Indiana County, Pennsylvania, her people, past and present, Volume I, Part 10

Author: Stewart, Joshua Thompson, 1862- comp
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: Chicago, J. H. Beers & co.
Number of Pages: 930

USA > Pennsylvania > Indiana County > Indiana County, Pennsylvania, her people, past and present, Volume I > Part 10

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Wizards were men supposed to possess the same mischievous powers as the witches; but these were seldom exercised for bad purposes. The powers of the wizards were exercised al- most exclusively for the purpose of counter- acting the malevolent influences of the witches, of the other sex.

The diseases of children supposed to be in- flicted by witchcraft were those of the internal organs, dropsy of the brain, and the rickets. The symptoms and cure of these destructive diseases were utterly unknown in former times in this country. Diseases which could neither be accounted for nor cured were usually ascribed to some supernatural agency of a malignant kind.

For the cure of the diseases inflicted by witchcraft, the picture of the supposed witch was drawn on a stump or piece of board and shot at with a bullet containing a little bit of silver. This silver bullet transferred a

HISTORY OF INDIANA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

painful and sometimes a mortal spell on that viewed with as little emotion as the movements part of the witch corresponding with the part of Jupiter and Saturn in their respective orbits.

of the portrait struck by the bullet. Another method of cure was that of getting some of the child's water, which was closely corked up in a vial and hung up in a chimney. This complemented the witch with a strangury which lasted as long as the vial remained in the chimney. The witch had but one way of relieving herself from any spell inflicted on her in any way, which was that of borrowing something, no matter what, of the family to which the subject of the exercise of her witch- craft belonged.

When cattle or dogs were supposed to be under the influence of witchcraft they were burned in the forehead by a branding iron, or when dead, burned wholly to ashes. This inflicted a spell upon the witch which could only be removed by borrowing, as above stated.

Witches were often said to milk the cows of their neighbors. This they did by fixing a new pin in a new towel for each cow in- tended to be milked. This towel was hung over the witch's own door, and by the means of certain incantations the milk was extracted from the fringes of the towel after the manner of milking a cow. This happened when the cows were too poor to give much milk.

The first German glass blowers in this coun- try drove the witches out of their furnaces by throwing living puppies into them.

An eclipse of the sun, and an unusual freshet of the Tiber, shortly after the assassin- ation of Julius Cæsar by Cassius and Brutus, threw the whole of the Roman empire into con- sternation. It was supposed that all the gods of heaven and earth were enraged and about to take revenge for the murder of the dicta- tor; but since the science of astronomy fore- tells in the calendar the time and extent of the eclipse, the phenomenon is not viewed as a miraculous and portentous, but as a common and natural, event.

That the pythoness and wizard of the He- brews, the monthly soothsayers, astrologers and prognosticators of the Chaldeans, and the sybils of the Greeks and Romans, were merely mercenary impostors, there can be no doubt. To say that the pythoness and all others of her class were aided in their opera- tions by the intervention of familiar spirits does not mend the matter, for spirits, whether good or bad, possess not the power of life and death, health and disease, with regard to man or beast. Prescience is an incommunicable attribute of God, and therefore spirits can- not foretell future events.

The afflictions of Job, through the interven- tion of Satan, were miraculous. The posses- sions mentioned in the New Testament, in all human probability, were maniacal dis- eases, and if, at their cures, the supposed evil spirits spoke with an audible voice, these events were also miraculous, and effected for a special purpose. But from miracles no gen- eral conclusions can be drawn with regard to the divine government of the world. The conclusion is that the powers professed to be exercised by the occult science of necromancy and other arts of divination were neither more or less than impostures.

The greater or less amount of belief in witchcraft, necromancy and astrology serves to show the relative amount of philosophical science in any country. Ignorance is always associated with superstition, which, present- ing an endless variety of sources of hope and fear, with regard to the good or bad fortunes of life, keeps the benighted mind continually harassed with groundless and delusive, but strong and often deeply distressing, impres- sions of a false faith. For this disease of the Among the Hebrews the profession of arts of divination was thought deserving of capital punishment, because the profession was of pagan origin, and of course incompatible with the profession of theism and a theocratic form of government. These jugglers per- petrated debasing superstition among the people. They were also swindlers, who di- vested their neighbors of large sums of money, and valuable presents, without an equivalent. On the ground then, of fraud alone, accord- ing to the genius of the criminal codes of mind there is no cure but that of philosophy. This science shows to the enlightened reason of man that no effect whatever can be pro- duced in the physical world without a corre- sponding cause. This science announces that the deathbell is but a momentary morbid mo- tion of the ear, and the deathwatch the noise of a bug in the wall, and that the howling of the dog and the croaking of the raven are but the natural languages of the beast and fowl, and no way prophetic of the death of the sick. The comet, which used to shake pesti- ancient governments, this offense deserved lence and war from its fiery train, is now capital punishment.

