Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

EARLY LIVING

The pioneer Maries County family was more self-contained than the electric refrigerator. It had to be. Nothing was furnished it except a wilderness, and this wilderness, plus the exertions of the individual members of the family, furnished the living, or else it was not furnished. Neither the pioneer nor his wife thought this living was so hard to get. They had the advantages of having been trained to manhood and womanhood by parents who were themselves pioneers and the descendants of pioneers for several generations back. The problems they met were all a part of the day's work and were to be treated and oversome as such.

Having selected a home site, preferably close enough to a spring so as not to be too far for the 'old woman' and the 'younguns' to carry water, the man

proceeded to build a house of logs, notched at the ends so as to lie close together. The spaces between the logs were 'p'inted' with mud after smaller pieces of wood had been placed between the logs. Sometimes the logs were hewn down flat, but generally they were not. Aside from handiness to water, these houses were almost always located in the bottom or not very far up the slope, for very little timber grew here when the first settlers came, and that little was entirely in the bottoms. Logs for the few upland houses came from the bottoms, and their large size gave rise to the legend that our ridges were once heavily timbered, but this is incorrect.

The walls being up, the door--usually only one-was made out of whipsawed boards fastened to the wall by pins or leather hinges. Doors hung on metal hinges and houses 'p'inted' with mortar were above the average and out of the ordinary. If the house had a window, it was usually only a hole in the wail covered by a wooden shutter. If it were otherwise, it was likely closed with a piece of scraped buckskin. There was no window glass.

He covered his house with clapboards, riven out of the choicest timber near him, preferably burr oak, with a froe. Sometimes they were shaved down with a drawing knife. These boards were almost invariably made in the dark of the moon, so that they would lay flat; if made at any other time, people thought they would curl up at the edges and let the water in.

The one thing about the home he was most particular about was his fireplace. It stood at one end of the building, and need for shelter had to be very great and immediate if he did not build it out of stone; dressed stone, carefully matched and fitted, if he had the time. He used stone as it came from the quarry if he had less time, and a stick-and-mud makeshift if winter was nearly upon him, to be replaced by a better one as soon as possible, If his house were above ordinary size, and he

had plenty time, he liked to have two fireplaces, one at each end, so that the heat and light could be better distributed. When carefully built the fireplaces were almost indestructible. One on the Crismon place near Tavern is still standing as straight and true as the day it was built, although the building it heated has been gone for forty years.

After these main parts of his building were completed, he finished the inside. The door was made of whipsawed planks fastened together with wooden pins and held shut by a wooden latch dropped into a slot in the door facing, on the inside. A string from this latch ran through a small hole in the door above it and hung down on the outside, hence the term 'the latch-string's hangin' out.' Pulling the string inside made getting into the house quite difficult, as the old man sometimes found out when he came home too far along with liquor. The door was further protected by a wooden bar across it.

Two pegs, or in some cases, deer horns, over the door provided a resting place for the rifle, the powder horn and accessories hung on one of them. An iron bar was fastened across the fireplace, some pegs were driven into the walls at various handy places, and the one room was ready for occupancy. But this one-room house was frequently twenty-four by twenty-four feet, or even larger, and had more room in it than the average four-room cottage today.

The house was now ready to be furnished. The furnishings were likely to be somewhat scanty. A cord bed, the sideboards waist high, occupied a corner; sometimes there were two or three of them. Their height left room for a trundle-bed under each one, each accommodating from two to six children of assorted sizes. A spinning wheel (sometimes two, one for flax and one for wool, a loom that was taken apart and set out of the way when not in use, and some kind of quilting frames were part of the necessary equipment. A table,

used for both cooking and dining, a few homemade splint-bottomed chairs, and some benches for the children were included.

Among the household articles would be found a 'slut' which was a long, narrow, shallow pitcher with a long spout; the pitcher was filled with grease--'most any kind of grease--and a piece of cloth was twisted up and laid in it, the end hanging over the end of the spout. When the end of the string was ignited, they had a lamp. Sometimes their equipment included moulds for making candles, too. A few pots and pans for cooking, enough plates and platters to go 'round, with knives, forks, and spoons. 'Hand cards' for both flax and wool were also necessary. There were few kitchen utensils aside from those actually used in cooking. But the newcomers nearly always had, or could get, gourd seed; so that by next fall the housewife had gourd-storage for salt, if any, sugar, if any, coffee, if any, and other articles. If she did not have any of these things in the gourds, she had the gourds anyway.

