(RETURN TO THE TITLE PAGE) 56 - HISTORY OF ROSS AND HIGHLAND COUNTIES, OHIO. CHAPTER VII. A PICTURE OF PIONEER LIFE. Pioneers, their Dangers and their Moral Courage.--The Natural Beauties of the Scioto Country.—The Task they had to Perform, and their Peculiar Hardships.—A Description of the Pioneers' Dwellings, and their Habits of Life.—Their Clothing and their Literature.—Their Social Festivities.—Their Means of Subsistence. —During and after the War of 1812. IN nearly all great and thoroughly organized armies there is a corps of active, brave men, usually volunteers, whose self-imposed duty it is to go ahead and prepare the way with axe, and mattock and pick, for the advancement of the army the fighting rank and file. They are called pioneers. They are armed with guns, as well as implements of labor, for their position and their work is a dangerous one. They are obliged to keep a constant lookout for an ambush, in momentary fear of a sudden attack, for the enemy, with a full knowledge of the country, which to the advancing corps of pioneers is a terra incognita, is liable at any instant to send a sudden volley of arrows or rifle balls into their midst, or to hem them in with a superior force. The men who pushed their way into the wilderness along the Scioto, and all those earliest settlers of Ohio, from the river to the lake, were the pioneers of one of the grandest armies that earth ever knew ; an army whose hosts are still sweeping irresistibly ahead, and which now, after eighty years, has not fully occupied the country it has won. It was the army of peace and civilization, that came, not to conquer an enemy with blood and carnage and ruin, but to subdue a wilderness, by patient toil; to make the wild valley blossom as the rose ; to sweep away the forest, till the prairie's pregnant soil, make fertile fields and hew out houses, which were to become the abodes of happiness and plenty. The pioneers were the valiant vanguard of such an army as this. The first hardy and resolute men who penetrated the valley of the Scioto, coming up the stream from "la belle rivere," found a land fertile as heart could wish, fair to look upon, and fragrant with the thousand fresh odors of the woods in early spring. The long, cool aisles of the forest led away into mazes of vernal green, where the swift deer bounded by unmolested, and as yet unscared by the sound of the woodman's axe or the sharp ring of the rifle, They looked upon the wooded slopes and the tall grass of the plains, jeweled with strange and brilliant flowers, where once the red man had his fields of corn. All about them were displayed the lavish bounties of nature. The luxuriant growth of the oak, the walnut, of the sycamore, sugar tree, the beech, chestnut and the tulip tree, with the lesser shrubs, the dogwood, the wild plum and crab apple, the red bud, the paw-paw, the heavy-hanging grape vines, the blueberry and raspberry, gave evidence of the strength of the virgin soil and the kindness of the climate. The forest covered the land with an abundance of food for the smaller animals, and the deer, as common as the cattle of to-day, grazed upon the rich grass of the prairies, and browsed upon the verdure in the little glades. Other animals were abundant. The opossum, raccoon, rabbit and ground-hog existed in great numbers. The wild hogs roamed the woods in droves, and fattened upon the abundant mast, or "shack." The bear, the buffalo and the elk were occasionally seen. Wild turkeys appeared in vast flocks, and in the season came the migratory fowls, and tarried by the streams. The river had its share of life, and fairly swarmed with fish. But the pioneers came not to enjoy a life of lotus-eating and ease. They could admire the pristine beauty of the scenes that unveiled before them ; they could enjoy the vernal green of the great forest, and the loveliness of all the works of nature. They could look forward with happy anticipation to the life they were to lead in the midst of all this beauty, and to the rich reward that would be theirs from the cultivation of the mellow, fertile soil; but they had first to work. The seed time comes before the harvest, in other fields, too, than that of agriculture. The dangers, also, that these pioneers were exposed to, were serious ones. The Indians could not be trusted, and the many stories of their outrages in the earlier east- HISTORY OF ROSS AND HIGHLAND COUNTIES, OHIO - 57 ern settlements made the pioneers of the Scioto country apprehensive of trouble. The larger wild beasts were a cause of much dread, and the smaller ones were a source of great annoyance. Added to this was the liability to sickness which always exists in a new country. In the midst of all the loveliness of the surroundings, there was a sense of loneliness that could not be dispelled, and this was a far greater trial to the men and women who first dwelt in the western country than is generally imagined. The deep-seated, constantly-recurring feeling of isolation made many stout hearts turn back to the older settlements and the abodes of comfort, the companionship and sociability they had abandoned in Virginia, Pennsylvania and the