Venango County, Pennsylvania: Her Pioneers and People (Volume 1), Part 12

Author: Babcock, Charles A.
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages:

USA > Pennsylvania > Venango County > Venango County, Pennsylvania: Her Pioneers and People (Volume 1) > Part 12

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).

PIONEER CONVENIENCES

The vehicles of early times were better adapted to circumstances than to going through space rapidly. There was the large pine log, hollowed into a capacious trough, some of them four feet wide, with smooth skids along its bottom to lessen friction, rounded at the ends, drawn by oxen; it made a good "stone boat." It was a most use- ful article about a pioneer farm, equally adapted to all seasons. For several years there were neither wagons nor roads on which to use them. A more simple vehicle was, however, contrived. From a small-sized tree was taken .a piece having at one end two prongs extending eight or ten feet from the fork. The single end was fastened to the ring of the ox-yoke, the other resting upon the ground. Across the prongs, puncheons or split planks were placed, and kept from sliding backwards by long wooden pins set upright in each prong. There were also sled cars, upon which some of the

early settlers entered the county. A sled car consisted of two poles, one on either side of the horse, one end of each being fastened to the hames or collar, and the other resting on the ground. On the parts resting on the ground puncheons were laid, kept in place by upright pins. These were good; but they were most used for getting about in winter. In 1815 wagons were introduced in the county; but it was not till 1820 that the first one was con- structed here, by Ninian Irwin for Thomas McKee.

The first harness of the pioneers was made of withes with crooked roots or pieces of limbs of trees for hames. Before long the tanning of hides was begun and then good substantial home-made leather harness was used.

Grain was threshed with a flail, a day's work being ten to twenty bushels. There were no fanning mills in those days, and the grain was generally cleaned by sifting it through a coarse sieve or riddle, over a sheet, when a fair wind was blowing. Sometimes, as the wind ceased, the process became more tedious. Then an extra sheet was required to raise the wind by fanning. In this way perhaps ten bushels could be cleaned in a day. Fanning mills were intro- duced in the twenties, and were great time savers. Ninian Irwin, "heaven-born mechan- ic," and a neighbor built the first one con- structed here.

The grass and grain were cut with sickles for a short time. Soon the scythe and the "cradle" were brought in as the hay and grain harvests increased in abundance. But this was not till the removal of the stumps gave more room for culture, and a full swing for the larger instruments. Agriculture, in its present significance, could hardly be used as the name of pioneer farming. The virgin soil was ready for the seed when cleared of its timber. The ashes left from burning the wood upon the land where it grew was a good preparation for the first crop or two. The axe men, experi- enced in this work. would cut the trees so that they fell in double windrows across the field, ready to burn when dry, with little work by men or oxen. Then the cultivation was started among the stumps, hope of the future. "bread for the sower and food for the eater."

The implements used would in this age of improvements attract attention as curiosities. The principal instrument used for several years was the triangular drag. consisting of three pieces of hewed timber five inches square and six feet long, fastened together in the form of the letter A. The teeth. made of the hardest wood, were double or treble the size of those

Digitized by Google

VENANGO COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

now used. It was sometimes made from a matical calculation combined with direct experi- crotched tree and needed no framing. The ment, to procure the best point connected with an up lifting and up setting wedge by easy connecting curves. The fathers of Venango agriculture are not to be blamed; when better tools were not within reach, they improved what they had, and made progress. drag was drawn bounding over the roots and stones, up and down the slopes, generally by oxen driven by boys, or girls; the animals pre- ferring the latter, doing better work when they drove. When the roots became brittle by time and the use of the drag, the plow was used. The "plow" resembled the modern instrument PIONEER ANIMALS AND HUNTING only in its purpose. It had a twelve-foot beam and a seven-foot handle, but it worried the ground a little more than the drag did, let in a little more heat and moist air; but how the man, seven feet in the rear at the end of the one long handle, managed to guide it with a yoke of oxen pulling it away from him, is a mystery. Still it was an easy thing to believe in; it was so large, and timber was plentiful. It was usually of wood throughout, rarely it had an iron point, for that metal was distant and costly.

