USA > Pennsylvania > Jefferson County > Jefferson County, Pennsylvania : her pioneers and people, 1800-1915, Volume I > Part 70
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In 1840 nearly every wife in Brookville milked a cow and churned butter. The cows were milked at the front door on Main street. These cows were ornery, ill-looking, ill-fed. straw-stealing and blue-milk-giving creatures. The water with which to wash clothes and do the scrubbing was caught in barrels or tubs from the house roof. Scrubbing the floors of a house had to be attended to regularly once a week. This scrubbing had to be done with powdered sand and a home-made "split broom." Every wife had to make her own soap, bake her own bread, sew and dye all the clothes for the family, spin the wool for and knit the mittens and socks, make the coverlets, quilt the quilts, see that the children's shoes for Sunday were greased with tallow every Saturday night, nurse the sick, give "sheep saffron" for the measles, and do all the cooking. All this, too, without "protec- tion, tariff, rebate, or combine." About every family had a cow, dog, cat, pig, geese and chickens. The town gave these domestic animals the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Of course, under these sanitary conditions, the town was alive with fleas, and every house was full of bedbugs. Bats were numerous, and the "public opinion' then was that the bats brought the bedbugs. This may be given as an illustration of the correctness of public opinion. However, we were contented and happy, and used to sing,
JEFFERSON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
llome, home, sweet, sweet home,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
In 1840 there were doubtless many fine horses in Jefferson county, yet it seemed to me nearly every horse had stringhalt, ring- bone, spavin, high-step, or poll-evil. Sick horses were treated in a barbarous manner, not being allowed to lie down, but were whipped, run, and held upon their feet. I have sven horses held up with handspikes, rails. etc. The usual remedies were bleeding and drenching with filthy compounds. "Bots" was the almost unfailing disease. Horses with poll-evil were numerous then, but the disease has apparently disappeared. It was an abscess on the horse's head, behind the cars, and was doubtless caused by cruelty to the animal. If a horse did not please his master in his work he would be knocked down with a hand- spike, a rail, or the loaded butt end of a blacksnake whip. Poor food and these blows undoubtedly caused this horrible disease. llumane treatment has eradicated it.
* As there has been considerable agitation over my paragraph on poll-evil in horses, I re- print here a slip that has been sent me :
AN OLD-TIME CURE FOR POLL-EVIL
"Ed. Spirit-1 am moved by your quotation from Dr. MeKnight's article in the Brookville Democrat on the old-time nonsense in relation to poll-evil in horses to say that the doctor's explanation of the cause of that severe afflic- tion on the poor brute's head is in part correct ; but it was mainly owing to the low doorways and the low mow-timbers just above the horse's head as he stood in the stall of the old- time log stables. The horse often struck his head on the lintel of the low doorway as he passed in and out ; and as he stood in the stall, when roughly treated by his master, in throw- ing up his head it came in violent contact with the timbers, and continued bruising resulted ultimately in the fearful, painful abscesses referred to. There were those in that day who had reputations for skill in the cure of poll-evil, and their method was this: The afflicted animal must be brought to the doctor before the break of day. An axe was newly ground. The doctor must not speak a word to any person on any subject after the horse was given into his hands until the feat was performed. Before sunrise the doctor took
the axe and the horse and proceeded out of sight of any human habitation, going toward the cast. When such a spot was reached he turned toward the animal, bent down its head firmly and gently, drew the sharpened blade of the axe first lengthwise, then crosswise of the abscess sufficiently to cause the blood to flow, muttering meanwhile some mystic words ; then, just below where the head of the animal was he stuck the bloody axe in the ground, left it there, turned immediately around. walked rapidly away. leading the animal and not at all looking back until he had delivered it into the hand of the owner, who was wait- ing at a distance to receive it. and who took it home at once. The next morning at sun- rise the axe was removed, and in due time the cure was effected.
"AN OLD-TIMER. "Smicksburg, Pa., September 7. 1894."
