, it would bring no price for man or beast. The only way, therefore, for the inhabitants to obtain a little money to carry on their farming and to pur- chase a few needful commodities was by distilling the grain and sending it down the river or over the mountains.

The inns of the old turnpike were called " hotels," and the shops "stores." The stores did a business which extended around for many miles. The store- keeper laid in his stock once, or, latterly, twice in the year. This consisted in general of common grocery and the most common fabrics. They had little of

anything and a little of everything on their shelves. The goods were sold at an advance averaging, in most cases, an hundred per cent. This was, indeed, a question more of necessity than of conscience, for at even this profit it took all and more than all the money that a shop-keeper would take in from spring to fall to replenish his stock. He was compelled to take for his pay anything which could be traded for,- bacon, flour, beef, wool, butter, and eggs. One old- time store-keeper once wittingly told us that in the winter his customers traded him their bacon and flour for cloth and groceries, and in the summer they ex- changed their wool and butter for bacon and flour back again to see them to the fall. In this matter of exchange each community had a specialty. Ligo- nier Valley, in the earliest times, furnished nearly all the seed potatoes, for which settlers sometimes went a journey of two and three days,' and in later times its staple was maple-sugar. On the western side of the Ridge corn and oats were raised. It was, therefore, at one time customary to exchange the spring pro- duction of sugar and molasses for corn and oats."

Up to the end of the century Pennsylvania was the only State with any surplus grain-producing territory west of the mountains. To convert this grain into money was the reasonable object. As a consequence we have the origin of the whiskey manufacture through Western Pennsylvania, which at one time obtained such extensive proportions and the taxing of which, as is well known, led almost to domestic war.

Before and during the Revolution whiskey was a staple article of trade; and in 1784, after the close of the war, Turnbull, Marmie & Co., ironmongers of Philadelphia, sent an invoice of stills to Craig, Bay- ard & Co., merchants of Pittsburgh. At about the same time, in a letter from an agent of the latter house at their salt-works at Beaver, the writer advises them to send him three barrels of whiskey and one of rum, and complains that for his want of these his neighbor gets all the skins and furs. The Philadelphia firm fur- nished, perhaps, the majority of stills for the western counties, and finding their general business so profit- able here they were induced to come out and begin the iron business first in these parts. When coin was almost unknown and paper-money valueless, as it was for some years after the peace, a whiskey-still was as necessary as a mill. If there was no money to buy one, a farm or a part of a farm was traded for one. The net proceeds from a good still before the laying

1 Old Redstone.

Ibid.

" It was no uncommon thing for parents, in their wills, to bequeath to their children in proportionate shares, for the full extent of their shares as devises, to be delivered by the son or daughter getting the lands, so much wheat, rye, oats, or corn. These in some instances were payable annually until a certain quantity had been made up. These bequests were in lieu of pecuniary ones.

+ Rev. Dr. Carnahan, in " American Pioneer."

5 Idem.

6 Maple- (or home-made) sugar was trucked out on horses. We may thus come to the origin of a common saying, still used, although not fre- quently, in some parts. It is to be observed that some horses, particu- larly those raised in a thinly-settled district, have a habit of stopping at every house along the roadside. A horse doing so in the thicker-settled parts was called a " sugar horse," by which it was inferred he was from that region which produced sugar, and was habituated to stop at every door. When we first heard such a usage of the word it had, we confess, no meaning.

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SALT, WHISKEY, EARLY MILLS, AND FURNACES.

of the excise was, as we have seen, considerably more than of most farms. There were then still-houses literally anywhere, nearly every fifth or sixth farm having a. copper still. Judge Veech states that at one time there were five hundred and seventy-two stills in the western counties. The farmer who had one manufactured the whiskey for his neighbor who had none, on the shares. So much grain was left, and so much whiskey returned. These still-houses were small affairs, sometimes of only one little still, but oftener of two, the one for singlings and the other for doublings. The stills were set up in the cellar, in the upper part of the spring-house, or in a near out-house.