Some other "heaven-born" in the county in- troduced an improvement by making plows from the crotches of cross-grained hardwoods, so peculiar in growth that a moldboard could be formed on one side and the straight edge on the opposite side. It had an iron point and could turn a furrow. Later it acquired a double handle. This led to the introduction of the modern plow, with a few of the sub- soil kind, best of all for stirring up and letting the sun and air penetrate and vivify old or new, stiff souring soils like thousands of acres in Venango county to-day. Later improve- ments in the plow and harrow, the invention of drills, cultivators, planters, and other la- bor-saving devices, changed the possibilities of agriculture, even during the lives of many of the early settlers here.

The plow of the early Egyptians consisted of a crooked stick drawn by oxen. It con- tinued practically unchanged, though some- what modified, through Greek and Roman history. It was about the same in the fields of Europe till the first quarter of the eighteenth century, when it was changed to something like its present form in Holland. The Eng- lish adopted it ; and a Scotchman, James Small, wrote a treatise on the subject, and followed this by producing plows with cast-iron mold- boards and wrought-iron shares in 1785. In 1797, the first patent for a cast-iron plow in America was taken out by Charles Newbold of New Jersey. This instrument was brought to its present perfection by improvements in 1804, 1805 and 1819, and by many subsequent, though minor ones, since. Its share and mold- board, as combined, are the result of mathe-

There was an interesting and numerous variety of wild animals in the county in early days. If a collection of them could be formed, containing one specimen of each of the differ- ent kinds which roamed these forests, it would make a valuable menagerie. Perhaps some future philanthropist may make a collection of pictures of them gathered from various sources. It would be instructive. The ones most feared were the bear and the wolf. The wolf was the most destructive. He would destroy sheep by seizing them by the throat, drinking their blood, and leave their carcasses to be devoured by other carnivorous animals. He would attack cattle grazing, and destroy calves and pigs, unless they were carefully penned at night. Many were destroyed in the daytime, near the houses, by these pests. They sometimes followed people to the doors of their dwellings. Some of the settlers have described the noises they made at night, which of a truth must have "murdered sleep." "The noise made by these animals was not, as some imagine, a bass growl, but a strong crackling tenor. Seemingly a leader began the concert by a solo of firm prolonged sound, when the rest would pitch in with a grand chorus of the most terrible jargon of sounds dying away at the place of beginning, as the reverberation rolled over the far off hills." The echoes become fainter, almost cease; then the hurri- cane of noise starts afresh. Bounties for the destruction of these animals were offered by the public authorities. These induced trappers and hunters to spend a good deal of time and thought to secure their scalps. As wolves hunt in the night, when they can not be shot, most of them were probably caught in traps. The most used wolf trap was the common steel trap with jaws a foot long or more. The jaws were notched with sharp, strong teeth like a crosscut saw. Attached to the trap was a chain with hooks, not to fasten it but to make it difficult to drag. The trap would hang back a little by one of the hooks. The animal would look at it, loosen it, and start on again with the same result. Caught by the fore leg, as he probably would be in trying to paw out

Digitized by Google

VENANGO COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

the bait, if the trap were fast, he would gnaw off his leg and be gone. Another trap was a pen of logs built narrow at the top, wider at the bottom. The animal could easily get in to the bait inside, but could not climb out at the narrow top.

Some trappers became very wise in the ways of wild animals. They seemed to be able to change places with them, and to know, in advance, what they would think and what they would do. As the hunter observes closely the lives and the ways of the hunted, his mind incloses their smaller thoughts; he sees what they want, and all the ways by which they will move. His traps therefore are in the right place to take them, or he and his rifle are. He outwits the fox and the wolf, because he can learn all their ways before they can learn new ones. The wolves go in packs. He can always get some of them. The foxes are more difficult ; but their cunning is sure to run in well-known grooves of instinct when this "lucky" hunter is waiting for them.

The results are in no sense due to luck, though that is the general idea. The successful hunter or trapper is a thinker. His observa- tion is microscopic, his memory tenacious, his reasoning sure. He must interpret threads, hairs of evidence. He knows his quarry as a whole; what its aims are, what it lives on, where its food is. He knows the point to which it will return, its home. Its world is small, its mental activities are few, often re- peated, and become almost automatic or run in ruts. It is sure to repeat. Just what a wild thing will do next, no man can tell; but the expert knows its round of life, and within this circle he works, with results that astonish the novice.

