A New Guide For Emigrants To The West Part 7

The planting region of the lower Valley furnishes an immense market for the productions and manufactures of the upper Valley. Indirectly, the Louisiana sugar business is a source of profit to the farmer of Illinois and Missouri. Pork, beef, corn, corn-meal, flour, potatoes, b.u.t.ter, hay, &c. in vast quant.i.ties, go to supply these plantations. In laying in their stores, the sugar planters usually purchase one barrel of second or third quality of beef or pork per annum, for each laborer. Large drafts for sugar mills, engines and boilers, are made upon the Cincinnati and Pittsburg iron foundries. Mules and horses are driven from the upper country, or from the Mexican dominions, to keep up the supply.

The commerce of the upper country that concentrates at New Orleans is amazing, and every year is rapidly increasing. Sixteen hundred arrivals of steamboats took place in 1832, and the estimated number in 1835 is 2,300.

_Farmers._--In the northern half of the Valley the productions, and the modes of cultivation and living are such as to characterize a large proportion of the population as farmers. No country on earth has such facilities for agriculture. The soil is abundantly fertile, the seasons ordinarily favorable to the growth and maturity of crops, and every farmer in a few years, with reasonable industry, becomes comparatively independent. Tobacco and hemp are among the staple productions of Kentucky.

Neat cattle, horses, mules and swine are its stock. Some stock growers have monopolized the smaller farms till they are surrounded with several thousand acres. Blue gra.s.s pastures furnish summer feed, and extensive fields of corn, cut up near the ground, and stacked in the fields, furnish stores for fattening stock in the winter.

In some counties, raising of stock has taken place of all other business. The Scioto Valley, and other districts in Ohio, are famous for fine, well fed beef. Thousands of young cattle are purchased by the Ohio graziers, at the close of winter, of the farmers of Illinois and Missouri. The Miami and Whitewater sections of Ohio and Indiana, abound with swine. Cincinnati has been the great pork mart of the world.

150,000 head of hogs have been frequently slaughtered there in a season.

About 75,000 is estimated to be the number slaughtered at that place the present season. This apparent falling off in the pork business, at Cincinnati, is accounted for by the vast increase of business at other places. Since the opening of the ca.n.a.ls in Ohio, many provision establishments have been made along their line. Much business of the kind is now done at Terre Haute and other towns on the Wabash,--at Madison, Louisville, and other towns on the Ohio,--at Alton and other places in Illinois.

The farmers of the West are independent in feeling, plain in dress, simple in manners, frank and hospitable in their dwellings, and soon acquire a competency by moderate labor. Those from Kentucky, Tennessee, or other states south of the Ohio river, have large fields, well cultivated, and enclosed with strong built rail or worm fences, but they often neglect to provide s.p.a.cious barns and other outhouses for their grain, hay and stock. The influence of habit, is powerful. A Kentuckian would look with contempt upon the low fences of a New-Englander as indicating thriftless habits, while the latter would point at the unsheltered stacks of wheat, and dirty threshing floor of the former, as proof direct of bad economy and wastefulness.

_Population of the Cities and large Towns._ The population of western towns does not differ essentially from the same cla.s.s in the Atlantic states, excepting there is much less division into grades and ranks, less ignorance, low depravity and squalid poverty amongst the poor, and less aristocratic feeling amongst the rich. As there is never any lack of employment for laborers of every description, there is comparatively no suffering from that cause. And the hospitable habits of the people provide for the sick, infirm and helpless. Doubtless, our _circ.u.mstances_ more than any thing else, cause these shades of difference. The common mechanic is on a social equality with the merchant, the lawyer, the physician, and the minister. They have shared in the same fatigues and privations, partook of the same homely fare, in many instances have fought side by side in defence of their homes against the inroads of savages,--are frequently elected to the same posts of honor, and have acc.u.mulated property simultaneously. Many mechanics in the western cities and towns, are the owners of their own dwellings, and of other buildings, which they rent. I have known many a wealthy merchant, or professional gentleman occupy on rent, a building worth several thousand dollars, the property of some industrious mechanic, who, but a few years previous, was an apprentice lad, or worked at his trade as a journeyman. Any sober, industrious mechanic can place himself in affluent circ.u.mstances, and place his children on an equality with the children of the commercial and professional community, by migrating to any of our new and rising western towns. They will find no occasion here for combinations to sustain their interests, nor meet with annoyance from gangs of unprincipled foreigners, under the imposing names of "Trades Unions."