HISTORY OF INDIANA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

But is the present time better than the past with regard to a superstitious belief in occult influences ? Do no traces of the polytheism of our forefathers remain among their Christian descendants ? This inquiry must be answered in the affirmative. Should an almanac maker venture to give out the Christian calendar without a column containing the signs of the zodiac, the calendar would be condemned as being totally deficient and the whole impres- sion would remain on his hands.

But what are these signs? They are con- stellations of the zodiac, that is, clusters of stars, twelve in number, within and including the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. These constellations resemble the animals after which they are named. But what influence do these clusters of stars exert on the animal and the plant? Certainly none at all; and yet we are taught that the northern constella- tions govern the divisions of living bodies alternately from the head to the reins, and in like manner the southern from the reins to the feet. The sign then makes a skip from the feet to Aries, who again assumes the government of the head, and so on. About half of these constellations are friendly di- vinities and exert a salutary influence on the animal and the plant. The others are malig- nant in their temper, and govern only for evil purposes. They blast, during their reign, the seed sown in the earth and render medi- cine and operations of surgery unsuccessful.

We have read of the Hebrews worshipping the hosts of heaven whenever they relapsed into idolatry, and these same constellations were the hosts of heaven which they wor- shipped. We, it is true, make no offering to these hosts of heaven, but we give them our faith and confidence. We hope for physical benefits from those of them whose dominion is friendly to our interests, while the reign of the malignant ones is an object of dread and painful apprehension. Let us not boast very much of our science, civilization or even Christianity while this column of the relics of paganism still disgraces the Christian calendar.

I have made these observations with a view to discredit the remnants of superstition still existing among us. While dreams, the howling of the dog, croaking of a raven are prophetic of future events we are not good Christians. While we are dismayed at the signs of heaven we are for the time being pagans. Life has evils enough to contend with, without imaginary ones.

STORES AND TRADE

A great inconvenience incident to pioneer life is the want of the many articles essential to the comforts of a family, which the farm cannot supply. Therefore no immigrant is more welcome in a new settlement than the first merchant. Fortunately, there are sel- dom wanting those who are ready to establish a store when and where there is a population sufficient to sustain one. All of the early stores were kept in log buildings. The first stocks of goods were small, yet they com- prised most of those articles which were needed by the settlers.

But the gratification of some at the advent of the early merchant was greatly moderated by their inability to purchase his wares. The inhabitants were generally poor. They had expended nearly all their money in their re- moval, and the little they had left was wanted to buy absolute necessaries. Farmers who had been here long enough to raise a small surplus obtained some money from newcom- ers. But the majority were not so fortunate.

Goods were dear, having been transported at great cost. They were first brought from Carlisle and Chambersburg, and sometimes four weeks were occupied in the round trip. After wagons were introduced the round trip was usually made in about ten days, though on many occasions double that time was used. But the high price of the merchant's goods was but half of the farmer's misfortune. While he had to pay a double price for nearly every article of store goods, he, much of the time, was obliged to sell the products of his farm at about half the cost in labor. Wheat sometimes sold as low as a shilling per bushel ; corn, 6d. per bushel; rye, 1s .; buckwheat, 1s .; oats, 6d. per bushel ; tallow, 2 cts. per pound ; lard, 2 cts. per pound; pork, 4s. per cwt .; beef, 1d. to 2d. per pound ; and other products in proportion. Ofttimes the prices were double and even five times the foregoing. but the market as a rule was "weak and no buyers."