As an illustration, this story is related of an early hunter, after the county was some- what settled. A wonderful fox had been seen at intervals, and then disappeared from the earth, it seemed. He was equal at least to the one George Power bought from three suc- cessive Indians on the same day, and profited on all three sales. The hunter knew about this fox which had appeared and vanished on sev- eral occasions. He had hunted it, set traps for it, and had shorthand notes about it under his cap. Every fox hunter, man and dog, was in readiness. At last the fox was started. chased, rooted out, almost captured. Then faded away. The hunter also faded early in the case; he was seen riding away on his horse. Three days later he returned with the for. "Boys, I was afraid you wouldn't chase him close enough to find where he goes when

he's scar't foolish and tuckered out, but you did. It's sixty-five miles from here in a straight line, though he didn't go straight."

SHELTER AND FIRE

Some of the first comers lived during the first summer in Indian camps, as they are called now. These were fashioned of ever- green branches with the tips down, the butts fastened to a ridge pole, which might be a stake sharpened at both ends, one end jammed into a rough-barked hemlock, the other end into the ground. The first boughs are shingled with smaller ones, tips down, till the roof is a foot thick, and would shed rain for a week. Inside, bushy hemlock boughs eighteen inches long, set up with their butts on the ground as thick as they could be crowded together, held in place at the edges with stiff rods staked, make a springy bed a foot thick, fit for a king, and a health giver at every breath. The camp is narrower toward the back, as that is the scraggy hemlock. A fire at the front throws its warmth and light.

The experienced man makes his fire thus : He cuts three stakes, sharpens them and drives them into the ground in front of the camp, facing the opening, three feet away, and slant- ing backward a little but all parallel or in the same plane. Against the stakes he piles three small logs, the largest on the ground, next two decreasing in size; in front of these he lays four logs, about the same length and size as the bottom one against the stakes. Now he has a back to his fireplace and a hearth. Here he builds a fire in the middle of his hearth, on the green logs, using dry stuff, hemlock knots, stubs, or dried pine. He makes a con- venient cook stove, but as stoves were not yet invented, the pioneer would not know its name. Facing two logs with his hatchet, placing the hewed faces four inches apart at one end, six inches at the other, letting a fire come to live coals between these logs, he makes an ideal place for broiling venison steak worked to a pulp with hunting knife, on a green birch gridiron, or for trout stuck in the throat on the sharpened ends of the twigs of a birch branch. On a flat stone he boils water in a birch bark vessel built square and tucked in at the cor- ners, and has all kinds of stews, leeks, ground nuts, venison. He would be friendly with the Indians, such as he are, and with the whites if any were within ten miles. He builds an oven of flat stones, at one end of his range, for parching corn or baking wild apples. He also roasts venison or bear or fish in a hole

Digitized by Google

VENANGO COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

dug under the hot ashes at the wide end, between the hewed logs, first wrapping the meat in damp sweet green leaves. Sometimes roasting ears are there too. The hole is then filled in with hot ashes and live embers, the heat is kept up till an aroma arises.

So lived one of Venango's settlers for a whole year. There were others. They were even more vigorous than the bears or the squirrels. They never hibernated. They cleared the forest to make good their claims. Their recitals have often sent their grand-sons back to Indian camps in wildernesses to recover health of body, vigor of mind and the simple faith of childhood, which the world was filch- ing from them.

