Indiana County, Pennsylvania, her people, past and present, Volume I, Part 7

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 7

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HISTORY OF INDIANA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

more compact as they advanced toward the At first it was made entirely of wood; then ravine and descended its side. No man was to fire his gun until he received the command, and it was known that the lines were closed up. Finally the order to fire was given and the signal gun was discharged. Instantly the firing became general. After the first discharge of firearms, the deer and rabbits within the lines became frantic with fright, making the rounds and seeking an opening through which to escape. After all the game that could be seen had been dispatched, a com- mittee was sent within the inclosure to search under all logs and fallen trees to ascertain if any game had fled to any of these places for safety. After the return of the commit- tee the men, by orders, moved towards the center of the inclosure, bringing in the game, consisting of from two to two dozen wolves, one or more bears, several deer, etc. If a ra- vine was too large it was subdivided, and one division after another was "cleaned out." After a few years it was only occasionally that wolves were troublesome, as they gen- erally left for some more secure quarters.

EARLY FARMING

Agriculture is a term hardly applicable to pioneer farming. The implements used would in this age of improvement attract attention as great curiosities. The virgin soil, as has been observed, was ready for the seed when cleared of its timber. The principal instru- ment of tillage for several years was the tri- angular harrow, usually called drag. This consisted of pieces of timber (hewed before there were mills for sawing), about five inches square and six feet long, put together in the form of the letter A. The drag was some- times made of a crotched tree, and needed no framing. The teeth made of wood were double and even treble the size of those now used, in order to stand the severe trial they were to undergo. The drag bounded along over stubs and roots and stones, up and down the hillsides, drawn generally by oxen, often driven by boys.

When the roots had become sufficiently brittle to admit of the use of the plow it was used. When the first "Yankee improved plow" was brought into the country one man said, "The critter is too darned small. It will go to pieces sure." Another said, "Give me a plow with a twelve-foot heam and a seven- foot handle, and I can handle it." The old plow somewhat resemhled the present plow, inasmuch as it was used for the same purpose.

iron points were added; and then an iron shoe, colter, etc .; and, gradually, it was im- proved, until superseded upon the advent of the Yankee castiron plow. Later improve- ments in the plow and harrow, and the inven- tion of cultivators, corn planters, drills and other labor-saving implements, have wonder- fully changed the aspect of farming, and in- creased the power of production. Weeds were not so troublesome then as now, for many new weeds have sprung up since the railroads reached the prairies. The lighter farm imple- ments as now used wereunknown. Heavy wood- en scoop shovels and forks with prongs an inch thick were considered necessary. In due time wheat was produced sufficient to sustain the families and a little later laws were passed to prevent the manufacture of wheat into whis- key, as it was needed for the support of the people and the soldiers. Rye was almost as much used as wheat and corn, and buckwheat and oats were soon introduced. Barley and rye were produced more abundantly about the time of the Civil war than ever before or since. Barley was worth six shillings, four pence per bushel in 1808. Rye was used instead of cof- fee in war times, because coffee could not be had or was too high.

In harvesting, the change is no less strik- ing. Before the decay and removal of stumps permitted the use of grain cradles, wheat was cut with the sickle, now a rare implement. It was then a staple article of merchandise. In the old daybooks or journals of the early mer- chants could be found. under the names of scores of customers, the charge, "to one sickle," followed in many cases by that other charge, "to one gal. whiskey," an article deemed by some as necessary in the harvest- ing operation as the implement itself. The cradle which superseded the sickle is now a thing of the past. It has given place to the reaper, an instrument then seemingly no more likely to be invented than the photographic art or the means of hourly intercourse with the inhabitants on the opposite side of the glohe. Imagine a farmer of Indiana county to-day, attempting to reap a wheatfield of forty acres with a sickle! Then think of those western fields of one hundred to five hundred acres in extent! There was nothing for a farm horse to do except plow or carry bur- dens, most work being done hy oxen.

