The Jasonville Story Chapter 8

The Jasonville Story continued...

Chapter VIII

Most of the first settlers of Jasonville came from Kentucky and Tennessee, they or their ancestors, having formerly migrated from the Carolinas or Virginia. The art of seeding the cotton by hand, combing or carding it, spinning it into thread and weaving it into cloth was familiar to them although usually performed on a larger scale in their native states. The same was true with flax. It was easier at first to make the cloth from cotton and flax than with wool and much less expensive. Due to roaming packs of wolves sheep had to be constantly guarded by day and securely penned up at night. The same care had to be exercised in raising poultry. As the predators were driven back from the� settlement, or killed by groups organized for the purpose, poultry and eggs and wool, along with butter, became produce that could be sold at the nearest store, and a small amount of cash obtained.
Another nuisance, or rather a menace, were the squirrels, the woods literally teeming with them at times. When planted corn first came through the ground, they seemed to almost take the field row by row, digging out and eating the sprouted grain of corn. If the corn field was near the woods, it often had to be guarded until a strong stalk was above ground and the grain of corn decayed away. Irate settlers organized squirrel drives and shot them by the thousands, cutting down and destroying every den tree they could locate. This predatory destruction was in part compensated for by almost a complete absence of the multiple plant diseases of. this day and destructive bugs and insects.
I learned of but one instance where cotton was grown in the county in any volumn for market. In 1824 the land on which Worthingon now stands was a field of nearly 50 acres of choice cotton. In full bloom about August the 1st, this was said to have been a beautiful sight and settlers from all parts of the county, born in The Southland~ came to feast their eyes upon it and, in memory, relive the bygone days spent in a similar setting. This Cotton was picked and sent to a cotton gin which had been established at Bloomington, and sold at
a good price.

As in case of food, many families were self sustaining also as to clothing. Often �Picking Bees� were held in the homes, the young folks of the neighborhood gathering and picking the seed from the cotton, thus loosening it up ready for carding. This operation completed, it was carded or combed, straightening out the fiber, then made into rolls, spun into yarn or thread and woven into clothes.

Preparation of the flax was a more complex problem. Early in the year they began with the flax which had been pulled while blooming the past summer. It was spread on the ground for a few weeks until the stalk began to decay. When this rotting process had reached the proper stage the stalk was broken up in fine pieces, any simple device to break the stalk would suffice. Next the �hackle�.was put into use. This was made by driving a number of long, sharp nails through a board in diagonal rows. Holding a handful of the broken flax it would be slapped down on the hackle, pulled through and over the nails until the broken pieces of stalk was removed. This process was a lady combing her hair, except it was in reverse, the comb (hackle) remaining stationary and the hair (flax) being drawn through. Next a smaller hackle was employed to separate the coarser fiber from the finer. The coarser product was called �tow� and the finer fibers �lint�. The next time your wife tells you, �you have lint on your coat�, she is merely borrowing a word from her great, great grandmother. After further carding and combing the pure flax was spun into threads. The tow was woven into heavy cloth for men�s trousers, ticking, towels, and grain bags, the finer flax being woven into thinner facric~ used for apparel and houshold uses. Some of the flax was spun into very fine threads and these carefully and precisely brought together and twisted to form good sewing thread.

The making of woolen cloth difiered little from the process used for cotton. After shearing the sheep in mid spring, the wool was washed in warm soapless water many times until perfectly clean. After removing all the burrs and trash it was carded and made ready for spinning and weaving into cloth. Wool clothing, nice flannels for undergarments, blankets and a wide variety of other necessities were thus made.
The bark of maple, walnut, sassafrass and many other trees, together with walnut hulls and berries of various hues, were boiled to make dyes. Each tree or other ingredient gave a different shade or color and by using the proper proportions almost any desired hue could be produced. Cotton, linen and woolen cloths were thus dyed. I must add, that the linsey woolsey of which you have often heard was a coarse fabric made with a warp of linen or cotton and a woof or filling of wool. We can picture the dye maker saying, as she drops an extra handful of hulls or berries in the boiling pot of dye stuffs, �I�m going to have this dress a different color from old Mrs. So and So�s on the other side of the forest.�
To supplement the supply of clothing and household needs, the hides of wild and domestic animals were tanned and used. The tanned deer hides were called �buckskins� and this product was more plentiful than any other hero in the early days. From it was made trousers, skirts, coats, mittens and other articles. Coonskins tanned and treated without. Another source of �sweetnin� was removing the hair made choice headgear. It looked only a few years back, during the Davy Crockett craze, like we were going back 150 years in our headdress, but the craze passed�we must have run out of coons. Bear and wolf hides were tanned with the hair left on and made intorobes. and used for other purposes. occasionally for heavy coats. Cow hides were tanned into leather for boots and shoes, many of our first settlers performing both operations, tanning of the leather and making the boots and shoes. In later years the bide was taken to the nearest tannery, or a side of leather bought there, then taken to a cobbler in the nearest settlement to be made into footwear.

