The Commonwealth did not claim for the purposes of settlement any territory north and west of the Ohio and Allegheny Rivers, nor from her line of the purchase of 1768, which ran from above Kittanning to the southwest corner of Clearfield County, as we have the map, thence through the middle of Clearfield in a meandering line nearly at right angles to the limit of the State at Bradford County. This remaining part was secured by the last treaty at Fort Stanwix with the Indians on October the 23d, 1784. This is what is called distinctly, and being the latest is now officially thus designated, the New Purchase, out of which have been formed the northwestern counties, ranging from Beaver to Tioga.

No material opposition being offered by the people, now under control of the civil power, the line marking the western divisions of the two States of Pennsylvania and Virginia was finally fixed. Another question which had been a source of commotion for some time previous was also summarily disposed of. During the latter days of the war there was a project on foot which created no little apprehension. Of this we may say something, so intimately connected is it with some subsequent matters in the history of Southwestern Pennsylvania. About 1780 and 1781 among the people of these parts arose what was called the New State project. This was a plan gotten up by a few ambitious and ill-contented men of some influence, taking advantage of the time and imposing upon the credulity of the distressed inhabitants, to form a more perfect State government for themselves out of the territory for which Pennsylvania and Virginia had been so long contending, as well as more undefined territory presumed to belong to neither. It is doubtful whether such a project could, have been realized or accomplished, but being stimulated by seditious men in the heat of the war, it became a matter of great consequence. Many causes have been given for the dissatisfaction of these people as evidenced, and for the movement itself, but none of

motioned for her to come, and going toward her took her and her brother captive. The boy was killed that night, but Dorcas was carried to the vicinity of Niagara, where nearly three years afterward she was recognized and ransomed by Col Butler, a British officer, who had been acquainted with her father. After her restoration to her family she resided, until a few years before her death, upon the farm from which she had been dragged to the horrors of a captivity among savages. She was married to Joseph Russell, and became the mother of a large family, some of which have been of our most highly-esteemed citizens. She died in Greensburg on the 15th of March, 1851, in the seventy-seventh year of her age. She was one of the few who could recount to persons yet living the recollections of one who had witnessed and felt the anguish of that fearful day and night. She was spared to exchange the privations and toils of the early settler's life for the ease and comfort of a rapidly advancing civilization, and surrounded by her children's children, after the vicissitudes of a checkered existence, to sink peacefully in the arms of death*.

* I have got much corroborative information as well as some original facts incorporated into the subject from the descendants of Mrs. Russell, who obtained the facts from her. I am indebted to Wm. Russell, Esq., especially for original and collected papers.

them of themselves entirely satisfactory. It came perhaps from many causes, and those who favored it were led by different interests.

There were two obvious reasons patent to all : first, the uncertainty and inequality of land purchases not yet determined ; and next, the abolition of slavery. Of the matter of the first we are conversant ; as to the other there were some, indeed a good number of persons of means in the southwestern part of the State, whose chief investment was in human chattels.

In 1780 Pennsylvania abolished slavery within her territory. This was one cause of the emigration at that time into Kentucky. Col. Brodhead wrote on Sept. 23, 1780, from Pittsburgh, that at that time emigration to the new country of Kentucky was incredible. This he lays to the disaffection of the people towards the country here at large, and considers it the remaining dregs of the loyalty to the king. We are not inclined to take this assertion in so broad a sense when we recall the fact that this was the time when Col. Brodhead and Col. Gibson were at variance. For it was to the interest of Col. Brodhead that the cause of this trouble should be credited to the loyalty of the people for the king while Col. Gibson rested under the imputation. of disloyalty himself. There were, it is true, many who were proven traitors, and some within our county whose property was confiscated after they themselves had sought safety in flight. The people who entertained the notion of a new commonwealth were identical with the rabble of Connolly, with the murders of the Moravian Indians, and with the boys of the Whiskey war, and cared as little for the king of England As for the Jack of Clubs, and acknowledged at times no government but their own lawlessness. 2

It is said by some that the project was much older than of the time we notice it, and that it was in the plan of Dunmore and Connolly to first make the new territorial government, with Pittsburgh as the metropolis and seat of empire. Be this as it may, it has nothing to do with the civil affair, which was bolstered up by another class of men.

" SIR,—Since my arrival in this county I have been making what progress I can in organizing the militia, although as yet deprived of the assistance of the sub-lieutenants by the indefatigable opposition of a certain Mr. Pentecost and a few of his adherents, the old enemies of this government, who immediately on my arrival got together at their courthouse in what they call Youghagana County, which is wholly involved in this and Westmoreland Counties, and to which the government of Virginia has sent no orders for some considerable time past. Notwithstanding they have resolved to go on with the jurisdiction of Virginia, both civil and military, until the line is actually run. Whereupon the said Pentecost swore into an old commission of county lieutenant that he pretended to have by hint for a long time, and thereupon assumed the command of the militia. Mr. Cannon (a civil officer under the government of Virginia), one of our sublieutenants, publicly declares that government have infringed upon the rights of the people in appointing officers for them before they were represented, 'and instead of assisting me in organizing the militia, is using all his influence to prevent it. . . ."

been agitated. New York State proposed (1780) to surrender to the general government some of her western territory, and requested the other States that had any to do so also, and out of this new territory to make, or cause to be made, new States in the confederation.

Col. Thomas Scott, a former councilman for Westmoreland, and after the Constitution a member of Congress for Washington, in a letter to President Reed, a little later, talking of this subject, says that the movement met with great countenance ; and, alluding to a memorial sent to the Assembly, says "that should that memorial be unsuccessful, he does not think there would be ten men on this side of the mountains that would not lift arms against the State."

Gen. Irvine, writing from Pittsburgh in April, 1782, to Governor Harrison, of Virginia, says that an expedition was much talked of to emigrate and set up a new State. A day had been appointed for those so inclined to meet for that purpose. He says that a man by the name of Johnston, who had been to England since the commencement of the war; was at the head of this emigrating party. He says that everything in the way of forming a new government was in readiness ; and, so far as he could find out, the seat of government was to be in the Muskingum. Some time during this year he had occasion to be absent from the post, and when he went he directed Maj. Craig to keep an eye on the safety of the place, as there were men inclined to this scheme who were not too good to get possession of it. In 1782 the most active in the scheme were Col. Pentecost and Col. Cannon.

When first broached in 1780, the limits of the new State were to take in as much east of the Monongahela as it could get, and all northwest of it to the Ohio River; to reach southward into Virginia as far as the Kanawha, and westward to the Scioto and Muskingum Rivers. The bounds of the new State were, in truth, never disclosed. One thing is certain, however, the people of Pittsburgh and east of it above the Youghiogheny did not ever take much stock in it; it is said they even shunned its embraces.

In December of 1782, Congress passed an act declaring that every attempt to set up a new State, in whole or in part, upon the territory of Pennsylvania should be treason. The Rev. James Finley, who had frequently been intrusted with missions from the State, was sent out by the authorities in 1783 among these people. He was armed with one hundred copies of the act, and of the proclamation, embodying the decision of the tribunal which adjusted the Connecticut claims, which led to the act. In his report he says that, finding the inhabitants east of the Youghiogheny mostly opposed to the new State, he passed them by. He found a considerable number between that river and the Monongahela in favor of it, but they were led by a few aspiring and ill-designing men.

The project thenceforth, under the advice of the clergy, by the silencing of the partisans, and by the determination of the government to preserve order, gradually passed off from the tongues of the people, and was a thing of the past, and the uprising of the turbulent people of that region was delayed for some years. It was remarked that the new people who came in and purchased the land which the emigrants left were of a better sort. 1

Notwithstanding the village of Hannastown was destroyed, yet the courts still continued to sit at the house of Robert Hanna, and the writs were tested as at the shire-town. One of the most remarkable criminal cases that ever was tried in Western Pennsylvania came off here. As it illustrates the ancient method of procedure under the old penal code, as well as because it is a notable case in itself, we may recount it. To Judge Brackenridge, who was of counsel for the defense, we owe the preservation of the incidents of the trial and execution of the first person who suffered capital punishment in the county under the forms of law. The date of the execution is not accurately fixed, although it took place some time in the latter part of 1785.2 In our collection we choose to preserve this account for the sake of the many curious circumstances connected with it.

This Mamachtaga, 3 the first person hung at Hannastown., was an Indian of the Delawares. While his tribe under Killbuck had for the most part remained friendly to the Americans, this Indian and a few more were known to have been engaged in war against the

2 The Indian Manaughtaquie killed John Smith, 11th May, 1785. (Huffnagle to Gen. Armstrong.)—Arch., x., 464.

"To my sustaining the Prisoner Joseph Ross 306 days at 6d. per day

"To my sustaining the Prisoner Mamaghtaguin, an Indian, 30 days

"To Gaol Fees for the above

"To Bolting and Unbolting the Indian

£7 13 9

0 18 9

0 5 0

0 7 3

The following letter would indicate a disposition to hang "Hurricane" first and try him afterwards:

Robert Galbraith to Prest. Dickinson, from Pittsburgh, May 25, 1785, says, "The Indian who is now confined in the garrison at this place is anxious to be tried as Speedily as may be, and receive the doom he so justly deserves. The Militia of Washington county have made two attempts to break the Dungeon where be is confined and Tommihawk him."

[He then relates of two different attempts as having been made to get at the prisoner, which were frustrated by the coming of officers and some of the people, and then finishes as follows :]

"In this situation I earnestly request your Excellency to Commissionate two more Gentlemen of this place to try the Indian without delay, and if your Excellency and the Honorable Council would think proper to send his Death warrant at the same time by way of Dispatch, it would soonerCommissionates of the people. There can be no doubt of his conviction. I was one of the Inquest held upon the Body of John Smith, and heard all the evidence. The Indian's name is Mamachtagwin, in English the Hurricane, the most violent and Bloody Catiff of the Delaware Tribe."—Archives, vol. x., 467.

settlements. At the termination of the war and after the peace these Indians came back, and were stopping at Killbuck's Island, under the guns of the fort. While they were here some men, one of them named Smith, went over to the Indians one night, and while three of the men were in the cabin where the murder occurred, Mamachtaga, in liquor, ran in without warning, stabbed Smith so that he died, and fell upon another man named Evans, whom he also stabbed, but who catching him and struggling made a kind of melee, in which he also was killed, and the third wounded before the drunken man could be secured.

The Indian, Mamachtaga, made no attempt to escape, but being sober, gave himself up to the guard, affecting not to know what had occurred. Killbuck himself sat upon a log silent, and appeared cast down on the next morning at the time of the visit. The prisoner, on account of the insecurity of the jail or lock-up at Pittsburgh, was taken to the guard-house till the next Court of Oyer and Terminer should be holden at Hannastown for the county.

Brackenridge, then a young attorney, moved by the novelty of having an Indian for a client, was retained as his counsel, under the promise of receiving some beaver-skin for his fee. The account he has left of the whole business transaction is the one we follow. When the Indian gave him an order on another, who held some furs of his, which order he signed with his mark in the shape of a turkey-foot, he was under the notion that it was a kind of satisfaction for his crime, and could not understand how that he should say he was not guilty of the killing of the white man. When Brackenridge had seen the squalid appearance of the wretched man, as he was confined in the black hole, he exchanged the beaver-skin for blankets and food, which he gave the man. But being of a curious and inquiring turn of mind, and always fond of novelties, he got an Indian woman to interpret for him while he questioned the Indian, trying to observe the analogy between the sentiment of a savage and that of a civilized person, or, as he chose to express it, the force of opinion over pain. The woman was loth to broach the subject of death ; she was, however, prevailed on, and when at last he was asked what death he preferred, he said he would rather be shot than tomahawked.

The habit of taking the law in their own hands to punish those who had offended had so completely pervaded and possessed the minds of the people that a party, fearing that he possibly might escape, either from bonds or through the finesse of the young attorney and the crooks and quirks of the law, came with their guns into the garrison, and demanded that the prisoner should be given up to them to be shot, and that the attorney should take an oath not to defend him. The officer would not allow this, but prevailed on them to go back, and leave the Indian to the civil authorities.

This Indian was, indeed, when in liquor a bad man, and had forfeited the good will of his tribe by having killed several of them. He had the appearance of great ferocity, but, like all men in the state of nature, his passions were in the extreme ; for in and by civilization only are the passions harmonized. He was tall, rough in feature, and of fierce aspect. His name in their language signified "Trees-blownacross," a name given him from the nature of his ungovernable passion.

At the court holden at Hannastown for the county of Westmoreland, McKean, C. J., and Bryan, J., Mamachtaga was brought to trial. The usual formalities were observed, and an interpreter stood by to translate into the Delaware tongue the words of the indictment, the meaning of it, and to explain to him the privilege he had of denying the charge by pleading "not guilty." He could not comprehend the idea in saying he was not guilty, because by this he was telling a lie, a thing unbecoming a warrior. He did not like to say that he had not killed the men, but only that he was drunk, and did not know what he had done ; but he" supposed he would know when he was under the ground." The court directed the plea to be entered for him, and he was put upon his trial.

He was then called upon to make his challenge, which was explained to him by the interpreter. This right he exercised by comparing the countenances of the jurymen, and challenging according to the sourness or cheerfulness of their countenances. The jury called to the book, being told in the usual form, " Prisoner, look upon the juror ; juror, look upon the prisoner at the bar : are you related to the prisoner?" one of them, a German, the first called, did not take the question aright, and thinking it was a reflection, said, " How in ter teivel might he pe related to ter Hingin ?" thinking it a very uncivil way of treating decent people, as if he, being. a Dutchman, could be a brother or cousin of an Indian. But the matter was explained to him by another German, and he, being satisfied, was sworn.

The only defense of the attorney was that the prisoner, at the time of committing the offense, was in liquor, but this was overruled by the court, as the fact of drunkenness would not excuse murder. The Indian said that he hoped the Good Man above would excuse it. The jury gave their verdict of guilty without leaving the box, and the prisoner was remanded to jail.

Near the ending of the court the prisoners were brought, up to receive sentence. When the Indian Was asked by the interpreter what he had to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon him he said that he would rather " run a while," meaning by this that he ought to be allowed to go free to get some compensation for the man he had killed by way of satisfaction to the relatives of the dead man, as was a custom in his tribe. On the sentence of death being passed upon him he said he would rather be shot.

A man of the name of John Bradly, at the same court, was tried for homicide, and found guilty of manslaughter. He was allowed, as under the old law, his benefit of clergy, but being a simple man did not understand the technical nicety resulting from the pleading of it, and when the first part of the sentence was read, and the hanging part mentioned, he expressed the most abject terror in his looks and voice as he begged for mercy. But when it was explained to him, and the benefit by the common law allowed him, he seemed more composed. Sentence of burning in the hand was then pronounced against him, and the sheriff was sent out for the tools.