The packsaddles and sleds gave place but slowly to wagons. The first wagon is said to have heen drawn across the mountains in 1789 by oxen. Wagons were not considered safe

HISTORY OF INDIANA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

among the hills. The only lock or brake was by horses walking in a circle, attached to a chain, and these were scarce. To brake arms or sweeps. This required the assis- tance of neighbors and big dinners at the house. The old Milltown machine, manufac- tured in this country, was introduced before the war, and this has been followed by many improvements. The traction engine, which hauls the cleaner from place to place, was not known as late as 1876, though there was a machine on exhibition at the Philadelphia Centennial which could move itself forward and backward by its own apparatus, propelled by steam, but it was of English manufacture and too heavy for use. From this idea has grown the traction engine, which is common to-day and which has been the forerunner of the automobile. them on a steep hill meant destruction. For several years there were extremely few wag- ons and roads on which to use them. A more simple vehicle was used. From a small tree was taken a piece having at one end two prongs. The single end was put in the ring of the ox yoke, the other resting on the ground. Across the prongs puncheon boards were laid and kept from sliding upwards by long wooden pins set perpendicular in each prong. Sometimes the oxen or horses were attached to the lower end of a log trongh, the bottom of which had been flattened and the end hewed away from the under side to fit it, like a sled runner, for sliding over the rough ground. Some of the early settlers came into the country on "sled-cars," and used them for transportation purposes for several years. A sled car consisted of two poles, one on each side of the horse, one end of it being fastened to the hames, the other resting upon the ground. On the parts resting on the ground, puncheon boards were laid, and prevented from sliding upwards by long wooden pins in each pole.

The grass was first cut with the sickle, but only for a brief period, as scythes were soon brought in by the immigrants and the hay harvest became a matter of considerable im- portance. A lad of sufficient age to drive a team can now cut with a mower from fifty to one hundred acres in an ordinary hay sea- son, and the hay may all be made during the same time by one person. The long swordlike scythe attached to its snathe gave place to the mowing machine in 1847, but the machine did not come into common use until almost ten years later.

The pioneer's first harness was made of withes, with crooked roots or pieces of limbs or trees for hames. It was not long before the tanning of hides was commenced and then good, substantial home-made leather harness was made.

The husking of the corn was generally done in the field. In some parts of the country the ears, when fully ripe, were broken from the stalk, thrown into heaps, and then hauled into the barn and thrown in long heaps across the barn floor, ready for a corn husking, to which the neighbors, old and young, were invited to participate on some evening. The anticipation of a good time secured a good attendance. A good supper, which several of the neighboring women had assisted in preparing, was served from eight to nine o'clock. The "old folks"

Grain was generally threshed with the flail, ten or twenty bushels constituting a day's work. There were no fanning mills in the early times. (Ninian Irwin and a neighbor built the first fanning mill in 1824.) Some- times the grain was spread in shallow depths on the floor where it was threshed and placed in a box perforated with holes, or in a riddle (a very coarse sieve), about thirty inches in diameter and five or six inches deep. To raise . would then leave, and in due time the boys the wind a linen sheet, possibly taken from would gallant the girls to their homes. The recreation afforded to the young people by the frequent recurrence of these festive occasions was as highly enjoyed, and quite as innocent, as most of the amusements of the present boasted age of refinement. the bed, was held at the corners by two men, who gave it a semi-rotary motion or sudden swing. A man would shovel or stir up the wheat on the floor, or hold up and shake the box or riddle with its contents, and the wind caused by the motion of the sheet would blow away the chaff. In this way about ten bushels HAYING IN THE OLDEN TIME could be cleaned in half a day. The introduc- tion of fanning mills was of great service and "Haying in the old days was a much more formidable yearly undertaking than it is to modern farmers. Before the era of labor-sav- ing having implements farmers began the work of haying early in the day and season, and toiled hard until both were far spent. they soon came into general use. In the middle of the century what was known as the bunty horse-power machine, in which a cylinder was used to thresh out the grain, was introduced. The power was furnished

HISTORY OF INDIANA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

Human muscle was strained to exert a force ered with timber. There were for many years equal to the then unused horsepower. On neither mills nor factories. With their own large farms many 'hands' were required. strong arms they must cut down the forest, Haying was an event of importance in the fence the fields and build log cabins. Some of the first settlers lived on potatoes chiefly, the first year of their coming. farmer's year. It made great demands upon his time, strength, and pocketbook. His best helpers were engaged long in advance, some- times a whole season. Ability to handle a scythe well entitled a man to respect, while haying lasted. Experts took as much pains with a seythe as with a razor. Boys of to-day have never seen such a sight as a dozen stal- wart men mowing a dozen-acre field.