The earliest account book whieli we have been enabled to see bears the date of 1794, but as this only gives the aggregate amounts the retail price cannot be gleaned. The old mode of reckoning was by pounds, shillings and pence, and until a comparatively late period the prices of goods per yard or pound, both in selling and buying, at wholesale and retail, were given in shillings and pence. Be- tween 1794 and 1800 some of the prices were : "Wool hat, 11s. 3d .: (1794) bandana handkf. 11s. 3d. ; half a pound of cut and dry tobacco,

1120034

HISTORY OF INDIANA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

1s. 6d .; (1795) 1 skillet, 12s .; half a pound of lard, 1114d; one-fourth bushel of salt, 6s. 61/2d .; 81/2 pounds of bacon, 8s. 6d .; pound of coffee, 3s. 9d .; 1 pair mockisins, 3s. 9d .; half a quire of paper, 1s. 6d .; two pipes, 11d .; one-fourth pound of tobacco, 9d; half a bushel of potatoes, 3s. 9d .; half pound of gun powder, 5s. 71%d .; two yards of calico, 7s .; one pound lead, 1s. 101%d .; one pair boots, 2€ 16s. 3d .; one-fourth yd. corderoy, 4s. 91/2d .; one-half dozen knives and forks (1798), 12s. 6d .; two pounds soap, 2s. 101%d .; five tin cups, 4s. 8d .; five yards Durant ( ?), 1€ 2s. 6d .; one peck salt, 7s. 6d .; one crooked comb, 1s. 101%d .; (1794) one pen knife, 3s. 6d. ; three-fourths yard Mersailles pattern, 14s. 1bd .; two and one-half yards muslin, 9s. 41%d. ; one yard muslin, 3s. 9d .; three and one- half yards binding, 1s. 7d .; one and a fourth yards calico, 9s. 41/2d .; one ounce indigo, 1s. 6d .; forty-seven pounds of iron, 1€ 19s. 2d .; one pair leggins, 7s. 9d .; one quart whiskey, 1s. 101%d .; one pair cotton cords, 7s. 6d .; one-half dozen spoons, 10s. 11%d .; one pair Rose Blankets, 2₺ 12s. 6d .; one pair cotton hose, 15s .; one quire paper, 3s .; one mill saw file, 5s .; one blanket, 19s. 9d .; one gimblet, 4s .; two dozen serews, 1s. 101%d .; two hun- dred tacks, 3s. 9d .; two pounds coffee, 8s .; one ounce indigo, 1s. 6d .; one-fourth pound (1796) of pepper, 2s .; four skanes thread, 1s .; five yeards ribbon, 7s. 6d .; nails one pound, 3s .; one nutmeg, 1s .; factory muslin, one yard, 6s .; Maccaboy snuff, one pound, 13s .; three sticks twist, 3s .; one pair shoes, 15s., one dozen buttons, 3s., one razor, 2s. 6d .; (1789) one yard scarlet cloth, 3s. 6d .; one- half a hundred quills, 8s .; three yards Fur- stin (1797), 16s. 9d .; one yard swanskin, 7s. 71%d. ; one-half a pound of lead, 1s .; one quart salt, Is. 101/2d .; one paper of pins (1798). 3s .; one pair of sisars (1798), 4s. 9d." Whiskey, that staple article in those days, varied in price from 6s. to 15s. per gallon, but the books indicated no perceptible de- crease in its consumption. On the 26th of December, 1789, Charles Campbell is credited with one barrel of salt, £7 10s.

PIONEER PRICES FOR SKILLED AND UNSKILLED LABOR

For Carpenters

1800

70 cents per day

1810

$1.09 per day

1820

1.13 per day

1830-1840

1.40 per day

1850-1860

1.50 per day

For Day Laborers

1800

.62 cents per day

1810

.82 cents per day

1820

.90 cents per day

1840-1860 $1.00 (about) per day

Previous to 1840, a day's work was not limited by hours. It was by law and custom from "sunrise to sunset," or whatever the employer exacted. In 1840, however, Presi- dent Van Buren signed the pioneer executive order fixing a day's work in the Washington navy yard at ten hours per day. It took a great and protracted struggle for years to secure the general adoption of the ten-hour system.

But our surprise at these prices will be less when we consider the cost of transporta- tion. With the products of their farms, at the prices they bore a few years later, farmers could hardly have paid for store goods, at the prices charged. Nor did farmers find permanent relief until the commencement of the canal and development of the furnace business.

In those days, whiskey was the article whose sale was never diminished on account of hard times. In 1797 we count, on five successive pages, sixty-nine separate and dis- tinct charges for this article. During the war of 1812, flour rose to $19 per barrel; hollow castings ten cents per pound, and salt $12 per barrel. Maple sugar was exchanged at six cents per pound for goods; butter at six to eight cents; oats, ten to twelve cents per bushel; and other produce in proportion.