The cattle were home stock, big-horned, heavy-bellied, and long-legged. They could jump over almost anything, and could outrun the "devil and his imps." They were poorly fed, received little care, and had little or no stabling. In the spring it was common for cows to be on the "lift." The common trouble with cattle was "hollow horn," "wolf in the tail." and loss of "cud." These were little else than the results of starvation. I have witnessed consultations over a sick cow, when one man would declare positively she had hol- low horn, and another declare just as positively it was wolf in the tail. After a spirited dispute they would compromise by agreeing to bore her horn and split her tail. If they had called it hollow belly and wolf in the stomach they would have been nearer the truth. A better remedy would have been a bucket of warm slop, a good stable and plenty of hay. The remedy for "hollow horn" was to bore a gim- let hole in the horn near the head and then saturate a cloth with spirits of turpentine and wrap it around the horn. The cure for wolf in the tail was to split the tail near the end with a knife, and fill the cut with salt and pepper. The cure for "lifts" was to call the neighbors, lift the cow to her feet, and prop her up so she could not lie down again. The cures for loss of "cud" were numerous and filthy. A "sure cure," and common, too, was to roll human excrement in dough and force it down the animal's throat. The same rem- edy was used for "founder." If the critter recovered, the remedy was the right one; if it died, the reason was the remedy had been used too late. Of course, these conditions
* In the original arrangement this paragraph ap- peared later.
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were all imaginary. They were only diseases resulting from exposure and want of nourish- ing food. A wild onion called "ramp," and a shrub called "tripwood," grew in the woods and were early in their appearance each spring. These, of which the cattle ate freely, were often their only dependence for food. All domestic animals then had to have ear- marks on them, or be branded. In 1840 it was very common to see upon a cowshed door the horseshoe that scared off witches that would milk the cows or dry the milk. Con- densed milk was invented in 1849.
The hog of that time was a racer, and could outrun the average horse. His snort when startled was something terrible. He was of the "razor-back" variety. long-bodied, long- legged and long-snouted. By means of his snout he could plough through everything. Of course he was starved in the winter, like all the other animals, and his condition re- sulting from his starvation was considered a disease and called "black teeth." The rem- edy for this disease was to knock out the teeth with a hammer and a spike.
Ignorance was the cause of this cruelty to animals. To the readers of this volume the things mentioned are astonishing. But I have only hinted at the barbarities then inflicted on these domestic animals, which had no rights which man was bound to respect. Not until 1866 was any effort made in this country to protect dumb animals from the cruelty of man. In that year Henry Berg organized the American society in New York, and to- day the movement is felt throughout a great portion of the world. In 1890 there were five hundred and forty-seven societies in existence for the prevention of cruelty to animals, two hundred and twenty-three of them in the United States. "The economic necessity for the existence of societies having for their object the better care and protection of animals becomes manifest when it is considered that our industries, our commerce, and the supply of our necessities and comforts depend upon the animal world. In the United States alone it is estimated that there are fourteen million horses, valued at nine hundred and seventy- nine million. There are also two million three hundred and thirty thousand mules, sixteen million milk cows, thirty-six million eight hun- dred thousand oxen and other cattle, forty- four million sheep and fifty million swine. The total domestic animals in 1890 were estimated at one hundred and sixty-five million, valued at over two billion four hundred million dol- lars." To-day every good citizen gives these
humane societies or their agents his support, and almost every one is against the man or men who in any way abuse dumb beasts. It is not a matter of mere sentiment.
Along about 1840 the winters were very severe and long, much more so than now. Regularly every fall, commencing in Novem- ber,
Soft as the eider down,
Light as the spider gown, Came the beautiful snow, till
Over the meadow lots,
Over our garden plots,
Over the ponds and the lakes,
Lay only beautiful flakes.
Then with this snowing, Puffing and blowing,
Old Boreas came bellowing by,
Till over the byways,
And over the highways,
The snowdrifts were ever so high.
The snow was several feet deep every win- ter. It came early and remained till late.
I have made frequent reference to the old courthouse. As I find there is some confusion in regard to its size, and as I find our county history contains this error, "The courthouse, a one-story brick building. was finished in 1832," I deem it of sufficient importance to correct these errors, and to state that the court- house was a two-story building, with a one- story wing on the west extending along Main street. This wing was divided into two rooms, the first for the prothonotary's office and the other for the commissioners' office. The main building was two-storied, with an attic and belfry. The second story was divided into four good-sized rooms, called jury rooms. The southwest room was used by the Methodists for a long time for their Thursday evening prayer meeting. Alexander Fullerton was the janitor. The Union Sunday school was held here for years also. The northwest room was used as an armory by the Brookville Rifles, a volunteer company. The other two were used as jury rooms. I have played in every room of the old building, and know every foot of it. The building cost three thousand dollars. The contractors were John Lucas and Robert P. Barr. It was torn down in 1866 to make room for the present fine structure. Our alley-ball games were all played for years behind the old courthouse.