Any clothing belonging to the family and not in actual use was hung on the pegs and the pioneer was then at home and ready to take up the serious business of making a living for his family. Such livestock as he had was usually sheltered under a rough frame covered with brush, especially the first year. He built a stable in the course of time--maybe.

Meat made up the main portion of the diet of the pioneers, and large game, now limited to an occasional deer, was both plentiful and easy to get. It was likely that George Snodgrass and other early settlers dined on buffalo meat, and that cured bear meat--'bear bacon'--helped out in the winter. The buffalo moved west, however, and bear were never plentiful, so the main meat reliance after the first few years was venison and turkey. Venison included elk, which were fairly numerous when the first settlers came. Panthers were

numerous, also, and not much afraid of man. One pioneer woman beat one in a foot race to her door by a narrow margin and then had to build a fire in the fireplace to keep the beast from coming down the chimney. Beavers were here too, and a few places along the streams are said to still show the remains of the dams they built. The early settlers reported almost unbelievable numbers of wild pigeons, but none have been seen here since about the close of the Civil War.

To get this game the pioneer had to have a rifle--there were few, if any, shotguns--and he had to keep it in good repair. If by any mischance he broke it, Gabrial Fann, Richard Slater, Porty Wiseman, Maston Skaggs, or one of a half-dozen others could fix it for him, or make a new one if ne needed it. If his gun were merely 'leaded' he could fix it himself, for all it needed was to have several shots of pewter bullets fired out of it, which cleaned the barrel as good as new. However, the only pewter in the country was in the form of an occasional dish or spoon, or other kitchen utensil, and while he occasionally got away with some small article of it to clean his beloved gun, it was only after a family row, for most of the pewter coming here had been buried during the Revolutionary War to escape a similar use.

The pioneer usually had some hogs, too, but they ran wild in the woods and killing one was a good deal like killing any other wild game. Sometimes it was easier to find a deer, although he did usually try to round up and kill a few acorn-fattened ones for his winter meat supply when the weather became cold. The meat was salted, then smoked in a fire made of hickory chips, and hung in the smokehouse, if there was one; if not, then in the loft of the dwelling. If the family, or the neighborhood, was lucky enough to have a sausage mill the odds and ends of the meat were ground into sausage, packed in corn shucks--if there were any shucks--and smoked and put away with the cured meat.

The meat supply, the main living, having been provided, the family eked out their meals with anything that was edible. The head of the house tended a crop of corn, generally of no great size. The fields were not large because, for one reason, they had to be fenced against the stock and wild animals, especially deer, and making rails is no easy job. And, then, fence building had to be done in the dark of the moon, otherwise the 'ground chunk' would soon sink into the ground and decay. All told, fencing was a lot of bother to the pioneer, but it had to be done. If the field were not too big, he sometimes took a short cut on the fencing by chopping trees down all around the field, falling them on each other until the resulting brush pile was Impassable. If this brush fence rotted away in a few years he could always cut more trees on it; there were always plenty of trees. If and when he fenced a piece of land, he needed an entrance that could be closed, he drove two posts in the ground on either side of the passway and laid poles between them until the gap was closed. They were taken down when he needed to enter or leave the field, and then replaced. This was a 'slip-gap,' if taking down and replacing eight or ten ten-foot poles every time he moved in or out of the field did not appeal to him, he made a gate. Cutting a long pole, he 'barked' it, made boards out of slabs riven from larger timber, and fastened them on the small end of the pole, which had a hole burned or bored through it where he thought the center of the weight would be. One of the gateposts was hewn down to a pin on top, and the whole gate was hung on this pin. It was intended that the back end of the pole should slightly outweigh the front end with the gate on it, which made it easier for the 'younguns' to handle. If it did not do so, he tied rocks on the back end until it did. A pin stuck in the other post over the top bar kept the gate shut and also held it down. Once in a while the gate pin was greased, or an old bacon rind stuck in the hole, but usually not often enough to keep any neighbors inside of a mile from knowing every time

the gate was opened. But he heard his neighbor's gate squeaking, too, so it was a stand-off.