Southern and Eastern States, to take up a new life in the wilderness. The pioneers, coming first down the Ohio and then making their way up the Scioto, and later making the tedious journey from the east by the rude trails, arrived at the places of their destination with but very little with which to begin the battle of life. They had brave hearts and strong arms, however, and they were possessed of invincible determination. Frequently they came on without their families to make a beginning, and this having been accomplished, would return to their old homes for their wives and children. The first thing done after a temporary shelter from the rain had been provided, was to prepare a little spot of ground for some crop, usually corn. This was done by girdling the trees, clearing away the underbrush, if there chanced to be any, and sweeping the surface with fire. Ten, fifteen, twenty or even thirty acres of land might thus be prepared and planted the first season. In the autumn the crop would be carefully gathered and garnered with the least possible waste, for it was the food supply of the pioneer and his family, and life itself depended, in part, upon its safe preservation. While the first crop was growing the pioneer has busied himself with the building of his cabin, which must answer as a shelter from the storms of the coming winter, a protection from the ravages of wild animals, and, possibly, a place of refuge from the red man. If a pioneer was completely isolated from his fellowmen, his position was certainly a hard one; for without assistance he could construct only a poor habitation. In such cases the cabin was generally made of light logs or poles, and was laid up roughly, only to answer the temporary purpose of shelter, until other settlers had come into the vicinity, by whose help a more solid structure could be built. Usually a number of men came into the country together, and located within such distance of each other as enabled them to perform many friendly and neighborly offices. Assistance was always readily given one pioneer by all the scattered residents of .the forest within a radius of several miles. The commonly followed plan of erecting a log cabin was through a union of labor. The site of the cabin home was generally selected with reference to a good water supply, often by a never-failing spring of pure water, or if such could not be found, it was not uncommon to first dig a well. When the cabin was to be built, the few neighbors gathered at the site, and first cut down, within as close 8 proximity as possible, a number of trees, as nearly of a size as could be found, but ranging from a foot to twenty inches in diameter. Logs were chopped from these and rolled to a common center. This work, and that of preparing the foundation, would consume the greater part of the day, in most cases, and the entire labor would most commonly occupy two or three days sometimes four. The logs were raised to their places with handspikes and "skid poles," and men standing at the corners with axes notched them as fast as they were laid in position. Soon the cabin would be built several logs high, and the work would become more difficult. The gables were formed by beveling the logs, and making them shorter and shorter, as each additional one was laid in place. These logs in the gables were held in place by poles, which extended across the cabin from end to end, and which served also as rafters upon which to lay the rived "clapboard" roof. .The so-called "clapboards" were five or six feet in length, and were split from oak or ash logs, and made as smooth and flat as possible. They were laid side by side, and other pieces of split stuff laid over the cracks so as to effectually keep out the rain. Upon these, logs were laid to hold them in place, and the logs were held by blocks of wood placed between them. The chimney was an important part of the structure, and taxed the builders, with their poor tools, to their utmost. In rare cases it was made of stone, but most commonly of logs and sticks, laid up in a manner similar to those which formed the cabin. ' It was, in nearly all cases, built outside of the cabin, and at its base a huge opening was cut through the wall to answer as a fireplace. The sticks in the chimney where held in place, and protected by fire, by mortar, formed by kneading and working clay and straw. Flat stones were procured for back and jambs of the fire-place. An opening was chopped or sawed in the logs on one side of the cabin for a doorway. Pieces of hewed timber, three or four inches thick, were fastened on each side, by wooden pins, to the ends of the logs, and the door (if there were any) was fastened to one of these by wooden hinges. The door itself was a clumsy piece of wood-work. It was made of boards, rived from an oak log, and held together by heavy cross-pieces. There was a wooden latch upon the inside, raised by a string which passed through a gimlet-hole, and hung upon the outside. From this mode of construction arose the old and well-known hospitable saying, "you will find the latch-string always out." It was only pulled in at night, and the door was thus fastened. Very