The century was closing. Settlers were arriving in the county with every day's sun- shine, from the East, with hope and good cheer. Franklin's five families received with hospitality those who were attracted to her picturesque valley. The great majority of them who came were seeking land to live upon, or rather, to live from. Necessity was the mother of them all. The great demand was for houses. Trees covered the territory; but there was a close connection between the two. Trees had somehow acquired the habit of be- coming houses in a day in Venango. It was in this way: A homeseeking couple arrived from the far East, two hundred miles away, after two weeks of ox-cart guidance and hard footing, or the two had just arrived as a couple by the lifelong handclasp. In either case, and in thousands of others, the old settlers of three years or less residence were prepared to receive them. Homesteads were to be erected. A day was set apart for the work. Settlers came from near and far, some with axes and ox teams, women with packed lunches. Prob- ably the site was already chosen as the lady would have looked the ground over at once. The axemen would soon fell the necessary number of trees, trim off the brush, and cut the logs to right length, which would be hauled to the site near the spring. The corner men would "notch" the logs, so that the top part of the joint would overlap the bared wood of the lower part, and protect it from weathering and rotting at the joints. The logs were so jointed that they touched one another through- out their whole length. While the corner men were at work, others would be splitting or saw- ing enough planks or puncheons from straight- grained logs, for the door-casing, door, and floor of the loft. When the house reached the right height, the logs of the gable ends were shortened, flattened to lie close together, the

ends slanted to the slope of the roof, and each pinned to the log below by wooden pins. Then the stout ridge pole was placed, and roof poles, three and one-half feet apart, from ridge pole to top log on each side, with projecting eaves, and pinned in place. The shingles were taken from birch bark or elm trees; strips of bark four feet long, three to three and a half feet wide, laid on from eaves to ridge pole like shingles, one-half to the weather, each course held in place by a stiff straight pole in the middle of the course, pinned at ridge pole and eave. Then the course on the opposite side of the roof was laid and continued till the roof was completed. This requires the loft floor before the roof is laid as walking upon the roof would likely crack the bark and spoil it. The last course is laid from the ladder, or by platform at the end. The inside floor has been laid in the meantime, a door of thick plank constructed, swung on wooden hinges, barred with stout oak. Pegs are over the door for rifles and axes ; other pegs are handy for household utensils. A bedstead appears in one corner made of three strong rods, the longer one inserted deeply into one of the end logs of the house, the shorter one in like manner, from a side log; where these two cross, the third piece is placed as a support. A bed cord perhaps has been twisted by the women, out of the inner fibres of elm bark, or slats are laid lengthwise and across, covered with straw ticks and pillows. Three-legged stools are there, and a table with legs, and shelves on pins-all from split planks. The chimney ap- pears as a wide fireplace in a large opening cut at one end and edged with planks : a hearth also reaches into the room. Thence the smoke stack reaches above the roof. This is now completed by the masons of the party and is made of flint stones laid in clay and sticks and pebbles, and will stand there after the logs have decaved round it and three generations are in God's "acre" and the fourth is scattered over half a continent. A house like this was often built complete in a day. It was a real home inside.

A good class of people came to this county. They were religious, they reverenced the Power back of all things, and they knew that it "makes for righteousness." They sought in- struction in the things of the spirit. They established churches early in the county history.

EARLY EDUCATIONAL FACILITIES

Schools were established as soon as the families were settled. They had not the per-

Digitized by Google

VENANGO COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

quisites of the present schools. The books of that day were imperfect, some of them were great jokes-for instance the New Eng- land Primer, but doubtless that served often a useful purpose by rousing the interest of sleepy youngsters, half stifled by changing outdoor air for that of school. Thrashing was frequent. Some thought it quickened the cir- culation and helped the brain's action. It did not matter much if the wrong boy was pun- ished. He needed it according to the belief of some teachers and of some parents. The curriculum was limited to the three R's, and those thoroughly mastered made a key to many temples further on.

Mrs. Irwin says that James Mason was the first teacher in Franklin. This was in 1801. The schoolhouse was of unhewn logs, situated on the public square opposite the "United States Hotel." It was floored with puncheons, smoothed slightly. For light a log had been cut out the length of one side and the space filled with oiled paper. Pens were made of goosequills and ink from oak bark boiled with a little copperas. The school probably helped the boys and girls in the right direction if they were heading that way. The desks were long puncheon planks, fastened at a slant to the wall, with a bench in front. When the chil- dren were tired they could turn and rest their backs against the sharp, rough edge of the puncheon. The master boarded round.

