1. Dress.—The hunting
shirt is universally worn. This is a kind of loose, open frock, reaching half
way down the thighs, with large sleeves, the body open in front, lapped over,
and belted with a leathern girdle, held together with a buckle. The cape is
large, and usually fringed with different colored cloth from that of the body.
The bosom of this dress sometimes serves as a wallet for a "chunk" of
bread, jerk or smoke-dried venison, and other articles. It is made either of
dressed deer skins, linsey, coarse linen, or cotton. The shirt, waistcoat and
pantaloons are of similar articles and of the customary form. Wrappers of cloth
or dressed skins, called "leggins" are tied round the legs when
travelling. Moccasins of deer skins, shoe packs, and rough shoes, the leather tanned
and cobbled by the owner, are worn on the feet.
The females' [sic]
dress in a coarse gown of cotton, a
bonnet of the same stuff, and denominated in the eastern states a
"sun-bonnet." The latter is constantly worn through the day,
especially when company is present. The clothing for both sexes is made at
home. The wheel and loom are common articles of furniture in every cabin.
2.
Dwellings.—"Cabin" is the name for a plain, rough log-house,
throughout the west. The spot being selected, usually in the timbered land, and
near some spring, the first operation of the newly arrived emigrant is to cut
about 40 logs of the proper size and length for a single cabin, or twice that
number for a double one, and haul them to the spot. A large oak or other
suitable timber, of straight grain, and free from limbs, is selected for
clapboards for the roof. These are four feet in length, split with a froe six
or eight inches wide, and half an inch thick. Puncheons are used for the floor.
These are made by splitting trees about eighteen inches in diameter into slabs,
two or three inches in thickness, and hewn on the upper surface. The door way
is made by cutting out the logs after raising, of a suitable width, and putting
upright pieces of timber at the sides. The shutter is made of clapboards,
pinned on cross pieces, hung by wooden hinges, and fastened by a wooden latch.
A similar aperture, but is wider made at one end for the chimney. The men of
the settlement, when notified, collect and raise the building. Four stout men
with axes are placed on the corners to notch the logs together, while the rest
of the company lift them up. After the roof is on the body of the building, it
is slightly hewed down both out and inside. The roof is formed by shortening
each end log in succession till one log forms the comb of the roof. The
clapboards are put on so as to cover all cracks, and held down by poles or
small logs.
The chimney is built
of sticks of wood, the largest at the bottom, and the smallest at the top, and
laid up with a supply of mud or clay mortar. The interstices between the logs
are chinked with strips of wood and daubed with mortar both outside and in. A
double cabin consists of two such buildings with a space of 10 or 12 feet
between, over which the roof extends.
A log house, in
western parlance, differs from a cabin in the logs being hewn on two sides to
an equal thickness before raising,—in having a framed and shingled roof, a
brick or stone chimney, windows, tight floors, and are frequently clapboarded
on the outside and plastered within.
A log house thus
finished, costs more than a framed one. Cabins are often the temporary
dwellings of opulent and highly respectable families.
The axe, auger, froe,
drawing knife, broadaxe, and crosscut saw are the only tools required in constructing
these rude edifices;— sometimes the axe and auger only are employed. Not a nail
or pane of glass is needed. Cabins are by no means as wretched for residences
as their name imports.
They are often roomy,
comfortable and neat. If one is not sufficient to accommodate the family,
another is added, and another until sufficient room is obtained.
3. Furniture and mode
of living.—The genuine backwoodsman makes himself and family comfortable and
contented where those, unaccustomed to his mode of life, would live in
unavailing regret, or make a thousand awkward apologies on the visit of a
neighbor or traveler [sic]. A table
is made of a split slab and supported by four round legs. Clapboards supported
by pins stuck in the logs answer for shelves for table furniture. The bedstead
is often made in the corner of the room by sticks placed in the logs, supported
at the outward corner by a post, on which clapboards are laid, the ends of
which enter the wall between the logs, and which support the bedding. On the
arrival of travellers [sic] or visiters
[sic], the bed clothing is shared
with them, being spread on the puncheon floor that the feet may project towards
the fire.