many of the cabins of the pioneers had no door of the kind here described, and the entrance was only protected by a blanket, or skin of some wild beast, suspended above it. The window was a small opening, often devoid of anything resembling a sash, and very seldom having glass. Greased paper was sometimes used in lieu of the latter, but more commonly some old garment constituted a curtain, which was the only protection from sun, or rain, or snow. The floor of the cabin was made of puncheons—pieces of timber split from trees, about eighteen inches in diameter, and hewed 58 - HISTORY OF ROSS AND HIGHLAND COUNTIES, OHIO. smooth with a broad-axe. They were half the length of the floor. Many of the cabins first erected in this part of the country had nothing but the earthern floor. Sometimes the cabins had cellars, which were simply small excavations in the ground, for a storage of a few articles of food, or, perhaps, cooking utensils. Access to the cellar was readily gained by lifting a loose puncheon. There was sometimes a loft, used for various purposes, among others as the "guest chamber" of the house. It Was reached by a ladder, the sides of which were split pieces of a sapling, put together, like everything else in the house, without nails. The furniture of the log cabin was as simple and primitive as the structure itself. A forked stick set in the floor and supporting two poles, the other ends of which were allowed to rest upon the logs at the end and side of the cabin, formed a bedstead. A common form of table was a split slab, supported by four rustic legs, set in auger holes. Three legged stools were made in similar simple manner. Pegs, driven in auger holes in the logs of the wall, supported shelves, and others displayed the limited wardrobe of the family not in use. A few other pegs, or perhaps a pair of deer horns, formed a rack where hung the rifle and powder-horn, which no cabin was without. These, and perhaps a few other simple articles, brought from the "old home," formed the furniture and furnishings of the pioneer cabin. The utensils for cooking and the dishes for table use were few. The best were of pewter, which the careful housewife of the olden time kept shining as brightly as the most pretentious plate of our later day fine houses. It was by no means uncommon that wooden vessels, either coopered or turned, were used upon the table. Knives and forks were few; crockery very scarce, and tin-ware not abundant. Food was simply cooked and served, but it was of the best and most wholesome kind. The hunter kept the larder ,supplied with venison, bear meat, squirrels, wild turkeys, and the many varieties of smaller game. Plain corn bread, baked in a kettle, in the ashes, or upon a board in front of the great open fire-place, answered the purpose of all kinds of pastry. The corn was, among the earlier pioneers, pounded, or grated, there being no mills for grinding it, for some time, and then only small ones at a considerable distance away. The wild fruits, in their season, were made use of, and afforded a pleasant variety. Sometimes especial effort was made to prepare a delicacy, as for instance, when a woman experimented in mince pies, by pounding wheat for the flour to make the crust and used crab apples for fruit. In the lofts of the cabins was usually to be found a collection of articles that made up the pioneer's materia medica, the herb medicines and spices catnip, sage, tansy, fennel, boneset, pennyroyal, and wormwood, each gathered in its season; and there were also stores of nuts, and strings of dried pumpkin, with bags of berries and fruit. The habits of the pioneers were of a simplicity and purity in conformance to their surroundings and belongings. The men were engaged in the herculean labor, day after day, of enlarging the little patch of sunshine about their homes, cutting away the forest, burning off the brush and debris, .preparing the soil, planting, tending, harvesting, caring for the few animals, which they brought with them, or soon procured, and in hunting. While they were engaged in the heavy labor of the field and forest, or following the deer, or seeking other game, their help-meets were busied with their household duties providing for the day and for the winter coming on, cooking, making clothing, spinning and weaving. They were fitted, by nature and experience, to be the consorts of the brave men who first came into the western wilderness. They were heroic in their endurance of hardship, and privation, and loneliness. Their industry was well directed and unceasing. Woman's work then, like man's, was performed under disadvantages, which have been removed in later years. She had not only the common household duties to perform, but many others. She not only made the clothing, but the fabric for it. That old, old occupation of spinning and weaving, with which woman's name has been associated in all history, and of which the modern world knows nothing, except through the stories of those who are grandmothers now that old occupation of spinning and of weaving, which seems surrounded with a glamour of romance as we look back to it through tradition and