Alexander McCalmont is the next teacher mentioned by Mrs. Irwin. He was afterward Judge McCalmont. It was probably the natu- ral trend of his mind, appearing in his relations to his various duties, that his remuneration and tenure of office were all clearly shown in a carefully drawn contract, each party to the contract possessing a copy. He also taught the three R's. The trustees were bound to fur- nish a suitable building for school and keep it warm. They were to pay two dollars a scholar for every three months and guarantee thirty scholars. Among the patrons were such fa- miliar names as McDowell, Power, Connely, Broadfoot. Plumer, Ridgway, Selders, and Dewoody. When the town was laid out, lands were reserved for school purposes, and were sold later to secure an academy. This was of interest to the whole county. The first academy building was erected on Buffalo street in 1813. John Kelly taught in this building eight years. Robert Ayers, John Sutton and John Gamble were also teachers here. A new academy building of brick was erected in 1854. This was afterward sold to the Evangelical Church and occupied by them as a place of worship.

Afterward the regulation of education was taken over by the State.

These schools used the old books, Webster's Spelling book, the New Testament for reading, followed by Murray's English Reader, Pike's or Daboll's arithmetic. There was no gram- mar, except that which walked around the school room; and that might have been of the best. "Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a student on the other end, is a university," said Garfield. The teacher is the school and there were doubtless some good ones in those early days, judging by results appearing later.

POSTAL SERVICE

For a time the county was without post routes. In 1802 the first United States mail came into the county. It was carried on horse- back in saddlebags and came once in three weeks, bringing very few letters, and no news- papers, only as scraps might be cut out and enclosed. Postage was according to distance. The route was from Pittsburgh to Erie.

Mr. Ash was the first carrier. He arrived punctually once in three weeks-except when the water was high or the snow deep. Mr. Ash later carried the mail from Meadville to Franklin. People watched for him to take their letters to the mail. It was generally understood that the carriers and post officials opened all the letters and read them, they had all the news. If the early settlers wrote any- thing of special importance they used a secret code. Afterward Mr. Houser carried the mail on horseback from Warren to Franklin and back. Incidentally it may be remarked that more mail enters and leaves Franklin every twenty-four hours of this year of grace than entered the whole county and departed from it during the first twenty-four years of her his- tory.

FINANCIAL EXCHANGE

There were no banks here before 1860. This made the transmission of money rather diffi- cult. It is said that a one-hundred-dollar bill was sometimes indentured, or cut by a very crooked line into two parts, one part sent at a time, and then the two parts were pasted together when received. It has also been said that merchants packed their Spanish dollars in saddlebags and rode with them across the mountains to Philadelphia, or took all their funds with them in their trunks by stage, and that robberies were rare. Holdups by high- waymen were very frequent throughout our

Digitized by Google

VENANGO COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

whole country at that time. The few robberies committed along the road to Philadelphia in those early times speak well of the care of our merchants for their property, and reveal a good deal about the character of those early Pennsylvania highwaymen.

PIONEER PRODUCTIONS

The pioneers were near to nature. It hardly seems possible that the residents of this county were recently so near to her that they received her gifts direct into their hands, and by their own work converted them into the necessities of civilized life. A long line of "middle-men" now stands between any original product of nature and the ultimate consumer, for instance from the silk worm to the dress, or from flax to fine linen or from the sheep's fleece to woolen fabrics and garments. Thousands of

helpers are now along all these main lines, hastening the rate of progress and refining the results. A modern dinner may require hun- dreds of such lines, each line its thousands. But in former times here, a man and his wife occupied all these intermediate places as well as the extremes of producer and consumer. He produced the wool and the flax; she pre- pared them for the spindle, spun them into thread, wove them into fabrics, fashioned them into garments. As for modern dinners, they did not have them; but good digestion did wait on appetite, and did not have to hesitate. A Robinson Crusoe flavor lingers round the pioneer life. As its participants entered the sunset years, they may have seen in the mellow light of memory that all the incidents of their past, trials, triumphs, successes, failures, were alike "good" and have been satisfied.

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.

Venango County, Pennsylvania: Her Pioneers and People (Volume 1), Part 12

Author: Babcock, Charles A. Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Number of Pages:

Author: Babcock, Charles A.
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages: