Clothing, Food and Shelter
This picture shows the old house which once stood at the southwest corner of Main and Eighth Streets. It was on this lot that John Benbow commenced the erection of the first log cabin on the present site of the town of Fairmount. Before the cabin was completed Daniel Baldwin came from Wayne County, Indiana with his family, and in 1833 purchased the property and finished the cabin, which he occupied for several months.
Corn, oats, wheat and flax were staple products of the pioneer farm. Flax was raised for its qualities available in making articles of wearing apparel for both men and women.
There are three prime necessities of life, namely, clothing, food and shelter. These necessities are common to civilized mankind. In this connection it will be of interest to the reader to know how pioneers provided themselves with clothing. The following excellent description of the manner in which flax was converted into garments for women and into clothing for men will be found appropriate. This description is from the pen of John T. Morris, than whom there was no one of that early period better fitted by education and personal observation to tell the story.
During the first years of the settlement it was common for the people to produce nearly everything they consumed. Indeed this was necessary, as most of the settlers were in limited circumstances -only able to command money, enough to enter a small tract of land at $1.25 per acre. I suppose about eighty acres was an average entry for those who settled on the land at once. Some men who had the money to do so would take up larger bodies of land and hold it for speculation.
The flax seed was sown early in May, and by some time in July, it was ripe enough to pull. When flax was grown for fiber it was always pulled by hand -pulled out of the ground and spread in swathes on the ground where it grew, and left to cure, after which it was taken up, bound into bundles and put under shelter to remain until the fall rains commenced. It was then taken to some grass plot and unbound and again spread in swathes and left to take the rain and sunshine.
This process was called "rotting the flax." This was necessary in order that the fiber might the more readily separate from the woody portion of the stalks, and at the same time the woody part of the stalks was rendered more brittle, hence more easily worked out from the fiber. When the action of the weather had sufficiently rotted the flax, it was again taken up, bound into bundles and put under shelter to await the farmer's pleasure to break and scutch it.
The first machine in this process was called a "flax brake." This was made entirely from wood -not even a nail used in its construction. The flax was first put through the "flax brake," then to the scutching board. By the use of this and the scutching knife the schives were worked out from the fiber.
After this the flax fiber was handed over to the women to complete the work of making into cloth, or linen, which they did by the use of different machines, the first of which was the hatchel, an instrument used to comb out the coarse from the fine fiber. This machine was made by using a board seven inches wide and two feet long, in the center of which about thirty-six spikes, were made fast in a space five by six inches. These spikes, or teeth, if you please, were about five inches long, made smooth and sharp at the point. This combing done, the fiber was ready for the "little spinning wheel."
The reel was now brought into requisition, as it was always used in connection with the wheel. Reeled, spooled, warped and drawn through the sley, or put in the loom, the process of weaving, as now in order. A nice fabric for men's pants and shirts was made by using cotton thread for the warp, filled in with flax thread. Trousers made from this, after it was nicely bleached, were fit for Sunday, and indeed, your humble servant has worn such trousers when he went o to see his "best girl." In those frontier times the women did the cutting and making, as well as spinning and weaving. It was some years after the first settlement was made before a fashionable tailor was in demand.
The Township originally was heavily timbered. There was an abundance of spice-wood, walnut, hickory, beech, cherry, sugar, ash, oak, sycamore, poplar, hackberry, etc.
The dense forest served as a refuge and feeding ground for all kinds of wild game, which was abundant in the early thirties. Bear, deer, porcupines, wild cats, raccoons, squirrels, 'possums, turkeys and quail ere plentiful The supply of meats was unlimited. The hunter and trapper had his choice "without money and without price."
Having referred to the manner of procuring necessary articles of clothing, the reader is again indebted to the late John T. Morris for the following well written description of methods employed by the pioneer in securing his food.
In 1830, he says, Martin Boots owned and was operating a corn mill, located a short distance above the mouth of Boots Creek.
At the same time Jesse Adamson was running another such mill on Griffin's Creek, about half a mile above the mouth of the creek.
For a few years the settlers were dependent upon these corn mills to get their corn ground into meal. The water wheels were so made that they were liable to freeze up in the winter, and remain so for some time, and in that case the people would run short of bread stuff, and have to fall back on Irish potatoes and lye hominy as a substitute for bread. Corn bread was the rule and flour bread was the exception.