Our first jail was a stone structure, built of common stone, in 1831. It was two stories high, was situated on the northeast corner of the public lot, near Joseph Darr's residence, and fronting on Pickering street. Daniel Elgin
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JEFFERSON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
was the contractor. The building was divided into eight rooms, two downstairs and two up- stairs for the jail proper, and two downstairs and two upstairs for the sheriff's residence and office. The sheriff occupied the north part. The early church services in this building were held in the jail part, upstairs. This old jail has a history, not the most pleasant to con- template or write about. It was used to im- prison runaway slaves, and to lodge them over night, by slave captors. Imprisoning men for no other crime than desiring to enjoy life, lib- erty, and the pursuit of happiness! There was a branch of the underground railroad for the escape of slaves running through Brook- ville at that time. As many as twenty-five of those unfortunate creatures have passed through Brookville in one day. Judge Heath, then living in our town, a great Methodist and an abolitionist. had to pay a fine of two thousand dollars for aiding two slaves to escape from this old stone jail; a big sum of money to pay for performing a Christian, humane act, was it not? In this stone jail men were imprisoned for debt, and kept in it until the last penny was paid. I have seen some of the best men of that day in our county imprisoned in this old jail for debt or bail money. 1 have seen Thomas Hall. than whom I knew no better man, no better Christian, an elder in the Presbyterian Church. incarcerated in the old stone jail for bail money. Ile had bailed a relative for the sum of fifty dollars, and his relative let him suf- fer. Honest, big-hearted, generous, Christian, Thomas Ilall! Thank God that the day for such inhumanities as those stated above is gone forever. This old jail was rented after the new one was erected, and used as a butcher shop until it was torn down to make room for the present courthouse. The butcher always blew a horn when he had fresh meat to sell.
In these days of fine carriages and Brook- ville wagons it might be well to describe the wagon of 1840. It was called the Pennsylva- nia wagon, was wide-tracked, and had wooden axles with iron skeins on the spindles. The tongue was stiff, and reached about three fect ahead of the horses. The horses were hitched to these wagons by iron trace and long-tongue chains. In rough roads I used to think every time the tongue would strike a horse on the leg it would break it. Okl team horses under- stood this and would spread out to avoid these leg blows. The wheels were kept in place by means of an iron strap and linchpin. Every wagon carried its own tar on the coupling- pole under the hind axle. The making of tar
was one of the industries then. It retailed at twenty to twenty-five cents a gallon, and brought from three to four dollars a barrel at Pittsburgh. These old wagons would screech fearfully if they were not kept properly lubri- cated with this tar. The carriage of that day was called a dearborn wagon. I am unable to describe these, although I used to see them.
Big political conventions were held in those days, and a great custom was to have a young lady dressed in white to represent each of the different States, and have all these ladies in one wagon, which would be drawn by four or six horses, or sometimes by twenty yoke of oxen.
In the hotels of that day the "bar" was con- structed for the safety of the bartender. It was a solid structure with a counter in front. from which a sliding door on iron rods could be shoved up and locked, or shut down and locked ; hence the hotel man could "bar" him- self in and the drunken men out. This was for safety in dispensing whiskey, and is the origin of the word "bar" in connection with hotels .. In 1840 all our hotel bars were so made.
