USA > Virginia > Tazewell County > Tazewell County > History of Tazewell county and southwest Virginia, 1748-1920 > Part 24
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ings. The square inside contained the provision sheds and fre- quently a strong central block house as well. These forts, of course, could not stand against cannons; and they were always in danger when attacked with fire; but save for this risk of burning they were very effectual defences against men without artillery, and were rarely taken, whether by whites or Indians, except by surprise."
There were no attacks made by the Indians on the Witten or Wynne forts, and none upon the fort at Maiden Spring, although a small band of Shawnees on one occasion, in the absence of Rees Bowen, threatened to make an assault on his fort, but were pre- vented from so doing by a clever ruse practiced by Mrs. Bowen, who was as fearless and resourceful as her husband. The families of each settlement went to their community fort when Indian wars came on, and remained there until the war was ended, or until winter arrived. The Indians made no incursions in the winter time, when the forests were denuded of foilage, or snow might fall and reveal their presence in the settlements.
When the first detachments of settlers came to the Clinch Valley the Indians in Ohio and in Tennessee were at peace with the · Vir- ginians ; and the relation continued friendly until Dunmore's War began in 1774. This gave our ancestors several years of opportunity to build their houses unmolested and extend their clearings deeper into the forests. It also made effective the social and economic features of the plan adopted by the settlers for grouping their homes around and about some central point. And when the war commenced . there was ample existing evidence that the Tazewell pioneers had utilized the years of peace very well, as they were in a condition to not only defend their own settlements, but to furnish substantial assistance in the military campaign against the Shawnees and other hostile tribes in Ohio. The houses they built to dwell in were nothı- ing more pretentious than log cabins. Some had only a single room, while others were double cabins. Roosevelt, in "Winning of the West", gives a very accurate description of the houses and their furnishings that were built and occupied by the backwoodsmen. Mr. Roosevelt got this description from the celebrated McAfee MSS, and its accuracy is undoubted. Roosevelt says :
"If he was poor his cabin was made of unhewn logs, and held but a single room; if well-to-do, the logs were neatly hewed, and besides the large living and eating-room with its huge stone fire- place, there was also a small bedroom and a kitchen, while a ladder
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led to the loft above, in which the boys slept. The floor was made of puncheons, great slabs of wood hewed carefully out, and the roof of clapboards. Pegs of wood were thrust into the sides of the house, to serve instead of a wardrobe; and buck antlers, thrust into the joists, held the ever ready rifles. The table was a great clapboard set on four wooden legs; there were three-legged stools, and in the better sort of houses old-fashioned rocking chairs. The couch or bed was warmly covered with blankets, bear-skins and deer- hides."
Shown above is the oldest standing house in Tazewell County. It was built during the Revolution by John Witten, eldest son of Thomas Witten, and stands in the yard of John C. St. Clair, four miles west of the town of Tazewell, and is an excellent type of the pioneer cabin.
All the early settlers knew that in the making of their new homes self-help must be their chief reliance; but they also realized that what they, as families, would do could be greatly added to by the families of a community helping each other. From this idea of community interest excellent results came; and from it originated the old-time log-rollings, house-raisings, house-warmings, corn- shuckings, quiltings and sugar-stirrings. All these were affairs of utility and were made joyous festive occasions. They served to unite the pioneers of the Clinch Valley in the strong bonds of neigh- borly kindness and fellowship, engendering a spirit which was trans- mitted in such measure to their descendants as to make the hospi-
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tality, clanship, and fidelity of the sons of Tazewell proverbial. On such occasions the men, women and children of some particular neighborhood would assemble and do more useful work for a single family in a day than such a family could accomplish unassisted in several weeks, or possibly months. These gatherings were made delightful social and festive affairs. The mothers and daughters, who were the hostesses, would be happily assisted by the mothers and girls of the neighborhood in preparing a bounteous repast for the men who were engaged in the log-rolling, or the house-raising, or whatever work was being done.