Sometimes the neighbors would make up a team and go forty miles up the Mississinewa River, to what was known as Lewelling's Mill, and bring down a load of flour. then, for a time, the settlers would have biscuits occasionally on Sunday morning.
The diet throughout the community was plain and simple. Meat was had the easiest way of anything that entered into a living. Game was plentiful. There were but few groceries bought. Each family made their own sugar and molasses from the maple trees. A few people used coffee, but a substitute for store tea could be found within a few rods of every man's house -spice-wood.
So far as hogs were concerned, when left on the range they were almost no expense, as they would live and do well all the year. During the fall and early winter they got tat on the mast. Acorns and hickory nuts were in such abundance that a large amount of this mast was still on the ground when winter came on. This would become covered with leaves, and maybe with snow, and be preserved, so that hogs could find it and feed on it all winter. There was, however, one trouble with the hogs. They would become as wild as deer on being left at large in the woods where they would scarcely see any person.
Those who had hogs on the range tried to keep them located by going out occasionally and finding their bed, which the hogs moved as occasion required. As the mast became scarce in their beat, they would move over into new territory.
But the excitement was on when the men went out to butcher their meat. After deciding whose hogs should be killed first, a few neighbors would be on the way early, with dogs, guns and horses, prepared for the chase. They aimed to surprise the hogs in their bed. (A good snow was a prerequisite to this wild hog slaughter.) Arriving at the bed, the hogs were routed and the dogs turned loose. A hog was soon caught and held till the men came up and stuck it. This one was left to die while the dogs caught another. And so the chase went on until all were killed, or as many as were wanted.
Of course the dead hogs were somewhat scattered, but at least one horse was provided with harness, single tree and loose chain, in order to drag the hogs together at some suitable place where they could get to them with a wood sled and haul them in where the dressing was to be done. In this manner of hog killing guns were not brought into requisition only as the hogs would rally and make a stand to fight, as was sometimes the case.
Mr. Morris has told how our ancestors hunted deer, and the reader is again indebted to him for this first-hand information:
In those early times game was so plenty that if afforded both sport and profit to those who engaged in hunting. In the summer, hunters would go out on night expeditions on the river. They would equip a canoe for this purpose by placing a blind on the prow of the canoe. This was formed by using a few short boards. One was put down flat, crosswise. Immediately behind this was boarded up some twenty inches or more. The board planked down was for a candle to stand upon. The upright back was to break the light of the candle from shining upon the men. Their craft being ready, the next thing was to start up the river.
This was called "fire hunting." It was their purpose to start early enough in the day to work their craft several mile sup the river before nightfall. At that time the hunting was wont to commence. So they would stop and light their candle and turn about. The deer did not frequent the river much only at night.
It was supposed that three were two things that caused the deer to go to the river. One was the need of water and the other was they fed upon a moss which was found growing in the water upon the rocks. This was called "deer moss", and was found only where the water was shallow. Those hunters asserted that they had seen the deer go down with their mouths into the water after the moss. Whatever may have been the inducement, the deer were largely found in the river at night.
On starting down the river, one man would be seated in the stern of the canoe, paddle in hand. He made but little effort to give the craft headway, except to shape its course. The other man stood behind the blind, gun in hand, and far enough back so the candle would not shine upon him. >By this arrangement the men were completely hid behind the blind. The hunters said that the deer would appear to be wholly oblivious to everything except the candle. They would stand and gaze at the candle until the canoe would approach within a few yards of them. It was also stated that a man could see a deer eighty rods or more from the light of a candle placed upon the blind.
When the man that was on the lookout saw a deer, he would simply point toward it and the man who was working the canoe shaped its course accordingly, carefully avoiding noise, till the craft approached to within easy shooting distance before the old musket was turned loose.
An old army musket was the style of gun used in this manner of hunting. They were wont to have the gun well charged with buckshot, as it was a random shot, not being able to see any sights. I remember to have seen one of these night expeditions on its return, in charge of Thomas Branson and Reuben Overman, with the canoe fairly loaded down with deer, lying on their backs with their legs up.
It was claimed that the hotter the weather and the worse the flies the more the deer would be found in the river at night.
The coming of the pioneer for permanent settlement created the necessity for homes. The dwelling places took the form of log cabins. There could be no homes without shelter. As the cabins multiplied in number and the work of clearing the forest progressed, timber began to disappear.
Log rollings and house raisings were of frequent occurrence. Neighbors were indeed neighborly. Co-operation in the building of homes was the rule. The spirit of mutual helpfulness extended to quilting bees, corn huskings, spinning and weaving.
The main diversion for the boys was town ball and bull pen, while jumping the rope, hide and seek, and "William-a-trim-a-toe were a few of the games in which both boys and girls participated.
Eye witnesses have touched upon the means of obtaining clothing and food. It is now appropriate to describe the methods of our ancestors in providing shelter and preparing food for their families. Again we rely upon authority which cannot be called into question.
The following is form the pen of Asa T. Baldwin, residing, when these lines were written, at 2311 South Meridian Street, Marion, Indiana. Being one of the few men then living who learned how this was done by his own personal experience, this detailed account will be read with interest:
The log cabin was made by cutting poles or logs 16 to 24 feet in length and notching the ends with an ax by men selected to carry up the four corners of the building, so that they would fit closely together and make a solid wall not easily thrown down. The open spaces between the logs were chinked with wood and daubed with mud or mortar to keep out the wind, rain and snow.
The roof was covered with clapboards, or strakes, as the Yankees call them. These were split three or four feet long with a frow, and put on as evenly as possible, lapping them and breaking the joints so as not to leak. They were held on by weights called ridge-poles, secured in their place by large wooden pins, as nails were too scarce and high priced in those days for the average settler to think of affording such an expensive plan as that of nailing the boards on. The stick-and-clay chimney was built a little higher than the comb of the roof and well lined with mud from top to bottom, to prevent getting on fire. The large, open fireplace had jambs and hearths made of clay, sprinkled with water and thoroughly pounded with a maul to make them firm and solid when dry. The cooking arrangements were nothing like they are now. Tin reflectors were sometimes used for baking and roasting. Ovens made of a clay mortar were common. They were built on a platform of heavy plank placed on four posts about three feet high and quite large, so that several loaves and a dozen or more pies could be baked at once. Johnny cakes were baked on smooth boards at the sides of the jambs, and venison was dried in the flue of the chimney. There were no large, convenient cook stoves and ranges with numerous vessels to go along with them.
Corn bread or heat bread was frequently baked in a skillet by placing live coals of fire under the skillet and on the lid. Pork was boiled with cabbage or beans in a kettle, hung in the absence of an iron crane, on a wooden hook over the fire. Squashes and potatoes were often roasted by covering them with hot ashes in the fireplace. As a matter of economy, pewter plates were used by the early settlers, since they were not easily broken. Glass tumblers were out of the question, hence gourds were in frequent demand for drinking vessels.
Many a cabin had not a single sawed plank in it. The floors were made with heavy puncheons, split out of logs and hewed as smoothly as possible with a broad-axe, and the loft was floored with boards similar to those on the roof. The joists were the straightest poles that could be found in the forest, and sometimes the bark was peeled off so as to make them have a clean, beautiful appearance.
The doors were hung on wooden hinges, and, when closed, were fastened by a simple latch, which could be lifted by a string from the outside, so a neighbor could open the door on hearing the welcome "Come in!" At night the door could be locked if desired, by pulling the string through on the inside.
Sometimes double cabins were constructed so as to have two rooms and a sort of open porch between them, but generally there was at first only one room, which served for many purposes. It was not an uncommon thing for a room of this kind to be occupied by a man and his wife, with eight or ten children, and sometimes nineteen, and they seemed to be perfectly happy.
Such were the camps that were built in the forest, and that served as shelter to the newcomers until such time as materials could be procured and leisure found to build better houses. No doubt the conviction springing from a lively faith and hope that these cabins were only camps that soon would give place to better comfort, helped to give the dash of frolic and romance that most unmistakably spices up the tales of pioneer days.
Source: The Making of a Township, being an account of the early settlement and subsequent development of Fairmount Township, Grant County, Indiana 1829-1917.