It so happened that the sentence of this prisoner occurred before that of the Indian, and the Indian was saying to the court that if it didn't make any difference to them he would rather be shot, when the sheriff came in with the branding-iron and a bed-cord to tie up the hand of the convict for manslaughter, the better to put on the hateful letter. The Indian getting a side glance of the sheriff coming in imagined that he was coming at that instant to enforce the law on his behalf. The idea of horror and the dread of instant death which the savage expressed must have been frightful, and the narrator likens the distortion of his features, black with unspeakable fear and anguish, to the effect of cold water suddenly poured on the human back.

When he saw what the sheriff was about to do he became somewhat calm again. Before lie was taken from the bar he wished to say that his trial had been fair, and that he did not desire his tribe to revenge his death or go to war on his account. As the sheriff was taking him back to jail some of those about him asked him whom he thought the judges to be. These sate, as was then the official custom in the trial of capital crimes, in scarlet robes. The Indian said that he thought one was God and the other the Saviour of men, which notion or idea he no doubt got from the Moravians who had had missionary services among the Delawares.

During the time he lay in jail under sentence a child of the jailer had taken sick with a fever. The Indian said he could cure it if he could get some roots from the woods. The jailer made him promise that he would not attempt to make his escape, saying that if he got off, himself would be taken and suffer in his stead. The Indian promised him, and the jailer, taking the irons from his feet, went with him to the woods, where he got the roots which were used in the curing of the child.

All the prisoners were confined in the one room of the jail. Besides these there was a young man who was convicted of larceny, but who being respectably connected was recommended to pardon by the jury who convicted him and by many others. Yet he appears to have been a bad boy. There was also another convicted of an unspeakable crime. This was an extremely simple-minded creature. The young fellow insisted on this creature to allow the Indian to kill him, as he had only to die once, and to die this way would be better than to die on the scaffold. The poor creature, being at last prevailed upon, agreed to do this. The young one had prepared a knife, but when he offered it to the Indian the Indian would not take it, although he was offered whiskey and insisted on still more. He said he had killed white men enough.

The warrant for the execution of the Indian and this white man came together. On the morning of the day set for the hanging the Indian wished to go to the woods to gather roots to paint himself and die as a warrior. The jailer allowed him and went with him. When they returned he painted his face red.

The gallows was made of two stout logs and a crosspiece at the top. The rope hung in the middle, and a ladder rested against the top piece. The prisoner to be hung was taken up the ladder, the rope was adjusted, and he was swung off. The hands were tied that they could not grasp at the ladder. The white man was hanged first. This was done successfully, but when they came to hang the Indian the rope broke when they shook him off and he fell to the ground. He swooned somewhat from the violent change in the circulation of his blood, but rose with a kind of smile. Another rope was procured, and this one with the other was put about his neck, making two, when he went up again. The strength of the ropes supported his body, and, being strangled, he was literally hanged to death.

On the day of the execution a great crowd of settlers had congregated at Hannastown. It was a big day, but the remembrance of it has long ago been dispelled. Men seldom boast of having seen an execution. These men were the first and the last hung at Hannastown. The unhappy, misshapen creature who suffered with the Indian under the inspiration of mediaeval superstition, preserved in black letter as part of the common law, ought to have been sent to an asylum for the insane. And for an Indian who got his notion of white men from such as Wetzel it turns tragedy into farce to strangle him like a toothless dog to vindicate the majesty of outraged law.

The Pioneers—How the Early Settlers came in—Their Object in Emigrating and in Removing—First Settlers near the Forts—How they Built their Houses—House-Raisings —Appearance of their Cabins out:. side—How they were Furnished—Home-Made Furniture—Description of Ancient Hannastown—The First Frame and Stone Houses In different pain; of the County—Dr. Schoepf's visit to Western Pennsylvania after the War.

IT is now time that we should notice the manner of life of the early settlers as it is seen in their customs, their manners, their amusements ; give a description of their furniture and apparel, and make such other

observations as distinguish them in their habits and in their intercourse, for they sometimes differ so much from us that they appear a different people altogether. There is, however, one great difficulty in the way, and this, with us, is in our trouble to discriminate times and places. We cannot get at any particular time more than by a passing glimpse, so fast in our country have changes followed each other. But sometimes even such a glimpse may give us a. correct idea. We shall, therefore, not attempt to restrict our wandering remarks to any particular era, nor confine them to a set order. And as nearly all the early settlers throughout this region of country lived commonly alike, we have, in pursuance of our plan, collected some of our description from the hasty notes of those men who noticed it from their own observation and experiences, but we have relied chiefly on the testimony of the oldest inhabitants and on the testimony of their descendants.

Our early settlers were, in the true sense, pioneers. And when a pioneer, invited by the boundless expanse of a rich territory in prospect, took a notion to migrate, he was generally young or in middle age. The early settler came into a new country not encumbered by his aged parents or by a numerous family of young and dependent children. If he was unmarried, he first came to inspect the country and to locate some spot to which he removed after going back to the settlement to marry. Then when all things were ready he set out. He mostly had a horse of a poor and undeveloped breed, upon which he set his wife and such household goods as he wished to carry with him into the wilderness. Along each side of the pack-saddle, curiously hung on frames of wicker-work, were a few. pots and pans, a rasher of bacon, a small quantity of garden tea, and a few simples which answered for a dispensary, in which were curatives for all ailments, for a griping colic and a cut leg. Every man had a rifle and the accompanying ammunition. In the bullet-pouch a few hard-baked biscuit of wheat or rye-flour, or a johnny-cake 1 of corn-meal, were for his fare till he reached the outposts at some block-house, or till he came in contiguity with some foremost settler ; for nearly all the settlements were commenced either in colonies of a few families, or near some post where the government watched over its territory with a small detachment of soldiers. These block-houses or forts, such as Bedford and Ligonier, were made to answer the purposes of the government at first, but were also the places of resort and the citadel of defense for the people in time of danger. Few of these pioneers in such troublous times were hardy enough to venture far away to places almost inaccessible, and far from contact with kindred men. The really isolated ones were those who were isolated in every respect, and those were impelled by far different motives than were those men who loved an embryo civiliza-

tion. Our colonists did not come to trade and higgle with the Indians, or to follow the wild and daring ambition of roving undisturbed through dangers innumerable, in slaying beasts of the forest and skulking through the woods for red men. They were not impelled by the strange instinct which moved Daniel Boone, Byron's "great backwoodsman, hero of Kentucky," and Samuel Brady, and Simon Kenton, and such to fly, as it were, from the company of other men to pass a life of continual excitement and adventure merely for its own pleasure. They had other ties which bound them to the place they had fixed upon, and to change the rifle for the axe ; for when a settler came in he came with the intention of staying. He had left, figuratively, servitude for liberty ; he had come from where he could not get along with becoming ease to where he might, in time, have abundance. Here, henceforth, was to be his home. Naturally from this fact he made a virtue of necessity, and grew to love his spot of land with a love not less sincere-and intense than the Mantuan loved his but of hurdles, or the Rhinelander loves his cottage by the river. He was sensitive to one of the finest feelings which ennoble human nature, the feeling when, looking out on a tract of land, however barren and unfruitful, of knowing that it was his own, that it was secured, for the greatest part, by the earliest and most simple of titles, that of occupancy, and that all he possessed or might acquire was owing to his energy and his strong arm. Hence were all his feelings and his predilections of a local nature. The longer he stayed, the older he became, the more intensely local did those feelings become.

So near to the forts were the very earliest settlements made, that when a settler began to rear a house he rested at night under the shadow of their walls. In the day he worked with his gun near him, leaning against a tree; at noon, sitting down beside it, he ate his cold dinner. If he was far off, and alone, he made his bed of leaves under rocks or against fallen logs. Then his shelter was the labor of his own hands, but if he had neighbors within three or four miles he could count on them. When his trees were down the neighbors helped to raise it. Often, if circumstances were favorable, the neighbors, meeting together? felled the trees, and raised and finished the skeleton of the house from sunrise to sunset. Such was no uncommon occurrence, and after the settlements were well advanced the building a house was no such difficult affair as to those earlier, for to work hard by day, and sleep hard indeed by night, with no covering over him and only a log on either side, was such an undertaking as but few can now appreciate, and which not many even then but cared to forego.

Their houses being such as were demanded by necessity were surely rude. But few tools were used in their construction. With the axe the trees were felled, when the side intended for the inside of the house was hewed smooth. They were then notched at

each end to let the cross-log lie firmly. When enough logs had been so prepared a day was given out for the raising. Then all the neighbors collected together, expecting a holiday, and such days were enjoyed as much and perhaps' better than such conventional holidays as leave but few pleasurable recollections. Such occasions as house-raisings had more than a few attractions. Here the old men generally got their whiskey, an article from the earliest records indispensable in every community, and something better than common to eat. Here the young men might show their strength, and ogle and romp with the young women. The very boisterousness of the rough men, 'half hunters, half farmers, had, to those of a milder nature, something of allurement.1 And such uproariousness continued from when the first log was laid upon the ground till the whole structure was raised. Soon as the crowd gathered they were divided into two parties, each one of which chose its captain. Thence began an emulation as to which side might excel, an emulation in which strength and determination were as forcibly displayed as emulation has been displayed on the field of battle. These were little Balaklavas and little Waterloos. Every log was pushed up the two long slides and landed home to its place with a cheer ; and no sooner was it there than another one was rolling off the hand-spikes of the stalwart young men below, who, directed by the voice and gestures of the captain on the outer wall, were made to work in system and in regular order. No sooner was the house raised to its square, which was from eight to ten feet from the ground, than a shout re-echoed through the woods. Soon the saplings, answering for the rafters, were being laid up. Instead of following the invariable fashion of the houses of the peasantry of Europe in the making of a high and steep roof, the roofs were, on the contrary, made with a low water-shed. One curious to discern the tendency of habit in a people might observe in this a connection with the low huts, covered with bark, built thus in haste and from necessity and without architectural design, which, in the wilds of New England and along the Chesapeake, sheltered the heads of their ancestors a hundred years earlier.

It is, indeed, difficult for us to form an intelligible idea of the appearance of the habitations of our ancestors. There are, perhaps, not a dozen of these ancient cabins now standing within the limits of our county, and these few are inaccessible to the great majority of the people. Along the rugged hillsides

1 All public amusements, celebrations, militia masters, or elections were occasions of much noise. Hallow-eve was celebrated everywhere with Bacchanalian revelry and pandemonian deviltry, and the noise arising from the racket that old and young made when they "shot off the old year" reed ded from one farm-house to another all over the land. One old diatom long kept up wee that of tiring guns and all manner of explosive instruments at weddings, which being the lesser image of war has given use to the observation that this no doubt was originally instituted to remind the nuptial party that the battle of life had then begun.

of the most unfrequented of our mountain ranges they are most likely to be met with. They bear, at a distance, the uninviting appearance of a mud-plastered hovel, with a clap-board roof and a huge clay, turret-shaped chimney at one end. Sometimes the chimney is in the middle of the building, in which instances the houses, being larger, were sometimes occupied by two families. They are dimly lighted by apertures between the logs, which are not infrequently covered with greased paper. In midwinter or on a rainy day objects in them are scarcely discernible. They are such as but few of the common laborers would occupy, and yet they were the castles of our forefathers, a race not wanting in moral, in physical, or in mental qualifications.

The most of the early houses were intended for only one room, and an apartment atop of it called a cock-loft. Sometimes there was no loft, and the whole interior was in one room. On the smoky rafters were hung gammons of meat and small, greasy bags of seeds. The one end, for the height of several feet, was left unclosed till a chimney was built. This was built so that a vacant space large enough to hold a tolerably good-sized saw-log could be dragged up to it and so pried through for a back-log for the fire. The outside wall of the chimney was thus a full step from the end of the house. The openings between the back wall of the chimney and the house were then closed by large flat stones, which could be removed at pleasure. The chimney itself was built of mud and nigger-head stones, and from the point of the roof carried up by mud and fagots. The interstices were filled up with mud, cobble-stones, chips, or straw. The whole of the building on the outside was daubed with mud. In these buildings there was sometimes no wooden floor, but from the abundance of good timber, and the handiness of the axemen, to put a floor down was the work of little time. The floor so made was of split logs, which, smoothed on their broadest bide, were called puncheons. These, fitted closely together and so laid upon the ground, made a firm and durable floor; which from dint of scrubbing and sanding, and from the incessant wear of the feet, became in time tolerably even and smooth, and glistened with a polish like varnished oak. The root' and the upper floor were of clap-boards,—broad pieces of timber split with a frow, and sometimes smoothed with a draw-knife. Sometimes the roofs were thatched. The one room served for all family purposes. The door was hung on wooden hinges, and no improvement had been made in latches since the days of Little Red Riding-hood, who, it will be remembered, on the occasion of the visit to her grandmother was instructed by the wolf to pull the bobbin and the door would open. The doors were nearly always made double, one above and one below, like our stable-doors. The single long window was covered with some translucent material, usually greased paper. Glass was used only by the best off, and was brought in from the East. The bedstead, and nearly all

the furniture, was home-made, A few poles laid upon cross rails, resting in auger-holes in the walls and in the notches of an upright post in one end of the room, was the frame upon which were laid the straw and the scanty bedclothes. "Their stools were square or round blocks of wood resting on pins for legs. A couple of clap-boards resting on pins driven in the wall was the table. The rifle and pouches and powder-horn were hung over the fireplace or on a rafter, either on wooden pins or on the wide antlers of a mountain deer. To such a memento of the chase was usually attached a long story, which served to beguile the time of the long winter evenings, when a neighbor, perchance, rested beneath the roof. The one side of the room, that next the bed, was reserved for the wardrobe. Here hung the dress to be worn when the preacher came once in a year to preach to the settlement, or when a young neighbor was married. Whatever else was bright in color, or curious for being scarce, whatever might convey the idea of the possessor being in good circumstances in respect to worldly goods, or whatever could feed the vanity of the women part was here displayed. A faded ribbon, a silk handkerchief, a spare patchwork quilt, a miserable daub of a soldier or bunch of unnatural dahlias were articles of vertu. Next the fireplace, on shelves, were the pans, pots, skillets, pails, tin cups, tin and wooden plates, cooking-ware, rustically carved dippers of gourd, grubbing-hoes, harness, pieces of log-chains, indeed, nearly all the appurtenances and hereditaments. If the house was so fortunate as to possess a small looking-glass, it hung beside the door or opposite it. Environed in rings and wreaths made of colored bird's-eggs and bright red peppers strung on woolen strings, and overtopped by sprigs of green from the garden or the woods, the looking-glass Was, to the children of less fortunate neighbors, what the pocket compass of Capt. Smith was to the painted warriors of Powhatan.

