So much has happened in America during the last fifty years, and the people have been so busy keeping up with the times, that the pioneer life in this country is being lost and largely forgotten.

My father was born in the year 1800 in Kentucky, and pioneered in Kentucky and Indiana. I am seventy-eight, was a Captain in the Civil War and was in the pioneer life in Indiana. I am wondering if a sketch of our family experiences in those early days would not have interest and value to readers of this day.

D

ECEMBER 20, 1825, father and mother started to move to Indiana. Mother rode in a wagon driving the horses with a cow tied to the tail-gate and father walked, driving a small bunch of sheep. Father had saved a little money, with which he had bought one hundred and twenty acres of land, of the goverrnment, for two dollars per acre, fifty cents per acre cash down and the balance on long time. When they reached their land they were alone in the forest, only one family within ten miles.

They slept in the wagon until father could build a little one-room log cabin. Here they began a life-time struggle for both of them; he with his axe of steel to hew out of that tangled forest a small farm and provide food for a rapidly increasing family; she to care for the

home, to spin and weave and make the clothing for the entire family.

Now there is, strictly speaking, no frontier to the United States. But then the larger part of the country was frontier. In any portion of the country today, even the remotest villages and hamlets, on the farms of the Dakotas and on the ranches of California, may be found some of the modern appliances of civilization, such as were not dreamed of a hundred years ago.

The artificial light in my father's home was from the open fire-place, or a rag in a saucer of lard. Tallow dips or moulded candles came later. Bread was made from a coarse corn meal, produced by a hand grater. Wild turkeys, squirrels and an occasional deer furnished the meat. The only drink was milk and water, with now and then a tea made from spice brush or sassafras.

To build his cabin father cut logs out of trees the same size, twelve feet long for the ends and fourteen feet long for the sides. He laid the two first end logs at the proper places, trimmed or edged the upper side near the ends, so as to fit perfectly a corresponding notch cut on the under side of the first two logs for the sides. When these four logs were thus placed in position the foundation for the cabin was complete. He then prepared logs enough for the entire house with edges and notches to fit into each other as the cabin went up.

When all the logs were thus prepared, he mounted a horse and struck out to find men to come to his first house-raising. Those pioneers would leave their work and go to help a stranger raise a house without charge or pay for time and labor.

After the house was up father split or rived boards three feet long and six inches wide with which to make a roof. There were no shingles nor were there any nails.

The first course of boards was laid and a straight pole placed on them and tied or secured in postion to firmly hold this course in place. Then the second course was laid lapping six inches over the first and secured in like manner with another pole, and other courses were laid until the house was completely covered. The floor was mother earth. The chimney was built of sticks, but well plastered on the inside with mortar made of yellow clay and water.

The windows were square holes cut in the walls and covered with paper or thin white muslin. The single doorway was an opening cut in the wall, cased with a slab of wood secured by wooden pegs driven into the ends of the logs. The door was made of split boards, which was hung on wooden hinges and swung out. It was fastened by a wooden latch which fell in a notch in the inside, and was raised from the outside by a string which always hung out.

A necessary article of furniture for this cabin was a bedstead. Only one post was required. It was set up four feet from one wall and six feet from another wall. Two large holes were bored into this post two feet from the ground; and two holes opposite these in the walls, and into these holes were inserted two poles, smoothed with a drawing knife, one four feet and the other six feet long. This structure constituted a frame upon which were placed boards for the bed to rest upon.

split

With a cabin for shelter and a bed to sleep on, the next indispensible thing was bread. My father knew it was in the ground, beneath the forest where he was to dig for it. In digging for that bread

he began by cutting out the underbrush and cutting down all the trees that were eighteen inches or under in diameter. He did not sit down and repine and then reload his wagon and return to the place whence he came. He was a man, and his capital was courage and strength.

When the trees were felled, they were cut into sections, twelve to fifteen feet in length, the brush was piled around the large standing trees for the purpose of killing them by burning. Thus the sunshine would reach the ground and start the corn and garden stuff. The pioneers in this great forest had an understanding among themselves for many miles around to work together in logrolling time. Every man was a veteran and they, working in concert, hastened on to the work with precision and skill. If the number assembled was large enough they were divided into squads of eight, that being the number to work together with the best results. Each squad had a captain or leader, not by election, but he was such by pre-eminence and skill in the business. My father in a quiet way was always looked to as a leader. A man of good sense, full of resources, and always ready for any emergency. He would cast his experienced eye over the logs as they lay on the ground, by accident or design, and take in the situation for a wide scope. A half dozen might be lying a few feet apart in a parallel position, which could easily be thrown together in a nice pile for burning. The leader speaks and these logs suddenly seem to have acquired the power of locomotion and are in a pile.. And thus on and on the fascinating work goes. And while this work was going on at our place, my mother, assisted by one or more of the wives of the workmen, was cooking the dinner and supper for all these men. All this cooking was done in the log cabin, over an open fire place, swinging the iron kettles on a crane; and baking in skillets with long legs, with red hot coals piled under and over, rich, hearty, but simple meals which everybody enjoyed to the limit.

It was the custom for the settler whose logs had been rolled and fired to "right

up" his burning logs before day light, and after a hasty breakfast reach the place for the next log rolling by sun-up. And after laboring with a hand-spike all day until sun-set, go home and again "right up" his own burning heaps until ten or eleven o'clock at night. In that way the log-rolling was kept up for about two months in the early spring of each year, by every able-bodied pioneer.

When the timber was cleared off and the ground ready for planting, the stumps were so close together that the hoe was the only instrument with which to plant and cultivate the first crop. This was the heaviest timbered region in all the State, and the labor of clearing the ground was the absorbing work of my father for many years. When he had finally got a little patch cleared and raised his first crop of corn, he was confronted by a new trouble.

Then began a fight with the squirrels and raccoons to save his hard earned grain. He kept his loaded rifle always close at hand and shooting squirrels in self defense furnished plenty of squir rel meat for the table. The coons ravaged the corn at night, which made it necessary to provide himself with dogs to hunt them down. Thus coon hunting by men and boys at night with their coon dogs furnished fun and excitement. No need of theatres and moving picture shows when a coon hunt was in sight!

Another source of grief was the prowling wolves, to which the sheep were subjected. It became necessary to build high tight rail pens in which to shut up the sheep at night. The wolves were also destructive to pigs. The mother sows soon learned to feed in bands, and, when the wolves made their attack, to bunch the little pigs and surround them, standing with their snouts outward and thus to successfully fight the wolves off. In this same manner it is said the buffalo protected their young from the fierce Rocky Mountain panthers and wolves in the early days.

I must not fail to mention the great abundance of rattlesnakes that crawled and rattled and hissed in every thicket. There were two species of these reptiles:

the black rattlesnake, short, thick, and very active; and the yellow, growing from six to eight feet long, and sluggish. They were most abundant along the banks of creeks.

Many stories were told of large rattlers being found near springs and wells and in cabins of the settlers. One pioneer killed a large one and plucked a trophy of twentw-two rattles from his tail. But rattlesnakes had their enemies. No man ever met one without trying to kill it. Deer even took delight in their destruction. Hogs regarded a rattlesnake as a dainty morsel, and the bite of a rattlesnake had no effect upon a hog.

The milk was kept in crocks in the spring house and the vessels were kept carefully covered to keep out snakes and other creatures that liked milk.

While my father and mother were self-reliant and fought their battles alone, there were times when they, like all other pioneers, were dependent on others for help. The building of cabins and barns, the log-rollings and other things requiring the strength of many hands, brought the people together and cultivated sociability and generosity and sympathy that worked for good in building up a happy community. Social instincts were fostered and cultivated, but the fun and frolic were not allowed to interfere with or delay the work in hand. All quarreling was suppressed, fighting was prohibited and the use of ardent liquors, then so common, was so regulated that the drunkenness of the intemperate was not permitted to delay the work.

My father and mother belonged to the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. No liquor was ever kept or used in their home. That was a southern church and never very strong. At the time of which I write its traveling preachers were the first to visit that locality, and my father's cabin was the first preaching station in that region.

Constant in his labor all the long day and until late at night, and beginning before daylight again in the morning, as was my father, no less constant was the toil and patience of my mother. She had

much to do besides the usual care and labor of the house. She took the wool which my father sheared from the sheep, dyed it with the walnut ooze, carded it by hand card boards into rolls, spun it on a large spinning wheel into yarn thread, wove it on a hand loom into a web of durable jeans cloth. She then cut this jeans cloth and made it into winter garments for each member of the family, including headwear for males and females. From the yarn, she knitted stockings and socks for all alike in the family. She also wove blankets for all the beds from this home-made yarn.

To provide sheets and summer wear, my father each year raised a patch of flax. When this was ripe, he pulled it by hand and spread it in rows or swathes on the ground for the straw to dry and rot. He then broke it and hackled it, thus producing a quantity of clear, clean fibre. This fibre mother spun on a small spinning wheel into fine linen thread. From this thread she wove great webs of strong, durable linen cloth, from which she made sheets and summer clothing for every one of the family. From this thread she knit summer socks and stockings for all.

During this time there were born in that home, where all this work was going on, twelve children, (besides the one that had died in Kentucky), eight daughters and four sons. There is due to that mother, and others like her, a debt of honor and veneration from this and all succeeding generations of America that is seldom recognized and never can be fully paid.

My father produced from the farm wheat for flour, wool and flax for clothing, hides which he tanned and dressed for boots and shoes, meat and vegetables for the tables. Mother made a good imitation for tea and coffee which was sweetened with maple sugar from our own sugar trees. We could have built a Chinese wall around our farm and lived comfortably within its boundaries, asking favors of no man.

After my father had a little farm established, he built a log blacksmith shop. He drove one hundred miles to Lawrence

17

J. S. Clark, Private in First Iowa Regiment burg, a trading station on the Ohio River, and secured the tools and iron for everything he needed. He made horse shoes and horse-shoe nails. He shod his own horses and those of his neighbors, made ploughs, harrows, hoes, shovels, forks, -in fact, everything necessary for use on the farm. He also brought home from Lawrenceburg a shoe-maker's outfit. During rainy days and evenings he made shoes for mother and the girls, and boots for himself and the boys.

The winter caps were made of the jeans cloth and the summer hats were made out of oat straw, braided into narrow strips and sewed into wide brimmed hats fitted to the heads of little and big, girls and boys and parents.

There was always, once a year, a "hogkilling time" when meat was provided for the entire year. That day was followed by the putting up of sausage, and the smoking of the hams, shoulders and sides in the old smokehouse until beautifully cured and browned, so that they kept sweet and good until hog-killing time came again the next December. That day was an event in each year. Father was very careful to put the hogs in the best possible condition of flesh. The day was fixed in advance. A raised platform of slabs about three feet high, strong and well secured, was constructed, upon