Manufactures of various kinds are carried on in our western cities.

Pittsburg has been characterized as the "Birmingham of America." The manufactures of iron, machinery and gla.s.s, and the building of steamboats, are carried on to a great extent.

Iron and salt, are made in great quant.i.ties in Western Pennsylvania, and Western Virginia. Steamboats are built to a considerable extent at Fulton, two miles above Cincinnati, and occasionally at many other places on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Alton offers great facilities for this business. Cotton bagging, bale ropes, and cordage, are manufactured in Tennessee and Kentucky. The following article from the Covington Enquirer, gives a few items of the industry and enterprise of Kentucky,--of the manufacture of Newport and Covington. Both of these thriving towns lie at the mouth of the Licking river, the one on the right bank, and the other on the left, and both in direct view of Cincinnati.

MANUFACTURES IN COVINGTON AND NEWPORT.

"Founding the calculation upon the actual manufactures of October, and the known power of their machinery, the Company will the ensuing year, give employment to more than four hundred operatives, and manufacture,

60,000 lbs. of Cotton Bagging, 84,000 do Cotton Yarns, 274,268 lbs. Bale Rope, 448,000 do Cordage, 44,592 yards Linseys, 63,588 do Cotton Plains, 97,344 do Kentucky Jeans, 548,530 do Cotton Bagging and Hemp.

Estimating Bale Rope and Cotton Bagging at 33 per cent under the price at which the Company have sold these articles for the last six months, the manufactures of this Company during the ensuing year will amount to $358,548.44. Almost all the manufactures at Covington and Newport being exported to foreign markets, it will result that the annual exports from these points will, in round numbers, be from the

Interior $750,000 Campbell County 150,000 Boone County 234,000 Covington 548,500 Newport 358,500 ---------- $2,041,000

The Newport Manufacturing Company has depended princ.i.p.ally for its supply of Hemp, on the production of Mason county, of which Maysville is the market;--this season they have not been able to get a supply at Maysville, and it is a remarkable fact in the history of the Hemp manufactories in Kentucky, that this company, owing to the scarcity and high prices of Hemp in Kentucky, _has imported this season_ 354,201 lbs.

_Russia Hemp_.

Various manufactures are springing up in all the new states, which will be noticed under their proper heads.

The number of merchants and traders is very great in the Valley of the Mississippi, yet mercantile business is rapidly increasing.--Thousands of the farmers of the West, are partial traders. They take their own produce, in their own flat boats, down the rivers to the market of the lower country.

_Frontier cla.s.s of Population._ The rough, st.u.r.dy habits of the backwoodsmen, living in that plenty which depends on G.o.d and nature, have laid the foundation of independent thought and feeling deep in the minds of western people.

Generally, in all the western settlements, three cla.s.ses, like the waves of the ocean, have rolled one after the other. First comes the Pioneer, who depends for the subsistence of his family chiefly upon the natural growth of vegetation, called the "range," and the proceeds of hunting.

His implements of agriculture are rude, chiefly of his own make, and his efforts directed mainly to a crop of corn, and a "truck patch." The last is a rude garden for growing cabbage, beans, corn for roasting ears, cuc.u.mbers and potatoes. A log cabin, and occasionally a stable and corn crib, and a field of a dozen acres, the timber girdled or "deadened,"

and fenced, are enough for his occupancy. It is quite immaterial whether he ever becomes the owner of the soil. He is the occupant for the time being, pays no rent, and feels as independent as the "lord of the manor." With a horse, cow, and one or two breeders of swine, he strikes into the woods with his family, and becomes the founder of a new county, or perhaps state. He builds his cabin, gathers around him a few other families of similar taste and habits, and occupies till the range is somewhat subdued, and hunting a little precarious, or, which is more frequently the case, till neighbors crowd around, roads, bridges and fields annoy him, and he lacks elbow-room. The pre-emption law enables him to dispose of his cabin and cornfield, to the next cla.s.s of emigrants, and, to employ his own figures, he "breaks for the high timber,"--"clears out for the New Purchase," or migrates to Arkansas or Texas, to work the same process over.

The next cla.s.s of emigrants purchase the lands, add "field to field,"

clear out the roads, throw rough bridges over the streams, put up hewn log houses, with gla.s.s windows, and brick or stone chimneys, occasionally plant orchards, build mills, school houses, court houses, &c., and exhibit the picture and forms of plain, frugal, civilized life.

Another wave rolls on. The men of capital and enterprise come. The "settler" is ready to sell out, and take the advantage of the rise of property,--push farther into the interior, and become himself, a man of capital and enterprise in time. The small village rises to a s.p.a.cious town or city,--substantial edifices of brick, extensive fields, orchards, gardens--colleges and churches are seen. Broadcloths, silks, leghorns, c.r.a.pes, and all the refinements, luxuries, elegancies, frivolities and fashions, are in vogue. Thus wave after wave is rolling westward--the real _el dorado_ is still farther on.

A portion of the two first cla.s.ses remain stationary amidst the general movement, improve their habits and condition, and rise in the scale of society.

The writer has travelled much amongst the first cla.s.s--the real pioneers. He has lived many years in connexion with the second grade, and now the third wave is sweeping over large districts of Indiana, Illinois and Missouri. Migration has become almost a habit in the west.

Hundreds of men can be found, not fifty years of age, who have settled for the fourth, fifth, or sixth time on a new spot. To sell out and remove only a few hundred miles, makes up a portion of the variety of backwoods life and manners.

But to return to the Frontier cla.s.s.

1. _Dress._--The hunting shirt is universally worn. This is a kind of loose, open frock, reaching halfway down the thighs, with large sleeves, the body open in front, lapped over, and belted with a leathern girdle, held together with a buckle. The cape is large, and usually fringed with different colored cloth from that of the body. The bosom of this dress sometimes serves as a wallet for a "chunk" of bread, jerk or smoke-dried venison, and other articles. It is made either of dressed deer skins, linsey, coa.r.s.e linen, or cotton. The shirt, waistcoat and pantaloons are of similar articles and of the customary form. Wrappers of cloth or dressed skins, called "leggins" are tied round the legs when travelling.

Moccasins of deer skins, shoe packs, and rough shoes, the leather tanned and cobbled by the owner, are worn on the feet.

The females' dress in a coa.r.s.e gown of cotton, a bonnet of the same stuff, and denominated in the eastern states a "sun-bonnet." The latter is constantly worn through the day, especially when company is present.

The clothing for both s.e.xes is made at home. The wheel and loom are common articles of furniture in every cabin.

2. _Dwellings._--"Cabin" is the name for a plain, rough log-house, throughout the west. The spot being selected, usually in the timbered land, and near some spring, the first operation of the newly arrived emigrant is to cut about 40 logs of the proper size and length for a single cabin, or twice that number for a double one, and haul them to the spot. A large oak or other suitable timber, of straight grain, and free from limbs, is selected for clapboards for the roof. These are four feet in length, split with a froe six or eight inches wide, and half an inch thick. _Puncheons_ are used for the floor. These are made by splitting trees about eighteen inches in diameter into slabs, two or three inches in thickness, and hewn on the upper surface. The door way is made by cutting out the logs after raising, of a suitable width, and putting upright pieces of timber at the sides. The shutter is made of clapboards, pinned on cross pieces, hung by wooden hinges, and fastened by a wooden latch. A similar aperture, but is wider made at one end for the chimney. The men of the settlement, when notified, collect and raise the building. Four stout men with axes are placed on the corners to notch the logs together, while the rest of the company lift them up.

After the roof is on the body of the building, it is slightly hewed down both out and inside. The roof is formed by shortening each end log in succession till one log forms the comb of the roof. The clapboards are put on so as to cover all cracks, and held down by poles or small logs.

The chimney is built of sticks of wood, the largest at the bottom, and the smallest at the top, and laid up with a supply of mud or clay mortar. The interstices between the logs are c.h.i.n.ked with strips of wood and daubed with mortar both outside and in. A double cabin consists of two such buildings with a s.p.a.ce of 10 or 12 feet between, over which the roof extends.

A _log house_, in western parlance, differs from a cabin in the logs being hewn on two sides to an equal thickness before raising,--in having a framed and shingled roof, a brick or stone chimney, windows, tight floors, and are frequently clapboarded on the outside and plastered within.

A log house thus finished, costs more than a framed one. Cabins are often the temporary dwellings of opulent and highly respectable families.

The axe, auger, froe, drawing knife, broad-axe, and crosscut saw are the only tools required in constructing these rude edifices;--sometimes the axe and auger only are employed. Not a nail or pane of gla.s.s is needed.

Cabins are by no means as wretched for residences as their name imports.

They are often roomy, comfortable and neat. If one is not sufficient to accommodate the family, another is added, and another until sufficient room is obtained.

3. _Furniture and mode of living._--The genuine backwoodsman makes himself and family comfortable and contented where those, unaccustomed to his mode of life, would live in unavailing regret, or make a thousand awkward apologies on the visit of a neighbor or traveller. A table is made of a split slab and supported by four round legs. Clapboards supported by pins stuck in the logs answer for shelves for table furniture. The bedstead is often made in the corner of the room by sticks placed in the logs, supported at the outward corner by a post, on which clapboards are laid, the ends of which enter the wall between the logs, and which support the bedding. On the arrival of travellers or visiters, the bed clothing is shared with them, being spread on the puncheon floor that the feet may project towards the fire. Many a night has the writer pa.s.sed in this manner, after a fatiguing day's ride, and reposed more comfortably than on a bed of down in a s.p.a.cious mansion.

All the family of both s.e.xes, with all the strangers who arrive, often lodge in the same room. In that case the under garments are never taken off, and no consciousness of impropriety or indelicacy of feeling is manifested. A few pins stuck in the wall of the cabin display the dresses of the women and the hunting shirts of the men. Two small forks or bucks-horns fastened to a joist are indispensable articles for the support of the rifle. A loose floor of clapboards, and supported by round poles, is thrown over head for a loft which furnishes a place to throw any articles not immediately wanted, and is frequently used for a lodging place for the younger branches of the family. A ladder planted in the corner behind the door answers the purpose of stairs.

The necessary table and kitchen furniture are a few pewter dishes and spoons, knives and forks, (for which however, the common hunting knife is often a subst.i.tute,) tin cups for coffee or milk, a water pail and a small gourd or calabash for water, with a pot and iron Dutch oven, const.i.tute the chief articles. Add to these a tray for wetting up meal for corn bread, a coffee pot and set of cups and saucers, a set of common plates, and the cabin is furnished. The hominy mortar and hand mill are in use in all frontier settlements. The first consists of a block of wood with an excavation burned at one end and sc.r.a.ped out with an iron tool, wide at top and narrow at the bottom that the action of the pestle may operate to the best advantage. Sometimes a stump of a large tree is excavated while in its natural position. An elastic pole, 20 or 30 feet in length, with the large end fastened under the ground log of the cabin, and the other elevated 10 or 15 feet and supported by two forks, to which a pestle 5 or 6 inches in diameter and 8 or 10 feet long is fixed on the elevated end by a large mortice, and a pin put through its lower end so that two persons can work it in conjunction.

This is much used for pounding corn. A very simple instrument to answer the same purpose, is a circular piece of tin, perforated, and attached to a piece of wood like a grater, on which the ears of corn are rubbed for meal. The hand mill is in the same form as that used in Judea in the time of our Savior. Two circular stones, about 18 inches in diameter constructed like ordinary mill stones, with a staff let into the runner or upper stone near its outer edge, with the upper end inserted in a joist or board over head, and turned by the hands of two persons while one feeds it with corn. Horse mills follow the mortar and hand mill in the scale of improvement. They are constructed variously. A _hand_ mill is the most simple. A large upright post is placed on a gudgeon, with shafts extending horizontally 15 or 20 feet. Around the ends of these is a band of raw hide twisted, which pa.s.ses around the trundle head and turns the spindle and communicates motion to the stone. A _cog_ mill is formed by constructing a rim with cogs upon the shafts, and a trundle head to correspond. Each person furnishes his own horses to turn the mill, performs his own grinding, and pays toll to the owner for use of the mill. Mills with the wheel on an inclined plane, and carried by oxen standing on the wheel, are much in use in those sections where water power is not convenient, but these indicate an advance to the second grade of society.

Instead of bolting cloths, the frontier people use a sieve or as called here, a "search." This is made from a deer skin prepared to resemble parchment, stretched on a hoop and perforated full of holes with a hot wire.

Every backwoodsman carries on all occasions, the means of furnishing his meat. The rifle, bullet pouch and horn, hunting knife, horse and dog are his constant companions when from home, and woe be to the wolf, bear, deer or turkey that comes within one hundred and fifty yards of his trail.

With the first emigration there are few mechanics; hence every settler becomes expert in supplying his own necessaries. Besides clearing land, building cabins, and making fences, he stocks his own plough, repairs his wagon and his harness, tans his own leather, makes his shoes, tables, bedsteads, stools or seats, trays and a hundred other articles.

These may be rudely constructed, but they answer his purpose very well.

The following extracts from the graphic "SKETCHES OF THE WEST,"

by James Hall, Esq. completes this extended picture of backwoods manners.

"The traveller, accustomed to different modes of life, is struck with the rude and uncomfortable appearance of every thing about this people,--the rudeness of their habitations, the carelessness of their agriculture, the unsightly coa.r.s.eness of all their implements and furniture, the unambitious homeliness of all their goods and chattels, except the axe, the rifle, and the horse--these being invariably the best and handsomest which their means enable them to procure. But he is mistaken in supposing them indolent or improvident; and is little aware how much ingenuity and toil have been exerted in procuring the few comforts which they possess, in a country without arts, mechanics, money, or commercial intercourse.

"The backwoodsman has many substantial enjoyments. After the fatigue of his journey, and a short season of privation and danger, he finds himself surrounded with plenty. His cattle, hogs, and poultry, supply his table with meat; the forest abounds in game; the fertile soil yields abundant crops; he has, of course, bread, milk, and b.u.t.ter; the rivers furnish fish, and the woods honey. For these various articles, there is, at first, no market, and the farmer acquires the generous habit of spreading them profusely on his table, and giving them freely to a hungry traveller and an indigent neighbor.

"Hospitality and kindness are among the virtues of the first settlers.

Exposed to common dangers and toils, they become united by the closest ties of social intercourse. Accustomed to arm in each other's defence, to aid in each other's labor, to a.s.sist in the affectionate duty of nursing the sick, and the mournful office of burying the dead, the best affections of the heart are kept in constant exercise; and there is, perhaps, no cla.s.s of men in our country, who obey the calls of benevolence, with such cheerful promptness, or with so liberal a sacrifice of personal convenience.