The pioneer's stock of tools was as scanty as his wife's household outfit. A plow, generally a strap of iron fastened on a wooden post, was the major piece of equipment, and a hoe or two made up the rest. Sometimes he had horses to work and sometimes oxen. Also, he sometimes took the need of his livestock into consideration in figuring the size of the crop to be put in, but most times he decided the wild grass would support the animals through the winter. It generally did, too, and it was only in the severest blizzards that he had to 'tromp down' the snow so they could reach forage. He estimated his need for corn bread for his dependants allowing a generous supply for hominy, and considered furnishing these and the meat to be most of his share of making the living. Any vegetables, fruits, and other delicacies--'spoon vittles'--was strictly up to the 'old woman' and the 'younguns'.

The garden was the joint affair of every member of the family except the head. He plowed it, if one of the boys was not old enough, and the 'old woman' and the children tended it. They raised potatoes, beans, and on ions for staples. In addition every garden had its section devoted to camomile, tansy sage, and such other medicinal herbs as seed could be had for. Nearly everyone had some fruit after a few years, mostly raised from apple, peach, and pear seeds brought with them from favorite trees in Tennessee. Hoarhound and mullein grew wild; gooseberries, blackberries, huckleberries, strawberries, plums, and crabapples grew wild and were used when in season. Apples, peaches, and onions were dried in the sun (on the house roof if one of the children was big enough to put them up there and get them down again in a hurry when it threatened rain) and stored away for use in winter. Cans and canning were unknown, hence any winter fruit was something nature could preserve. The vegetables were buried in

holes in the ground and taken out as used, If they hadn't frozen.

Incidentally, dried apples and peaches were our first capsules, and many of our present day citizens can recall the times a horse-dose of calomel or blue mass was introduced into their systems wrapped in a dried peach or apple. Most of them don't like driedfruit to this day, either. Emery Allison recalls that if dried fruit was not available, as was frequently the case, the inner bark of the 'slipry ellum' was soaked in water until the resulting ooze was almost the consistency of putty when the medicinal dose was folded inside it. The nurse seized the patient's nose, and when the mouth was opened for breath the whole parcel was placed on the tongue. This form had one great advantage over giving medicine in dried fruit--the elm bark was so slick the patient couldn't help swallowing it!

Any poultry raising was the 'old woman's' job too. Chickens she might have, ducks were more likely, but geese were almost a certainty. 'Goose-hair' supplied the featherbeds and pillows, the pride of every housewifely heart. They also furnished eggs, and, occasionally, meat. This latter event was rare, however, and never without considerable uproar from the lady who owned them. Geese furnished so many things necessary to her that killing one of them was not to be thought of except in cases of proven necessity.

If the head of the house owned any livestock other than horses or oxen, the next likeliest was sheep, chiefly valuable for their wool from which most of the family clothing was made, for all the family except the head, that is. He likely had a home-grown, home-carded, homespun, home-woven and homemade woolen suit for special occasions. But so far as he was concerned he preferred buckskin; the wool was 'too darned scratchy' in his opinion, underwear not being one of his weaknesses.

Flax was grown but not every year, it being cultivated according to an estimate of the family needs for a few years ahead, and cloth being prepared at one time for that period. It was not popular with the head of the house either, and for the same reason. A little cotton was grown here, too, from time to time, but generally speaking it did not do so well, being a little too far north for it. A great part of the family clothing needs soon began to be filled when the tradingposts started to bring in 'factory' (domestic) for their customers. The housewife bought it white and dyed to suit herself with the various vegetable dyes known to her from use on the linen and woolen cloth she wove. Also, by lining his trousers with it she gradually eased the head of the house out of his beloved buckskins.

The only vacation the head of the house allowed himself from the above program was in early spring when he tapped any sugar maple trees that might be handy and brought home the sap to be 'biled down' into maple sugar and sometimes syrup by the 'old woman.' Sugar maples, while fairly plentiful, never furnished enough sap to make maple sugar an article of commerce for the early settlers. Almost all the bottomland had some trees, and in a few places, at the mouth of Long Creek and on the east side of the river at Indian Ford, among others, they were numerous enough to justify making camps to work up the sap. C. C. Myers remembers keeping the cattle out of the sap at the latter place while it was being gathered to 'bile off.' Another regular camp was located on Sugar Creek, just over the line in present Osage County from the Willie Roberds farm. This camp had a tannery as an added attraction. The first of the sap collected was boiled down into sugar that crumbled in the fingers, and was the highest sugar content. The second run was also made into sugar, of not quite such good quality, the sap being boiled until very thick and then poured into almost anything available to cool and become cake sugar. The third run, which

was weaker than the first and second, was 'biled down' into syrup maple molasses, otherwise known as 'long sweeten in.'

In addition to the Indian Ford camp sugar was also made every year at the mouth of Long Creek, mostly by the Baileys and Greens. Dillard Green called his first run 'preachin' sugar' it being used on the occasions when he was visited by one or another of the roving preachers of that day. They were numerous enough, however, for him to have reported that he was never able to make enough 'preachin' sugar' to last until the next season.

Coursing bees and finding honey came under the head of hunting, because locating the trees where honey was stored could be done on any hunting trip. If he were not ready to remove the honey right then, which he generally wasn't, he marked the tree with his axe or knife to indicate to the next comer that it had already been discovered. And woe betide the scoundrel who cut a beetree after someone else had 'notched' it. It ranked in villainy almost on a par with 'entering out' a man, i. e., buying (entering) land from the government on which another man had made improvements, but which he had not yet entered. Honey was generally kept for home use, being 'too gaumy' to be easily handled, but beeswax was an important part of the early day 'truck and trade' of the country. These sidelines, together with raising a little patch of sugarcane, to be ground and made into molasses, were admitted to be part of his regular duties.

It can be seen that if anyone had the best of the bargain in the early day living arrangements, it was the head of the house. His time was not unduly taken up with making a living, and he could always use the excuse that they needed meat anytime the spirit moved him to go hunting. His wife's time, however, was fully taken up. Most of the things used by the family were

made by her, and by the time her necessary tasks were done she had little time for anything else. One of her spare time duties was attending the occasional dances held in the neighborhood. Not that she particularly wanted to go, as a general thing, but because her presence was usually needed sometime in the course of the festivities, especially if some scamp had introduced a jug of drinkin' whiskey into the party. After it had been partly disposed of, anything was liable to happen, and suddenly. Her presence was supposed to prevent her husband from going to extremes with a real or fancied enemy. It didn't always work that way, but it was supposed to and as a general thing it did. Many a known bad man of the community sat down and thought things over after a warning look or word from his better half. Sometimes he argued the point and won out; sometimes he carried the marks of the argument for several days.

The worst of it was, from the man's point of view, that while differences of opinion as to physical prowess were conducted most decorously among the men, all rules were suspended when family differences arose, as witness the call made by a half-grown girl on one of her Little Tavern neighbors. The girl came in, was greeted and made welcome by the housewife, the usual kindly inquiries made as to the health and well-being of the two families, and after these rules of courtesy had been observed, the visitor got down to business.

"Ma said she wisht you'd have yore man come over to our house an' see about pa," she requested.

Her hostess cordially agreed to call her husband and send him right over. "What's the matter with youre pa?" she inquired.

"Ma poleaxed him this mornin'," the girl replied, "and he's been layin' in the kitchen door right plumb in the way ever since. Ma wants to know if your man thinks he is possumin', and if he is, she aims to scald him."

For the benefit of the underprivileged who are not acquainted with Ozarkese, a man was said to have been 'pole-axed' when hit with any weapon capable of inflicting a wound comparable to one made by the hammer side of a single-bit axe. In other words, when he was completely knocked out.

Fist fights among men were of common occurrence, the gathering of any sort, except 'meetins' at which at least one did not occur being out of the ordinary. The queer thing from the modern viewpoint about most of the encounters was that the battlers were not the least bit mad at each other, had had no previous trouble and generally remained firm friends afterward. Indeed, the closest friendships existing between men of that day were between two men who had fought to a draw--perhaps more than once. Quarrels entered into some fights, liquor into some, general cussedness into some, and sometimes a man was soundly whipped for cause; but more than half the fights were simply to see which was the better man. If the battlers were of considerable standing and had a following of believers, these fights took on a good deal of ceremony, and at Vienna, Grove Dale, Stony Point, Spencer's Mill, and Coppedge's Mill, where a large part of the encounters occurred, most of them were held under roughly 'standard' conditions. The fight was matched anywhere from a day to two weeks beforehand; each fighter had a second who had to be a good fighter himself, and the seconds were permitted, even supposed, to be armed; pistols were not reliable those days and rifles were obviously in the way; so the seconds usually armed themselves with bowie knives.

