composed of the trunks of trees, bared of their branches, notched at
the ends and fitted upon one another in a quadrangular shape, to the
desired height. Openings through the logs left room for doors and
shutters. A capacious opening, nearly the whole width of the cabin,
made the fire-place. By this ample width economy of labor in cutting
fire-wood, as well as comfort in houses, was consulted.
“The furniture of the table, for several years after the settlement
of the 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, with the salt
and iron, on pack-horses. These articles of furniture corresponded
very well with the articles of diet. ‘Hog and hominy’ was a dish of
proverbial celebrity. Johnny-cake or pone was at the outset of the
settlements the only form of bread in use for breakfast and dinner;
at supper, milk and mush was the standard dish. When milk was scarce,
hominy supplied its place, and mush was frequently eaten with sweetened
water, molasses, bear’s oil, or the gravy of fried meat.
“In our display of furniture, delf, china and silver were unknown.
The introduction of delf ware was considered by many of the backwoods
people as a wasteful innovation. It was too easily broken, and the
plates dulled their scalping and clasp knives. Tea and coffee, in the
phrase of the day, ‘did not stick by the ribs.’ The idea then prevalent
was, that they were only designed for people of quality, who did not
labor, or for the rich. A genuine backwoodsman would have thought
himself disgraced by showing a fondness for such ‘slops.’
“On the frontier and particularly among hunters in the habit of
going on campaigns, the dress of the men was partly Indian. The
hunting-shirt universally worn was a kind of loose frock, reaching
half way down the thighs, with large sleeves, open before, and so wide
as to lap over a foot or more when belted. The cape was large, and
sometimes fringed with a ravelled piece of cloth, of different color
from the hunting-shirt. The bosom of this dress served as a wallet
to hold bread, cakes, jerk, tow for wiping the barrel of the rifle,
or any other necessary for the hunter or warrior. The belt, always
tied behind, answered several purposes; in cold weather the mittens,
and sometimes the bullet-bag, occupied its front part; on the right
side was suspended the tomahawk, on the left the scalping knife in
its leathern sheath. The hunting-shirt was generally made of linsey,
sometimes of coarse linen, and a few of dressed deer-skin; these last
very cold and uncomfortable in wet weather. The shirt and jacket were
of the common fashion. A pair of drawers, or breeches and leggins, were
the dress of the thighs and legs; a pair of moccasins answered for
the feet much better than shoes. These were made of dressed deer-skin,
and were mostly of a single piece, with a seam along the top of the
foot, and another from the bottom of the heel, as high or a little
higher than the ancle joint. Flaps were left on each side, to reach
some distance up the legs. These were nicely adapted to the ancles and
lower part of the leg by thongs of deerskin, so that no dust, gravel,
or snow could get within the moccasin. In cold weather this was well
stuffed with deer’s hair or dried leaves, to keep the feet comfortably
warm; but in wet weather it was usually said that wearing moccasins was
‘a decent way of going barefoot;’ and such was the fact, owing to the
spongy texture of the leather of which they were made. Owing to this
defective covering of the feet, many of our hunters and warriors were
afflicted with rheumatism in their limbs. Of this disease they were all
apprehensive in cold or wet weather, and therefore always slept with
their feet to the fire, to prevent or cure it as well as they could.
This practice unquestionably had a very salutary effect, and prevented
many of them from becoming confirmed cripples in early life.
“In the latter years of the Indian war, our young men became more
enamored of the Indian dress. The drawers were laid aside, and the
leggins made longer, so as to reach the upper part of the thigh. The
Indian breech cloth was adopted. This was a piece of linen or cloth,
nearly a yard long, and eight or nine inches broad, passing under the
belt, before and behind, leaving the ends for flaps hanging before and
behind over the belt, sometimes ornamented with coarse embroidery. To
the same belt which secured the breech cloth, strings, supporting the
long leggins, were attached. When this belt, as was often the case,
passed over the hunting-shirt, the upper part of the thighs and part
of the hips were naked. The young warrior, instead of being abashed by
this, was proud of his Indian dress. In some few instances I have seen
them go into places of public worship in this dress.” De Hass adds,
that old hunters have said it was the most comfortable, convenient, and
desirable that could have been invented for the times in which it was
used. Linsey coats and gowns were the universal dress of the women in
early times.