poetry, and which alltays conjures up thoughts of the graces and virtues of the dames and damsels of a generation that is gone—that old, old occupation of spinning and weaving, was the chief industry of the pioneer women. Every cabin sounded with the softly-whirring wheel and the thymic thud of the loom. The woman of pioneer times was like the woman described by Solomon: She seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands; she layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff." Almost every article of clothing, all the cloth in use in the old log cabins, was the product of the patient woman- weaver's toil. She spun the flax and wove the cloth for shirts, and pantaloons, frocks, sheets and blankets. The linen and the wool, the "linsey-woolsey" woven by the housewife, formed all of the material for the clothing of both men and women, except such articles as were made of skins. The men commonly wore the hunting shirt, a kind of loose frock reaching half way down the thighs, open before, and so wide as to lap over a foot or more npon the chest. This generally had a cape, which was often fringed with a raveled piece of cloth of a different color from that which composed the garment. The bosom of the garment answered as a pouch, in which could be carried the various articles that the hunter or woodsman would need. The hunting shirt was always worn belted. It was made of coarse linen, of linsey, or of dressed deer-skin, according to the fancy of the wearer. Breeches were made of heavy cloth or of deer-skin, and were often worn with leggings of the same material, or of some kind of leather, while the feet were most usually encased in moccasins, which were easily and quickly made, though they needed frequent mending. The deer-skin breeches, or drawers were very comfortable when dry, but when they became wet were very cold to the limbs, and the next time they were put on were al- HISTORY OF ROSS AND HIGHLAND COUNTIES, OHIO - 59 most as stiff as if made of wood. Hats or caps were made of the various native furs. The women were clothed in linsey petticoats, coarse shoes and stockings, and wore buckskin gloves or mittens when any protection was required for the hands. All of the wearing apparel, like that of the men, was made with a view to being serviceable and comfortable, and all was of home manufacture. Other articles, and finer ones, were worn sometimes, but they were brought from former homes, and were usually the relics handed down from parents to children. Jewelry was not common, but occasionally some ornament was displayed. In the cabins of the cultivated pioneers were usually a few books—the Bible and hymn-book, "Pilgrim's Progress," "Baxter's Saints' Rest," "Harvey's Meditations," ";sop's Fables," "Gulliver's Travels," "Robinson Cruso," and the like. The long winter evenings were spent in poring over a few well-thumbed volumes, by the light of the great log fire, in knitting, mending, curing furs, etc. Hospitality was simple, unaffected, hearty, unbounded. Whiskey was in common use, and was furnished on all occasions of sociability. Nearly every settler had his barrel `stored away. It was the universal drink at merry- makings, bees, house-warmings, weddings, and was always set before the traveler who chanced to spend the night or take a meal in the log cabin. It was the good, old-fashioned whiskey "clear as amber, sweet as musk, smooth as oil"—that the few octogenarians and nonogenarians of to-day recall to memory with an unctuous gusto and a suggestive smack of the lips. The whiskey came from the Monongahela country, and was floated down the Ohio and thence boated up the Scioto. A few years later many stills were set up by the settlers, and an article of corn whiskey manufactured that was not held in such high esteem, though used in great quantities. As the settlement increased, the sense of loneliness and isolation was dispelled, the asperities of life were softened, its amenities multiplied. Social gatherings became more numerous and more enjoyable. The logrolling, harvesting, and husking-bees for the men, and the applebutter-making and quilting parties for the women, furnished frequent occasions for social intercourse. The early settlers took much pleasure and pride in rifle-shooting, and as they were accustomed to the use of the gun as a means, often, of obtaining subsistence, and relied upon it as a weapon of defence, they exhibited considerable skill. A wedding was the event of most importance in the sparsely settled new country. The young people had every inducement to marry, and generally did so as soon as able to provide for themselves. When a marriage was to be celebrated, all the neighborhood turned out. It was customary to have the ceremony performed before dinner, and, in order to be on time, the groom and his attendants usually started from his father's home in the morning, for that of the bride. All went on horseback, riding in single file along the narrow trail. Arriving at the cabin of the bride's parents, the ceremony would be performed, and after that, dinner served. This would be a substantial backwoods feast of beef, pork, fowls, and bear or deer