Many a night has the
writer passed in this manner, after a fatiguing day's ride, and reposed more
comfortably than on a bed of down in a spacious mansion. All the family of both
sexes, with all the strangers who arrive, often lodge in the same room. In that
case the under garments are never taken off, and no consciousness of
impropriety or indelicacy of feeling is manifested. A few pins stuck in the
wall of the cabin display the dresses of the women and the hunting shirts of
the men. Two small forks or bucks-horns fastened to a joist are indispensable
articles for the support of the rifle. A loose floor of clapboards, and
supported by round poles, is thrown over head for a loft which furnishes a
place to throw any articles not immediately wanted, and is frequently used for
a lodging place for the younger branches of the family. A ladder planted in the
corner behind the door answers the purpose of stairs.
The necessary table
and kitchen furniture are a few pewter dishes and spoons, knives and forks,
(for which however, the common hunting knife is often a substitute,) tin cups
for coffee or milk, a water pail and a small gourd or calabash for water, with
a pot and iron Dutch oven, constitute the chief articles. Add to these a tray
for wetting up meal for corn bread, a coffee pot and set of cups and saucers, a
set of common plates, and the cabin is furnished. The hominy mortar and hand
mill are in use in all frontier settlements. The first consists of a block of
wood with an excavation burned at one end and scraped out with an iron tool,
wide at top and narrow at the bottom that the action of the pestle may operate
to the best advantage. Sometimes a stump of a large tree is excavated while in
its natural position. An elastic pole, 20 or 30 feet in length, with the large
end fastened under the ground log of the cabin, and the other elevated 10 or 15
feet and supported by two forks, to which a pestle 5 or 6 inches in diameter
and 8 or 10 feet long is fixed on the elevated end by a large mortice, and a
pin put through its lower end so that two persons can work it in conjunction.
This is much used for pounding corn. A very simple instrument to answer the
same purpose, is a circular piece of tin, perforated, and attached to a piece
of wood like a grater, on which the ears of corn are rubbed for meal. The hand
mill is in the same form as that used in Judea in the time of our Savior. Two
circular stones, about 18 inches in diameter constructed like ordinary mill
stones, with a staff let into the runner or upper stone near its outer edge,
with the upper end inserted in a joist or board over head, and turned by the
hands of two persons while one feeds it with corn. Horse mills follow the
mortar and hand mill in the scale of improvement. They are constructed
variously. A hand mill is the most simple. A large upright post is placed on a
gudgeon, with shafts extending horizontally 15 or 20 feet. Around the ends of
these is a band of raw hide twisted, which passes around the trundle head and
turns the spindle and communicates motion to the stone. A cog mill is formed by
constructing a rim with cogs upon the shafts, and a trundle head to correspond.
Each person furnishes his own horses to turn the mill, performs his own
grinding, and pays toll to the owner for use of the mill. Mills with the wheel
on an inclined plane, and carried by oxen standing on the wheel, are much in
use in those sections where water power is not convenient, but these indicate
an advance to the second grade of society.
Instead of bolting
cloths, the frontier people use a sieve or as called here, a
"search." This is made from a deer skin prepared to resemble
parchment, stretched on a hoop and perforated full of holes with a hot wire.
Every backwoodsman
carries on all occasions, the means of furnishing his meat. The rifle, bullet
pouch and horn, hunting knife, horse and dog are his constant companions when
from home, and woe be to the wolf, bear, deer or turkey that comes within one
hundred and fifty yards of his trail.
With the first
emigration there are few mechanics; hence every settler becomes expert in
supplying his own necessaries. Besides clearing land, building cabins, and
making fences, he stocks his own plough, repairs his wagon and his harness,
tans his own leather, makes his shoes, tables, bedsteads, stools or seats,
trays and a hundred other articles.
These may be rudely
constructed, but they answer his purpose very well.” 1
Christ, not man, is King!
Dale
1) John Mason Peck, A
New Guide For Emigrants To The West (Boston, MA: Gould, Kendall & Lincoln,
1836), p. 116-123.
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