graves, notwithstanding the size of the vault, are seldom finished with the earth thrown out of them, and they soon sink below the surrounding surface.

CHAPTER XVII.

House furniture and diet.

The settlement of a new country in the immediate neighborhood of an old one, is not attended with much difficulty, because supplies can be readily obtained from the latter; but the settlement of a country very remote from any cultivated region, is a very different thing; because at the outset, food, raiment, and the implements of husbandry, are obtained only in small supplies and with great difficulty. The task of making new establishments in a remote wilderness, in time of profound peace, is sufficiently difficult; but when, in addition to all the unavoidable hardships attendant on this business, those resulting from an extensive and furious warfare with savages are superadded; toil, privations and sufferings, are then carried to the full extent of the capacity of men to endure them.

Such was the wretched condition of our forefathers in making their settlements here. To all their difficulties and privations, the Indian war was a weighty addition. This destructive warfare they were compelled to sustain almost single-handed, because the revolutionary contest with England gave full employment for the military strength and resources on the east side of the mountains.

The following history of the poverty, labors, sufferings, manners and customs, of our forefathers, will appear like a collection of "tales of olden times," without any garnish of language to spoil the original por

traits, by giving them shades of coloring which they did not possess.

I shall follow the order of things as they occurred during the period of time embraced in these narratives, beginning with those rude accommodations with which our first adventurers into this country furnished themselves at the commencement of their establishments. It will be a homely narrative, yet valuable on the ground of its being real history.

If my reader, when viewing, through the medium which I here present, the sufferings of human nature in one of its most depressed and dangerous conditions, should drop an involuntary tear, let him not blame me for the sentiment of sympathy which he feels. On the contrary, if he should sometimes meet with a recital calculated to excite a smile or a laugh, I claim no credit for his enjoyment. It is the subject matter of the history, and not the historian, which makes those widely different impressions on the mind of the reader.

In this chapter it is my design to give a brief account of the household furniture and articles of diet which were used by the first inhabitants of our country. A description of their cabins and half-faced camps, and their manner of building them, will be found elsewhere.

The furniture for the table, for several years after the settlement of this country, consisted of a few pewter dishes, plates and spoons, but mostly of wooden bowls, trenchers and noggins. If these last were scarce, gourds and hard-shelled squashes made up the deficiency.

The iron pots, knives and forks, were brought from the east side of the mountains, along with the salt and iron, on pack-horses.

These articles of furniture corresponded very well with the articles of diet on which they were employed. "Hog and hommony" were proverbial for the dish of which they were the component parts. Journeycake and pone were, at the outset of the settlements of the country, the only forms of bread in use for breakfast and dinner. At supper, milk and mush were the standard

dish. When milk was not plenty, which was often the case, owing to the scarcity of cattle or the want of proper pasture for them, the substantial dish of hommony had to supply the place of them. Mush was frequently eaten with sweetened water, melasses, bear's oil, or the gravy of fried meat.

Every family, besides a little garden for the few vegetables which they cultivated, had another small inclosure containing from half an acre to an acre, which they called a "truck-patch," in which they raised corn for roasting-ears, pumpkins, squashes, beans and potatoes. These, in the latter part of the summer and fall, were cooked with their pork, venison and bear meat, for dinner, and made very wholesome and well tasted dishes. The standard dinner dish for every log-rolling, houseraising and harvest-day, was a pot-pie, or what in other countries is called "sea-pie." This, besides answering for dinner, served for a part of the supper also, the remainder of it from dinner being eaten with milk in the evening, after the conclusion of the labor of the day.

In our whole display of furniture, the delf, china, and silver were unknown. It did not then, as now, require contributions from the four quarters of the globe to furnish the breakfast table, viz. the silver from Mexico, the coffee from the West Indies, the tea from China, and the delf and porcelain from Europe or Asia. Yet our homely fare, and unsightly cabins and furniture, produced a hardy, veteran race, who planted the first footsteps of society and civilization in the immense regions of the west. Inured to hardihood, bravery and labor, from their early youth, they sustained with manly fortitude the fatigue of the chase, the campaign and scout, and with strong arms turned the wilderness into fruitful fields," and have left to their descendants the rich inheritance of an immense empire blessed with peace and wealth.

I well recollect the first time I ever saw a tea-cup and saucer, and tasted coffee. My mother died when I was about six or seven years old, and my father then sent

me to Maryland with a brother of my grandfather, Mr. Alexander Wells, to school.

At Col. Brown's, in the mountains, (at Stony creek glades,) I for the first time saw tame geese; and by bantering a pet gander, I got a severe biting by his bill, and beating by his wings. I wondered very much that birds so large and strong should be so much tamer than the wild turkeys. At this place, however, all was right, excepting the large birds which they called geese. The cabin and its furniture were such as I had been accustomed to see in the backwoods, as my country was then called.

At Bedford every thing was changed. The tavern at which my uncle put up was a stone house, and to make the change more complete, it was plastered in the inside both as to the walls and ceiling. On going into the dining room, I was struck with astonishment at the appearance of the house. I had no idea that there was any house in the world which was not built of logs; but here I looked round the house and could see no logs, and above I could see no joists; whether such a thing had been made by the hands of man, or had grown SO of itself, I could not conjecture. I had not the courage to inquire any thing about it.

When supper came on, my confusion was worse confounded." A little cup stood in a bigger one, with some brownish looking stuff in it, which was neither milk, hommony nor broth. What to do with these little cups and the little spoon belonging to them, I could not tell; and I was afraid to ask any thing concerning the use of them.

It was in the time of the war, and the company were giving accounts of catching, whipping, and hanging the tories. The word jail frequently occurred. This word I had never heard before; but I soon discovered its meaning, was much terrified, and supposed that we were in danger of the fate of the tories; for I thought, as we had come from the backwoods, it was altogether likely that we must be tories too. For fear of being dis

covered I durst not utter a single word. I therefore watched attentively to see what the big folks would do with their little cups and spoons. I imitated them, and found the taste of the coffee nauseous beyond any thing I ever had tasted in my life; I continued to drink, as the rest of the company did, with the tears streaming from my eyes, but when it was to end I was at a loss to know, as the little cups were filled immediately after being emptied. This circumstance distressed me very much, as I durst not say I had enough. Looking attentively at the grown persons, I saw one man turn his little cup bottom upwards and put his little spoon across it; I observed that after this his cup was not filled again; I followed his example, and to my great satisfaction, the result as to my cup was the same.

The introduction of delf ware was considered by many of the backwoods people as a culpable innovation. It was too easily broken, and the plates of that ware dulled their scalping and clasp knives; tea ware was too small for men, but might do for women and children. Tea and coffee were only slops, which in the adage of the day, "did not stick by the ribs." The idea was, they were designed only for people of quality, who do not labor, or the sick. A genuine backwoodsman would have thought himself disgraced by showing a fondness for those slops. Indeed, many of them have to this day very little respect for them.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Dress.

On the frontiers, and particularly amongst those who were much in the habit of hunting, and going on scouts and campaigns, the dress of the men was partly Indian and partly that of civilized nations.