A description of a wedding among the pioneers may serve to illustrate
their manners. The following is taken from Doddridge’s Notes:
“In the first years of the settlement, a wedding engaged the attention
of a whole neighborhood, and the frolic was anticipated by old and
young with eager expectation. This will not be wondered at, as a
wedding was almost the only gathering unaccompanied with the labor
of reaping, log-rolling, building a cabin, or planning some warlike
expedition.
“On the morning of the wedding day, the groom and his attendants
assembled at the house of his father, for the purpose of reaching
the home of his bride by noon, the usual time for celebrating the
nuptials. Let the reader imagine an assemblage of people, without a
store, tailor, or mantuamaker within a hundred miles; and an assemblage
of horses, without a blacksmith or saddler within an equal distance;
the gentlemen dressed in shoepacks, moccasins, leather breeches,
leggins, linsey hunting-shirts, and all home-made; the ladies in linsey
petticoats and linsey or linen bedgowns, coarse shoes, stockings,
handkerchiefs, and buckskin gloves, if any. If there were any buckles,
rings, buttons, or ruffles, they were the relics of olden times, family
pieces from parents or grandparents. The horses were caparisoned with
old saddles, old bridles or halters, and pack-saddles, with a bag or
blanket thrown over them; a rope or string as often constituted the
girth as a piece of leather. The march, in double file, was often
interrupted by the narrowness and obstructions of the horse-paths,
for there were no roads; and these difficulties were often increased
by fallen trees and grape vines tied across the way. Sometimes an
ambuscade was formed by the wayside, and an unexpected discharge of
several guns took place, so as to cover the wedding company with
smoke. Let the reader imagine the scene that followed this discharge;
the sudden spring of the horses, the shrieks of the girls, and the
chivalrous bustle of their partners to save them from falling. If a
wrist, elbow, or ancle happened to be sprained, it was tied with a
handkerchief, and little more was thought or said about it.
“The ceremony of the marriage preceded the dinner, which was a
substantial backwoods feast of beef, pork, fowls, and sometimes venison
and bear meat roasted and boiled, with plenty of potatoes, cabbage,
and other vegetables. During the dinner the greatest hilarity always
prevailed, although the table might be a large slab of timber hewed
out with a broad axe, supported by four sticks set in auger holes;
and the furniture, some old pewter dishes and plates, eked out with
wooden bowls and trenchers. A few pewter spoons, much battered about
the edges, were seen at some tables; the rest were made of horn.
If knives were scarce, the deficiency was made up by the scalping
knives which every man carried in sheaths suspended to the belt of
the hunting-shirt. After dinner the dancing commenced, and generally
lasted till the next morning. The figures of the dances were three and
four-handed reels and jigs. The commencement was always a square four,
which was followed by what was called ‘jigging it off;’ that is, two of
the four would single out for a jig, and be followed by the remaining
couple. The jigs were often accompanied with what was called ‘cutting
out;’ that is, when either of the parties became tired of the dance, on
intimation, the place was supplied by some one of the company, without
any interruption to the dance. In this way it was often continued till
the musician was heartily tired of his situation. Towards the latter
part of the night, if any of the company, through weariness, attempted
to conceal themselves for the purpose of sleeping, they were hunted up,
paraded on the floor, and the fiddler ordered to play ‘Hang out till
to-morrow morning.’
About nine or ten o’clock a deputation of the young ladies stole off
the bride and put her to bed. In doing this it frequently happened that
they had to ascend a ladder instead of stairs, leading from the dining
and ball-room to a loft, the floor of which was made of clapboards
lying loose. This ascent, one might think, would put the bride and her
attendants to the blush; but as the foot of the ladder was commonly
behind the door, purposely opened for the occasion, and its rounds
at the inner ends were well hung with hunting-shirts, dresses, and
other articles of clothing--the candles being on the opposite side of
the house, the exit of the bride was noticed but by few. This done, a
deputation of young men, in like manner, stole off the groom, while
the dance still continued, and late at night refreshment in the shape
of ‘black Betty’--the bottle--was sent up the ladder, with sometimes
substantial accompaniments of bread, beef, pork and cabbage. The
feasting and dancing often lasted several days, at the end of which the
whole company were so exhausted with loss of sleep, that many days’
rest was requisite to fit them to return to their ordinary labors.”
Sometimes it happened that neighbors or relations not asked to the
wedding, took offence, and revenged themselves by cutting off the
manes, foretops and tails of horses belonging to the wedding company.
The same writer thus describes the usual manner of settling a young
couple in the world:--“A spot was selected on a piece of land belonging
to one of the parents, for their habitation, and a day appointed
shortly after their marriage, to commence the work of building their
cabin. The materials were prepared on the first day, and sometimes
the foundation laid in the evening. The second day was allotted for
the raising. The cabin being furnished, the ceremony of housewarming
took place before the young couple were permitted to move into it.
The house-warming was a dance of a whole night’s continuance, made up
of the relations of the bridegroom and their neighbors. On the day
following, the young couple took possession of their new premises.
“Many of the sports of the early settlers of this country were
imitative of the exercises and stratagems of hunting and war. Boys were
taught the use of the bow and arrow at an early age; but although they
acquired considerable adroitness, so as to kill a bird or squirrel, yet
it appears to me that in the hands of the white people, the bow and
arrow could never be depended on for warfare or hunting. One important
pastime of the boys--that of imitating the noise of every bird and
beast in the woods--was a necessary part of education on account of
its utility under certain circumstances. Imitating the gobbling and
other sounds of the wild turkey, often brought those ever watchful
tenants of the forest within reach of the rifle. The bleating of the
fawn brought its dam to her death in the same way. The hunter often
collected a company of mopish owls to the trees about his camp, and
amused himself with their hoarse screaming. His howl would raise and
obtain responses from a pack of wolves, so as to inform him of their
whereabouts, as well as to guard him against their depredations.
“This imitative faculty was sometimes requisite as a measure of
precaution in war. The Indians, when scattered about in a neighborhood,
often collected together by imitating turkeys by day and wolves or owls
by night. In similar situations our people did the same. I have often
witnessed the consternation of a whole neighborhood in consequence of
the screeching of owls. An early and correct use of this imitative
faculty was considered as an indication that its possessor would become
in due time a good hunter and a valiant warrior.
“Throwing the tomahawk was another boyish sport in which many acquired
considerable skill. The tomahawk, with its handle of a certain length,
will make a given number of turns within a certain distance; say in
five steps it will strike with the edge, the handle downwards--at the
distance of seven and a half it will strike with the edge, the handle
upwards, and so on. A little experience enabled the boy to measure the
distance with his eye when walking through the wood, and to strike a
tree with his tomahawk in anyway he chose. A well grown boy at the age
of twelve or thirteen, was furnished with a small rifle and shot pouch.
He then became a foot soldier, and had his port-hole assigned him.
Hunting squirrels, turkeys, and racoons, soon made him expert in the
use of his gun.
“The athletic sports of running, jumping, and wrestling, were the
pastimes of boys in common with men. Dramatic narrations, chiefly
concerning Jack and the Giant, furnished our young people with another
source of amusement during their leisure hours. The different
incidents of the narration were easily committed to memory, and have
been handed down from generation to generation.” The singing of the
first settlers was rude enough. “Robin Hood furnished a number of our
songs; the balance were mostly tragical; these were denominated ‘love
songs about murder.’ As to cards, dice, backgammon, and other games of
chance, we knew nothing about them. They are among the blessed gifts of
civilization!
“Hunting was an important part of the employment of the early settlers.
For some years the woods supplied them with the greater amount of their
subsistence, and it was no uncommon thing for families to live several
months without a mouthful of bread. It frequently happened that there
was no breakfast till it was obtained from the woods. Fur constituted
the people’s money; they had nothing else to give in exchange for
rifles, salt, and iron, on the other side of the mountains. The fall
and early part of the winter was the season for hunting the deer, and
the whole of the winter, including part of the spring, for bears and
fur-skinned animals. It was a customary saying, that fur is good during
every month in the name of which the letter R occurs.
“As soon as the leaves were pretty well down, and the weather became
rainy, accompanied with light snows, these men, after acting the part
of husbandmen as far as the state of warfare permitted, began to
feel that they were hunters, and became uneasy at home, their minds
being wholly occupied with the camp and chase. Hunting was not a
mere ramble in pursuit of game, in which there was nothing of skill
and calculation; on the contrary, the hunter before he set out in
the morning, was informed by the state of the weather where he might
reasonably expect to find his game, whether on the bottom, the sides,
or tops of the hills. In stormy weather the deer always seek the most
sheltered places, and the leeward side of the hills. In rainy weather,
when there is not much wind, they keep in the open woods on the high
ground. In every situation it was requisite for the hunter to ascertain
the course of the wind, so as to get the leeward of the game. As it was
necessary, too, to know the cardinal points, he had to observe the
trees to ascertain them. The bark of an aged tree is thicker and much
rougher on the north than the south side; and the same may be said of
the moss. From morning till night the hunter was on the alert to gain
the wind of his game, and approach them without being discovered. If
he succeeded in killing a deer, he skinned it and hung it up out of
the reach of the wolves, and immediately resumed the chase till the
close of the evening, when he bent his course towards his camp; when
arrived there he kindled up his fire, and together with his fellow
hunter, cooked his supper. The supper finished, the adventures of the
day furnished tales for the evening, in which the spike-buck, the
two and three pronged buck, the doe and barren doe, figured to great
advantage.”[20]
“A place for a camp was selected as near water as convenient, and a
fire was kindled by the side of the largest suitable log that could
be procured. The ground was preferred to be rather sideling, that the
hunters might lie with the feet to the fire, and the head up hill. The
common mode of preparing a repast was by sharpening a stick at both
ends, and sticking one end in the ground before the fire, and their
meat on the other end. This stick could be turned round, or the meat
on it, as occasion required. Sweeter roast meat than was prepared in
this manner no European epicure ever tasted. Bread, when they had flour
to make it of, was either baked under the ashes, or the dough rolled
in long rolls, and wound round a stick like that prepared for roasting
meat, and managed in the same way. Scarce any one who has not tried it,
can imagine the sweetness of such a meal, in such a place, at such a
time. French mustard, or the various condiments used as a substitute
for an appetite, are nothing to this.”[21]
VII.
ANN HAYNES.
It is mentioned in “The Women of the American Revolution,”[22] that on
the approach of Cornwallis to Charlotte, the family of Mr. Brown sought
refuge at the house of James Haynes, who lived upon the road leading
north of Cowan’s Ford on the Catawba River. While they remained here,
the British in pursuit of Morgan stopped at the house, plundered it,
and made the owner a prisoner. Mrs. Haynes, despoiled of everything
in the way of provision, herself conducted family worship that night,
and praying for the restoration of her captive husband, entreated
earnestly the interposition of Providence to protect _the right_.
This pious and exemplary matron, whose heart bled for the woes of her
oppressed country, and who encouraged her sons to struggle bravely in
its defence, was little aware of the extent of the beneficent influence
her noble character was to exercise on succeeding generations. The
death-bed gift she received from her father--a copy of the Westminster
Confession of Faith printed at Edinburgh in 1707--was bequeathed by
her as sacredly to her son, John Haynes, and is kept as a venerated
relic in his family. Eight of the descendants of Mrs. Haynes are now
ministers in the Presbyterian church, devoted to the exposition and
extension of the true and simple doctrines of the gospel, while others
are engaged in the same good work in other denominations--all carrying
out and exemplifying the sterling principles derived from their
independent ancestors of the era of Cromwell’s Protectorate.
One of Mrs. Haynes’ descendants has favored me with some notices of
the matron and her family, from the recollections of her widowed
daughter-in-law, Margaret Haynes, who was for some years a resident
of Cornersville, in Tennessee. Her maiden name was Ann Huggins. She
was the daughter of John Huggins, a Scotch Presbyterian, who emigrated
from the north of Ireland to America about 1730. She married James
Haynes about 1748. In a catalogue of the Pioneer Women of the West, her
name may well find a place. After her marriage, she settled upon the
verge of civilization, in the county of Dauphin, Pennsylvania, where
she was exposed to the frontier troubles of that colony, but stronger
attractions soon drew her family to the South.
In 1752, James Haynes and two brothers, and many kinsmen with their
families, ventured out to the then Far West, in the valley of the
Catawba, in the colony of North Carolina. Here, upon the very borders
of the hostile Cherokees and Catawbas, they established themselves,
building a fort as a defence against Indian incursions, and maintained
their position by the strength of their arms. For several years, cooped
up within the limits of a frontier station, they courageously opposed
the marauding parties of the hostile tribes in their neighborhood.
It was in this year that the settlement of the upper country, both
of North and South Carolina, began. At that time the frontiers of
Pennsylvania were east of the mountains; and Fort Duquesne was a French
trading post. The settlements in Virginia were still confined to the
Atlantic slope, and it was several years later, when Col. Bird of
the British army, advanced into the wilderness, and established Fort
Chissel, as a protection to the advancing settlements. Still later,
Gov. Dobbs, of North Carolina, succeeded in establishing Fort Loudon,
in the midst of the Cherokee nation. Notwithstanding its exposed
situation, the settlement grew rapidly, so that in a few years the
entire valley of the Catawba was occupied. At this time there were so
many buffaloes in this region, that a good hunter could easily kill
enough in a few days, to supply his family for the year. Wild turkeys,
bears, deer, wolves, and panthers, were also abundant. Every little
mountain stream abounded with otters, beavers, and musk-rats. Each
pioneer could raise as many head of cattle as he thought proper; the
profusion of canes and grasses, rendering stock-raising so easy, that
the means of plentiful living was almost to be had without labor. A few
skins usually sufficed to purchase upon the seaboard all the necessary
supplies of iron, salt, etc., for the year.
This kind of life, requiring the daily use of the rifle, and much
exercise on horseback, and exposure to the open air in the woods, made
these hardy men the best of soldiers, and enabled them to cope with
the wild warriors of the savage tribes who dwelt on their borders. The
axe, and the rifle, and the horse, were their constant companions. Each
settler sought a home near some clear spring or stream, convenient to
the _range_ and susceptible of defence against the Indians. In such
a settlement the means of education were limited, and but for the
religious zeal and pious labors of a few educated ministers who cast
their fortunes with the colonists, would have been unattainable. The
Rev. Hezekiah Balch, afterwards a signer of the Mecklenburg Declaration
of Independence, was one of them.
In all the trials and disorders of the transition state of society
peculiar to the frontiers of the West, these pioneers never forgot
the principles, nor gave up the practice of those Christian virtues
which they had received from their ancestors. Here, in the midst of
the solitudes of their deep pine forests, they reared their sons and
daughters in the fear of God and in the love of liberty, and when the
storm of civil war burst forth, and they were called upon to sustain
the cause of an oppressed people, they did not hesitate to send their
sons forth to battle for “the right.”
An aged citizen of Marshall County, Tennessee, often described the
appearance of his own father and James Haynes, both prisoners in the
hands of the British the night after Gen. Davidson’s death at Cowan’s
Ford. He saw these aged men and many other prisoners driven like sheep
into a corn-crib, the door of which was filled with rails, and a
sentinel placed, over it; and thus without blanket or fire, they passed
a long winter night in 1781.
The venerable Mrs. Haynes survived her husband but a short time.
True to the principles of her faith, upon her dying bed she gave to
each of her children her parting words of advice with one of the
religious books contained in her library. To her son John, she gave
the Westminster Confession of Faith; to another, Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s
Progress; to a third, Flavel, etc., works usually found in that day in
the library of every Christian. She died about the year 1790.