To facilitate the collection of debts, mer- chants, after cattle were plenty, received the same in payment from their customers and drove them to Eastern markets, or sold them to drovers from the East. Pork also was taken on account at prices which contrast strikingly with the present. Well-fatted pork, dressed, was sold for two dollars per hun- dred pounds. Lumber with its products, lath, shingles, etc., was received, and other things, such as furs, etc.

NATURE OF TRADE

From what has been said in the previous paragraphs, the reader will readily infer that trade was greatly restricted by the scarcity of the usual circulating medium. Few goods were sold for cash. Business was done on the credit and barter system, not only by and with merchants, but between the people. Notes were made payable in grain, lumber,

HISTORY OF INDIANA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

cattle, furs, etc., and sometimes contained the Three hundred trees required a storage of stipulation, "at cash prices." Almost every- thing had a cash and a barter, or a credit price. It was, however, not always easy to ascertain the cash price. Merchants often suffered great loss by this system of trade. Losses by bad debts, and losses on grain and other commodities, which it was almost im- possible to sell for cash, rendered the business an unsafe one.

Most of the business was, for many years. transacted in the river towns which were first settled, and possessed superior commercial advantages. Maple sugar, long an important article of trade, came in large quantities from the settlements. The inhabitants generally supplying themselves, the price is said to have been, at times, as low as four cents per pound. Almost the only store sugar for years was the white, refined, put up in hard balls, solid loaves of a conical form, and called loaf or lump sugar, and was wrapped in strong. coarse paper. It was sold chiefly for sweet- ening medicines and the liquors of tavern- keepers.

MAPLE SUGAR INDUSTRY

One of the pioneer industries in this wil- derness was maple-sugarmaking. The sugar season commenced either in the last of Feb- ruary or the first of March. In any event. at this time the manufacturer always visited his camp to see or set things in order. The camp was a small cabin made of logs, covered usually with elapboards, and open at one end. The fireplace or crane and hooks were made in this way : Before the opening in the cabin Skill and attention were both necessary in "sugaring off," for if the syrup was taken off too soon the sugar was wet and tough, and if left too long, the sugar was burnt and bitter. Time has evoluted this industry from Northwestern Pennsylvania. four wooden forks were set deeply in the ground, and on these forks was suspended a strong pole. On this pole was hnung the hook of a limb, with a pin in the lower end to hang the kettle on. An average camp had about three hundred trees, and it required Sugar is supposed to have been first used by the Hebrews. six kettles, averaging about twenty-two gal- lons each, to boil the water from that many trees. The trees were tapped in various ways. REFLECTIONS ON PIONEER LIFE viz .: First. with a three-quarter-inch auger. one or two inches deep. In this hole was put The history of pioneer life generally pre- sents only the dark side of the picture. The toils and privations of the early settlers were not a series of unmitigated sufferings. The addition of each new acre to their "clearings" brought with it fresh enjoyment, and cheered them on in pursuit of their ultimate object, an unineumbered and a happy home. They were happy also in their fraternal feelings, a ronnd spile about eighteen inches long, made of sumach or whittled pine, two spiles to a tree. The later way was by cutting a hollow notch in the tree and putting the spile below with a gouge. This spile was made of pine or some soft wood. At the camp there were always from one to three storage troughs made of wuenmber or poplar, and each trough held from ten barrels upward. or, as one expressed it. " the feeling of brother-

thirty barrels and steady boiling with six kettles. The small troughs under the trees were made of pine and cucumber and held from three to six gallons. We hauled the water to the storage-troughs with one horse and a kind of "pung," the barrel being kept in its place by plank just far enough apart to hold it tight. In the fireplace there was a large backlog and one a little smaller in front. The fire was kept up late and early with smaller wood split in lengths of about three feet. We boiled the water into a thick syrup, then strained it through a woolen cloth while hot into the syrup-barrel. When it had settled. and before putting it on to "sugar off." we strained it the second time. During this sugaring we skimmed the seum off with a tin skimmer and clarified the syrup in the kettle with eggs well beaten in sweet milk. This "sugaring off" was always done on cloudy or cold days, when the trees wouldn't run "sap." One barrel of sugar-water from a sugar tree, in the beginning of the season, would make from five to seven pounds of sugar. The sugar was always made during the first of the season. The molasses was made at the last of the season, or else it wonld turn to sugar in a very few days. The sugar was made in cakes. or "stirred off" in a granulated condition, and sold in the market for from six and a quarter to twelve and a half cents a pound. In "sugaring off," the syrup had to be frequently sampled by drop- ing some of it in a tin of cold water, and if the molasses formed a "thread" that was brittle like glass, it was fit to stir.