At meal time the tables would fairly groan beneath the abund- ance of meats, of such variety that they would make a modern gourmand chuckle with delight, if he could have a chance to par- take of similar viands. There would be bear and venison steaks and roasts, wild turkeys, pheasants, and other small game, prepared in a homely way, but deliciously fragrant and appetizing. For bread they had the wonderful "Johnny Cake" and the corn pone, the making of which is now a lost art, the one baked on a clean board before a blazing log fire, the other baked in an iron oven on the stone hearth. They had no tea or coffee on the frontier in those days, but in most instances had plenty of rich milk, given by cows that grazed on the pea vine and blue grass; and plenty of sparkling water that gushed from the springs that were found near every cabin home; and these were served to the hearty log-rollers and house- raisers by the wives and their rosy-cheeked daughters. Nor had they any desserts at their feasts, worth mentioning, as wheat and flour had not yet been introduced; for there were no mills in the region but small hand mills that were used for grinding the corn. Few persons now living have been so fortunate as to eat meats and other foods similar to those of which the first settlers had an abund- ance, prepared as the pioneer women cooked them. The author in his boyhood days sometimes ate vension steaks, the Johhny Cake, and the corn pone prepared by the old-time cooks that had been trained by the pioneer mothers or their daughters. Nothing in modern cookery is half as delicious to me as those things that were prepared by "Aunt Trecy," the negro cook that was trained by my grandmother Cecil.
At the log-rollings, house-raisings and corn-shuckings it was the custom of the men to divide into "sides" to see which division could accomplish the most work in a given time, or for the day-each side having a captain to direct its movements. This caused the work to
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progress more rapidly, as each side put forth its full strength to be first in the contest. At the quiltings the women would frequently divide into parties and work from opposite sides to see which would first reach the centre of the quilt. I attended several corn-shuckings when I was a boy, and greatly enjoyed witnessing the jolly shuckers work and hearing them sing. These shuckings were held at night, and a bountiful supper was always spread and eaten after the work was completed. And when I was a little fellow my mother fre- quently took me to quilting parties given by her neighbors; and she had many quilting parties herself, that I remember. I always enjoyed the good dinners and took childish interest in the innocent gossip of the ladies.
A description of the apparel of the pioneer men and women has been given by Theodore Roosevelt in his "Winning of the West" and also by Dr. Biekley in his History of Tazewell County. Their accounts are strikingly similar, and were procured from early writers, who were familiar with frontier life. Roosevelt says: "The backwoodsman's dress was in great part borrowed from his Indian foes. He wore a fur cap or felt hat, moccasins, and either loose, thin trousers, or else simple leggings of buekskin or elk-hide, and the Indian breech-clout. He was always clad in the fringed hunting- shirt, of homespun or buckskin, the most picturesque and distinc- tively national dress ever worn in America. It was a loose smock or tunie, reaching nearly to the knees, and held in at the waist by a broad belt, from which hung the tomahawk and scalping-knife. His weapon was the long small-bore, flint-lock rifle, clumsy, and ill-balanced, but exceedingly accurate. It was very heavy, and when upright reached to the chin of a tall man; for the barrel of thick, soft iron, was four feet in length, while the stock was short and the butt scooped out. Sometimes it was plain, sometimes orna- mented. It was generally bored out-or, as the expression then was, 'sawed-out'-to carry a ball of seventy, more rarely of thirty or forty, to the pound; and was usually of backwoods manufacture. The marksman almost always fired from a rest, and rarely at a very long range; and the shooting was marvelously accurate."
The gun described by Colonel Roosevelt was one of Daniel Boone's rifles, which, according to an inscription on the barrel, was made at Louisville, Kentucky, in 1782, by M. Humble. Prior to the Civil War (1861-65) a number of rifles of similar pattern could be found in Tazewell County, and there are some still here.
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Garbed in hunting shirts, with tomahawk and scalping knives sheathed in their belts, and armed with rifles like Boone's, a number of the pioneers from the Clinch, under command of Captain Russell, were with General Andrew Lewis at the battle of Point Pleasant; and the gallant Lieutenant Rees Bowen, with his company of sterl- ing patriots similarly garbed and equipped, marched with Campbell to King's Mountain, and in the battle there placed Tazewell's name on the scroll of fame.
In the days of the American Revolution the rifles of the men from the mountain frontiers made the American guns famous. Gen- eral Howe, a British general, called them "the terrible guns of the rebels." A recent supposed authority on guns and projectiles has written: "In the colonial days the residents of the Atlantic sea- board were the greatest users of guns of their period, and gun- maker's shops were in every city and town. With little knowledge of ballistics, these men perfected the American rifle that was a factor of great moment in the revolution when wielded by the sharp-shoot- ing keen-eyed men of the colonies."
The guns that were made and used on the Atlantic seaboard about the time of the Revolution were principally of the smooth-bore style, while the guns used by the men of the mountain sections were universally rifles after the Boone type; and Roosevelt says this kind of gun "was usually of backwoods manufacture". It was perfected by the gunmakers of the mountains and not in the gun- maker's shops in the seaboard towns. Rifles made in the mountains of Virginia, in the hands of Daniel Morgan's riflemen won the battle at Saratoga and at the Cow Pens, and caused General Howe to speak of "the terrible guns of the rebels." The Mountain riflemen from the Clinch and Holston valleys, with their trusty mountain rifles, under the command of the mountain general, William Camp- bell, won the battle at King's Mountain and turned the scale for the colonies in the War of the Revolution.
The dress of the pioneer women was limited in the kind of gar- ments used and was of the coarsest and cheapest quality. Roosevelt says the outfit of a well-to-do bride was "not very elaborate, for a woman's dress consisted of a hat or poke bonnet, a 'bedgown', perhaps a jacket, and a linsey petticoat, while her feet were thrust into coarse shoepacks or moccasins". Bickley in his chapter on "Manners and Customs" of the first settlers, quoting from Dr. Dod- dridge, says: "Linsey coats and bedgowns were the universal dress of the women in the early times." Dr. Bickley thinks this was an
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excellent description of the dress of the women who first came to the Clinch Valley; and he follows this adoption of the Doddridge description with the following statement as to the resourcefulness and industry of the pioneer women:
"The garments made in Augusta, Botetourt and other older set- tlements, had worn out, and a different material was brought into use. The weed now known among us as wild nettle (Urtica dioica), then furnished the material which served to clothe the persons of our sires and dames. It was cut down while yet green, and treated much in the same manner in which flax is now treated. The fibrous bark, with the exception of the shortness of the fibers, seemed to be adapted to the same uses. When this flax, if I may so term it, was prepared, it was mixed with buffalo hair and woven into a substan- tial cloth, in which men and women were clothed. It is a true maxim 'necessity is the mother of invention.' "
In the introductory paragraphs of his chapter on the "Manners and Customs" of the pioneers, Dr. Bickley made an apology for the crude state of society that prevailed among the first settlers. This apology was unnecessary, and was based upon what I believe was a false interpretation of the customs and habits of our pioneer ances- tors. Tazewell's first historian says:
"I must ask such sons and daughters of the noble people whose habits form a theme of my pen, who are cither vain or proud, to forgive me for exhibiting their fathers and mothers, in such a light as I necessarily must. I, too, am of these people, and hope I am as sensitive of my ancestors as the vainest or the proudest.
"The people of all mountain countries have some customs pecu- liarly their own. The same pastoral simplicity which characterizes the people of the Scotch highlands, the mountainous regions of Europe, and the hill country of ancient Judea, may be clearly traced. The same industry, love for stock, determination to be free, hatred of oppression, pure sentiment, etc., are found here."
Following this apology, Bickley quotes from Doddridge's "Set- tlements and Indian Wars" a lengthy description of a wedding in the pioneer days, of which he declares "a more faithful picture could not be drawn." Though it does not justify an apology for the sup- posed unrefined customs of our pioneer ancestors, it is the only description of a frontier wedding written by an eye witness; and I will reproduce it. Doddridge says:
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"For a long time after the first settlement of this country the inhabitants in general married young. There was no distinction of rank, and very little of fortune. On these accounts, the first impres- sion of love resulted in marriage, and a family establishment cost but little labor, and nothing else. A description of a wedding from beginning to end will serve to show the manners of our forefathers, and mark the grade of civilization which has succeeded to their rude state of society in the course of a few years.
"In the first years of the settlement of a country, a wedding engaged the attention of the whole neighborhood; and the frolic was anticipated by old and young, with eager expectation. This is not to be wondered at, when it is told that a wedding was almost the only gathering which was not accompanied with the labor of reap- ing, log-rolling, building a cabin, or planning some scout or cam- paign. On the morning of the wedding-day, the groom and his attendants assembled at the house of his father, for the purpose of reaching his bride by noon, which was the usual time for celebrating the nuptials; and which, for certain reasons, must take place before dinner.
"Let the reader imagine an assemblage, without a store, tailor, or mantua-maker, within a hundred miles; an assemblage of horses, without a blacksmith or saddler within an equal distance. The gentlemen dressed in shoepacks, moccasins, leather breeches, leg- gings, linsey hunting shirts, and all home-made. The ladies dressed in linsey petticoats, and linsey or linen bedgowns, coarse shoes, stockings, handkerchiefs, and buckskin gloves, if any. If there were any buckles, rings, buttons or ruffles, they were the relics of olden times; family pieces from parents or grandparents. The horses were caparisoned with old saddles, old bridles or halters, and pack-saddles, with a bag or a blanket thrown over them; a rope or a string as often constituted the girth as a piece of leather.
"The march in double file was often interrupted by the narrow- ness of our mountain paths, as they were called, for we had no roads; and these difficulties were often increased, sometimes by the good, and sometimes by the ill-will of the neighbors, by falling trees, and tying grape-vines across the way. Sometimes an ambus- cade was formed by the wayside, and an unexpected discharge of several guns took place, so as to cover the wedding company with smoke. Let the reader imagine the scene which followed this dis- charge; the sudden spring of the horses, the shrieks of the girls,
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and the chivalrous bustle of their partners to save them from fall- ing. Sometimes, in spite of all that could be done to prevent it, some were thrown to the ground. If a wrist, elbow, or ankle hap- pended to be sprained, it was tied up with a handkerchief, and little more was said or thought about it.
"The ceremony of the marriage preceded the dinner, which was a substantial backwoods' feast of beef, pork, fowls, and sometimes venison and bear meat, roasted and boiled, with plenty of potatoes, cabbage and other vegetables. During the dinner, the greatest hilarity always prevailed; although the table might be a large slab of timber, hewed out with the broadaxe, supported by four sticks, set in auger holes; and the furniture, some old pewter dishes and plates ; the rest, wooden bowls and trenchers: a few pewter spoons, much battered about the edges, were to be seen at some tables. The rest were made of horn. If knives were scarce, the deficiency was made up by the scalping knives, which were carried in sheaths, sus- pended to the belt of the hunting-shirt, every man carried one of them.
"After dinner the dancing commenced, and generally lasted until the next morning. The figures of the dances were three and four handed reels, or square sets and jigs. The commencement was always a square form, which was followed by what was called jigging it off ; that is, two of the four would single out for a jig, and were fol- lowed by the remaining couples. The jigs were often accompanied with what was called cutting out; that is, when either of the parties became tired of the dance, on intimation, the place was supplied by some one of the company, without any interruption to the dance. In this way the dance was continued until the musician was heartily tired of his situation. Toward the latter part of the night, if any of the company, through weariness, attempted to conceal themselves for the purpose of sleeping, they were hunted up, paraded on the floor, and the fiddler ordered to play 'hang out till to-morrow morning.'
"About nine or ten o'clock a deputation of young ladies stole off the bride, and put her to bed. In doing this, it frequently happened that they had to ascend a ladder, instead of a pair of stairs, leading from the dining room and ball room to the loft, the floor of which was made of clap-boards, lying loose. This ascent, one might think, would put the bride and her attendants to the blush; but the foot of the ladder was commonly behind the door, which was purposely opened for the occasion, and its rounds, at the inner ends, were
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well hung with hunting-shirts, dresses and other articles of clothing. The candles, being on the opposite side of the house, the exit of the bride was noticed by but few.
"This done, a deputation of young men, in like manner, stole off the groom, and placed him snugly by the side of his bride. The dance still continued; and if seats happened to be scarce, as was often the case, every young man, when not engaged in the dance, was obliged to offer his lap as a seat for one of the girls; and the offer was sure to be accepted. In the midst of this hilarity, the bride and groom were not forgotten. Pretty late in the night, some one would remind the company that the new couple must stand in need of some refreshment; black Betty, which was the name of the bottle, was called for and sent up the ladder; but sometimes black Betty did not go alone. I have many times seen as much bread, beef, pork and cabbage sent along, as would afford a good meal for half a dozen hungry men. The young couple were compelled to eat and drink, more or less of whatever was offered.
"But to return. It often happened that some neighbors or rela- tives, not being asked to the wedding, took offense; and the mode of revenge, adopted by them on such occasions, was that of cutting off the manes, foretops, and tails of the horses of the wedding company.
"On returning to the in-fare, the order of procession, and the race for black Betty, was the same as before. The feasting and dancing often lasted several days, at the end of which, the whole company were so exhausted with loss of sleep, that many days' rest were requisite to fit them to return to their ordinary labors."
Bickley makes further explanation and apology for adopting the Doddridge wedding story by saying: "I have quoted this account, written by Dr. Doddridge, because nothing could be more correct, and it was beyond my power to tell an original tale so well."
Dr. Doddridge's description is, no doubt, highly colored, as the border annalists were as prone to indulge in hyperbole as the most brilliant modern war correspondent. The kind of weddings the author of "Settlements and Indian Wars" describes did sometimes occur in the backwoods; but they were exceptional, and should not have been adopted as a type for illustrating the manners and habits of our forefathers and foremothers. Occasional weddings of the Doddridge kind may have taken place in the Clinch Valley in the early days after its settlement; but I doubt if any such occurred in the families of the pioneers. The first settlers on the Clinch were
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dignified, sober-minded men and women, intent upon accomplishing a great work, that of erecting happy and useful homes. They were descended from ancestors who sought asylum in America to escape religious and political persecutions, and their children, the first generation born in Tazewell, were as dignified and refined as any persons now in the land. I knew quite a number of them in my childhood and boyhood, and speak from actual knowledge.
The sons and daughters of the pioneers married while they were very young, frequently before the boys were twenty-one, and when the girls were in their early teens. They inherited and possessed but little of the world's goods to begin their married life with. The groom would have a horse, an axe, and his rifle, the latter was given each boy when he became twelve years old; and in case of an invasion by the Indians he was expected to, and did, fill a man's place at a loophole. And the bride, if she had been industrious and helpful, and her parents were thrifty, would have for her dowry a brood-mare, a cow, a bed well furnished with blankets, quilts and woolen coverlets-the latter woven by herself or her mother-and a chest for her clothes. These chests took the place of trunks, as there were no trunks in those days. They were always made from cedar or black walnut, were neat in appearance, and were capacious and useful. My mother had one, which was given her by her parents, and it is still an heirloom in the family.
There was, however, an abundance of fertile land still unoc- cupied and unclaimed, from which the young married man could select four hundred acres, and acquire title thereto under the liberal settler's laws then existing in Virginia. After he had selected, and possibly marked out with his tomahawk, the boundary he wished to occupy, he and his bride would choose a location for their future residence. Then the community custom and feeling, that had been happily planted in the beginning of the settlement, would assert itself in most generous form. All the men of the neighborhood would assemble where the new house was to be built; and they would chop the logs and roll them to the proposed site of the build- ing, with their broadaxes they would hew and notch the logs, and raise the house for the young housekeepers. As soon as the chimney was built and the roof of clapboards was placed, the festal joys of a house-warming, with all the social forms of the wedding, were extended by the young housekeepers to their kindred and neighbors. Thus were the homes of the sons and daughters of the pioneers established and the community made stronger and better by the
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addition of other families. Race suicide was then an unheard of thing in this glorious mountain country ; and the Biblical injunction, "multiply and replenish the earth" had not become obsolete. The man cheerfully assumed his duties of armed protector of his wife and children and provider for the family, and the woman, as house- wife and child-bearer, with smiling contentment, carried her many cares and burdens.
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