We may form a more correct idea of the appearance of the early Hannastown by grouping a couple dozen of such cabins along the narrow cartway of the old military road, their huge chimney-tops reaching up among the trees which overarched the highway, leaving the sunlight in in patches. A house of square logs, larger than the others, by itself, and back of it another somewhat stronger, might be recognized as the court-house and jail. The stockade on a gentle rise within a stone's throw of the jail and in the edge of the village. One cabin with a clap-board porch, where, after the old fashion, the idlers drank their toddy or gin under a swinging wooden sign, would be known as the tavern. Among the stumps, with trees for hitching-posts, you would observe the blacksmith-shops, from one of which Connolly's crew, after forcing open, took the smith's hammer to break down the doors of the jail. And this was the ancient capital of Western Pennsylvania, and here was the temple where, betimes, was the visibly enthroned oracle of the English law. Pittsburgh at that date was but little better, only there was more activity there and possibly more sunshine. But in 1774 there was only one shingled house in the town, and that house was long pointed out as an evidence that the arts of enlightenment had at that early day taken up their abode in the far West.

The description given by Dr. McMillen of his early experience in this regard will here bear to be recalled :

" When I came to this country (in 1788) the cabin in which I was to live was raised, but there was no roof to it, nor any chimney or floor. We had neither bedstead, nor table, nor stool, nor chair, nor bucket. We placed two boxes, one on the other, which served as for a table, and two kegs served us for seats. and having committed ourselves to God in family worship, we spread abed on the floor and slept soundly till morning. Sometimes, indeed, we had no bread for weeks together, but we had plenty of pumpkins and potatoes and all the necessaries of life; as for luxuries, we were not much concerned about them."

Following the two-story log houses built of hewed timbers came the old stone houses. The abundance of good building material was an early inducement to erect structures of a more durable kind. Accordingly almost every locality can point out either the first square-hewed log house or the first stone house. The history of Old Redstone states that the first squared house in Fayette County was known far and wide, and long after other houses towered above it and the name had no meaning, as the High House. Dr. Power states that for many years after he was settled in the West there was not a stone or frame house within the limits of his congregation, which embraced the best portion of our Westmoreland. This, in a general way, may be correct when it applies to residences merely, or the houses of the common people ; but a stone store-house had been built at Redstone by the Ohio Company before 1754. Brick houses were unknown for many years ; the first and only one till perhaps after the Revolution was the small brick building still standing near the point in Pittsburgh, built by Bouquet in 1764 of brick sent from England. Dr. Schoepf states that the first stone house in Pittsburgh was built during his visit in the summer of 1783.

David Bradford, one of the first attorneys at the Washington and at the Westmoreland bar, and the famous leader in the Whiskey Insurrection, built the first stone house at Little Washington. This was, perhaps, later than 1783, and it was considered an indication of enterprise. However, by the close of the century there were many stone houses, some of them having been built by the more enterprising class who came in upon the lands left by the settlers who emigrated westward after the close of the war. The stone house built by Thomas Culbertson, near St. Clair Station, was among the first in Derry township. John Irwin, Sr., the uncle of the founder of Irwintown, built on his plantation, which included several of the neighboring modern farms, a stone house, which, with its ' wide hall and high eaves, was long regarded as the

marvel of the times, and had a reputation as wide as Philip Reagan's brick .house, built about 1800, after the alleged destruction of his first one by the Whiskey Boys. Many of these houses, erected between 1785 and 1812, are still standing, and some of them in remote places. Some of them may be seen on the summit of the Ridge, built upon farms then considered for all purposes the best, and which were the most valuable.

The houses built in the towns were usually of two stories, but the stories were low in height, poorly ventilated, and miserably lighted. The best house erected in Greensburg before 1812 is far from possessing, even with later alterations, the conveniences of many of our modern farm-houses. But some of the old taverns and some gentlemen's seats erected before 1812 are still standing. Of these some have spacious rooms, lofty ceilings, wide entries, are surrounded with broad porches, lighted by wide and tall windows, and have dormer-windows in the roofs over the attics.

How to commence Housekeeping—Split-Brooms and Gourds— The Spinning-Wheel and Cradle—The Cock-Loft and Stable—Clearing the Forest—Getting to Farming—Resorts and Devices of the Farmer—Wheat Lands—Common Crops—Gardening—Rye Coffee—Mrs. St. Clair's Tea-Parties—The Raising of Flax, and a Description of the Process of its Manufacture —Spinning—Tow in Poetry and in LawWool-Carding—The First Carding-Machines—The old case of MuGinnis versus Giger, in the matter of wrongly Dyeing the Linsey-Woolsey— Dress of the Common People—Going to Church—Nineteen Grooms married in one Blue Coat at different times—Dress of the Fashionable People—Calico.

SUCH were the houses and furniture of the majority of our forefathers ; and while there were some who had brought with them from the east of the mountains more of the necessaries of civilization, there were others who possessed not so many. There have been instances of newly-married couples commencing housekeeping with only such paraphernalia as their own labor had got together. In one noticeable instance the husband and wife set wit for their roughy-raised cabin, which was about a mile from his fa. or's, he with a grubbing-hoe and an iron kettle, and she with a bundle of clothes and a split-broom, upon which, tied by their legs, were a couple of pairs of chickens.

One of the most common utensils about a house, and a common one because it was a necessary one, was the spinning-wheel. The distaff ann the knitting-needles were to the women what the rifle and the axe were to the men. The spinning-wheel was, in a newly-formed family, a less indispensable article than the cradle. For the cradle there were many substitutes. Few children were rocked in a more elegant rocker than a trough, which answered alternately for the calves and the babes. Many who became famous among their fellow-men as legislators and divines, who became illustrious in the pages of history and in the reports of law, were hushed to sleep in such a bed, the mother rocking and singing the simple air of " Barbara Allen," or the " Infant in a Manger." Few men have attained to greater eminence in the jurisprudence of their country, in diplomacy, and in oratory which controls senates and attracts the world than Daniel Webster ; and the infant head of Daniel Webster rested in a cradle which had answered for a sugar-trough. Thus the rising generation were raised from the very outset in a manner tending to make them rugged, and inuring them to hardship from their earliest years. From such cradles as the shield of the Spartan matrons and the rough bark of the forest-trees of the American mothers went forth such men as Lycurgus arid Andrew Jackson.

The maxim of the common law that " every man's house is his castle" obtained in the times when tha houses of the Britons were more scantily furnished than the houses of the American pioneers, and before the time when the American pioneer had barely the necessaries of life, but which necessaries would have been reckoned luxuries to the lords of the marshes. But the cabin of the early settler was, in truth, his castle. It surely contained all his availabilities. When a stranger passed over the threshold, his bed for the night was made on the floor before the blazing fire, or in the cock-loft into which he ascended by the never-ending pins driven in the wall, which answered for a ladder. There, among the chickens and the hung-up bacon, the keg of rancid fat and bunches of herbs, —the leaves that bore healing for the nations,—under the low roof, and beside a pile of corn, was made his bed. In fact, what could not be put into this miserable place was left either in the lower room or in the horse-stall. The stalls or stables for the stunted and scraggy brutes of such as were able to starve one or more bore as distant a relationship with the stables and barns of our day as did the houses of that day with the houses of this day. These were made of chestnut saplings, built to the height of a man, the interstices or openings between them being left open, and the top thatched with rye-straw or buckwheat-straw or wilding weeds ; the thatch held to its place against storms by the weight of other saplings tied or pinned down, and large stones all over. Yet often the sides were interfilled with straw and leaves, and the low opening for the door closed. This was done by provident settlers to protect their cattle not only from the terribly long and severe winters in this climate, but also to secure their helpless stock from the hunger of the bears and wolves.

This portion of country, when the first settlers came in, was completely covered with a dense forest. The emigrant, of course, seated himself in the woods. Soon as his cabin was finished over his head he commenced to clear the land. He began next his house,

and worked his way outward. He chopped the large trees down, split some into rails, and the rest, rolling them in heaps and piling on top the loose and deadened branches, he set on fire and burnt up. He likewise, after selecting a patch which might be more fertile by offering better promise, deadened the standing trees. This was done by cutting a ring around the tree,—" girding" it, as it was called,—to obstruct the flow of the sap, whence the tree, losing its vital property, naturally withered away in decay. In a couple of days a good axeman could so prepare the trees which, in a few years toppling down, left an opening in the forest for a new field. A forester thus calling nature to his help could in a few years destroy an incredible amount of timber. What would now be considered worthless destruction was from the nature of the case not so then.

There are many now living who can remember when a fine old tree would be cut down to make from its roots a pair of hames ; another old oak destroyed to get a crotch for a pack-saddle; or three or four chopped down of a night to get a vagrant coon. But the chief difficulty was to remove the huge boles of the trees now lying upon the ground. To do this when he had no horse, or but poor help, his recourse was to his neighbors. Their assistance would be repaid by his own labor, and perhaps in the next week.. Of this day's labor, in the piping times of peace, was made another holiday. Again were feats of strength displayed; again all were made happy, so far as happiness could be enjoyed under such circumstances. It is to be remarked that the very assembling of these people, separated sometimes for weeks, had upon all parties an exhilarating effect. A log-rolling, a house-raising became to the second generation of these settlers as the volunteer parades and the fox-hunts were to the generation following. On these occasions the bottle was again produced to make them feel good in general, and to prevent, they said, the effect of snakebites in particular. Times change, and what then allayed the fear of snakes is now the most active agent in raising this fear. But hence, from the common way of preserving quaint and curious analogies of language in idioms, the mountaineer from Chestnut Ridge, to this day, when he sees a fellow-creature so limber that he cannot stand erect, and hears him uttering expressions becoming a madman, will express his opinion by remarking that the fellow is either snake-bitten or poisoned.

The land being thus by degrees cleared, and the stones piled in heaps in the curtilage round his cabin, a portion was next fenced in to keep the calves and the few sheep from straying, while the cattle and horses, when not needed, were allowed to wander at large to nibble the grass by the brooks and browse on the tender boughs of the birch and maple. Bells were hung on the necks of the animals so that they could be found when wanted. From this the Indians before and during the Revolution devised a decoy to kidnap the children and shoot the men by taking the bells off the animals and squatting in ambush behind the thick clusters of bushes or in a dark ravine. But the whites became wary, and cinch devices in a single community were not practiced often in succession. In more tranquil times afterwards the sound of the bells kept off the wild beasts and the troublesome " varmints," as they called the mischievous smaller beasts. It also warned the children when the cattle were encroaching on the cornfield, or on the little meadow inclosed by a rickety fence of brush, for the cornfield was the chief reliance of the family for their winter's breadstuff. But little wheat was grown till the land was more advanced in cultivation.. One reason the oldest settlers had for not improving the lowlands, now our richest and most prolific portion, was that they 'could not produce wheat upon it. This will, in part, account for the fact which appears to us so unreasonable, the fact that the mountainous lands were the first settled, and settled in preference to that vast body which we now see covered with luxuriant harvests, and which are rich in mineral deposits. At the latter end of the last century a wheat-farm was the most desirable, and the one which the new immigrant tried to get. It was said that the wheat raised upon what are now our best wheat-farms was what they called sick wheat, a wheat which, they said, invariably produced sickness ; that the wheat drew this property from the soil, which was yet rank with poisonous vegetation. The end of the wheat-corn was black, and when made into bread and taken into the stomach it produced cramps and vomiting. Nor was it fit for feed. It was not till such land had been reclaimed that it was safe to raise wheat. Their best wheat-lands were along the hills, noticeably the western sides of Chestnut Ridge. Seventy and eighty years ago the farms which would have sold for the most money, and which were regarded the most valuable for wheat-growing, were those which we now regard as of the poorest, and on which the tenants at present live by irregular work and by continuous toil. Rye, therefore, was used in preference to buckwheat, and as a secondary crop to maize or Indian corn. Nor is this to be wondered at, for the prolific yield of corn in such an abundant ratio, its adaptability to the soil, the little trouble needed in its cultivation were early noted by the red men, who possessed no ideas of agriculture but the most primitive. Not only is this observable in the cultivation of it, but it is also to be noticed that it possesses more nutriment than any of the other of the ordinary cereals, and that as food a given quantity will go much farther for both man and beast. Those used to it affirm that a man can work longer on a meal of baked corn than even, as some contend, on meat. Whether this is born out by analysis is not known, but it is certain that old hunters and those exposed to inclemencies preferred corn as nourishment above rye and above boiled flesh. Neither was the process

of making corn into food so intricate as the process by which wheat is converted into bread and cakes. Corn-meal could easily be baked into bread, pone, johnny-cake (journey cake), or made into mush, which, with milk, was a standing dish for at least one meal a day regularly the whole year round. And with corn were early cultivated potatoes and beans, yet no more than was needful for the subsistence of the family till the next year. But the planting of fruit-trees is coetaneous with the erection of some of the first buildings in the county.

Gardening, you may be sure, was not carried on to perfection till long afterwards. Special attention was; however, given to the nurture of sage, which was made into tea, and served as a substitute for imported tea. For from necessity they could not, and from patriotism they would not, pay the exorbitant tax laid upon it, which was one of the immediate causes of the war. When Gen; St. Clair removed his family into Ligonier Valley, Madam St. Clair brought with her a chest of the invigorating leaves. It was talked of far and wide. She was remembered as one of the first who brought it into common use, and the fame of her tea-parties was part of the gossip of the country. Many to whom its properties were totally, or in part, unknown, walked a great distance to see the strange article, and to be cheered by its invigorating qualities. The root of the sassafras, mint, and spice-wood among some, in their season, were also substituted, for coffee was not drank, only once a week, on Sunday. In lieu of this a kind of decoction produced from roasted chestnuts and rye was drank. Genuine coffee was considered a beverage exclusively for the women part of the household. Nor was it coveted by the men, for in this, as in all unnatural wants, it holds true that " use doth breed a habit in the man."

The first of wants to be supplied then, as it always has been from the time our more remote ancestors made their apparel of fig-leaves, was the want of clothing for the body. This was made variously of linen, of linen and wool mixed, and of the dressed and undressed skins of deer. But the great want was met chiefly by the raising and working of flax, and this served when made up for the hunting-shirts of the men and for the gowns of the women, for the coverlet of the bed and for the tapestry of the room. Tow linen was used for the clothing of the living and for the shroud of the dead, and the manufacturing of it was one of the earliest of the mechanical arts practiced by men and women in common.

If you are curious to know of the process by. which it was manufactured, we shall briefly relate it. Flax is a fibrous plant which grows prolific in almost any kind of soil, especially if the soil be moist and shaley. The seeds being small and the growth spontaneous, a small quantity of seed is sufficient for sowing an ordinary patch. Not more was raised in early times than was needed for the family's use, for it was not an article of commerce. The seed was sown in the spring, and the flax was pulled in the autumn before the frost. A patch or field of flax in blossom looked beautiful, as the flower was of pale blue, and the top of the stalk itself of a lightish color. The flax, having been first pulled up by the roots, was laid along on the ground in windrows that it might be thoroughly dried by the sun and weather, while care was taken to keep it from getting wet, as the dampness rotted the stems and made it unfit for use. When suitably dried it was tied into bundles, gathered in, and thrashed with flails till the seeds were removed, when it was ready to be broken in a rude breaking-machine. The first part of this work was mostly done by the women and girls, especially if the harvest season was late. A long trough-like box set upon four legs held a lever fastened at one end by a movable pin, and the lever extending the length of the box was fastened to a heavy block something like a mallet. The face of this block was indented with two deep furrows and ridges, which fitted exactly into other furrows and ridges in the bottom of the box. This block, when the lever was raised up and forced down upon the flax under it, " braked," as it was termed, the flax, and loosed the outer covering of the straw, which on account of its coarseness was unfit for use. The flax being thus broken was next " scutched." The machinery of the scutching-machine was not intricate, nor its mechanism difficult. A pointed clap-board was driven in the ground and allowed to extend upward three or four feet. The upward edge of this board was dressed sharp. A wooden beetle, called a knife, and bearing in shape some resemblance to a knife, was used by the person holding- it in one hand and the flax in the other, and striking over the edge of the board, under which beating the fibres of the straw were loosened and separated from the thread of the grass more effectively, and the body of the flax still further mutilated and broken. The fibres thus loosened and strewn in piles wanted only to be ridded of all useless particles, when it was ready for the spinning-wheel. To effect this it was taken in small handfuls and drawn rapidly through a hackle, which was a board or block with numerous sharp points of iron from three to five inches in length fastened into it, so that when the fine substance of the flax was drawn quickly over it the chaff', the remaining seeds, and all extraneous substances theretofore adhering were completely removed. Only the tow was then left, which was ready to be spinned.

As to spinning, it was not only a light labor but an amusement. The ideas connected with spinning have given expression to many of the most beautiful sentiments in Hebrew, in Grecian, and in Latin poetry. Hence we learn its antiquity, and gather that spinning, with weaving, was the fine accomplishment of the matrons in the citadel of Priam and in the house of the Tarquins, from those who came opt of Egypt and in the wilderness spinned the flax for the linen of the Tabernacle to the princesses of Europe in the

last century. Homer compares the life of the race of men in its fleetness to the swiftly-flying shuttle, and Virgil metaphorically says that the "slender thread of life was drawn out from the spindles of the Fates." Milton, in that mournfulest pastoral in English literature, in which he embalms the memory of the shepherd Lycidas, compares life to the finest and slenderest of threads ; for when hard-won fame thinks to break out into sudden blaze, alas!

The allusion to flax in some of the processes of its facture runs, in fact, all through our English world of letters; it is mixed with the dry nomenclature of the law, in the statutes and in the Institutes. Falstaff's men at Coventry stole all the linen off the hedges; and who can forget the melody of Shakespeare in his happiest mood,—

Franklin preferred the sound of the spinning-wheel to any music he knew of; thousands call its droning sound from the " empty halls of memory," for in these things all are alike, the prince and the peasant.

Perhaps the organ sounds better outside the church than in it; at any rate, with us spinning is well-nigh a lost art, and the famous music of the wheel might grate on our ears like wretched scrannel pipes, " like

1 So in "The Courtship of Miles Standish" we recollect of Priscilla, "the beautiful Puritan maiden," and John Alden, be holding the skein while she untangles it, and in so doing touches his hands, " sending electrical thrills through every nerve of his body"

So also in "Evangeline" is it a frequent subject. One of the most beautiful pictures in that greatest of American poems is that of the Acadian village in the summer evenings,—

Touching the antiquity of this subject it is now established that it was cultivated before history was written. Dr. Oswald Beer, the eminent botanist, and one who has devoted much attention to the structnre and history of fossil plants, has lately published an article upon flax and its culture among the ancients, especially the prehistoric races of Enrope. The substance of his memoir may be summarized as follows: First, flax was cultivated in Egypt and in Asia Minor at least five thousand years ago, and in Greece in the prehistoric period. Second, it is also met with in the oldest Swiss lacustrine villages, while at the same time no hemp nor fabrics manufactured from wool are there to be found. As the sheep was one of the oldest domestic animals, this is considered remarkable. Third, the lake-dwellers probably received their flax from Southern Europe. The original home of the cultivated flax was therefore along the shores of the Mediterranean. The Egyptians probably cultivated it, and from them its use was doubtless disseminated.

sweet bells jangled out of tune." But the grandmothers of the best families of the Republic were taught in their day to spin and weave, to knit and sew, as they were taught to bake and cook. You will remember of the mother and of the wife of Washington.

But when the tow was spun into threads, the fineness of the thread determined the quality of the cloth. The cloth was woven on looms. Not every family possessed a loom, and it was not until the country was well. settled, and till the wants increased, that weaving was followed as a regular business. So the hanks of tow and the cuts of wool were carried by the good man to the neighbor who was prepared to work it. The weaver generally took his pay in toll, keeping a part for his labor. The cloth made from flax was more durable than that made from wool, but was not so warm, to remedy which a mixture of tow and wool was made for winter wear, from whence we have the odd name of linsey-woolsey. The manufacturing of wool was of a simpler process, and with it we are perhaps more familiar. The producing of wool was early attended to, although under great and many disadvantages. The chief trouble was to protect the sheep from wolves and bears, and the young lambs from foxes. But with all this they, persevering under untold difficulties, at hast saw themselves more comfortably fixed when, at the beginning of winter, they had a large bale of washed and combed wool stowed in a corner of the mystical cock-loft.

Wool-cards were at one time so scarce, especially during the heat of the war, that they were furnished in some localities at the expense of the State. But later the wool was sent to the carding-machine to be converted into rolls. The rolls were spun, colored, and woven into lye-colored or blue and red crossbars for the women's wear, or into white or colored cloths for blankets and men's wear.3 The fulling-mills were cheap, rude affairs set on some stream. Here the blankets were scoured and made soft, and the cloth was fulled and colored. Dyeing cloth was afterwards a trade by itself.' The first machines for converting wool into rolls were about Greensburg, and at as early a date there was one at Jones' Mill. In 1807 there were two of these improved machines at the county town, and the importance of the manufacture was made apparent, and the superior advantages of machine-carding set forth in a series of standing advertisements in the Farmer's Register of that date. The price for carding wool into rolls was ten cents per pound ; for mixing different colors, twelve and one-half ; for breaking, five cents. About the same time a mill was erected in North Huntingdon township on Robinson's Creek. Whilst almost every

2 A cheap dye-stuff was made of new-mown hay and of onion-peels, or of walnut-hulls.

3 There was a conspicuous advertisement in the old papers by which the dyers announced their business, viz.: " All trades must live, and some must dye"

farmer's house had a spinning-wheel and reel, every third or fourth house had a loom.

Modern machinery has done away with the primitive method of working up the wool and flax. Instead of the lonely matron plying her endless task by the flickering tallow-dip throughout the misty winter nights, now a thousand hooks and fingers grasp the flying threads and weave them in endless sheets of handsome textile fabrics. The combing, the carding, the fulling, the dyeing are all done by silent, dumb hands. While the manufacture of flax has been revolutionized, the manufacture of wool has been developed and perfected.

There is a short saying sprung from the days of homespun clothing, which saying yet obtains among quite a number of the common people of Chestnut Ridge and through the Valley, and which indeed has not been confined to only this locality, but has extended out and found its way into the slang vocabulary of polite society and even into print. Although the idea had existed in different shape, and now exists in different shape, yet the origin of this expression has been so definitely fixed, and it is so plainly traceable to a particular occasion, and on such good authority that we cannot forbear mentioning of it here. Then, in the days when spinsters were truly spinsters, when those virgins that lived in single blessedness to good old age, and beguiled their leisure, not like "Mariana in the moated grange," but rather like virtuous Queen Catherine at the wheel, there lived at the foot of Laurel Hill, in Ligonier Valley, one Betsy Geiger, who did the spinning and weaving, as far as she was able, for the whole-neighborhood. Among her customers was a man named McGinnis, who brought to her his quota of wool and flax with orders to have the stripes of the cloth diversified in a pattern peculiar to a fancy of his own. The cloth was duly made in alternate checkers of copperas-colored wool and "snow-white under-linen," after the commonly received pattern and fashion. When McGinnis called for the stuff and saw it he would not take it. He expected, no doubt, as it was supposed, on some such frivolous excuse to get it at a loss to the spinster. But an action was forthwith instituted before a justice of the peace to recover justice for the piece, and that the complainant might have peace. Brought face to face before the squire, the magistrate demanded of the defendant, " What is your reason for not taking this stuff off the hands of this honest woman, the plaintiff?" His reply, addressed to the plaintiff,—we may presume with some Dogberry in it,—was ready and quick, "It isn't the right stripe, Betty, it isn't the right stripe." The word, taken up and carried from mouth to mouth, is now used chiefly to describe the character of such a man as he who involuntarily brought it into use.

The dress and costumes of the early settlers were an admixture of a civilized and a half-civilized description. The Indians approached the whites, and the whites met them half-way. The Indians gained all, and the whites lost a part. The hunting-shirt of the men, the most universal dress for a long time, was a frockish coat which fitted tightly about the waist and shoulders, while the skirt was allowed to reach to the knees. The sleeves were large and roomy, and the lappels on the front were allowed to extend almost the distance of a foot on either side, and were made to button. A heavy cape hung down the back, and all the borders were decorated with a fringe of ravellings of different colors. The material was linsey-woolsey, a name which the early people gave, as we have said, to an admixture of stuff whose component parts were tow or flax and wool ; that is, linen-woolen. Often, however, this hunting-shirt was of doeskin, which, if well tanned, would last almost a lifetime. In the bosom of the coat were carried bread, jerk, or tow. The tomahawk or hatchet was fastened to the belt on the right side, and the knife in a sheath to the left. Breeches were the universal dress for the legs, and these mostly were made of buckskin. Yellow (or the natural color) and black were the favorite colors, and these were worn by ministers, attorneys, militia colonels, such indeed as assumed to the quality class. These wore shoes with buckles in the summer, and in the winter high-topped boots, sometimes of raw-hide, and sometimes faced with high-colored cloth. The common people had nothing but moccasins, which were made of a single piece of leather or untanned deerskin. The seam was along the top, and they reached above the ankle.

When at length it became fashionable for men to dress in cloth, the people being poor many inconveniences were suffered. It might be called pride, but we do not know whether it exactly is pride. This, however, is a fact of history : When the first court opened at Catfish,—that is, Washington,—in 1781, a citizen, who as a magistrate was compelled to attend, had to borrow a pair of leather breeches from a respectable neighbor, who himself had been summoned as a grand juror, but who from this interposition had to stay at home.1 As many as nineteen grooms are known to have been married in the same blue coat with brass buttons ; and this for hire, or generous loan. 2 Such an addition was a striking feature, and on the same principle a very old gentleman, in describing the appearance of Col. Christopher Truby, said that be had " red-topped boots, and wore his hair in a black silk bag."

We have the description of the dress of the gentleman of a later period from a fortunate circumstance. It is old, but we trust it will bear repetition here. President Dunlap, of Cannonsburg Academy, had a son called Joe, who was on intimate terms with old " Cardinal" McMillan. The doctor, meeting the young scapegrace, said, " Joe, can you tell me the difference between you and the devil ?" Joe answered,

in reply, that the devil wears a cocked hat, a low flapped doublet, a coat of Continental cut, breeches and shoes with knee- and shoe-buckles, and I wear pantaloons and clothing of modern style : he described the doctor. The old gentleman was loth to change in anything, in even his dress, and he wore his cocked hat and shoe-buckles long after others had laid theirs away. Innovations were harsh to him. He insulted Colonel Morgan because his family rode to church in a kind of cariole, and seeing a woman who first used the convenience of an umbrella during a rain, asked what that woman was doing with her petticoat on a stick. He, however, was not alone in his ignorance of the use of, t6 us, such an indispensable article, for when Alexander Craig was one day carrying an umbrella, which had been presented to his mother by a gentleman of Philadelphia, to meeting at Congruity Church, a good old elder, after vainly surmising what the queer thing could be, accosted Craig with, " Es that the thing ye survey the Ian' wi' ?"

The head-dress of the men was usually a beaver or wool hat. These Were made by hand, and were so lasting that the heir was never out of the hope of a small share, at least, of his father's personal estate.

We presume that no fashion-writer in a lady's magazine would attempt to describe the attire of a lady under, say two pages octavo, nonpareil, while perhaps twenty lines would be sufficient in which to describe the dress of a gentleman. We shall be compelled, from our dearth of words and sparsity of ideas, to reverse the order without apology.

The universal dress of the women of our early times was a short gown and a petticoat ; the material was linsey-woolsey in summer and all wool in winter. Their head-dress was, especially when they traveled or went to town, the same as the men's, that is, a beaver or wool hat. Sometimes a colored handkerchief was curiously tied over the head. A smaller home-made linen handkerchief, tied so that the one point came down from the neck between the shoulders, was a quite common extravagance of vanity at parties or at church. Perhaps the majority of the ancient matrons went barefoot in summer; in winter they wore moccasins, overshoes, or shoe-packs. The better-off sort, who brought their goods with them or had them sent from the East, sometimes wore silk stockings. Among the articles stolen by the Indians from one of the houses at Hannastown at the time of its destruction was a silk dress.1 Forty years after the first settlements of the county, silk, among the ladies of the gentry, was the dress. Dimity was highly in favor with those who were able, and of it were made gowns, aprons, and caps. The fashionable ladies of the town of Greensburg between 1800 and 1812, when they danced in the ball-rooms of the public-houses or helped to make the audience before the graduating class of the academy, wore silk gowns fitted tightly

to the body and arms, the sleeves buttoned to the elbows, had high-heeled shoes, had their hair powdered, and their faces stuck over with black square bits of court-plaster.

It was not, relatively, until a late period that calico became a common or every-day dress for women. For many years after the date which corresponds with our first settlements calico was regarded as an expensive fabric. The manufacture of calico by a system of hand-spinning had originated in England not more than a hundred years before that, and there, during our Revolution, the only place it was manufactured, it was so heavily taxed that it was out of the reach of the poor. At the close of the century in Europe it was neither cheap nor common. It was not till some time after the invention of the spinning-jenny by Arkwright that it came into use at all among the common people. In our county at one time after the war of Eighteen-Twelve calico was one dollar a yard, then, about 1825, it fell to thirty and forty cents, and later rose to fifty. When it took fifty pounds of butter and two barrels of eggs to get a chintz-pattern wrapper, it was nothing to hide away, and we can pardon the vanity which hung such articles of apparel up to public inspection at the head of the bed, not far from the horse-gears.

Fruits and Berries—Game—Maple-Sugar and Molasses—Depredations of the Bears—How they were trapped and killed—Mitchell shoots a Bear on a Sunday—Wolves, and Adventures with them—Moorhead and Kelly—Christian Shockey attacked at Night by Wolves, climbs a Tree and awaits till Morning—Premium for Wolf-Scalps—Deer-Hunting -Venison used instead of Beef—Squirrels—Birds and Wild Fowl—Pests of the Farmer—Game Laws, and Premiums offered by Law at Different Times for destroying Animals and Birds—Farming the Chief Dependence and Occupation of the People—How Farming in General was carried on.

THE woods at that time produced many fruits which are now known to us but as luxuries. Besides blackberries and whortleberries, which attained to double the size we now see them and of a corresponding lusciousness, there grew wild plums and haws in such quantities that the ground in places lay covered with them. The peach, sheltered from the frost by the protecting forests, found a kindly soil, and on the new land produced regularly a good crop, in like manner the cherry and the hardier species of apple , while of fox-grapes and chicken-grapes a large quantity was allowed to waste yearly for want of using. The sugar-tree, a species of maple indigenous to our soil, grew thickly on the eastern slopes of the hills and in the valleys. To secure the sap of the tree and render it into sugar and syrup was an easy matter, for the Indians themselves, knowing the saccharine qualities of this fluid, could, with the use of pails to carry it, and of kettles to boil it, manufacture their sugary

In the early spring when the sap was beginning to ascend from the roots, the tree was tapped by chopping into its trunk with a hatchet or by boring a hole into it with an auger. Under the vents were fixed long and hollow reeds, through which, as the sun warmed the bark of the tree, the sap dropped, trickling to the bark troughs or hollow vessels beneath. When the vessels were filled they were carried to the kettles, which during the sugar-making season were kept boiling day and night. The sugar-water boiled to a certain consistence was the syrup ; boiled till it lost all fluid properties and dried it was the sugar. In after-years, within our.recollection, it has become an article of commerce, and at this day, in some districts, its manufacture is pursued as one of the most remunerative branches of husbandry, and as a commodity in the trade of a great commercial and manufacturing people, has proved a profitable one for labor and invested capital. But until the facilities of transportation were enlarged it was known only as a necessary article of food and not as a delicacy:

It was not only on the scanty product of the fields that the settler depended for subsistence and support. It was nothing unusual for him to be out of corn or rye-bread for days together. Simple and as necessary as meal bread is in civilization to both the rich and poor, to the merchant and the mechanic, yet bread has a very different standard in enlightened and far-advanced societies than it has in a sparsely-settled community, in a new country abounding in game and prolific in the spontaneous production of the woods. It is therefore true that bread might not be absolutely needful to grown-up men and rugged boys used to many hardships, and these could do without it, to let the little they had, in trying times, go as far as it would for the younger children and for more delicate women in a watchful state. If the little stock of meal had dwindled down before the snow fell, blockading all the paths to the settlement, the rest was cherished and used more as a precious medicine than as a great staple necessary for the nourishment of the body.

But at times the chief source of dependence for the family was in the trusty rifle of the father. Every man was presumed to know how to use a gun. Every boy looked forward to the time when be would be the owner of a brand-new one. The rifle was to the ambitious young man of the early settlements what the fast scrub was to his grandsons. To the father It was that which above all things helped to supplement the labor of his hands. The country was overrun with game. This to the Indians had not been a kindly hunting-ground. They could, in passing through it, get enough wild meat to subsist on, and by going more to the northward secure sufficient to do them well through the winter ; but the great and prolific fields where elk, bear, and buffalo abounded, and where deer came in droves to the salt-licks, were farther towards the setting sun. The game common to the western parts and native to the clime was therefore allowed to increase undisturbed till the forests remaining became filled. Of these animals the black and brown bear were common, and especially so along the chain of ridges in the southern part of Westmoreland and in the valley and hills betwixt Somerset and Fayette. These were indeed so numerous, and that within the recollection of persons still living, that in the severity of the winter season they would approach the cabin, and from the pens and stables drag off the sheep and calves. Charles Mitchell, who had located upon the right bank of the Loyalhanna, eight miles from Ligonier, saw, in the early time, a bear of enormous size seize a well-grown hog in the field near his house, carry it off, swim the creek with it, and deposit it behind a rock, over which he scraped leaves. The bear was not killed because that it was the Sabbath-day, a day which he, following the teaching of his church, held sacred from things of a secular nature. All the settlements till the close of the century suffered from depredations such as this. Stray bears coming into Ligonier Valley, drawn down by hunger, were killed as late as 1837. Up to 1820 and 1825, in the mountain ranges next to Fayette, many small farmers subsisted through the winter on bear-meat, allowed to be preferable to venison. It is said to be jucier, and many considered it better than beef. It is certain that bear-meat was, with deer-meat, one of the necessaries. The bears were usually hunted with dogs. On being closely pursued they climbed a tree, from which they were shot. Sometimes they were caught in steel traps, and sometimes secured in pens made of stout logs and closed by a dead-fall. But so great is their restlessness under confinement that it is averred they often regained their liberty before the hunter got around by gnawing their paws loose from the jaws of the steel trap. It was not unusual to tame the cubs and rear them about the house.

Besides this it was no trouble at any time to kill deer. These animals were so plentiful that to know their regular paths and the country over which they crossed was enough knowledge of hunting for a good marksman to get at least a few during the season. But deer-meat was not prepared for winter use as bear-meat was, for bear-meat, when salt could be procured, was mostly put up like pork in pickle, but deer-meat was first frozen by exposure in the air and then dried, whence, after undergoing this process or its equivalent, being dried over a slow fire, it was called " jerk," that is, dried meat.

As to smaller animals used for food, there were raccoons, ground-hogs, rabbits, and squirrels in abundance. Seldom, unless for a change, were these hunted ; and if ammunition was scarce they were looked upon as unprofitable. Squirrels especially were so numerous they were a pest to the farmer, and a stand-

ing bounty was set upon their scalps to encourage their destruction. All these were more usually caught in traps by the boys, or hunted with dogs. The number of squirrels killed in earlier times was amazing. When hunts were gotten up with the intention of bagging these there were often above a hundred killed in a single day by one good marksman. The shooting of them in great numbers was therefore more as a trial of skill than as a profitable day's work. The hunter, after securing a favorable place, waited for the squirrels to pass along, and without removing he generally shot as many as he wished. Rifles were used, and the game was either shot in the head or barked, as they called it, which was when the ball passed between the squirrel and the bark of the limb upon which it was lying. Wild turkeys of large size fed in droves, and pheasants (or grouse), partridges, and wild pigeons that came in, innumerable flocks from the warm South, might all have been designated as domestic fowl.

But it was often that the hunter had other use for his gun. The greatest scourge of the farmer in early times was the wolf. When met singly the wolf is a great coward, and as a species they are so averse to mankind that they recede before the appearance of civilization in all directions. The wolf common to Pennsylvania is said to be of a browner color than the species found elsewhere. He hunts by scent, after the manner of the dog ; is shy, wary, and cunning. But when the wants of hunger press, gathering together in packs, as they raise their noses from the ground over their heads, they begin a long, continuous howl, the most desolate and terror-striking of sounds to the mountaineer. Becoming bolder they emerge from their retreats in the thick woods along the mountain-sides and in droves rush along the edges of the forests. At such times, coming in the wintry season, the hunter and the family in the cabin heard the sounds with such terror as only the war-whoop of the red men aroused. Nothing living was safe from their fangs. A loose horse or a solitary man benighted, if in their way, was certain to be attacked by the brutes now grown bold. Their long paws, gaunt and sinewy, dragged the prey to the ground in their midst, when their ragged jaws soon tore the flesh in pieces, and while the unsatisfied ones were crunching at the bones and licking their chops, the ravenous herd, now frantic with the taste and smell of blood, with voraciousness fell upon each other.

It is related of Joseph Moorhead and James Kelly, two among the first who attempted to settle within the present limits of Indiana County, about 1772, that one morning after they had erected their cabins, not far from where now is the town of Indiana, Moorhead went over to see Kelly and was astonished at not finding him at the cabin, but seeing near it traces of blood and tufts of human hair, Moorhead believed his neighbor had been killed by the wolves, which with rattlesnakes abounded in that region. In looking for his mangled body he found him sitting by a spring washing the blood from his hair. He had lain down in his cabin at night, and, being asleep, a wolf reached its paws through the cracks between the logs and seized him by the head. The disadvantage under which the wolf labored saved Kelly, for he had time to get awake before the wolf had seriously injured him, but not before he had snatched him partly bald-headed. In our own county, Christian Shockey, an early settler on the Chestnut Ridge in Unity township, at one time about the close of the century was benighted on his way home from hunting. The wolves getting upon his track and surrounding him he had recourse to a large tree which he climbed. The night was bitter cold, and he was all but frozen. The wolves stayed at the foot of the tree, and in their desperation leaped over each other, and with their teeth snapped the tree till its bark long after bore their marks. In the morning they skulked back to their burrows among the rocks. This old settler trapped scores of wolves at a spring not far from his house, which to this day is known by the name of the " Wolf Spring," and was till lately, perhaps, the largest and finest spring of fresh water in the country. Before the spring was disturbed it was near thirty feet across, and is not known to have ever been frozen over. In winter the vapor exhales off its surface ; in the summer the water is limpid and icy cold.'

There is, therefore, no doubt that wolves in ,great numbers infested all this country when it was yet a wilderness, but as it is their nature to live in a kind of society together, being a gregarious animal, their roving limits were always subject to be changed. With all the war of extermination waged upon them they existed in great numbers about the Laurel Hill at the beginning of the century. There was a standing reward offered by law, which from time to time was increased and diminished, sometimes taken off and again renewed. In 1782 the offer was twenty-five shillings for the scalp or skin of a puppy or whelp, and fifteen dollars for the scalp or skin of a full-grown wolf. This was of course on the standard of the depreciated currency, and so in 1806, to encourage the killing of these, eight dollars was allowed for every wolf killed, and this, by a subsequent law, was further

Christian Shockey, whose father, by the way, was a Revolutioner, and who was wounded at Brandywine, went, about the year 1807, down to Hagerstown with his two horses laden with pelts and ginseng. When in Hagerstown he, of course, inquired for Mrs. Gruber's Hagerstown Almanack,—the almanac which was currently believed to in some way control the weather. He, having an eye to a business speculation, proposed to get as many as would supply the neighborhood, and as they were offered at a price considerably below the regular price the investment offered profit. He got such a large quantity at such a small figure that he himself was astonished. He thereupon invested a large share of the proceeds of his supplies in almanacs, half of them German and half English. He, however, was more astonished when, on arriving at home and opening his package, he discovered the contents to be the almanacs for the current year, which was then fast walling. He had neglected to bargain for the year approaching, and as the transaction was made, as a matter of course, he could blame no one but himself.

increased to twelve dollars. In addition to all this there were some localities in which, it being more at their mercy, the inhabitants subscribed to a separate fund, or by districts allowed an extra assessment. Thus it was that in some counties the premium was higher than in others ; for instance, in Westmoreland the reward was somewhat higher than it was at the same time in Somerset, and the wolves were plentier across the line in Somerset than on this side. This gave occasion to some of the old hunters of the valley to play a game on the wolves and on the commissioners. They would draw the former to this side by baiting them, and one old hand at the business by the name of Dumbold is said to have secured ten wolves drawn to the carrion of a worthless old horse. Besides the scalp-bounty he got one dollar each for the skins. 1

Great inconvenience was suffered by the husbandman from squirrels and crows. When the ccuntry was almost a dense wilderness these mischievous pests gathered around, the patches of corn and rye and fattened on the labor of the farmer. Numerous devices were conceived of to ward the birds off, and a price was put upon the heads of each of these offenders. By one law Westmoreland and Fayette were allowed to assess any sum not exceeding three hundred dollars in each county to be applied to the squirrel fund. By one of the laws the premium was one cent and a half, which by another act was raised to two cents for the scalp of a squirrel, and three cents for each crow's

1 The diversion of a later generation in their famous fox-hunts was nearly akin to the hunting and trapping of wolves by their grandfathers. Something of this diversion deserves to be recorded, however much out of place here, as it is one so foreign to any of the diversions of the present day. Hunting has well been called the image of war, and a knowledge of the old-time fox-hunts will assuredly lead to a discovery of many points of similarity between it as a diversion and the militia trainings as a diversion.

These circular hunts were a source of much amusement during the long winter months, and in great part answered to the militia musters in summer, and were to that generation what the county fair and the camp-meeting are to this generation.

When a fox-hunt was projected a meeting was called in the neighborhood, at which the principal inhabitants—men and boys—usually attended. An organization was had, certain resolutions were passed, and committees for sundry purposes appointed. The duties of these committees were to select a suitable region of country over which to scour for foxes, to nominate certain of the foremost men from various localities to lead in the chase, and to prescribe the rules by which all participants were to be governed in the hunt. There are, for example, in the county papers of 1846 notices of a fox-hunt, the lines of which began at Greensburg and ran along the road to Weaver's old stand, through Pleasant Unity to Peter Walters' ; thence along the Ridge road to Youngstown ; thence down the Nine-Mile Run to the Loyalhanna, along the Loyalhanna to Brady's mill, and on to New Alexandria; thence along the old road to George Dickie's, and from Dickie's along the road to Greensburg.

For every one of these, sections or divisions were marked off, and captains appointed by name to the number of twelve or fifteen, and marshals eight or ten. These were of the very foremost men in their neighborhood, and indeed of the county. A committee was appointed to stake off the grounds the day previous to the hunt. The marshals had power to supply vacancies when they occurred. Persons taking dogs were to lead them until the ring was formed, when the signal was given to let them loose. The marshals wore badges on their arms. No firearms were to be carried, except pistols by the marshals. The line was to move at nine o'clock in the forenoon of Saturday, the 14th of February. Horn to sound from Peter Walters.

In the early annals of the Province, according to Kalm, who has written on the subject, the common blackbirds of Pennsylvania were so plentiful that in order to somewhat lessen their number a bounty was put up for their destruction. The inducement of three pence per dozen was so effective in its result that the birds here were nearly entirely destroyed. This, however, was when only the eastern part of the Province was settled. But it is narrated that, owing to their almost total extermination, the summer of the succeeding year being unusually dry, the insects and grubs so ravaged the growing crops that in some portions the inhabitants were well-nigh starving,—no grass, no grain, no fruit. The law was then allowed to be repealed, and the birds came back again. For years after that the blackbirds as well as the crows, who bobbed in slyly under the credit of their brothers, were allowed to be the friends of man, till they increasing again became a nuisance, and another law was passed which again allowed a small amount per capita for the crows as well as for the squirrels.

At the time when ammunition was scarce and high in price it did not pay to expend powder and shot upon them for the premium. Thence scarecrows of hideous proportions were erected on the stumps about the gardens, pieces of glass or tin were hung on bedded sticks, so that when the wind disturbed them they made a gingling noise, the ravelled thread of a woolen stocking was stretched from one stake of the fence to another around the field, while the tattered boys kept up a racket all the days. So that from one cause or the other, or from many or all, they managed to save their garden stuff and the little corn which was to do them through the winter.

Farming, or the working of the fields, was the business upon which all relied, upon which all leaned for support. But how different was the culture of the fields then compared with now. Every branch of the business (if it was susceptible of being divided into branches) was carried on after the most primitive fashion. What they were after was a living, and thus—and it seems almost incredible—the vast body of these lands could scarcely maintain the few inhabitants. The land was merely scratched over, and around the stumps, the deadened trees, the piles of brush and heaps of stones, the scattered grains grew and were cut and harvested by the hardest of manual labor. Grass was cut with scythes and hooks, and wheat, rye, and buckwheat with sickles. The girls helped in the fields. When grain-cradles were introduced they were as great a curiosity and met with as unfavorable a reception as the McCormick reaper afterwards. They were in use for years in cutting buckwheat before the most advanced farmers allowed them to enter their wheat-fields. Their farming implements were mostly home-made. The irons for the plow, the grubbing-hoes, the .tines of the manure

forks were made by the bungling blacksmith; the beams for the plow, axles for the wagon, hoe and fork handles, yokes and double-trees were made by the farmer himself.

A man who worked a farm must of necessity understand how to handle the axe and the draw-knife ; nor need he be sparing of timber. Means were resorted to to hasten the destruction of the forest. Monster trees of the finest varieties were burnt in order that their ashes might enrich the ground, which modern science says is fallacious; and this wantonness and carelessness continued down to our own time, in which valuable trees were thoughtlessly destroyed and hundreds of acres but half tilled. But in the first settlers it was not reprehensible. To them it was not the golden age when the husbandman had merely to scatter abroad the grains and at his leisure take the harvest in under favoring skies. Taking care of the harvest was indeed often the greatest toil. The hay and grain when cut were brought in on sleds and by drags of long grapevines. Nor was the labor at any time undivided, for women made their hand in the field at all times, and helped to do the labor now done entirely by men. The product—corn, grass, and sheaves—was piled in stacks about the log stables, for there were then no such barns to house it in as there are now. The thrashing was done with flails, and this began in the fall after the harvest, and lasted through the winter season. A day's work at all kinds of farm-work was from the time the stars shone in the morning till they shone in the evening. Day's work were seldom charged for among those of the farming community according to set prices or wages. When a neighbor wanted help he was at no loss to, get it, provided always he had neighbors, and any one living within three or four miles was 'considered a neighbor. No account was kept of odd days, for the work was usually given and repaid when needed.

Some of their Chief Wants—Salt—First brought from the East, then from Big Beaver, Kentucky, Onondaga—Prices—Methods of bringing it over the Mountains—Its Discovery on the Sewickley and on the Conemaugh—Process of its First Manufacture—Reduction in Price- Scarceness of Money—The Rates as fixed by some of the Early Courts —Prices of other Commodities— Cheapness of Land—Paying their Preachers and Taxes—Rates allowed per Bushel for Wheat, Rye, and Oats—Whiskey-Stills—Manufacture of Whiskey—What they kept in their Stores or Shops—Manner of doing Business—Whiskey the Medium of Exchange—Its Universal Use—Exported and Imported—Tub and Grist-Mills—List of First Mills in the County— Iron—Turnbull Marmie's Foundry and Furnace—The Westmoreland Furnace—Gen. St. Clair builds Hermitage Furnace—Mount Hope and Ross Furnaces—John Henry Hopkins—The Baldwin Furnace—Other Furnaces—Axe and Nail Manufacture, etc.

FOREMOST of the wants was the want of salt. The want arising from the scarceness of this needful com modity, a necessary ingredient as it is in the living of civilized people, has been the prolific subject of much comment ; and a want so generally felt, and so often commented on, could not but have been of the highest consequence. In early times it was so scarce, even in the marketable districts, and these districts were so remote, and the means of getting to and returning from them so filled with dangers, that there were times when whole communities were without any at all.

The scarcity of salt made it at all times of a high merchantable value, subject to change in proportion to its availableness. In general transactions a bushel of salt 3 was an integer of value, and had its nominal purchasing power, just as at other times a whiskey-still, a rifle, or a flask of powder, and as at the present day along the Ridge a cord of bark or a dozen of axe-handles. Col. Brodhead, about the year 1780, writing to President Reed, 1 states that salt will buy meat when money will not, and in the same letter he tells him that he cannot send too much salt. At this time salt was very high, for in the midst of the complicated troubles of Western Pennsylvania the people drove their cattle to the mountains, and meat was so scarce that the soldiers of the garrison at Pittsburgh were sent out to kill game, and the wild meat was salted down for winter use. Ten years later, in the Youghiogheny region, twenty bushels of wheat was not thought an unfair exchange for one bushel of salt.2 In the earliest times, and at all times when salt was carried on the backs of pack-horses, it was brought in bags, and the first knowledge we have of its being brought in barrels or in bulk was about the beginning of the century, when Kentucky salt was brought to Pittsburgh in boats, and from thence carried in wagons These barrels in size were about one-third larger that our common barrels. The price about 1806 was about fourteen dollars per barrel, net, of which two dollars went to the wagon-carriage. It retailed at twelve and a half cents to eighteen cents the quart. But still, from the times of the earliest date down until it was manufactured along the Sewickley and the Conemaugh, salt, as well as iron and merchandise, was brought from the vicinity of Hagerstown and fro Winchester and Chambersburg. From the deer-licks along the Big Beaver a deposit of salt was known to exist, and as early as 1779 an effort was made to get enough to supply the wants of those abont Pittsburgh and the frontier settlements along the rivers. The result was successful only in part, for, the location being on the hostile border, there was not sufficient produced to in anywise relieve the general want, or to effect a rivalry with the distant market. During the Revolution the salt from the Beaver Springs was not known to our eastern settlers, and when the war was over the means of getting it across the mountains were greatly improved, and there a better market was opened for furs, for ginseng, and for snake-root-

There are many instances all through the old records of the State, and even among the archives of Congress during the Revolution, of the consideration of this subject by the various executive and legislative bodies. Measures calculated to give relief to the people were passed by the Assembly of the State, by the Committee of Safety, sad by Congress.

In 1776 (September 2d), in the distribution of salt taken as confiscated property from the Tories, in compliance with the resolves of the Council sitting at Philadelphia, Westmoreland was given two hundred and thirty-six bushels of fine and eighty-three bushels of coarse salt.

About 1778, owing to the scarcity, of salt, the Continental Congress passed a resolution directing against the monopoly of salt, and the Committee of Safety for Pennsylvania purchased a quantity for distribution through the State. Congress even established works in New Jersey, but for some time these works were not remunerative.

In 1779 a "Committee of Salt" was appointed by the authorities of the State to regulate the price and to enforce its distribution out of the hands of the monopolists and from those who wrongfully and with mercenary objects held it. In a "Memorial of Merchants" relative to the seizure of salt (Philadelphia, 23d October, 1779), it is stated by them that they had lately refused two hundred dollars a bushel, delivered, but that they, the memorialists, having consented to deliver it to the public account, complained that they got only thirty pounds per bushel for it, a very inadequate compensation.1

It was proposed by President Reed, July 24, 1779, to order a quantity of salt and distribute it among the counties in proportion to the flour received from them. 2

When whiskey became an article of home manufacture and it was found profitable to export, a market was ready for it in both the East and Southwest. Ventures were sent down the rivers to the Spanish settlements, and in return salt from the exhaustless springs of Kentucky was brought back. During the last decade of the past century and up to the war of 1812, Kentucky salt was sold through Western Pennsylvania. But its high price did not do away with the first mode of securing it. Even at late day it was customary for two or three neighbors in the fall. to each take a spare horse and go for their yearly supply, down, as they said, into Egypt. As late as 1820 farmers sent their boys and horses in a crowd. Their provisions and feed were carried with them, and as they went down a part of this was left on the mountains to supply them when coming back. These crowds were sometimes of a score of men and boys, and just as many horses and nags as could be gotten together. On each horse was a pack-saddle, and their rate of speed was restricted, on the average, to from

twenty to thirty miles a day. Some of the men carried their rifles with them, but for a lad to get with a crowd going to Hagerstown was as much as for a young man in the days of steamboating to take passage on a coal-raft for New Orleans. Such an one was the local newspaper for a twelve-month.

Along about 1796, James O'Harra, quartermaster-general of the United States army, found that salt from the Onondaga Works in New York could be brought to the Ohio cheaper than from Baltimore. Salt was thus brought down by way of Lake Erie and Le Boeuf and sold at Pittsburgh. In 1810 salt from the Kanawha began to come in competition, and the war of Eighteen-Twelve cut off the supply from the north, never after restored.

It was about the beginning of the century when the discovery of salt water was made along the Conemaugh. 3 Great interest was consequently awakened in that locality, and an enterprising citizen named William Johnston was among the first to engage in its manufacture. He built a house and grist-mill at the confluence of the two rivers and located a village. This was then called Point Johnson, and by this name it was long known. The place became of some importance, but with the decline of property after the war with Britain, and the subsequent opening of flat-boat navigation, the prospective town drooped, and about 1816 vanished away, while a town under more favorable auspices began on the opposite side of the river. This was the beginning of Salts-burg, a name the place received from its proximity to the salt-works then in operation.

Johnston at the depth of two hundred and eighty-seven feet found an abundance of salt water. The boring was done by tramp or treadle, the poles being connected with open mortice and tongue, fastened with little bolts. The salt was manufactured by boiling the water in large kettles or " graimes," using wood for fuel. It is said that front the opening of new and additional wells some fifty or sixty acres of

3 The discovery of salt in the Conemaugh Valley is traceable to an old lady, who discovered an oozing of salt at low-water mark of that river on the Indiana County side, about two miles above the present town of Saltsburg. This was about 1812 or 1813. With some of this water she made mush which was found to be quite palatable. About 1813, William Johnston, who was a young man of considerable enterprise, a native of Franklin County, commenced boring at the spot where Mrs. Deemer. the lady mentioned, had first discovered the water.

Since writing the text we have come on an interesting article relative to the manufacture of salt in the early times in Western Pennsylvania in Hazard's Hegira, for Dec. 10, 1831. It does not differ materially from our compilation, derived mostly from inquiry. Johnston made, after boring and tubing hit well, about thirty bushels a day. It sold readily at a high price, whence others were induced to venture capital and energy, and being successful the competition reduced the price so rapidly that at one time it sold for a dollar a barrel at the works. This was too low, and some abandoned their works and others broke up. A reaction took place, salt advanced, and the business then became profitable. We also find that after the pumps were inserted they were sometimes worked by horse-power. About thirty gallons were usually evaporated to make one bushel of salt.

We have heard said that in times of great scarceness a sprinkling of hickory ashes was used in lieu of salt.

woodland had been consumed for this purpose. The pumping was originally done by blind horses, and the salt sold, as the books show, sometimes at five dollars per bushel, retail, but as the wells multiplied the price fell very considerably. With the increase of trade came new machinery and new appliances for the manufacture. The unwieldy kettles were dispensed with, and large pans of half-inch iron, some twenty feet long, ten to eleven feet wide, and eight inches deep, were used. The blind horses staggered into obscurity, and the steam-engine was henceforth used for boring and pumping. The place was called the Great Conemaugh Salt-Works, and a post-office was soon established there. Four miles on the western side of the river are the James McLanahan and Andrew Boggs well, a well which is one of the oldest, and which produced a great deal of salt down to 1858, when it was abandoned ; next the Samuel Reed well ; the M. Johnston and A. Stewart ; next the Nathan M. D. Sterrett and David Mitchell wells, both of them good, the last named not abandoned till 1855; the Deep Hollow, Pete Hanmer well, forty rods from the river, rather new, and not considered to be profitable, was abandoned ; the Walter Skelton well made a great quantity of salt while in blast; the Winings & Morrison works are of recent date, and produce a small amount of good salt. Of these only two are in blast, —the Waddle group, owned by Samuel Waddle, and the Winings, owned by Winings. The wells enumerated are named after their original owners. The seven wells along the river on the western side were all put down prior to 1822 or 1820, and from that date till 1830 the group of hills on both sides of the river was like a great bee-hive. . . But it is strange that very few men engaged originally in the production and manufacture of salt attained to affluent circumstances. Most of them died poor. The expenses of production in many instances exceeded the income. The coal and machinery had to be hauled from Pittsburgh by wagon, or brought by the river in keelboats. These means of transportation were too expensive.

The brackishness of the water and the licks along Jacobs Creek, at one time called " Salt Creek," and in the swamps of the Sewickley were early known to the settlers. The properties were never developed, and it was not till 1808 or 1809 that salt may be said to have been first discovered along the Sewickley. William Beck was the first operator. Its presence there was evinced by the deer-lick and by the gases, which in escaping from the recesses of the earth disturbed the waters of the creek. The first well sunk there was bored by hand. Eight men lifted by force of their arms the boring tools, and letting them drop, these by their own weight bore slowly down towards the deposit. This lies five hundred feet below the surface, and the men working were three years in reaching it. This plan was improved upon by the application of the spring-pole and tread-board and wooden pole-tools. This method continued for twenty-five years before the rope was thought of and used. A well of five hundred feet can now be bored in thirty days. The first well was only two inches at the bottom, now the hole is five and a half inches at the top and four inches at the bottom. The salt at first was boiled down in large kettles, and these continued in use for a number of years, till Col. Israel Painter, the proprietor of the most extensive of these works, with his accustomed sagacity, brought into use the large and shallow pans in which it is now manufactured.