meat, with such vegetables as could be procured. The greatest hilarity prevailed during the meal. After it was over, the dancing began, and was usually kept up till the next morning, though the newly-made husband and wife were, as a general thing, put to bed in the most approved fashion, and with considerable formality, in the middle of the evening's rout. The tall young men, when they went on to the floor to dance, had to take their places with care between the logs that supported the loft floor, or they were in danger of bumping their heads. The figures of the dances were three and four-handed reels, or square sets and jigs. The commencement was always a square four, which was followed by "jigging it off." The " settlement " of a young couple was thought to be thoroughly and generously made when the neighbors assembled and raised a cabin for them. During all the early years of the settlement, varied with occasional pleasures and excitements, the great work of increasing the tillable ground went slowly on. The implements and tools were few, and of the most primitive kind, but the soil, that had long held in reserve the accumulated richness of centuries, produced splendid harvests, and the husbandman was well rewarded for his labor. The soil was warmer then than now, and the season earlier. The prairie fields were often, by the first of March, as green as fields of grain now are by the first of April. The wheat was pastured in the spring to keep it from growing up so early and so fast as to become lodged. The harvest came early, and the yield was often from thirty-five to forty, or more, bushels per acre. Corn grew fast, and roasting ears were to be had by the Fourth of July in some seasons. There was great difficulty in obtaining flour and meal. There was no mill, except the one at Chillicothe, —the floating mill upon the river--for a number of years. Only the commonest goods were brought into the country, and they sold at enormous prices, being packed from Detroit, or wagoned from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, thence floated down the Ohio to the mouth of the Scioto, and thence brought up the stream in boats, or packed along the banks. Tea was worth two or three dollars a pound for a number of years after the settlement of the Scioto valley had extended up as far as Columbus. Coffee brought from seventy-five cents to a dollar; salt, five to six dollars per bushel, of fifty pounds, and the commonest kinds of calico were sold at a dollar per yard. Long journeys upon foot were often made by the pioneers to obtain the necessities of life, or some article, then a luxury, for the sick. Hardships were cheerfully borne, privations stoutly endured; the best was made of what they had, by the pioneers and their families, and they toiled patiently on, industrious and frugal, simple in their tastes and pleasures, happy in an independence, however hardly gained, and looking forward, hopefully, to a future of plenty, which should reward them for the toils of their earliest years, and a rest from the struggle amidst the benefits gained by it. Without an iron will and indomitable resolution, they could never have accomplished what they, did. Their 60 - HISTORY OF ROSS AND HIGHLAND COUNTIES, OHIO. heroism deserves the highest tribute of praise that can be awarded. During the war of 1812, many of the husbands and fathers volunteered their services to the United States, and others were drafted. Women and children wire then left alone in many an isolated log cabin all through Ohio, and there was a long reign of unrest, anxiety and terror. It was feared by all that the Indians might take advantage of the desertion of these homes by their natural defenders, and pillage and destroy them. The dread of robbery and murder filled many a mother's heart, hut happily the worst fears of this kind proved to be groundless, and this part of the country was spared any scenes of actual violence. After the war, there was a greater feeling of security than ever before; a new motive was given to immigration; the country rapidly filled up with settlers, and the era of peace and prosperity was fairly begun. Progress was slowly, surely made; the log houses became more numerous in the clearings; the forest shrank away before the woodsman's axe. Frame houses began to appear; the pioneers, assured of safety, laid better plans for the future, resorted to new industries, enlarged their possessions, improved the means of cultivation. Stock was brought in from Kentucky and from the east. Every settler had his horses, oxen, cattle, sheep and hogs. More commodious structures took the places of the old ones; the large double log cabin, of hewed logs, took the place of the smaller hut; log and frame barns were built for the protection of stock, and the housing of the crops. Then society began to form itself, the school-house and the church appeared, and the advancement was noticeable in a score of ways. Still there remained a vast work to perform, for as yet only a beginning had been made in the western woods. The brunt of the struggle, however, was past, and the way made in the wilderness for the army that was to come.