Lumbering was in 1840 one of our principal industries. We had no castern outlet, and everything had to be rafted to Pittsburgh. The sawmills were nearly all "up and down" mills. The "thundergust" mills were those on small streams. All were driven by flutter- wheels and water. It required usually but one man to run one of these mills. He could do all the work and saw from one to two thou- sand feet of boards in twelve hours. Pine boards sold in the Pittsburgh market then at three to four dollars per thousand; clear pine at ten dollars per thousand. Of course, these sales were on credit. The boards were raited in the creek in "seven-platform" pieces by means of grubs. The oars were hung on what were called tholepins. The front of each raft had a bumper and splashboard as a pro- tection in going over dams. The creeks then were full of short bends, rocks and drift. Cables were unknown here, and a halyard made from hickory withes or water-beech was used as a cable to tie up with. "Grousers" were used to assist in tying up. A pilot then received four dollars to the mouth of the creek; forehands, two dollars and expenses The logging in the woods was all done with oxen. The camp and mill boarding consisted of bread, flitch, beans, potatoes, Orleans molasses, sometimes a little butter, and cof- fee or tea without cream. Woodsmen were
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JEFFERSON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
paid sixteen dollars a month and boarded, and generally paid in store orders or trade.
We usually had three floods on which to run this lumber, spring, June and fall. At these times rafts were plenty and people were scarce, and, as time and tide wait for no man, whenever a flood came everybody had to turn out and assist to run the rafts. The boy had to leave his school, the minister his pulpit, the doctor abandon his patients, the lawyer his briefs, the merchant his yardstick, the farmer his crops or seeding. And there was one great compensation in this-nearly everybody got to see Pittsburgh.
"Running down the creek and gigging back" was the business language of everybody. "How many trips have you made?" etc. It took about twelve hours to run a raft from the neighborhood of Brookville to the mouth, or the Allegheny river, and ordinarily it re- quired hard walking to reach home the next clay. Some ambitious, industrious pilots would "run down in the daytime and walk back the same night." James T. Carroll has made four of these trips in succession, Joseph Shobert five, and William Green four or five. Of course, these pilots remained down the last night. This extraordinary labor was accom- plished without ever going to bed. Although some may be incredulous, these are facts. The parties interested are still alive ( 1805). Pilots sometimes ran all night. Joseph Shobert has started from Brookville at five o'clock p. in. and reached the mouth at five o'clock in the morning. Other pilots have done this also. There were no rubber goods then.
Pine square timber was taken out and marketed in Pittsburgh. No other timber was marketable, and then only the best part of the pine could be hewed and rafted. Often but one stick would be used from a tree. In Pitts- burgh this timber brought from four to eight cents a foot, running measure. The square timber business was then the business. Every lumberman followed it, and every farmer ran one timber raft at least. The "taking out of square timber" had to be done in the fall, be- fore snow came. The trees were felled, "cut in sticks," "scored in," and hewn smooth and square. Each "lumber tract" had its log cabin and barn. The "sticks" were hauled ) the creek on a "bob" sled in the snow by oxen or horses, and banked until time to "raft in" and get ready for the "spring flood." It was the timber trade that made the pioneer prosperous and intelligent.
"Rafting in" was done in this wise. When the timbers were on the bank of the creek, they
were rolled in the creek and were floated up close beside each other, the lashpole placed across the ends of the timbers and large holes bored in the timbers on either side of the lash- pole. The bows then were placed across the lashpole, the ends of the bows inserted in the auger holes and fastened there by means of the pins, which were driven down into the holes beside the bows, usually by means of a pole or "raftsman's" axe. From three to four hands were necessary to run a raft, viz .: a pilot behind and his assistant, one to "carry the front oar" and the second man in the front.
Of pilots, some were natural watermen, others were as crazy as a modern progressive. I have gone down the creek with pilots who worked the hands hard from "start to the mouth." It was "right," "holt," "left," "crack her up," "holt." In some instances we actually "stoved the raft" by this unnecessary work. I have gone down with .a conservative, calm pilot, when we seldom had to make a second "stroke right or left."
The lumbermen could contract with hewers for the cutting, scoring and hewing of pine timber, complete, ready to be hauled, for from three quarters to one and a quarter cents per foot. All timber was generally well faced on one side, and was rafted with lashpoles of ironwood or white oak, and securely fastened in position by means of white oak bows and ash pins. Bows and pins were an article of merchandise then. Hickory bows two feet long sold at seventy-five cents a hundred, and ash pins brought fifty cents a hundred. Grubs for board rafts sold at two dollars and fifty cents a hundred. Oar stenis were then made from small sapling dead pines, shaved down. Pine timber or wild lands could then be bought at from one dollar to two dollars per acre.