"On the first day of haying, almost before the sun was up, the men would be at the field ready to begin. The question to be settled at the very outset was as to which man should cut the 'double.' This was the first swath to be cut down and back through the center of the field.

"The boys brought up the rear in the line . for weeks on whole wheat and on meal from of mowers. Their scythes were hung well 'in,' to cut a narrow swath. They were told to stand up straight when mowing, point in, keep the heel of the scythe down, and point out evenly, so as not to leave 'hog troughs' on the meadow when the hay was raked up. Im- patient of these admonitions, they thought they could mow pretty well; and looked am- bitionsly forward to a time when they might cut the 'donble.' "-

FARE OF THE EARLY SETTLERS

Among the many hardships of pioneer life, not the least is the difficulty of procuring bread. For at least two years the settler in the woods must obtain his family supplies chiefly from other sources than his own land. This difficulty was enhanced by the remote- ness of his residence from older settlers, where his supplies were to be obtained. Hence, those who settled in this section within the first few years, had a severer experience than those who came after a surplus of grain was produced and mills for grinding it were erected at ac- cessible points. Rev. Mr. Woodend, in his centennial discourse, says: "The people who settled this country when it was a wilder- ness, are worthy of all honor and kind remem- brance." A later writer has said: "A more intelligent, virtuous and resolute class of men never settled any country, than the first set- tlers of western Pennsylvania ; and the women who shared their sacrifices were no less wor- thy." They came here, many of them, in poverty. They found little but hardships for very many years. They found the land cov.

Upon fish and game the pioneers relied for provisions until they could raise vegetables and grain. Whole families for many weeks, even months, tasted not a particle of bread, subsisting upon grain and other products of the forest. "Ramps" or leeks, with which the woods abounded, furnished to some extent food for man and beast. Leaves, which were in some regions far advanced before the disap- pearance of the winter snows, furnished for cattle a valuable pasture ground; and the bulbs later in the season were, in time of scarcity, used by settlers as a substitute for common articles of food. Families, too, lived

corn pounded out at home. For this purpose one end of a large block was scooped out, making a cavity to hold a half bushel or less of corn. A spring pole was fixed over the rafters or to something else of proper height. On the end of the pole, a wooden pestle was suspended by a rope. It will readily be im- agined that the principal use of the pole was to assist in raising the pestle ; and that a small quantity of grain was pounded out at a time. The pestle was not in all cases hung to a pole. but was sometimes used wholly by the hand of the operator. A corn cracker or hominy block was attached to some of the first saw- mills, and to these settlers would resort for many miles and wait sometimes two days in order to get a chance at the hominy mill.

House Furniture and Diet .- The furniture for the table, for several years after the set- tlement of this country, consisted of a few pewter dishes, plates and spoons; but mostly of wooden bowls, trenchers and noggins. If these last were scarce, gourds and hard-shelled squashes made up the deficiency. The iron pots, knives and forks were brought from the east side of the mountains along with the salt and iron on packhorses. These articles of fur- niture corresponded very well with the ar- tieles of diet on which they were employed. "Hog and hominy" were proverbial for the dish of which they were the component parts. Johnnycake and pone were at the outset of the settlements of the country the only forms of bread in use for breakfast and dinner. At supper, milk and mush was the standard dish. When milk was not plenty, which was often the case, owing to the scarcity of cattle, or