The day of the battle having arrived, each second took his principal to a secluded spot where he made ready for battle. He was stripped to the waist, his hair cut as short as could be, his body and head greased, and he was admonished of any flaws in his opponent's technique that might have come to the notice of the second. The principals were then presented and searched for

weapons, the seconds armed themselves, and gave the word for the fight to begin. Rounds were unknown, also rules; each man did the best he could with the weapons nature gave him until one of them was licked and said so, or his second said it for him.

During the battle the seconds not only saw to it that their principals had fair play and the benefit of their advice, but enforced the former--and this is where their knives came in. More than often a partisan of one or the other of the combatants 'showed foul play' by endeavoring to help the man of his choice, in which case it was the duty of either second to discourage him in any handy way. If two jumped in, both seconds acted. If a 'whole passel' took a hand, the seconds used their knives. For this reason, selecting seconds who were known to be willing to use knives if necessary kept down the disturbances. On rare occasions the seconds had to 'correct' each other, and there are a few times recorded when the principals has to cut their own affair short and come to the rescue of the seconds. As a general rule, however, the fight was fair and without interference, and after one had 'hollered' hostilities ceased and the whole crowd adjourned to the saloon, where the fighters drank to each other's continued good health and strength. After this ritual had been observed it was the further duty of the seconds to return to the scene of battle and make at least cursory search for any pieces of fingers, ears, and noses that may have been chewed off in the conflict, it not being considered 'fitten' for their bosses to show any interest in such small matters.

'Meetin' was always attended if it was at all possible, for almost without exception the first settlers were deeply religious. Few buildings set apart for public worship existed in an early day, and services were usually held in the house of some church member in the winter and spring months; and it made no difference whether or not the minister was of the faith of the householder. In the summer and fall some central point was

used, generally with a brush arbor, where an 'eatin' meetin' was held monthly or oftener. A dance might be subject to interruption if the occasion demanded, but the utmost decorum prevailed at any church service of this nature. Any sky-larking indulged in was reserved for camp meeting, which was held as regularly as the seasons rolled 'round, generally in August but anytime from that to cold weather. Anywhere from ten days to three weeks of preaching were indulged in, people coming from twenty and more miles and camping out during the meeting, hence the name. During the time the church members 'worked on' such of the ungodly as showed any sign of repentance, bringing them to the altar for prayer amid the whoops and hallelujahs of the family and friends, and where the congregation joined in the general hand-shaking and congratulating the new member.

Sometimes some of the young folks were interested, too, but usually the church interest was taken by the older persons while the young people took the occasion to extend their acquaintance with people of their own age for miles around who had been attracted to the gathering. Most of the time this association was harmless; sometimes, after the fashion of young folks, it wasn't so free from blame, and the old man's statement that at these camp meetings there were 'thust about as many souls made as they is saved' came to be almost a proverb. Sometimes, too, scandal occurred among the old folks, who were supposed to be above ordinary temptations. In fact, an illegitimate child, whether born in or out of wedlock, was commonly referred to as a 'camp meetin' baby.'

One other general gathering the whole neighbor-hood attended was the 'hoss cuttin' and quiltin' party,' held at some central place. The housewife in whose home it was held got out her quilting frames, the women of the neighborhood cooked, quilted, and gossipped, the men loafed, bragged, and occasionally fought, while the local 'hoss doctor' altered the colts that had been

assembled for the occasion. Everybody had a good time except the colts.

In addition to the public activities, many times the family work was turned into a public affair by merely sending out word. Quilting, molasses making, and the like were mostly feminine in character, but if the old man got lonesome he could always see every man in the neighborhood by holding a shooting match.

One sure and certain thing about the pioneer and his belongings was that their clothes were clean; dirt was as abhorrent to the Maries County housewife a hundred years ago as it is today, and as she did not have a young machineshop to aid her, she simply worked a little harder with the means at hand. The house site had hardly been selected by the head of the house until his wife had picked a place for her outdoor summer laundry--generally a little pool in the branch not far below the spring--thenceforth known as the 'wash place.' Such tubs and other utensils as she might have were taken there and left, three rocks to hold the kettle were put in place and the laundry was ready for use. The only thing taken back to the house was the soap.