Along the lower end of our creeks and on the Allegheny river there lived a class of peo- ple who caught and appropriated all the loose logs, shingles, boards and timber they could find floating down the streams. These men were called by the early lumbermen Algerines, or pirates. The name Algerine originated thus : In the war of 1812 "the dey of Algiers took the opportunity of capturing an American vessel and condemning her crew to slavery. Then a squadron of nine vessels commanded by Commodore Decatur, in May, 1815, ap- peared in the Mediterranean, captured the largest frigate in the Algerine navy, and with other naval successes so terrified the dey that on the 30th of June he made certain pecuniary indemnities, and renounced all future claim
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JEFFERSON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
to any American tribute or payments, and sur- rendered all his prisoners."
The first known person to live within the confines of the present borough was Jim Hunt, an Indian of the Muncy tribe. He was here as early as 1797, and was in banishment for killing a warrior of his own tribe. By an In- dian law he was not allowed to live in his tribe until the place of the warrior he had slain was filled by the capture of another male from white people or from other Indians. In 1808 Jim's friends stole a white boy in Westmore- land county, Pa., and had him accepted into the tribe in place of the warrior Jim had killed. Jim Hunt's residence or cave was near the deep hole, or near the sand spring, on Sandy Lick, and was discovered in 1843 by Mr. Thomas Graham. About 1812 Jim Hunt left and never returned. He was a great bear hunter, having killed seventy-eight in one winter. He loved "firewater," and all his earn- ings went for this beverage; yet he never dared to get so drunk he could not run to his cave when he heard a peculiar Indian whoop on Mill Creek hills. His Indian enemies pur- sued him, and his Indian friends looked after him and warned him to flee to his hiding-place by a peculiar whoop. Little Snow. a Seneca chief, lived at the sand spring in 1800, and it was then called "Wolf Spring."
The first white person to settle in what is now Brookville was Moses Knapp. He built a log house about 1801 at the mouth of North Fork creek, on ground now owned by Thomas I. Templeton, near Christ's brewery. The first white child born within the limits of what is now Brookville was Joshua Knapp, on Mr. Templeton's lot, at the mouth of the North Fork, in the month of March, 1810. He is still living ( 1895) in Pinecreek township, about two miles from the town. About 1806 or 1807 Knapp built a log gristmill where the waters of the North Fork then entered the Red Bank. It was a rude mill, and had but one run of rock-stones. In 1818 he sold this mill to Thomas Barnett. James Parks, Bar- nett's brother-in-law. came to run this mill about 1824 (Barnett having died), and lived here until about 1830. Parks came from West- moreland county, Pa., and brought with him and held in legal slavery here a negro man named "Sam," who was the first colored per- son to live in what is now called Brookville. Hle was a large mulatto. In 1824 he was as- besser at forty dollars, in 1820 at one hundred dollars.
Joseph B. Graham, Esq .. of Eldred town-
ship, informs me that he carried a grist on horseback to this mill of one half-bushel of shelled corn for this Sam to grind. Mr. Gra- ham says his father put the corn in one end of the bag and a big stone in the other end to balance the corn. That was the custom, but the Squire says they did not know any better. Joshua Knapp, Uriah Matson, and John Dixon all tock grists of corn and buckwheat to this mill for "Sam," the miller, to grind.
Happy the miller who lives by the mill,
For by the turning of his hand he can do what he will.
But this was not so with "Sam." At his mas- ter's nod he could not grind his own "peck of meal," for his body, his work, his life and his will belonged to Parks. Many settlers in early days carried corn to the gristmill on their own shoulders, or on the neck-yoke of a pair of oxen. I have seen both of these methods used by persons living ten or fifteen miles from a mill.
The census of 1830 gives Jefferson county a population of two thousand and three whites, twenty-one free colored persons, and one col- ored slave. This slave was "Sam." In 1833 one negro slave was assessed in Brookville to William Jack, to wit, one boy of color, worth forty dollars. In 1836 Rev. Jesse Smith, a Presbyterian minister, living one mile north of where Corsica, Jefferson county, now is, was assessed with one mulatto, valuation fifty dol- lars. Also John Eason, of Brookville, in 1833- 34 had one boy assessed at thirty dollars.
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