There was of course very little money in circulation among the first settlers. Money was not needed, only for the payment of taxes and for the purchase of a very few of the necessaries, such as salt and powder. The currency legalized during the Revolution was fluctuating in value, and towards 1779 and 1780 had scarcely any purchasing power. From the order-book of the Ohio County Court—one of the three Virginia courts in Pennsylvania—for 1780 it is seen that an order was issued to the ordinary keepers in the county to sell at appended rates, which were as follows : half a pint of whiskey, six dollars ; breakfast and supper, four dollars; lodgings, with clean sheets, three dollars; or a horse and hay overnight, three dollars ; one gallon of whiskey, six dollars.1 For the same time in 1780 whiskey was eight dollars and a half per pint. This was of course in Continental money. But this may give an idea of the unstable valuation put upon everything the value of which was regulated by money. In 1779, all things in the way of provisions being scarce, the flour and meat for the garrison at Pittsburgh had to be brought across the mountains. Bacon there was worth one dollar a pound, and deer was bought for the use of the army.2 At this time, and the year previous, 1778, flour was worth sixteen dollars a barrel. The money to purchase these things was paid by Congress. Commercial restrictions were tried, and combinations and promises entered into among the officers and business men to make the money go at a stated valuation, but with a useless result. This trouble in the currency and in the worthless value of the money, or what purported to be the money, was as severely felt after the war as during it. The soldiers who had been in the service and the contracts made for the army were paid off in this currency. The people were, in 1783 and 1784, nearly destitute of cash in gold or silver. In good money, in 1785, salt was worth five dollars a barrel, and it was, indeed, no uncommon thing for the price of a bushel of salt to be equivalent to a cow and calf; so five or seven dollars probably in cash would purchase a cow.

These following illustrations are given to show the equivalent of merchantable things with each other and their value in money. Pennsylvania currency was always variable in value. In 1780, in West-

moreland County, in the settlement of the commissioners of that year, confirmed by the court upon the report of the auditors, thirty dollars were said to be equal to three shillings sixpence in specie. Paper money, or the money of legislation, was worth little compared with specie at any time down till after the end of the Revolution. From the changeable prices an idea will be got of the scarceness and consequently of the dearness of money.

The terms offered by Franklin for wagons, horses, and wagoners for Braddock's army in 1755 were for each wagon with four good horses and driver fifteen ,shillings per day, for each able horse with pack-sad- dle or other saddle and furniture two shillings per day, for each able horse without a saddle eighteen pence per day. 1

President Reed, June 9, 1781, in a letter to David Duncan, the commissioner, etc., writes as follows:

"SIR,—Being appointed a commissioner of purchases for the county of Westmoreland, you are to proceed in that duty with all despatch so ss to supply the garrison at Fort Pitt and such troops as may be drawn forth under the authority of Council for the defence of the frontiers. The amount of your yearly purchases is to be limited to 816 barrels flour, 5000 gallons of whiskey, 200,000 pounds beef or pork, 1000 bushels of corn or 2000 bushels of oats, which you will purchase with as much economy as possible, and at such periods as will be most necessary and convenient. Until next harvest you are not to exceed the following prices, viz., flour, 30s. per cwt. ; wheat, per bushel,10s. ; Indian corn, 5s. ; whiskey, 7s. (shillings) 6d. (pence) per gall., etc"

"I have bought stall-fed beef at one shilling per pound, State money. I have bought whiskey at six, and from that to seven shillings per gallon, and have it delivered in the store, and wheat at one dollar, and delivered in the mills. I had men last week in the glades trying to purchase beef, but not one would sell without hard money."

The depreciation of paper currency or Continental money had become towards the latter end of the Revolution a very serious burden to the people all over the country, and great ingenuity was exercised to discover a remedy. Embargoes, commercial restrictions, tender laws, and limitations of prices were all tried, but in vain. Prices still sank. " I had money enough some time ago," said an anonymous writer, "to buy a hogshead of sugar. I sold it again, and got a great deal more money than it cost me ; yet when I went into the market again the money would only get me a tierce. I sold that too at great profit, yet the money received would only buy a barrel. I have now more money than ever, yet I am not so rich as when I had less." 2

The store-book of William Johnston, Saltsburg, date of 1794, etc., contains some things not uninteresting. Out of a long list of articles, with the current prices, we take the following. The account is kept in pounds, shillings, and pence :

2 As to the system of regulations adopted by the offices, etc., at Pittsburgh, 1779, to control speculators, etc., see Craig's " Pittsburgh," p.146, et seq.

In 1797, on five consecutive pages, there is counted sixty-nine separate and distinct charges for whiskey.

On Dec. 26, 1798, Charles Campbell (General) is credited with 1 barrel of salt, seven pounds and ten shillings.

During this time wheat was allowed for at 1 shilling per bushel ; corn, 6 pence; rye, 1 shilling; buckwheat, 1 shilling ; oats, 6 pence ; tallow, 2 pence; lard, 2 pence; pork, 4 shillings per hundred weight ; beef, 1 to 2 pence per pound.

" We, the undersigned, inhabitants of the counties of Washington, Allegheny, and Westmoreland, requested by the Commander-in-chief of the army now in and near the said counties to declare the prices of sundry articles necessary for the army, are of the opinion that ths prices undermentioned are sufficient for the following articles, being as much as they usually command in the country. 3

"The price of transportation of oats, hay, corn, whiskey, flour, and meal is not considered, and must depend on distance ; milk not being usually sold, the price is difficult to ascertain ; two pence a quart will, however, be an ample price.

The people had a great time paying their preachers after they had promised and subscribed for their salary. Sometimes it was impossible, and in the stead of money, to remedy it, they came forward and delivered their farm produce at a rate fixed upon by themselves. From a subscription paper of the congregation of Fairfield in 1789, the subscriptions were to be paid in money or grain, at the rate of, wheat at four shillings per bushel, rye or corn at two shillings and sixpence per bushel. These sums were due quarterly, and to be sued for as lawful debts. From a similar paper of the Sewickley congregation of August, 1792, by which one-half of the subscription was to be paid in cash, and the other half in produce, at these rates, to wit : wheat at four shillings per bushel, rye at three shillings per bushel, and corn at two shillings and sixpence per bushel. The rye here was higher than the corn, for this was in a region where about this time their surplus rye was worked into spirit, and

A good brother in Israel, a Father Laban, has been canonized for a shrewd speculation. Under Rev. Joseph Smith's pastorate at Cross Creek and Upper Buffalo, the congregation getting behind in their salary and no prospect of catching up, this shrewd old elder proposed to take their wheat down the river to the New Orleans market. The wheat at home was worth twelve and a half cents. The venture was successful, and the wheat, ground into flour and sold in that market, fetched twenty-seven dollars the barrel. The elder received three, hundred dollars, each of the young men who accompanied him one hundred dollars apiece, the back salary of the minister as well as the salary for the coming year was paid off, and thus the congregation was relieved of its burden.

When the manufacture of whiskey began to be profitably carried on, say 1787 to 1792, a whiskey-still became an article of some value. In 1785 a good still of one hundred gallons might purchase two hundred acres of land, and that even within ten miles of Pittsburgh. 2

Land itself was very cheap. The stories told of the purchase and sale of valuable lands are so marvelous that sometimes they are not credible. But any one who goes to the trouble to look over the old records will see by the transfers that in many instances the consideration was merely nominal. A still, a horse, a rifle has been known to be the pric paid for farms which now are of the most valuable in our whole county. 3

At the time of the Whiskey Insurrection and for some years previous thereto iron and steel cost from fifteen to twenty-five cents a pound, the cost of transportation being from five to ten dollars' per hundredweight.4 At that time wheat was so plenty and of so little value that it was the custom to grind the best quality and feed it to the cattle, and as for rye, corn, and barley, it would bring no price for man or beast. The only way, therefore, for the inhabitants to obtain a little money to carry on their farming and to purchase a few needful commodities was by distilling the grain and sending it down the river or over the mountains.

The inns of the old turnpike were called "hotels," and the shops "stores." The stores did a business which extended around for many miles. The storekeeper laid in his stock once, or, latterly, twice in the year. This consisted in general of common grocery and the most common fabrics. They had little of

3 It was no uncommon thing for parents, in their wills, to bequeath to their children an proportionate shares, for the full extent of their shares as devises, to be delivered by the son or daughter getting the lands, so much wheat, rye, oats, or corn. These in some instances were payable annually until a certain quantity had been made up. These bequests were in lieu of pecuniary ones.

anything and a little of everything on their shelves. The goods were sold at an advance averaging, in most cases, an hundred per cent. This was, indeed, a question more of necessity than of conscience, for at even this profit it took all and more than all the money that a shop-keeper would take in from spring to fall to replenish his stock. He was compelled to take for his pay anything which could be traded for,—bacon, flour, beef, wool, butter, and eggs. One old-time store-keeper once wittingly told us that in the winter his customers traded him their bacon and flour for cloth and groceries, and in the summer they exchanged their wool and butter for bacon and flour back again to see them to the fall. In this matter of exchange each community had a specialty. Ligonier Valley, in the earliest times, furnished nearly all the seed potatoes, for which settlers sometimes went a journey of two and three days, 5 and in later times its staple was maple-sugar. On the western side of the Ridge corn and oats were raised. It was, therefore, at one time' customary to exchange the spring production of sugar and molasses for corn and oats. 6

Up to the end of the century Pennsylvania was the only State with any surplus grain-producing territory west of the mountains. To convert this grain into money was the reasonable object. As a consequence we have the origin of the whiskey manufacture through Western Pennsylvania, which at one time obtained such extensive proportions and the taxing of which, as is well known, led almost to domestic war.

Before and during the Revolution whiskey was a staple article of trade ; and in 1784, after the close of the war, Turnbull, Marmie & Co., ironmongers of Philadelphia, sent an invoice of stills to Craig, Bayard & Co., merchants of Pittsburgh. At about the same time, in a letter from an agent of the latter house at their salt-works at Beaver, the writer advises them to send him three barrels of whiskey and one of rum, and complains that for his want of these his neighbor gets all the skins and furs. The Philadelphia firm furnished, perhaps, the majority of stills for the western counties, and finding their general business so profitable here they were induced to come out and begin the iron business first in these parts. When coin was almost unknown and paper-money valueless, as it was for some years after the peace, a whiskey-still was as necessary as a mill. If there was no money to buy one, a farm or a part of a farm was traded for one. The net proceeds from a good still before the laying

6 Maple- (or home-made) sugar was trucked out on horses. We may thus come to the origin of a common saying, still used, although not frequently, in some pelts. It is to be observed that some horses, particularly those raised in a thinly-settled district, have a habit of stopping at every house along the roadeide. A horse doing so in the thicker-settled parts was called a "augar horse," by which it was inferred he was from that region which produced sugar, and was habituated to stop at every door. When we first heard such a usage of the word it had, we confess, no meaning.

of the excise was, as we have seen, considerably more than of most farms. There were then still-houses literally anywhere, nearly every fifth or sixth farm having a copper still. Judge Veech states that at one time there were five hundred and seventy-two stills in the western counties. The farmer who had one manufactured the whiskey for his neighbor who had none, on the shares. So much grain was left, and so much whiskey returned. These still-houses were small affairs, sometimes of only one little still, but oftener of two, the one for singlings and the other for doublings. The stills were set up in the cellar, in the upper part of the spring-house, or in a near out-house.

As a consequence the use of whiskey was universal. The quality was good, the taste pleasant, its effect agreeable. Store-keepers kept liquor on their counters and sold it in their stores, and the women customers used it as well as the men. Farmers kept barrels of it in their cellars. It was sometimes drank with tansy, mint, or maple-sugar, but mostly taken straight. It was good for fevers, it was good for a decline, it was good for ague, it was good for snake-bites. There was nothing named in the materia medica but old whiskey possessed some of its curative properties. On the testimony of Col. Crockett, it made one warm in winter and cool in summer. It was used at all gatherings.1 Bottles of it were set out on the table at christenings and at wakes. At funerals in the winter season huge coffee-boilers and buckets of warm whiskey-punch were passed around and the people invited to drink, and tin-cups were filled and carried from time to time to the bearers. Ministers drank it. The biographers of Rev. McMillan, who ascribe all virtues to his character, relate the following incident. When on his way to Presbytery in company with the Rev. Joseph Patterson they stopped to water their horses at a public-house, when to compensate the landlord for his courtesy they stopped to take a drink. When the whiskey was poured into the glass Mr. Patterson proposed to ask a blessing before they drank. This was not objected to by the doctor, but as the grace was protracted he not only drank his own glass off but reached for Mr. Patterson's and drank his too. When his brother looked blankly after he had finished, the "cardinal" said to him that he must not henceforth forget to watch as well as pray. On an occasion when Bishop Onderdonk came to Greensburg to administer confirmation, before going to church he went into the bar-room of Rhorer's hotel in full canonicals and called for and drank off a tumbler of strong brandy without giving offense to the faithful. Rev. Father McGirr's drink was whiskey-punch, of which it is said he could drink with any of his day without giving scandal.

1 In en account of the Fourth of July celebration at Washington Furnace in 1811, printed at length in the Register, it says, " After partaking of a handsome and wholesome repast, and drinking some whiskey mixed with pure water," etc. Delicately put, but " O tempora, O mores I"

These examples are cited merely for the object of illustrating how wide-spread was the custom of using stimulants.

As a consequence whiskey was used by nearly all. The government gave regular rations of it to the soldiers, and these rations were increased at the time of the insurrection, a bait thrown out to the people to do their distilling in accordance with the law. At a time much later than the era of the Revolution, when money was scarce and labor plenty, it is said that many farmers could have the services of laboring men during the whole of the winter season for their bed and board. They went to work with a dram of whiskey and tansy and a piece of bread and butter. On this they worked till breakfast. At every meal the bottle was taken by the neck ; for whiskey was all that whiskey is now and coffee, tea, and beer besides.

We may go even farther than we have gone in producing examples to show how wide-spread the habit of using domestic liquors had grown among those people. It was a habit easily acquired, because the use of the spirit was general, its quality attractive, and its constituent substances pure and unadulterated. The heavy overhung skies of their long, dreary winters, their exposed occupations, and the scarceness of attractive or agreeable diversions are sufficient causes for its usage, which although general was not inordinate. In addition to these reasons which are apparent to us they had others of their own. The aptness of quite a majority of these people at quoting Scripture texts, particularly those found in the Hebrew writings, is well known. Some of these texts they had at their tongue's end, and could refer to them on any and every occasion. They therefore doubtless cited the sixth and seventh verses of the thirty-first chapter of Proverbs, " Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more." This text, by the way, was a familiar one to the Scotch of the time of Burns, and as many of them were familiar with his songs, they no doubt had by heart the one dedicated to Scotch drink :

There was a time in the early history of Southwestern Pennsylvania when whiskey was the one commodity that had a standard value, and all the mediums of barter and exchange, such as corn, salt, tobacco, and so forth, were valued in accordance with the amount of whiskey they would fetch. " Old rye" was exchanged at the grocery for tea, coffee, household utensils, and farming implements. At all public gatherings it gurgled copiously from all sorts of jugs, and was guzzled by all sorts of men, women, and children.

It bought farms, as now it frequently loses them, and I the consideration which passed for many a tract of land now of great value was chiefly made up in whiskey and whiskey-stills. A great proportion of the very foremost men' of the early settlements were engaged in its manufacture, of which we shall have occasion to say something in our relation of the Whiskey Insurrection. But this is not all : the contributions to the support of some of the early ministers were paid to church committees, in some instances, in spirits of domestic manufacture, and in the district beyond the Youghiogheny, in that district where churches were more plentiful, they recall instances where it paid the debts of the church.