HISTORY OF INDIANA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

hood-the disposition to help one another"; knocking was, by the more intimate neigh- or, in the language of another, "society was bors, not observed. uncultivated; yet the people were very Nor did they lack topics of conversation friendly to each other, quite as much so as at these visits. Prominent among them were relatives at the present day."

We could not hardly endure the thought of exchanging our comfortable and elegant car- riages for the rude ones of our fathers and grandfathers, which served for the purposes of visiting, and of going to mill and to meet- ing ; yet who doubts that families had a "good time" when they made a visit to a "neigh- bor" at a distance of several miles, through the woods, on an ox sled ? Our mothers were clad in homespun of their own make; and not a few remember the glad surprise when fathers, on their return from market, pre- sented their faithful helpmates with a six- yard calico dress pattern for Sunday wear. And it is presumed that the wearer was in quite as devotional frame of mind, and en- joyed Sabbath exercises quite as well, as she who now flaunts her gorgeously trimmed silk of fifteen or twenty yards, made up into a style transforming the wearer into the "like- ness" of something never before seen or known "above," or "on the earth beneath," and altered with every change of the moon.,

People were happy in their families. The boys, having labored hard during the day, sought rest at an early hour. Parents had the pleasure of seeing their sons acquiring habits of industry and frugality-a sure prog- nostic of success in life. The "higher civiliza- tion" had not yet introduced

"In every country village, where Ten chimney smokes perfumed the air"

their domestic affairs-their manifold indus- rial enterprises and labors-and the antici- pated reward of their privations and toils. Their conversation, some may suppose, evinced no high degree of intellectual culture; yet, as an indication of such culture, surely it would not suffer in comparison with the gossip of many of our modern ladies at their social gatherings.

The following extract from the pen of a pioneer mother in another county may be read with interest by some :

"The country around us was an entire wilderness with here and there a small cabin, containing a small family. We were nearly all new beginners, and although we had to work almost day and night, we were not dis- couraged. There were many and serious trials in the beginning of this country, with those who settled amid the heavy timber, hav- ing nothing to depend upon for a living but their own industry. Such was our situation. However, we were blessed with health and strength, and were able to accomplish all that was necessary to be done. Our husbands cleared the ground, and assisted each other in rolling the logs. We often went with them on these occasions, to assist in the way of cooking for the hands.

"We had first-rate times, just such as hard laboring men and women can appreciate. We were not what now would be called fashion- able cooks; we had no pound cakes, preserves or jellies, but the substantials, prepared in

those popular modern institutions, the saloon plain, old-fashioned style. This is one reason and the billard room, in which so many youths why we were blessed with health; we had none of your dainties, knickknacks, and fix- ings that are worse than nothing. There are many diseases that we had never even heard of forty to sixty years ago, such as dyspepsia, neuralgia and many others too tedious to men- tion. It was not fashionable then to be weakly. We could take our spinning wheels and walk two to four miles to a spinning frolic, do our day's work, and after a first- rate supper join in some innocent amusement for the evening. We did not take particular pains to keep our hands white; we knew they were made for our advantage; therefore we never thought of having hands just to look at. Each settler had to go and assist his neighbors ten or fifteen days in order to get help in return, in log rolling time; this was now receive their principal training. Fewer parents spent sleepless nights in anxious thought about their "prodigal sons" or had their slumbers broken by the noisy entrance of these sons on returning from their mid- night revels. They saw no clouds rising to dim the prospect of a happy future to their children. Never were wives and mothers more cheerful than when, like the virtuous woman described by Solomon "they laid their hands to the spindle, and their hands held the dis- taff"; or when, when with their knitting work or sewing, and baby, too, they went-un- bidden, as the custom was-to spend an af- ternoon with the "neighbor women," by whom they were received with a hearty un- ceremonious welcome. The "latchstring was out" at all times; and even the formality of the only way to get assistance. I have

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

Indiana County, Pennsylvania, her people, past and present, Volume I, Part 10

Author: Stewart, Joshua Thompson, 1862- comp Publication date: 1913 Publisher: Chicago, J. H. Beers & co. Number of Pages: 930

Author: Stewart, Joshua Thompson, 1862- comp
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: Chicago, J. H. Beers & co.
Number of Pages: 930