HISTORY OF INDIANA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

the want of proper pasture for them, the sub- was a kind of loose frock, reaching half way stantial dish of hominy had to supply the down the thighs, with large sleeves, open be- place of them; mush was frequently eaten with sweetened water, molasses, bear's oil, or the gravy of fried meat. fore, and so wide as to lap over a foot or more when belted. The cap was large, and sometimes handsomely fringed with a raveled piece of Every family, besides a little garden for the few vegetables which they cultivated, had another small inclosure, containing from half an acre to an acre, which they called a "truek patch," in which they raised corn for roasting ears, pumpkins, squashes, beans and potatoes. These, in the latter part of the summer and fall, were cooked with their pork, venison and bear meat for dinner, and made very whole- some and good tasting dishes. The standard dinner dish for every log rolling, house rais- ing and harvest day was a pot pie, or what in other countries is called "sea pie." This, besides answering for dinner, served for a part of the supper also, what remained from dinner being eaten with milk in the evening, after the conclusion of the labor of the day. cloth of a different color from that of the hunting shirt itself. The bosom of this dress served as a wallet to hold a chunk of bread, cakes, jerk, tow for wiping the barrel of the rifle, or any necessary for the hunter or war- rior. The belt, which was always tied behind, answered several purposes, besides that of holding the dress together. In cold weather the mittens, and sometimes the bullet-bag, oc- cupied the front part of it. To the right side was suspended the tomahawk and to the left the scalping knife in its leathern sheath. The hunting shirt was generally made of linsey, sometimes of coarse linen, and a few of dressed deerskins. These last were very cold and un- comfortable in wet weather. The shirt and jacket were of the common fashion. A pair of drawers or breeches and leggins were the dress of the thigh and legs; a pair of moc- casins answered for the feet much better than shoes. These were made of dressed deerskin. They were mostly made of a single piece with a gathering seam along the top of the foot, and another from the bottom of the heel, without gathers, as high as the ankle joint or a little higher. Flaps were left on each side to reach some distance up the legs. These were nicely adapted to the ankles and lower part of the leg by thongs of deerskin, so that no dust, gravel or snow could get within the moccasin.

In the whole display of furniture, delft, china and silver were unknown. It did not then as now require contributions from the four quarters of the globe to furnish the breakfast table, viz., the silver from Mexico; the coffee from the West Indies; the tea from China, and the delft and porcelain from Eu- rope or Asia. Yet our homely fare, and un- sightly cabins and furniture, produced a hardy veteran race, who planted the first footsteps of society and civilization in the immense regions of the West. Inured to hardihood, bravery and labor from their early youth, they sustained with manly fortitude the fatigue of the chase, the campaign and scout, and with strong arms "turned the wilderness into fruit- ful fields" and have left to their descendants the rich inheritance of an immense empire blessed with peace and wealth.

The introduction of delftware was consid- ered by many of the backwoods people as a culpable innovation. It was too easily broken, and the plates of that ware dulled their scalp- ing and clasp knives; tea ware was too small for men; such might do for women and chil- dren. Tea and coffee were only "slops," which in the adage of the day "did not stick by the ribs." The idea was they were de- signed only for people of quality, who do not labor, or the sick. A genuine backwoodsman would have thought himself disgraced by showing a fondness for those slops. Indeed, many of them have to this day very little respect for them.

Dress of the Indians and Early Settlers .- The hunting shirt was universally worn. This

The moccasins in ordinary use cost but a few hours' labor to make them. This was done by an instrument denominated a moc- casin awl, which was made of the backspring of an old elaspknife. This awl with its bucks- horn handle was an appendage of every shot pouch strap, together with a roll of buckskin for mending the moccasins. This was the labor of almost every evening. They were sewed together and patched with deerskin thongs, or whangs, as they were commonly called.

In cold weather the moccasins were well stuffed with deer's hair, or dry leaves, so as to keep the feet comfortably warm; but in wet weather it was usually said that wearing them was "a decent way of going bare- footed"; and such was the fact owing to the spongy texture of the leather of which they were made.

Owing to this defective covering of the feet, more than to any other circumstance,

'HISTORY OF INDIANA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

the greater number of our hunters and war- riors were afflicted with rheumatism in their limbs. Of this disease they were all appre- hensive in cold or wet weather, and there- fore always slept with their feet to the fire to prevent or cure it as well as they could. This practice unquestionably had a very salu- tary effect, and prevented many of them from becoming confirmed cripples in early life.

