The Pioneer was a jolly, generous soul. Meanness did not enter into his composition. The social scale was exactly balanced, all occupying precisely the same level. The idea that one man was socially the superior of any other man was not to be entertained for one moment.
The earliest residences were cabins of unhewn logs, having either dirt or puncheon floors. The puncheon floor was made by splitting logs into slabs of six or eight inches in thickness, hewing one surface, and dressing the edges with the broad-axe. This made a substantial if not even or close-jointed floor. The roof of the cabin was of clapboards, and kept in position by logs of wood laid on its upper surface. These logs were called weight poles. The chimney was usually made by building a kind of puncheon double frame for the fireplace, and filling in the space between–about ten or twelve inches in thickness–with clay which was well pounded in–the chimney above being made of sticks built up pen fashion and well daubed with earth mortar. The hearth was generally pounded clay, unless stone suitable happened to be very convenient and plenty. The door was usually made of clapboards, with a wooden latch on the inside, and was opened from the outside by pulling the latch-string. When the “latch-string was out,” the approaching comer knew the folks were at home, and, if at all acquainted, never took the trouble of knocking. If a stranger, he would generally announce his approach by a loud “halloo, the house!” which would bring the good man and woman each, or either who happened to be at home, to the door, followed by as many juveniles as the cabin afforded. If the caller was a footman and a stranger, he first rapped on the door and called, in a loud voice, “Who keeps the house?” and would receive the response from within, “Housekeepers: come in.” The furniture of the cabin was as primitive as the occupants. In one corner–perhaps in two or three corners–were the bedsteads. These were your genuine cottage bedsteads, made by boring one hole, say four feet from one corner of the cabin, into a “house-log,” another hole, say six feet from the same corner, on another side; opposite these holes was set an upright post, usually a section from the body of a peeled sapling; in this post two holes would be bored at any desired height, and at right angles with each other; poles were inserted in these holes, making in this manner a square frame; over this frame was laid a covering of clapboards, or, as some denominated them, ” shakes,” and on top of this platform the bed was spread. The chairs were –to make a bull– not chairs, but three-legged stools or puncheon benches. The cupboard was literally a cupboard, being a puncheon supported by pins driven into holes in the house-logs at some convenient corner.
The boxes which had held the family dry goods while en route to the new country generally furnished the table, and a trough or troughs the meat and soap barrels. Hollow logs sawed into sections and provided with a puncheon bottom furnished a receptacle for meal, potatoes, beans, wheat, ” and sich like truck”–to use the pioneer vernacular. The table was bounteously supplied with “samp,” “ley hominy,” corn pone, honey, venison, pork, stewed pumpkin, wild turkey, prairie chicken, and other game. Wheat bread, tea, coffee, and fruit–except wild fruit–were luxuries not to be indulged in except on special occasions, as a wedding or gala day. ” Samp ” was quite a frequent dish. It was made by burning a hole into some convenient stump in the shape of a mortar; this hole was filled with corn and pounded by a large pestle hung like the old-fashioned well-sweep pendent from a long pole, which was nearly balanced on an upright fork. This pole had a weight attached to one end and the pestle to the other; the weight would lift the pestle, while manual force was expected to bring it down. When the “samp” was pounded sufficiently, it was washed and boiled like rice. The traveler always found a welcome at the pioneer’s cabin. It was never full: although there might already be a guest for every puncheon, there was still “room for one more,” and a wider circle would be made for the newcomer at the log fire. If the stranger was in search of land, he was doubly welcome, and his host would volunteer to show him all the “first-rate claims in this neck of woods,” going with him for days, showing the corners and advantages of every “Congress tract” within a dozen miles from his own cabin.
To his neighbors the pioneer was equally liberal. If a deer was killed, the choicest bits were sent to his next neighbor, a half- dozen miles away, perhaps. When a “shoat ” was butchered, the same custom prevailed. If a newcomer came in too late for “cropping,” the neighbors would supply his table with just the same luxuries they themselves enjoyed, and in as liberal quantity, until a crop could be raised. When the newcomer had located his claim, the neighbors for miles around would assemble at the site of the newcomer’s proposed cabin and aid him in “gittin’ it up.” One party with axes would fell and hew the logs; another with teams would haul the logs to the ground; another party would “raise the cabin”; while several of the old men would “rive the clapboards” for the roof. By night the cabin would be
up and ready for occupying, and by the next day the newcomer was in all respects as well situated as his neighbors.
Saturday was a regular holiday, in which work was ignored and everybody went to town or to some place of general resort. When all were together in town, sport began. Of course, whisky circulated freely and everybody indulged to a greater or less extent. Quarrels were now settled by hand-to-hand encounters ; wrestling matches came off or were arranged for in the future; jumping, foot-racing, and horse-racing filled up the interval of time; and everybody enjoyed the rough sports with a zest unknown among the more refined denizens of the present good City of Canton.
The fleetest runner among the pioneers was Stephen Coleman; the champion wrestler was Daniel Babbett; while at fisti-cufis the belt was contested for between Stephen Coleman and Emsly Fonts, Coleman and Fonts were nearly equally matched, and on several occasions waged desperate war, with varying fortunes, until they held their last great battle, which will never be forgotten by the pioneers. It was on election day, in the fall of 1831. For weeks before it had been understood that they were to fight.
On election day, accordingly, they met on Union street, in front of Tyler’s Tavern, and, surrounded by an immense crowd of their respective friends, proceeded to settle their difiiculty. The fight was fierce, long, and bloody. Coleman, it was claimed, struck Fonts before he was entirely divested of his coat, and by this means began with the advantage in his favor, which advantage he was able to maintain until Fonts, after a gallant struggle, was forced to yield. Coleman’s friends raised him on their shoulders, and marched with him a triumphal march to the Public Square and back. Fonts was defeated, but, as he believed, not fairly, and he determined to renew the contest on another occasion. This was also understood, and the final struggle was looked forward to by the settlers with even more expectant interest than the first.
Accordingly, a few weeks later, one Saturday, Fonts came to town for the purpose of meeting Coleman. He stopped at Dickey Johnson’s, where he left his coat and put himself in fighting trim. Johnson accompanied him to town and acted as his friend and second. Fonts soon met Coleman, and informed him that he had come to town expressly to settle their little trouble. Coleman began to draw his leather coat, but before it was off Fonts took the same advantage Coleman had taken in the previous fight, and
struck him. This advantage was all he desired, and vigorously did he follow it up. Coleman was not easily handled, however, and soon was stripped and in fighting trim. The fight was a desperate one, and it was soon apparent that neither would acknowledge defeat. Fonts, however, had so well followed up his advantage that Coleman’s friends parted them, and ever after neither could be induced to attack the other.
Foot-racing, jumping and wrestling were also indulged in on Saturdays, and among the pioneers were men of fleet foot, strong arm, and sinewy limb. John Anderson, a saddler who worked for Bryant L. Cook, was credited with the fleetest foot prior and up to the storm in 1835 ; while Alexander Cumming, a brother-in- law of Jacob Weaver, was said to excel all others in jumping.
In 1830 and the immediately succeeding years John Scurlock and Abram Putman were the champion runners, and Putman the champion jumper. Occasionally the sport would be varied by a
horse race, while whisky and jokes were freely indulged in. Some of these pioneers were rare old jokers, too. The point of their joke would some times rub a raw place in their victim, but for that so much the better. There was running through this pioneer life, too, a deep, rich vein of religious sentiment. The pioneer preachers were no carpet knights, but men who preached from a stern sense of religious
duty. They were not deterred from filling their appointments by wind or weather, but swam rivers, faced northers, and passed through the perils of the wilderness, to carry the glad tidings of the gospel to the frontiersmen.
Peter Cartwright, Father Somers, Woolescroft, John M. Ellis, Jno. G. Bergen, Jesse Williams, Ozias Hale, Jno. Clark, and their colaborers, were–some of them, perhaps, not eloquent–but all devoted, true, worthy men–men who preached a pure religion; for there was a religion in the olden time, a religion plain, unostentatious and simple, but earnest, pure and undefiled. Plain men and plain women met together, not for display, not for frivolous discourse, but for the worship of the one Living God, whose handiwork they recognized in the forests and prairies, and whose watchful care they felt around them every day, in preserving them from the savage, and from the innumerable dangers to which their pioneer life was subject. They met, not in turreted church, with stained-glass windows, to seat themselves on cushioned seats, and listen to hired musicians, who torture elegant organs by singing the words of religion to the music of the opera and the ballroom. They met in the settler’s cabin, coming on foot, or horseback or in rude oxcarts to the place of worship. They came, not dressed in velvets, not loaded with panniers and false hair; but plain women in moccasins, or cowhide brogans, wearing modest three-cornered handkerchiefs over plain linsey or homespun checked cotton gowns, their hair, as God caused it to grow, unadorned, combed out smooth and glossy, and hidden from view by the primitive Methodist bonnet, or the modest sun-bonnet, as our mothers wore it. The men came, not kid-gloved bewhiskered dandies in tights, and boots that were a size too small for their feet, and walking with a gait as ungraceful as disgusting; but clad in linsey-woolsey hunting-shirt, with home-braided straw hat or coon-skin cap, with their plain white home-made cotton shirt, whose wide collar was turned down over the “wammus” or hunting-shirt. They came with a firm, free step, in their moccasins or brogans, a long, graceful step that told of strength and activity.
They met in some log school house, or in the one room of some pioneer log cabin! Outside the door were seats for the men–logs laid lengthwise and boards or puncheons stretching across them. The yard fence was also used for seats, and no one complained at the length of the exercise either, even if compelled for two hours to perch upon the sharp edge of an oak rail during the service. The people have assembled. The women occupy the inside of the cabin ; the men are scattered around without, awaiting the coming of the man of God. The set time has come–has been passed an hour, and the minister has not appeared. There is no impatience, however, no murmuring. They know that the good man has a long and weary ride this morning. He preached yesterday at Ross’s Ferry, perhaps, or Fort Clark, and the streams are high, and the roads bad. He will come–no fear of disappointment–and what is an hour or two? Presently there is a movement among the young men who have strayed to some little distance from the cabin; they begin to move up toward the door, and select their seats. Old men rise up from the fence-corners, where they have been squatting in groups, talking over the latest Indian news, and look down the road where the minister is expected to appear. Yes, there he comes, the primitive man of God; clad in sheep’s-gray pants, and round-breasted blue or brown jeans coat, with its stiff, straight collar, over which appears his white shirt-collar, guiltless of starch or gloss ; and all surmounted by the white fur, low-crowned hat, with its wide brim.
And now all is still. The hum of voices, which had been in- cessant before, is hushed. The old men meet the preacher, and in low tones ask after his health; if he had much trouble in crossing the creek, and how he found the roads. He answers their questions with few words and passes in, shaking hands with some of the older mothers in Israel, as he hangs his hat on a projecting pin, and takes out from his capacious coat-tail pockets his well worn bible and hymn book. Taking his stand in the open doorway, he gravely reads, or rather recites, that old hymn–“Come, let us anew our journey pursue.”
It is sung by every man and woman present, sung with voices clear and loud, No operatic quavers, no voluntary, no pretension. The voices are all blending in a hai-mony born of devotion, and which goes up a pure offering of praise to the throne of the Most High. It is a music that comes from hearts all attuned
to praise, and finds its way through the open gates of heaven to the great white throne. With music such as this is heaven wooed, and heaven won. As the last notes die away, the good man folds his hands and
prays. The prayer is simple, plain, and as of one who approaches the vestibule of Omnipotence, in its solemnity ; and as unfaltering in its trust as the pleading of a child with the father who it knows will stoop to listen. It bears up the burdens of the people;–it lays before the throne the wants of every stricken soul. It must be heard if the heavens be not of brass. The prayer is closed, and again the voice of song is heard. This time it is that grand old hymn–
” Oh, when shall I see Jesus, And dwell with him above ‘? ” / The good minister selects a chapter, as the last verse of this hymn is sung, and now he reads it; reads, not with the actor’s trilling 7’s and guttural tones; but in a plain, earnest and solemn voice, he reads a chapter wonderfully appropriate to the condition of his congregation.
The sermon is not an elegant production of finished oratory. It may be disconnected ; it may be ungrammatical, and lacking whitened polish ; but it is plain, simple, direct. It came from the heart–it will reach the heart, and it is listened to with an attention never given to the polished oratory that delights in ornate chancels as its birthplace, and silk and broadcloth listeners. The sermon ends; the doxology and benediction have been spoken; all gather around the good minister, eager to press his hand–attentive to listen, willing to treasure up the words of exhortation, of reproof, or of warning, which fall from his lips. This was the pioneer worship–a pure and godly worship; a worship more pure, more likely to find favor in the sight of God, than the religion that displays itself in turreted and cushioned edifices born of pride, but labeled for the worship of God, that have succeeded the old log school houses of fifty years ago. Those were the days of Christianity. I fear we are now living in the days of churchianity.