Its manufacture was in the earliest times immediately under the control of the courts, although an excise law was enacted in Pennsylvania in very early times, as farther on we shall see. But these excise laws were not in force, for upon a prosecution and conviction the State usually remitted the penalties, and during the times of the Revolution the justices from time to time allowed those engaged in the traffic on the frontier to do so without paying the fines which were imposed.1

The courts, we have seen, licensed the keepers of public-houses, fixed their number, and regulated the price of the several liquors and the price of lodging. It would be a curious diversion to follow up the prices put upon whiskey by the gill from 1773 to the beginning of our century. It would be the " indicator" for all marketable products. Without going over the whole ground, we observe that of the rates fixed at the July sessions of 1783 " diet and meal was one shilling sixpence ; oats per quart, two and one-half pence ; hay, twenty-four hours, one shilling three pence;" while in 1802 the court fixed whiskey at three pence per gill, oats at two pence by the quart, and hay for a horse by the night one shilling.'

At March sessions in 1795 we see that "the court proceeded to regulate the number of tavern-keepers for the county for the year ensuing." They then al-

1 In the Quarter Sessions there is the record of several informations made against Edward Cook, Esq., one of the justices, for distilling spirits. These were generally quashed by the court or thrown out by the jury. See July session, 1779.

" Phila., Sat. June 19, 1784. . . . Certain persons convicted of selling spirituous liquors. . . . It was ordered that in consideration of the peculiar distresses to which the Inhabitants on the frontiers have been reduced during the late war, the several 44 respective fines as judged to be paid to the use of the State by Persons before mentioned be remitted.

"JAMES TRIMBLE for JOHN ARMSTRONG, Junior, Treasurer. "Copied August 9, 1784, by James Brison"

A justice could not keep an inn or tavern, but their relatives might. Hanna had his daughter, Jean Hanna, recommended to sell spirituous liquors at more than one of the sessions.

lowed eight for the town of Greensburg ; for the Glade road, inclusive, and south of it, eight ; between the Pittsburgh road (the old State road) and the Glade road, six between the Pittsburgh road, inclusive, and the north, twelve ; in all, thirty-four. The number fixed in March, 1796, for the county was forty. 3

We do not know whether it arose from observation, experience, or an intimate knowledge of the peculiar connection between our judicial system, and our great staple which impelled Achilles Murat, when a visitor here, to say in jest that " whiskey was the best part of the American government." At one time it certainly was a very important element in the government.. As a factor in politics, and as a lubricator to assist the civil machinery to run easier, its importance was long recognized. Among the traditions of the bar one still remains how the old-time lawyer kept a bottle in his office, and how, when the attorneys met together in the prothonotary's office to make up the trial-list, there were always a bottle of whiskey set on the table and a hundred toby cigars. The same was invariably done when the sheriff held his inquisition for the extension or partition of real estate, and the whiskey and cigars were all the pay the jurors received, and all they expected to receive. After a time the whiskey was discarded, and they were restricted to dinner and cigars. The only fee the constable looked for in keeping the window on election-day was enough whiskey for himself and for his friends to drink at the expense of the standing candidates; and, indeed, about the only proper expense the candidate was put to was to supply the electors with the stimulant.

That the change in sentiment respecting the use of intoxicating drink has been great, and that the change has been for the better is an averment which perhaps will not be gainsaid. At one time it was here considered to the detriment of a man in public business to be an avowed temperance man. Half the best farms now owned by men who are prohibitionists were once purchased by the proceeds of the whiskey-still. He was an exceptionally prominent man of the neighborhood who did not either manufacture or sell whiskey. The very great proportion of people used whiskey as a beverage without compunction of conscience ; and those who had compunction of conscience evidenced a wonderful liability to be bitten by snakes. The frequency of snake-bites was indeed a matter of unexplainable Curiosity for a later and more pious generation. But great as are tconscience intemperance at this day, there is no better evidence needed to measure the opinion and the sentiment of the ruling element in that particular than to observe who compose the class now addicted to public intemperance and compare it with the drinking class of fifty and eighty years ago.

Grist-mills were few compared with whiskey-stills, but there were some of these erected by the earliest settlers. Several were known at points in 1771, but it was not for many years that these mills ground anything. like the Tull amount of grain raised. There were many small hand-mills, which, being movable affairs, were carried about from one part of the country to another. The grist-mills themselves were but one-horse concerns, and truly in some places, where the water-power was not enduring, the wheels were turned by the machinery attached to the tread-wheel. The first mills were called tub-mills, taking the name from the tub-shaped hopper into which the grain was put, and from which we have the names of Tub Run and Tub Creek, given to various streams.

Among the reasons advanced by the petitioners in some of the first petitions for roads was the necessity of having them to get to mill: It is recited in one of these that the inhabitants had to go twenty miles to Henry Beeson's mill, and in all probability they would ever have to do so. This mill was a tub-mill, and the pit of it is still visible in Uniontown. Beeson was a blacksmith, and made his customers dig at the race while they waited till their plow-irons were sharpened. This mill was said to have been the second one in the region now of the county of Fayette, Philip Shute's mill on Shute's Run being the first. These were before 1773.

St. Clair had a mill on Mill Creek, in Ligonier Valley, running about this time. A notice of St. Clair's mill may be seen in the Quarter Sessions' docket for 1774. St. Clair had built a mill some time before that in Cumberland County. About this time William Bracken built a mill on Black Lick, and about 1773, Samuel Moorhead commenced building a mill on Stony Run, on the other side of the Kiskiminetas, but before it was completed the settlers thereabout were driven off by the hostiles. The next year they returned and finished it.

There were several mills about this time along the streams which empty into the Ohio on the south side, and not far from the Point. Saw-Mill Run was known by that name prior to 1771. Among the other mills within our own county or immediately near were Cherry's mill, afterwards Lobingier's, on Jacobs Creek ; Machlin's mill, on the Youghiogheny ; Denniston's mill and Soxman's mill, both of these on the Loyalhanna, the former on the site of New Alexandria, and the latter below Latrobe ; Jones' mill, on Indian Creek ; Wallace's mill, on the Conemaugh ; Perry's mill, either upon or near to the Kiskiminetas; and Irwin's mill, on Brush Creek. Perhaps riot one of these had stone burrs. Judge Addison in his charge to the grand jury of Allegheny County on Sept. 1, 1794, remarking the unprecedented growth and development of the country for some few years, says that three years before, or about 1791, there was hardly a burr mill-stone in this whole country, and then there were perhaps a dozen.

When the boy took his grist to mill he usually waited till it was ground, and sometimes the miller would keep him overnight. The rule was to take a day going to mill. The mention made in the petition quoted of going twenty miles to mill may appear unusual, but it was not unusual, and even fifty years later than the date of that paper a neighbor was thought to be favorably situated who lived within five miles of a mill.

The water-mills could not, on an average, work more than six months in the year. The only intimation we have yet met with of a wind-mill for grinding is in a letter dated at Pittsburgh, July 25, 1784, from Maj Craig, in which he says he is convinced their best plan is to build a wind-mill at the junction of the rivers instead of a horse-mill to do the grinding for their distillery, and at other times for the inhabitants. At that point there was always a breeze up or down the rivers. 1

The pioneer firm in the iron industry of Western Pennsylvania was Turnbull, Marmie & Co., who had been extensively engaged in the metal and hollowware business in Philadelphia previously, and who for a time carried on their two establishments in conjunction. Among the first and most enterprising mercantile houses in Pittsburgh was the firm of Craig & Bayard. Soon after the Revolution these formed a copartnership with Turnbull, Marmie Co., and in addition to putting the stills and mill castings of this latter firm on the market, erected a distillery, built a saw-mill, and controlled the salt-works on the Big Beaver. The marked success which the firm met with in this new region of country induced them to try the venture of a furnace west of the mountains. Accordingly, about 1790, the works of this firm were in process of erection upon Jacobs Creek, four miles from its mouth on the Fayette side, near Garhart's mill-seat. This was the first furnace in the West. It went into blast Nov. 1, 1790. In 1792 they filled an order for four hundred six-pound

1 In these mills that went by horse-power the farmer had sometimes to furnish the horses as well as pay the toll. Gradually in some parts the mills came to do as much business as the taverns. In some instances they were converted into taverns.

Paul Frowman had a mill near the Monongahela, probably on Chartiers Creek, as appears from the appointment of road viewers, January sessions, 1774. John Cavett's mill is mentioned as early as 1773. It was between AEneas Mackay's plantation ("Dirty Camp") and the Virginia (Braddock's) road, as so styled in petition,—i.e., on Brush Creek.

One of the Perrys had a mill on the east side of the Monongahela quite early, and William Perry's mill was on the Loyalhanna, and the mill-seat and a saw-mill were on a very old improvement. This was afterwards owned by John Kirkpatrick, who purchased it at sheriff's sale in 1792.

Samuel Moorhead commenced building a mill on Stony Creek, as before mentioned (beyond the Conemaugh), in 1773, "where Andrew Dixon's mill was afterwards situated, but before it was completed the settlers were driven of by the Indians. They fled to what was called. the Sewickley Settlement." (History of Dauphin County.) Gen. Charles Campbell in 1792 had a mill on Black Lick Creek, now in Indiana County.

Before grain was ground in mills turned by horse- or water-power it was ground In hand-mills or broken in a mortar.

For some years the furnace did a large business. It was, of course, the centre of capital an labor for that whole region,—a region which, in part, at this day is rugged and uninviting, and which had not from the first attracted to it a community noted for thrift or energy. It controlled the price of labor for the whole locality, and furnished employment for many hands. But the firm went under, for what reason, outside of indiscreet management, is not known, and at this day the half-crumbled-away stone stack, with weeds and hazels and vines growing about it, is as picturesque a sight as one meets with in that country. Connected with it is the romantic story of Marmie, the sporting Frenchman, who committed suicide by jumping into the open mouth of the burning furnace, after driving in his dogs of the chase before him. Shamed in living, and broken in hope, desire, and fortune, he met the fate of the unfortunate, dying by his own hand. Many stories may be gathered from credulous persons in the neighborhood, who have heard them by the winter fires, about the strange sights which have been seen, and the strange noises heard by nights propitious for them in the haunted and abandoned place. Here they will tell you, if not in the language yet in the spirit, how, in the foggy moonlight,

" shadowed their mind's eye." So abhorred and so secluded became the place that—so it is credibly asserted—for a long time a gang of counterfeiters pursued their calling unmolested and unwatched among its ruins.

Between the erection of this furnace and the close of the century there were other furnaces erected in Fayette County, the Oliphants indeed claiming the first one blown in, but we think without sufficient authority.3 Perhaps the first one, after Turnbull & Marmie's, within our county was the Westmoreland Furnace, near Laughlinstown, in Ligonier Valley, on

1 From a petition at the April session of 1790 it appears that the ironworks at Jacobs Creek were "then erecting," and were known as "Alliance Furnace."

The firm was then composed of Messrs: Halker, Turner, and Marmie, and the ruins of it, as stated, are to be seen at this day. The two former were Philadelphia merchants, and the latter a Frenchman, who came to America during the Revolution as the private secretary of Lafayette, who liked the country and remained in it. The iron manufactured was known as the cold short iron, the only grade then produced from our native ores.

3 For much information on the subject of iron industry we are indebted to James M. Swank, Esq.'s very interesting and instructive "History of Iron-Making and Coal-Mining in Western Pennsylvania," wherein the subject is treated to its full extent.

Mr. Swank, on local misinformation, locates Westmoreland Furnace on the Four-Mile Ron.

Col. John McFarland, a prominent contractor in his earlier days, but now retired and residing in Ligonier, reported that he used iron made at the Westmoreland.

Laurel Ran, a branch of the Loyalhanna, which was built about 1792 by John Probst, who also built a small forge about the same time. Neither the furnace nor the forge was long in operation, both probably ceasing to make iron about 1810. On the 1st of August, 1795, George Anshutz, manager of Westmoreland Furnace, advertised stoves and castings for sale.

Gen. Arthur St. Clair, who prior to that time had engaged in the iron business east of the mountains, built Hermitage Furnace, on Mill Creek, two miles northeast of Ligonier, on the road to Johnstown. The date of the erection of this furnace is not accurately known, but it may be fixed between 1803 and 1806, for the reason that at the first date St. Clair ceased to be Governor of the Northwestern Territory, and in 1806 the furnace was in blast, as is witnessed by an advertisement in the Farmer's Register of Nov. 21,1806. The advertisement was headed " Hermitage Furnace in Blast," and was signed by Henry Weaver & Son, who were general merchants in Greensburg at that time. It read as follows:

"The subscribers, being appointed agents by Gen. A. St. Clair for the sale of his castings generally, and for the borough of Greensburg exclusively, give notice that they will contract with any person or persons for the delivery of castings and stoves for any number- of tone on good terms. Samples of the castings and stoves to be seen at their store in Greensburg any time after the 20th instant."

The ruins of the stack are still lying about the site. They are but a few hundred yards from the former residence of the general, whence he dated his correspondence still preserved in the " Archives." It was by the side of the old military road to Hannastown, and not far off the track of the highway may be discovered along the hillside.

In 1810, in the storm that wrecked the worldly fortunes of this illustrious citizen, Hermitage Furnace passed out of the hands of Gen. St. Clair, and for some time thereafter it stood idle. In 1816 it was again started by O'Harra & Scully, under the management of John Henry Hopkins. 4 In October, 1817, Mr. Hopkins

4 John Henry Hopkins was subsequently the bishop of Vermont, and president bishop of the Episcopal Church in America. He was justly distinguished in his day for learning and piety. He created a great sensation about the breaking out of our civil war by the publication of a work giving a scriptural view of slavery. He was a member of the Pan-Anglican Council at Lambeth Palace, and was created a doctor of civil law by the University of Oxford. In his life by his son there is narrated his experience as clerk and manager at Hermitage Furnace, and a graphic account of his trip from Ligonier to Youngstown, in which their coach broke down in the night, and the party were compelled to walk a distance down the Ridge to the shelter of the village inn.

AXES.—The early axes were rude and clumsy affairs to those which we now have. They were two, three, and four times as large. The first imported ones were the Yankee axe, from about 1812 to 1820. They were Fold at from six to ten dollars. They were single-bitt, and the double-bitt did not come into use till ten years after.

NAILS.—Shortly after the beginning of the century there were in different parts of the county regular "nailers" engaged in the manufacturing of nails for house-work. etc. In 1817 nails were cut in Indiana borough. Here are some of the prices: 2-inch shingling nails, 371 cents per pound ; clap-board, 25 cents per pound ; brads, 18 cents per pound.