In the latter years of the Indian war our young men became more enamored of the In- dian dress throughout, with the exception of the matchcoat. The drawers were laid aside and the leggins made longer, so as to reach the upper part of the thigh. The Indian breechclout was adopted. This was a piece of linen or cloth nearly a yard long, and eight or nine inches broad. This passed under the belt before and behind, leaving the ends for flaps hanging before and behind over the belt. These flaps were sometimes ornamented with some coarse kind of embroidery work. To the same belts which secured the breech- clout, strings which supported the long leg- gins were attached. When this belt, as was often the case, passed over the hunting shirt the upper part of the thighs and part of the hips were naked. The young warriors instead of being abashed by this nudity were proud of their Indian-like dress. They went into places of public worship in this dress. Their appearance, however, did not add much to the devotion of the young ladies.

DRESS OF MEN

Moccasin shoes, buckskin breeches, blue broadcloth coats and brass buttons, fawnskin vests, roundabouts and woolen wammuses, leather or woolen gallowses, were worn with coon or sealskin caps in winter and chip or oat-straw hats for summer. Every neighbor- hood had then usually one itinerant shoemaker and tailor, who periodically visited cabins and made up shoes or clothes as required. All material had to be furnished, and these itin- erant mechanics worked for fifty cents a day and board. Corduroy pants and corduroy overalls were common. The old pioneer in winter often wore a coonskin cap, coonskin gloves, buckskin breeches, leggins, and a wolf- skin hunting shirt.

The wammuses, breeches and hunting shirts of the men, the linsey petticoats, dresses and bedgowns of the women, were all hung in some corner of the cabin on wooden pegs. To some extent this was a display of pioneer wealth.

DRESS OF WOMEN

Home-made woolen cloth, tow, linen, linsey- woolsey, etc., were the materials in use. Barefoot girls "with cheek of tan" walked three or four miles to church, and on nearing the church would step into the woods to put on the shoes they carried with them. Some of these are living to-day. A woman who could buy eight or ten yards of calico for a dress at a dollar a yard put on queenly airs. Every married woman of any refinement then wore daycaps as well as nightcaps. Women usually went barefoot in the summer, and in the winter covered their feet with moc- casins, calfskin shoes, buffalo overshoes, and shoepacks.

Linen and tow cloth were made from flax. The seed was sowu in the early spring and ripened about August. It was harvested by "pulling." This was generally done by a "pulling frolic" of young people pulling it out by the root. It was then tied in little sheaves and permitted to dry, hauled in, and thrashed for the seed. Then the straw was watered and rotted by laying it on the ground out of doors. When the straw was again dried it was "broken in the flax-brake," after which it was again tied up, in little bundles, and then scutched with a wooden knife. This scutehing was a frolic job, too, and a dirty one. Then it was hackled. The hackling process separated the linen part from the tow. The rest of the labor consisted of spinning, weaving, and dyeing. Linen cloth sold for about twenty-four cents a yard, tow cloth for about twenty cents a yard. Weaving originated with the Chinese. It took a thou- sand years for the art to reach Europe.

The linsey petticoat and bedgown, which were the universal dress of our women in early times, would make a strange figure in our days. A small home-made handkerchief, in point of elegance, would illy supply the place of that profusion of ruffles with which the necks of our ladies are now ornamented.

They went barefooted in warm weather, and in cold their feet were covered with moccasins, coarse shoes, or shoepacks, which would make but a sorry showing beside the elegant mo- rocco slippers, often embossed with bullion, which at present ornament the feet of their. daughters and granddaughters.

The coats and bedgowns of the women, as well as the hunting shirts of the men, were lung in full display on wooden pegs round the walls of their cabins, so that while they

HISTORY OF INDIANA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

answered in some degree the place of paper winds with the highest rapture, then returned hangings or tapestry they announced to the stranger as well as neighbor the wealth or poverty of the family in the articles of cloth- ing. This practice has not yet been wholly laid aside amongst the backwoods families.

The historian would say to the ladies of the present time, our ancestors of your sex knew nothing of the ruffles, leghorns, curls, combs, rings and other jewels with which their fair daughters now decorate themselves. Such things were not then to be had. Many of the younger part of them were pretty well grown up before they ever saw the inside of a store room, or even knew there was such a thing in the world, unless by hearsay, and indeed scarcely that. Instead of the toilet, they had to handle the distaff or shuttle, the sickle or weeding hoe, contented if they could obtain their linsey clothing and cover their heads with a sunbonnet made of six or seven hundred linen.

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Indiana County, Pennsylvania, her people, past and present, Volume I, Part 7

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