The Jasonville Story Chapter 7

The Jasonville Story continued......

Chapter VII

The experiences of the first settlers enroute to the Jasonville community form a story of trials, privations and sufferings, and a picture of determination and victory over, what would seem to us, insurmountable odds. I reluctantly write this phase of the history so inadequate are words of mine to give the picture proper perspective. A man with his family, probably one horse, seldom two, starting for an unkncwn destination over an uncharted course without roads or other means of guidance. All their earthly possessions, a skillet, iron pot, dutch oven, a saw, axe, hoe, perhaps other simple tools, and a meager supply of bedding and clothing, carried horse back. Children, too small to trudge along, were carried in the parents� arms or held on the horse by an older child. Often the family milk cow formed a part of the procession. Securely fastened inside the bedding or extra clothing were seeds for the first planting in the new land. Seeds of herbs used for medicines, a few of common vegetables, two or three ears of corn, a small amount of wheat tied up in a rag, cotton seed, flax seed and other starts of plant life essential to future food and welfare of the family. Always, wrapped in deer skin, or other material to hold in the moisture, you found sprouts of apple, peach and pear trees and berry bushes packed in wet straw or prairie grass. So precious were these sprouts that the packing would be moistened at almost every stop. They would prove a great start over planting the seed at the new home. Fording rivers and creeks, sloshing through swamps, creeping up steep hills and embankments they toiled on and on in quest of a place to establish a new home.
Often the journey held hazards much worse than anything mentioned above. Some member of the family would become ill and, if the ailment lingered, a shelter would be built on the spot and that would be their home until the sick was able to embark upon the journey as intended, or another one into the great beyond. If the father was taken, the mother with her children continued the journey. They seldom turned back. The resourcefulness of those pioneer wives and mothers under such dire extremities is almost unbelievable. About one and one half miles Southeast of Midland, (SW � of NE � Sec. 27-8-7) is an unkempt cemetery which seems to be almost forgotten. I used to pause there frequently when hunting in the neighborhood and scan the inscriptions on the ancient tombstones. Older residents of that community told me many years ago that the first burial there were the wife and four or five children of a settler traveling through the country. Here the family was stricken with a plague and within a matter of days the husband and father was the only survivor. Here at the side of the trail he buried his family and again took up the journey. Later the Humphreys family and others of the community used this plot as a burial ground and, of course, no marker shows the location of the original graves. When I last viewed it, the plot was a shambles, a dense mass of briar with large sassafras trees pushing aside the stones, and toppling them over. The writer respectfully urges some member of the branch of the Humphreys family, which used this cemetery, to have it cleared and restored as a filling place of rest. The above recital of death among the settlers was not an isolated case. It was repeated many, many times, in some instances not so bad as in this case, in others even worse. Occasionally a settler coming in would report finding the remains of an entire family that had died along the way, from the deadly plague. The wolves and vultures left little of the bodies, but occasionally a page in a book, or the Bible, gave some clue and a letter would months later find its way to their former home.

The rude log cabins built by these early settlers had none of the conveniences we now demand in our homes. Usually the first cabin occupied by a family was of un-hewn round logs called a pole cabin. It required but little time to complete this type of home and by using small trees, a man and wife could perform all the required labor. Later leisure, he could hew out the larger logs to be used in a permanent cabin, and proud, indeed, was the lady of the house when she could move into this (then) modern home. In either style home, the cracks between the logs were daubed with clay and the huge fireplaces and chimneys made of sticks and clay. Clapboards for the roof were made from selected straight grained wood, that could be split with a froe and maul.
The interior or the cabins were wholly without adornment. The one large room was parlor, dining room, bedroom and kitchen. The floors were either native earth or puncheon floors. The latter were made by splitting small logs through the center and laying them with the rounded side down, after hewing the flat, or upper, side as smooth a possible. The one window was covered with paper soaked in hog lard to admit some light and to partly keep out the rain and snow. Few of the real early cabins had doors, the opening being closed by suspending deer skins or an old blanket.
On winter evenings the family gathered around the burning logs in the great fireplace, the mother meanwhile cooking the evening meal at the same fire. Boiled foods were prepared on a metal hook over the fire, while baking and frying were done in iron skillets and ovens. Live coals were placed under and around these utensils and when their lids were on, coals were placed on top.
The pioneer housewife and mother had no trouble deciding what utnesil or appliance she would use for any particular cooking task. The iron Dutch oven, standing on legs, was the most important article used in cooking. It served the purpose for boiling, roasting and even baking food when no other utensil was at hand. The long handled skillet was second in importance. In it she fried or roasted vension, wild turkey, rabbit, salt pork, bacon and baked the hot corn pron or corn cakes that went with the meal. �Hog and hominy� was another favorite dish frequently served.
If you can conjure up a picture of a day of mighty toil, outdoors in the field or forest, and of entering your cabin after sunset to have your nostrils filled with the savory aroma of roast turkey or venison, and corn bread, mingled with the ever hunger producing odor of wood smoke, surely you must agree with the writer that such life was not wholly without its compensations. An outdoor fire place served for summer cooking.
Furniture in the cabin consisted of a few splint bottomed or bark bottomed chairs made by the use of a hatchet, auger and jack knife, and perhaps a bench or two made of split logs with pegs or legs fitted in holes bored in the rounded side. The earliest beds were bunks as we would term them today, except there was no sawed lumber used in the construction. Poles of proper length would be inserted in the crack between two logs in the cabin wall and the two forked stakes formed the posts of the bed. Proper lengths of hewed saplings served as slates and on these were placed the ticks filled with the best available material. The earliest settlers filled the ticks with leaves or prairie grasses, but after they or their neighbors had raised a crop, corn husk were substituted and after this came ticks filled with straw. These were in general use in my time and you will probably find them in use today. Nothing was more conducive of a good night�s repose than a freshly washed tick, dried by the breeze of hot summer�s sun, then stuffed with fresh, clean fragrant straw. This was the forerunner of today�s mattress and the springs we use are the outgrowth of a net work of rope which supported the straw tick at an early day. Often timbers would be lain overhead and on this floor part of the family would sleep.
The only ornaments on the wall were the rifle, the powder horn, bunches of beans, medicinal herbs, and corn for next year�s planting, suspended from pegs driven into holes bored in the log walls. In the bitter winter much clothing would be worn in bed and every available article used as bed covers. It was common occurrence to awaken and find the bed covered with snow that had sifted jn through the walls or fallen through the holes in the clapboard roof. Having no nails, these clapboards were held on only by poles used as weights, and the winds caused them to shift leaving many gaps in the roof.
The family library usually contained no more than the Bible, Pilgrims� Progress and an almanac. A burning rag in a dish or lard or tallow furnished the only artificial illumination other than the fireplace. Later they made their own candles in molds which made a dozen at a time. Wicks were held fast in the center of each compartment of the mold, then they filled with melted tallow and allowed to harden. As compared to our present day candles from the standpoint of light, smoke and odor, they were a poor substitute, but they were a vast improvement over the rag in a dish of tallow or lard, which we mentioned above and which were called �dips�.
Most everyone has heard the expression, �The latch string is always out,� but I doubt if many of my young readers know of its origin. In the early cabins, those that could boast of a door rather than having the opening closed by suspending deer skins or a tattered blanket, fastened their doors with wooden latches. A string, usually of buckskin was fastened to the latch, this end hanging outside the door.
By pulling this string the latch would be lifted and the door opened. If the latch string was out it was a symbol of neighborliness and hospitality and was the owner�s invitation to neighbors and travelers to enter and rest and have a meal. The invitation stood whether the occupants were at home or away. But if the latch string was in it indicated that callers were unwelcome and that the occupants were selfish and felt no need for companionship. It was a great day for most of the pioneers when a new family would come from the East or South,stopping over night and for a meal or two. Hungering for news from the outside world, they would sit well into the night plying the visitor with questions. The reports of the growth of the country �back east� and the establishment of new industry there were almost unbelievable.

HOME