This soap was just as much a home product as anything else the family used, and was generally fairly plentiful. Indeed, some of it was sometimes sold and hauled to St. Louis where it was used in the tanneries. Its manufacture really began soon after Christmas, when most housewives began to get captious about the kind of wood furnished for the fireplace, the ashes of which played a large part in the finished soap. Any kind of wood except hickory would do in a pinch, but if she 'had her druthers' it was for red or black oak or black jack.

Once the wood matter was settled to her satisfaction, the head of the house heard about the ash-hopper and what was needed to put it in working operation. This was a V-shaped contraption, usually roughly built of

poles (or planks if they could be had) the bottom ends of which rested in a trough that slanted to the front. A boy, usually the smallest one capable of doing the job, was appointed to the position of hopper-tender, greatly to his sorrow. He removed the ashes from the house daily and piled them in the hopper until it was full, after which his real job began. He was given a bucket according to his size, and for many days thereafter it was his task to trudge back and forth between the spring and the ash-hopper, going uphill loaded and coming down light, and pour water on the ashes until they were saturated and a thin brown stream of the resulting ash-lye began to trickle down the trough in the bottom of the hopper into the pots and pans provided for it. The perch might be making faces at him from every pool in the branch, the sap might be just right for whistles and popguns, and a hundred other things of interest to boys might happen. But they did not happen for him until his mother's craving for ash-lye was satisfied, and this was not until every spare vessel on the place was full, and all of it was strong enough to hold up an egg.

Even then his job was not over. The kettle was brought up from the wash place, a fire built under it, and it was half-filled with the lye. The smokehouse or other storage place was then ransacked, and every bit of scrap meat, bacon-rind, ham hock--in fact all the meat scraps that had accumulated during the winter-were tumbled into the lye. It was his further duty to keep the fire go ing until the lye had dissolved the scraps and united them to form a jelly-like mass whose cleansing properties were beyond question. Any article of clothing plastered with it and scrubbed in hot water was going to come out clean. The old man muttered some about it burning his face when he shaved with it, but for cleaning purposes it did everything it was expected to do. Most of the supply for future use was 'biled down' until it was thick enough to cut into chunks after it cooled.

Ready money was almost non-existent. Neighbors

swapped work, used each other's work stock, and took care of each other in sickness. The land and the forest supplied their few wants. Most of the pioneers who came here settled down at once in their new location and did no more moving, although a few made as high as three trips back to Tennessee before they were finally acclimated. Any journeys taken by the remainder were usually up Piney, where sawmills had begun to be set up to saw the large stands of pine in that country, and where some of the men went at various times to find employment. They not only worked in the timber, but after it was sawed, rafted it down Piney to the Gasconade and down the latter stream until they had peddled out the lumber in such quantities as were needed. Some of the lumber was sold in St. Louis and delivered at the wharf in rafts piloted by many of the earlier men of this county. Their job done, they spent their earnings for such necessities as could not be supplied here, added any luxuries for the family they could afford, and 'hoofed it' home, a four or five day trip up the Illinois Trace.

These people lived in rough times and their way of I living was rough; it had to be, for they had no other way to live. Most of them came here to better their condition, a result they achieved. And they kept the fulfillment of their ideals constantly before them; better homes and better things for their children than they had for themselves. They lived without necessities to pay for schooling their children; they supported the various churches to the best of their ability; they lived as lawabiding lives as the times and circumstances would permit, and, especially the women, never forgot or neglected an opportunity for the advancement of their loved ones.

The words of Gordon Young in his "Days of '49" apply to every mother who walked into Missouri:

"Out of the backwoods they came, hundreds, thousands of these women; uneducated, harsh

of voice, unmannerly in the manner of daintily reared women, but pure in spirit and fearless; they marched on foot in step with fathers, husbands, brothers, reading their Bibles by the light of the campfires, following as surely as did ever the chosen of the Lord the cloud by day, the pillar of fire by night; encompassed by danger, they sang their hymns with the glow of smoldering embers on their faces, and lifted up their faces to the stars, searching out the countenance of God, beseeching his mercy with the words of inviolable faith. They passed through the Valley of the Shadow of Death; miracles attended them and they did not perish, but pressed on, giving courage to those about them, sustained by the strength that is womanhood; and when they reached their journey's end they demanded not gold, but homes, schools for their children and houses of worship for their God."

So lived the first generation of our pioneers, no matter whether they came here in the twenties or in the fifties. Their wants were simple and largely supplied through their own efforts, in case they were not free for the taking in the wilderness. Their shelter was rude but sufficient, and most of them lived out their lives in the houses they built when they first came. Of course, some, even of the very first settlers, came here with money; some had slaves, some had both, but such were only a small percent of the total.

The second generation was somewhat different. By the late eighteen forties and early fifties a large number of farms, mostly along the streams, had considerable acreage in cultivation. The land was rich, and even the crude cultivation of that day yielded abundant crops. The livestock had multiplied and largely increased in value. There were more mills in the country and more wheat being raised, and it occurred to a good many landowners that they had too much property to neglect it, so they

began to build barns. Good ones, too, and large, and most of them had a threshing floor where the wheat was 'tromped out' by horses or oxen, aided by a boy with flails. The 'old woman' was rather particular about the wheat, even if the head of the house didn't care so much about it. Wheat was a ready money crop at any mill, and ready money meant she could buy at the store many things she had heretofore made, or done without.

The house they lived in did not compare favorably with the new barn, either, as she no doubt pointed out to the head of the house. And, the next spare time and money he accumulated was used in bettering their living condition. Sometimes another singleroom house was built, usually cornering with the old one, and was thenceforth and thereafter known as 'the big house,' even if the old one were the larger. Frequently a lean-to was added to the old one also, and if the walls were high enough a half-story furnished extra sleeping and storage room. These were the commoner betterments.

Men who had prospered above the average usually made their second improvements with hewed-log houses that even after a hundred years are as substantial as the day they were built, as warm as a modern house. They had anywhere from four to eight rooms, each of which was almost as large as a present day three-room apartment.

Betterment of living conditions bettered them socially. By the late forties there were few neighborhoods where a school was not 'signed for' every few seasons. As elsewhere related, the burden of schooling the children those days fell directly on the parents instead of on the general public, as now, and no doubt there was much heated talk from the head of the family over the cost of slates and pencils as there is now about modern equipment.

Churches multiplied, and regular fixed places of worship were established. For some reason, a wave of evangelism swept over this part of the country about the time of the schism of the Methodist and Presbyterian churches over slavery. It was actively prosecuted here by the southern branches of both churches; these two and the Baptist organization represented seventy-five per cent of the communicants of the Protestant faith. Camp meetings flourished at easily accessible points each fall, and 'protracted meetins' were a feature of the winter months, since churches and buildings suitable for church purposes were now obtainable.

The first Presbyterian Church, where services were regularly held by an established congregation, was likely at or near Old Rock Springs Cemetery in the early forties, but the members of that church seem to have later united with the Southern Methodist and worshiped at the Pinnell place known as Double Chimneys on Lanes Prairie, the first home of the latter. Old Bloomgarden, too, was first Presbyterian and then Methodist. The Carnes Camp Ground at Vancleve was likely the first place in the western part of the county where the Methodists held regular services.

Fixing the location of the first regular Baptist Church is not so easy, but it was likely either at or near High Gate or the predecessor of the present Bethel Baptist Church, near Adkins Schoolhouse in the northeast corner of the county. Both held stated and regular services before the Civil War, but just how long before is not known.

The Old Frame Church, west of Bethel, is likely the first organized Christian Church in the county, regular services having been held there at least as early as the seventies.

(N. B:--The following paragraph, written in longhand, was inserted by the author within these pages on 'Early Living' but there is no indication where he intended it to go. J. M. S.)

Members of a family usually settled in the neighborhood of their parents' home after marriage, and proceeded to raise families of their own, this condition speedily giving rise to much confusion in names. The first children nearly always were named for ancestors, first on the father's side and then on the mother's. If any children were left over after the important ones of the family were thus honored, outside' names were permitted. By the time two or three generations of several families each were thus closely associated, resort was had to nicknames to distinguish the different persons having the same names. Sometimes these nicknames located the place of the owner's residence. Sometimes they were highly descriptive of his character or some physical defect; sometimes they described him by some well-known incident with which he was connected. One young man who had been tangled up in a poorly suppressed family scandal was thereafter known (but not to his face) as 'Aunt" so-and-so. If two or three members of the same family had the same given names, and no distinguishing nicknames, they were identified by the names of their wives, and Mary-Tom, Jennie-Tom, Bettie-Tom, et cetera, were common.

THE STILL-TURBULENT GASCONADE

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