As a consequence the use of whiskey was universal. The quality was good, the taste pleasant, its effect agreeable. Store-keepers kept liquor on their coun- ters and sold it in their stores, and the women custo- mers used it as well as the men. Farmers kept bar- rels of it in their cellars. It was sometimes drank with tansy, mint, or maple-sugar, but mostly taken straight. It was good for fevers, it was good for a decline, it was good for ague, it was good for snake-bites. There was nothing named in the materia medica but old whiskey possessed some of its cura- tive properties. On the testimony of Col. Crockett, it made one warm in winter and cool in summer. It was used at all gatherings.1 Bottles of it were set out on the table at christenings and at wakes. At funerals in the winter season huge coffee-boilers and buckets of warm whiskey-punch were passed around and the people invited to drink, and tin-cups were filled and carried from time to time to the bearers. Ministers drank it. The biographers of Rev. McMil- lan, who ascribe all virtues to his character, relate the following incident. When on his way to Presbytery in company with the Rev. Joseph Patterson they stopped to water their horses at a public-house, when to compensate the landlord for his courtesy they stopped to take a drink. When the whiskey was poured into the glass Mr. Patterson proposed to ask a blessing before they drank. This was not objected to by the doctor, but as the grace was protracted he not only drank his own glass off but reached for Mr. Pat- terson's and drank his too. When his brother looked blankly after he had finished, the "cardinal" said to him that he must not henceforth forget to watch as well as pray. On an occasion when Bishop Onder- donk came to Greensburg to administer confirmation, before going to church he went into the bar-room of Rhorer's hotel in full canonicals and called for and drank off a tumbler of strong brandy without giving offense to the faithful. Rev. Father McGirr's drink was whiskey-punch, of which it is said he could drink with any of his day without giving scandal.

These examples are cited merely for the object of illustrating how wide-spread was the custom of using stimulants.

As a consequence whiskey was used by nearly all. The government gave regular rations of it to the sol- diers, and these rations were increased at the time of the insurrection, a bait thrown out to the people to do their distilling in accordance with the law. At a time much later than the era of the Revolution, when money was scarce and labor plenty, it is said that many farmers could have the services of laboring men during the whole of the winter season for their bed and board. They went to work with a dram of whiskey and tansy and a piece of bread and butter. On this they worked till breakfast. At every meal the bottle was taken by the neck; for whiskey was all that whiskey is now and coffee, tea, and beer be- sides.

We may go even farther than we have gone in pro- ducing examples to show how wide spread the habit of using domestic liquors had grown among those people. It was a habit easily acquired, because the use of the spirit was general, its quality attractive, and its constituent substances pure and unadulterated. The heavy overhung skies of their long, dreary win- ters, their exposed occupations, and the scarceness of attractive or agreeable diversions are sufficient causes for its usage, which although general was not inordi- nate. In addition to these reasons which are apparent to us they had others of their own. The aptness of quite a majority of these people at quoting Scripture texts, particularly those found in the Hebrew writings, is well known. Some of these texts they had at their tongue's end, and could refer to them on any and every occasion. They therefore doubtless cited the sixth and seventh verses of the thirty-first chapter of Proverbs, " Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his mis- ery no more." This text, by the way, was a familiar one to the Scotch of the time of Burns, and as many of them were familiar with his songs, they no doubt had by heart the one dedicated to Scotch drink :

" Thou clears the head o' doited Lear, Thou cheers the heart o' droopin' Care, Thou strings the uerves o' Labor sair At's weary toll; Thou ever brightens dark Despair Wi' gloomy smile."

There was a time in the early history of South- western Pennsylvania when whiskey was the one com- modity that had a standard value, and all the medi- ums of barter and exchange, such as corn, salt, tobacco, and so forth, were valued in accordance with the amount of whiskey they would fetch. " Old rye" was exchanged at the grocery for tea, coffee, household utensils, and farming implements. At all public gath- erings it gurgled copiously from all sorts of jugs, and. was guzzled by all sorts of men, women, and children.

1 In an account of the Fourth of July celebration at Washington Furnace in 1811, printed at length in the Register, it says, " After partak- ing of a handsome and wholesome repast, and drinking some whiskey mixed with pure water," etc. Delicately put, but " O tempora, O more !"

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History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 42

Author: George Dallas Albert, editor Publication date: Publisher: Number of Pages:

Author: George Dallas Albert, editor
Publication date:
Publisher:
Number of Pages: