When the pioneers came in search of new homes several families traveled together and they usually selected some well-wooded spot near some stream. When they were once located, no time was lost but all hands got busy. Often, by the first night, they had an improvised building in which the women and children were sheltered and in a few days they had houses for all and a nice little clearing around each.
The houses were usually about sixteen by twenty feet or hardly so large. The walls were of logs that ranged from eight to twelve inches in diameter. They were built in the form of a pen with notches in each log at the corners to make them lie solid and closer. Then pieces were sawed out of one side for the door. The frame of the roof was formed by shortening the logs at each end, thus necessitating bringing the logs of the sides closer together until the last one would form the comb of the roof. It was covered with clapboards, which were usually about four feet long, made from large trees and split with an instrument they call a frow (fro). The roof was sometimes nailed on, and at other times it was fastened on with poles laid crosswise of the boards. The floor, if they had any, was made of puncheons, which were timbers a foot or more in diameter, cut into lengths of eight or ten feet, split open, and the flat side smoothed. They were sometimes laid flat on the ground and at other times they were notched at the ends and laid on cross logs called sleepers. The door was quite generally made of planks split out like the clapboards of the roof, which were then pegged to two cross-pieces, one end of each forming a hinge. The latch was on the inside and would drop into a notch in a peg and securely hold the door, but could be lifted from the outside by means of a string extending out thru a hole. If the "latch-string" was hanging out, people were welcome to lift the latch and come in. In one end there was a place about five feet square cut in the walls for a "fire-place,' 7 which consisted of three sides of a pen about three by five feet built in this opening to the top of it, attached to the sides by "notching in",. then lined with stone and well plastered with mud. The fireplace terminated in a chimney which was built of sticks, then plastered with mud. This was the "stick-and-clay chimney." They had no glass for windows, so they just sawed out a piece of log and put a piece of greased paper in the opening.
The furniture was all home-made. The bed was formed as follows: They first took a pole long enough to extend from the floor to the roof, trimmed the limbs off, cutting each about six inches from the pole, so as to leave several hooks which might serve as a sort of clothes rack. This pole was then set about four feet from one side at a back corner and six feet from the end. A pole was laid from a crack in the end to the first fork in this upright pole, about two feet high, and from that to the side wall, clapboards or something of the sort were laid across and the bedstead was made. On this they usually put a bed made of straw or corn husks, or even grass or leaves. In better days this was supplied with feathers. The table was a crude affair. They had no chairs but they made stools by boring three holes in a block of wood and putting pegs in for the legs. Sometimes they fixed up something like a puncheon with four legs as a bench for the children. They had no cook stove, but usually a large skillet with an iron lid was a substantial part of their equipment, tho they did not always have that. To do their baking, they made a heavy bed of coals on the hearth, set the skillet on them, put their food in, put the lid on, and then covered that with coals. Their light was usually a tallow candle, but sometimes they were not so fortunate as to have the tallow and they had to have a grease lamp. The dishes also were nearly always home-made wooden bowls and noggins. The more fortunate ones only had a few pewter dishes.
Many had no knives or forks. If the former were lacking, the hunting knife was called into service, and if the latter a sharp stick answered the purpose. Clocks were very scarce. The old rooster would crow just as day began to dawn, so they needed no alarm. They all learned to tell time pretty accurately by the sun, so what need had they for a clock? They had no matches. Sometimes they would start fire by striking a flint so as to throw the sparks on a piece of toe, but sometimes the toe was scarce and they would go a mile or more to a neighbor's to borrow fire. Many of them kept fire thru the winter and summer by keeping a log in the clearing burning.
The food was plain but very wholesome. The corn-pone and the johnny-cake were served for dinner. As hard as they worked they needed meat and very rarely were they without it. Sometimes it was venison. At other times it was turkey (wild) squirrel, rabbit, "possum" or "pattridge" (partridge or quail). Those who had cows furnished good sweet milk and buttermilk to everybody in the neighborhood. Mush and milk was the common supper dish, and if they got tired of that they could vary it with "hog and hominy". They drank much milk and during the spring months they drank sassafras tea. They raised beans and pumpkins in the corn. They made sugar and molasses from the sap of maple trees, and they often cut a bee-tree, getting sometimes several gallons of honey.
The majority of the pioneers were poor, but honest and respectable, hence poverty carried with it no sense of degradation or humiliation like that felt by the poor any many alternative cultures. They lived in just humble cabins, but they were their own, built by their own hands. They had few of the conveniences of modern life and they were destitute of many of the things we now consider absolutely necessary, but they were industrious, patient and cheerful and hopefully looked forward to better days. As noted above, they had plenty of food and it was wholesome. They had a good appetite and a clear conscience, and as they sat down to the rude table to eat from wooden or pewter dishes, they enjoyed it. The bread they ate was from corn they had both grown and ground, or it was made of wheat they had grown and by a very laborious process flailed out and ground ready for bread. Some of them had graters on which they grated their corn and wheat, but others had various forms of hand-mills. They walked the green carpet of the forests and fields around them, not with the mien of a vagrant, but with the independent air and elastic step of a self-respecting freeman.
In nothing have there been greater changes than in their dress. The women usually wore a homemade dress of what they called linsey-woolsey, but occasionally the more fortunate ones could get calico from ' ' back east ' ' and wear that on Sundays or on dress occasions. They wore hoops, which made the dress spread out at the bottom. Sometimes they had sleeves made very large and stuffed with feathers so that if the arms were extended at right angles to the body, the sleeves were about as high as the head. On their heads they wore sunbonnets in the summer and shawls in winter. If they didn't go barefooted they wore moccasins, which were made of a piece of deer-skin, which were laced along the back of the heel and the "calf" of the leg and also over the toes and instep up along the shin. The more artistic ones ran about a foot high and the tops were cut into strings, which were painted in various colors and allowed to dangle about the ankles. The girls often carried their moccasins to church, putting them on at the door.
The men wore hunting shirts, breeches, moccasins and a cap. The hunting shirt was a loose sort of a blouse. It opened in front and was large enough to serve as a sort of pouch in which to carry lunch and other things necessary for the trip. It was usually belted down and in this belt he always carried a hunting-knife and sometimes a tomahawk. On dress occasions he wore a short cape over this coat, which terminated about his shoulders in a fringe of bright colors. His cap was made of coon-skin made so that the tail served as an ornament dangling from the top or down behind. His "breeches" were of buck-skin. In winter he wore the hairy side in and in summer he reversed it. On at least one occasion the "buck-skin breeches" served another purpose.
"Reverend James Lemen of Monroe County and his son were out plowing and left their harness in the field at noon. The boy, hoping to get a vacation, hid one of the collars. The father was resourceful enough and at once took off his breeches, stuffed them with grass and this served as a collar for the afternoon."
They had plenty of work to do and if they got tired they worked at something else until they rested. The women had work around the house daubing the building, getting wood, grinding corn, cultivating the truck-patch, dressing skins and making it into clothing, or carding, weaving, and spinning cotton or wool and making that into clothing, knitting socks and stockings, milking the cow and teaching the children to read. When she got this done she went and piled brush or something of the kind until she rested, if she was tired.
The men cleared the ground ready for crops, sometimes at the rate of ten or fifteen acres per year, by cutting down all the smaller trees and "deadening" the larger ones. They made rails and built a fence around the fields, then plowed the ground with a home-made plow and cultivated the crops. Besides all this, they must "all-hands" protect the chickens, geese, ducks, sheep and hogs against the opossums, raccoons, panthers, wild-cats, and wolves, and it sometimes happened that they had to protect themselves against the local natives when there was a dispute among them.
They were good at combining business with pleasure. In the spring they had log-rollings, which everybody‚ men, women and children, attended. This was an occasion for everybody to help and it was a source of great pride to a man if he could pull all the others down at the end of a "hand-spike". The women took their spinning wheels along, and it was a great day for them as well. They had many amusements which were an essential part of their education. The boy soon passed the bow and arrow stage, and before he reached his teens he could handle the rifle well. They often had "shooting matches," and they developed great skill in marksmanship. Pioneers learned the tricks of the animals and could imitate them all, from the ''gobble" of a turkey to the howl of a wolf. They learned how to decoy the panther from his hiding place and how to call a deer by day or to "shine" him by night.
Boys went courting in those days. Among them there was no aristocracy, so there was but little looking for wealth or influence. They generally married young and started out in life for themselves. In those days you could tell when young people were going to get married by the way a young man tried to prepare a few home-made tools of his own and also by the fact that the girl was taking an additional interest in drying fruits, making quilts, etc. On the wedding day all the neighborhood was there. The ceremony was performed at noon and then came the big dinner. In some neighborhoods this was followed by dancing the "fox-trot" and the "country (contra) dance" until daylight the next morning. The old fiddler was in the height of his glory. In other localities where they did not believe in dancing, they spent the afternoon in the various sports common to pioneer life, and departed to their homes before night only to assemble at the home of the father of the groom for an "infair" dinner the next day. Within the next week a place for the house was selected and the neighbors built a house for the new couple, and after a "house-warming" which consisted of an all-night party or dance, the young couple moved in and were "at home."
If any of them became sick, the good old mothers were the doctors. If they could not be cured, it was often ascribed to the ill-will of a witch. If they died, the preacher was there to say the last sad words at the grave. The neighbors were the undertakers.
"Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect.
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.
Their names, the years spelt by the unlettered muse
The place of fame and elegy supply,
And many a holy text around she strews.
That teach the rustic moralist to die."
As the years rolled on, fields were cleared up, the whip-saw and the saw-mill were introduced, better homes were built, churches were organized and schools were established. Various enterprises were started up and people became specialists in different lines. The Indian and many of the wild animals disappeared. The pioneer doctor succeeded the old "witch-master" and the people generally led an easier life. In our imagination we can look back over half a century and, on a winter evening, see the old pioneer grandmother sitting by the huge fire-place, knitting away, while the children are gathered around actable and by the light of a tallow candle are studying their lessons, and the pioneer grandfather sits in meditative mood. Finally, when lessons are gotten the children call on Grandfather to tell them a story and out of the depth of his heart he tells them a story before they scamper off to bed to have a frightful dream about battles with their enemies or of the good times at some of their gatherings. Waller, Illinois.
Home life of Pioneers in California.
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