Many of the pioneer housewives were meticulous housekeepers. They would scour the puncheon floors and rough hewn tables with sand until, in time, they took on a polished appearance. The ingenuity displayed in other things applied to soap making. Wood ashes_from the fireplace were placed in a hopper built for the purpose. Throughout the winter these wood ashes were kept moistened to cause their decay, but with a cover on the hopper to keep the heavy rains from running through. In the
spring water was poured on and allowed to seep through the rotted ashes. The chemical reaction here was the production of a lye water, and this seepage, caught in a vessel placed beneath the ash hopper, was one of the two ingredients of their soap. The other was animal fat, usually lard. The two would be combined in proper consistency to form a soft soap when cooled. To a smaller amount of the mixture salt would be added causing it to harden, and often there would be added a little scented water made by boiling an aromatic herb or plant. When hardened this would be cut into cakes or bars and served as mi-lady�s toilet soap.
We have treated with the various phases of pioneer life as the early arrivals at Jasonville lived it. Most people are of the opinion that the youngsters of today would fail if confronted with such problems and sacrifices. I do not agree at all. No one, regardless of age, would want to assume these burdens voluntarily. I believe the Janey and Marys and the Sandras and other girls best, could, if need be, retire to such as life with the man they love, rear a family, and get along as well as these pioneers did, more than a century ago. Those boys of a few years ago, who were ridiculed as drug store cowboys and maligned as delinquents, formed lines blocks long at every recruiting station in the country. Willingly thousands of them gave up lives of ease and luxury for a horrible thing called war. The need was there and they responded. The army of pioneers in the revolutionary or civil wars never acquitted themselves more gloriously than did this group of boys, generally looked upon at home as weaklings.
Don�t judge our present crop of teenagers too harshly. Sure, they are having it easier then you had it. You, too, are having it much easier than your grandma and grandpa had it. If you see them smoking a cigarette don�t think they are headed straight for perdition. Most of their great grandmothers smoked a stone pipe and a great many of them chewed tobacco. You may not be very proud of some of daughter�s habits. Maybe daughter would not be too proud of great grandmother if she could see her sitting on a stump outside the cabin door, �squirting tobacco juice� at some nearby target on the ground. Do a little soul searching then answer the question. �How many unlawful. indecent or disgraceful things has son and daughter done that I didn�t do at sometime during my youth?� If they took a drink of intoxicants, remember that a jug of whiskey in grandpa�s day was the rule rather than the exception, and he didn�t keep it for ornamental purposes. Guide carefully, and constructive correct, these youngsters. Don�t pronounce them hopeless or helpless and give them up as a bad job. They are the future hope for America and when the time comes for them to assume leadership in the affairs of Jasonville, and of the nation, you will find the vast majority arrayed on the side of decency, justice and morality. Please bear with the ramblings old an old man�s mind, which wandered far afield from history and started to preach a sermon.
Upon arriving at the place, the settlers expected to henceforth call home, two duties demanded their immediate attention. Some sort of make shift shelter for temporary use, and the preparation of a plot for planting. If they could find a spot that was in part prairie, they had a big start over clearing a wooded area and stacking and burning the brush. Most any land, prairie or forest, had high fertility. Starting with a small plot the first season, the thrifty farmer increased his acreage each year according to his industry and requirements.
First the precious fruit or berry sprouts, brought all the way from Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio or Pennsylvania, and carefully nursed with moisture all the way, must be set out. Then the planting of a patch of corn, cotton, tobacco and a variety of garden vegetables began. Some wheat was planted but corn being the easier to raise and prepare as food was looked upon as the staff of life. Pumpkins in this moist virgin soil grew to enormous size and when cooked and sweetened made a rather tasty dish to tired hungry people. If your grandchild inquires, and he probably will, �where did they get the sugar?� Tell him they got along very well with no sugar at hand. In every part of the forest were bee trees, ready to be cut and in which was often stored gallons of honey. By �tapping� a maple tree, catch the out flowing sap in a trough or vessel, and then boil it down. At a certain stage of the boiling it became pure maple sugar, in my opinion the finest confection ever made. The writer well remembers the old sugar �camps� of a later date. Here many trees would be �tapped�, a small hole bored in the tree and a hollow, wooden spike driven therein. The �sugar water� would flow from the tree through this spike and be caught in a wooden trough, later a bucket. Probably a hundred or more trees would be included in one camp�. A barrel, atop a horse drawn sled, was pulled from tree to tree and the contents of the troughs or buckets emptied herein. These were hauled to a central point and stored in barrels until enough sugar waster was on hands for a �stir of?� this being the process of cooking and making the syrup and sugar. Here were great fires in pits over which were huge kettles or other vessels and thus was the cooking done; the earliest settlers didn�t operate on this scale but the process and the finished product were the same. So with all the honey they cared to gather and all the maple syrup and sugar each spring they cared to make, sugar was no problem at all.
Pumpkin was cut up and dried for winter use. If in some nearby community settlers had been there long enough to have bearing fruit trees, the later arrivals would travel for miles on horseback to get part of the oversupply. No one even thought of charging for apples and peaches and every one was carefully picked and dried for winter. Hickory nuts, walnuts, and hazelnuts formed no small part of the early settler�s diet and they were here in abundance.
Hogs ran wild and fattened on the lush prairie grasses in the summer and on the rich mast of the forest in the winter. Cattle thrived on the wild pea vine and though at first it seemed to impart a strong taste to the milk and butter, it wasn�t noticed after a few days� usage.
Upon coming into the community, the settler found the purchase of a home site an easy matter if he brought along cash at all, or could get a small loan from a relative or friend already here. The price of what was known as congress land was one dollar and a quarter per acre, so called canal land was two dollars and fifty cents per acre. There were thousands of acres of this latter land in Greene and Clay counties that no one wanted at any price. This same land, we now know, as river bottomland, after ditching and tiling, is the best land of this section. Labor was cheap, and the average farm hand could get only five or six dollars a month, working from ten to twelve hours a day. The pay for a few weeks work, however, would buy a fair sized farm.
A fairly good horse could be had for twenty-five dollars and a yoke of oxen at about the same price. Oxen were used more for logging and heavy hauling than horses.

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