Memories: 1823 – 1839

What was life like in these hills around our home about 180 years ago? I am always interested in learning about the old ways and times, and I love reading about life in the Kentucky hills of days gone by.

I came across an interesting memoir online from Zachariah VanHoose who wrote about the area he lived at as a boy. He is writing about the 1820s and 1830s. He lived from 1823 – 1887 but he left Kentucky and moved to Arkansas in 1839.

What is fascinating to me is that he wrote about an area near Pure Water Hollow and he had a good recollection of early life here. I copied the more interesting parts of it here on this blog, just for fun.

If you would like to read the whole thing, here is the link. http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~kyjohnso/ZVH.htm

When I skip over parts of the narrative, I used dots ….

"…I first see myself a little child, not more than 3 or 4 years old of age. Father, mother, sisters and brothers all at one large hewed log house, kitchen with great chimneys, fireplaces to them, bright crackling fires burning in those fireplaces. The house is on a public road and among the hills in far-off Kentucky. Our home with its surroundings was a world within itself. I knew nothing far beyond it. People came and went, stopped at our house, were entertained, talked, laughed, ate and drank, and went off again. I knew not whither.

I can remember that I had white or flaxen colored hair; wore little coats of linsey, colored blue, and made like those worn by small girls. Sometimes wore long shirts made of flax, coming down to my ankles, and no other clothing but this for summer weather! I can see my eldest sister Rachel as a girl of 11 or 12 years doing house work, spinning on a "big wheel" and mother spinning flax on a "little wheel". Rachel also looked after me a good deal, washed my dirty face and hands, and often took me off with Mary and brother Pete into the woods after berries, grapes, papaws, plums and red haws, walnuts, hickory nuts, hazel nuts and chestnuts. Often saw snakes, squirrels and many birds on those jaunts. I can remember a colored woman named "Junie" or "June" and a colored man named "Danl" or Daniel, who lived with us about that time and both of whom I greatly loved and who loved and cared for me a good deal. …

…At 10 1/2 or before 11 years old, I was put to plowing and did constant service in that way whenever plowing was done, and that was from March till August. It was an uphill business for me at first, but after a time I got along much better and was said to be a very good plow-boy. At any rate, I got lots of it to do and plenty of other work besides! …

…On one occasion, I remember we visited a turkey pen at the lower end of our "old field" on Jennie’s Creek, a mile from the house, and found a wild turkey caught in the pen! I was much excited over this and wanted to crawl into the turkey trap through the trench leading in, but Father would not let me, as he said the turkey would hurt me with its wings. So Father went in himself and broke its neck and we took it and went on our way, the turkey being added to Father’s burden.

A few years prior to this event, some wild bears invaded this same field and made havoc among the roasting ears growing therein. They would visit the field at night and kept hidden in daylight. Several attempts were made to start them with dogs, but it so happened that they did not come on those nights when the hunters were looking for them. They were cunning bears and not easily taken in.

After ceasing to search for them, Old Uncle Levi VanHoose was looking for squirrels one day not far from this same field and very unexpectedly came across old Madam Bruin and her dusky children, probably waiting for night to come so as to slip into the corn again. He fired on them with a squirrel shot and killed on the Mrs. B’s children, whereupon she emigrated and was never heard of in those parts afterwards. So we had good bear meat to eat, in compensation for the stolen roasting ears.

Raccoons, also, were accustomed to invade our cornfields and we generally caught and killed a lot of them to pay for it. We had good dogs and they often caught game of various kinds–treed foxes and wildcats, coons and possums. Some of these were shot and killed with a gun, and others caught by cutting down the trees and letting the dogs on them. …

…Jennie’s Creek ran through our farm and it was there I caught my first fish, and in its waters learned the art of swimming. Trapping for patridges and hunting rabbits was pleasant past-time in winter. Pheasants were very plentiful there and were excellent to eat. They resemble our prairie chickens of this country (Arkansas).

We had a good peach orchard and also a pretty good lot of apple trees, all of which bore fruit in great abundance about every 2d or 3d year. That was rather a poor wheat County; we raised but little of it and what we did raise had to be cut with the reap-hook or the old scythe-cradle. Then we had to tramp it out with horses or thresh it out with flails by hand power! We then took it (a bag full at a time) to the water mill or horse mill, had it ground. Then the women folks had to "sarch" each mess as ’twas used. Our "sarches" (as people called them) were made something like a sieve — only the hoop contained a bottom of muslin instead of wire or horse-hair.

I can remember when there were no bolting machines in all the region. One was finally put up in the "Big Paint" mill, 3 miles from us, and then Old Henry Dixon added one to his horse mill, 3 1/2 miles off. These were at first turned by hand, but after a little while were geared to the other mill works and run by the same power that turned the mill.

We used to wear a good deal of home-made cloth, "Kentucky jeans", linsy woolsey and flax and also cotton. Tow-cloth was also worn by a good many. We kept a flock of sheep and mother and the girls spun the wool and wove it into cloth for clothing and made many blankets and coverlets. They also made some sheets out of flax. Mother was a great flax spinner and made a large amount of that into cloth. I have worn flax shirts and pants of her make, when a little boy. People did not buy so many store goods in those days. Even our winter shoes were home tanned and home made. We had to make out with 1 pair a year — that is we boys. Sometimes the girls would be favored with a store pair for summer wear. …

…In those days we had great fun and good times making maple sugar and molasses. There was a large number of those trees on our place and we made shugar in the latter part of winter and early spring, almost every year. Those were times to be remembered, as we had a great deal of fun mixed with our labor and enjoyed the time hugely. We had a camp erected in the woods, a furnace built filled with kettles, large poplar trough dug out to hold water in, at camp — small trough to catch the water at each tree tapped and horses and barrels and halfsleds to haul in the shugar-water to camp. And then at night we stayed in camp, boiled down the water, told stories, listened to the hooting owls, dried off syrup in a skillet and ate hot shugar with paddles of clean wood, and drank spice-wood tea made with the shugar water, ate cold lunch &c &c. Happy were we then.

Our old home, of which I have already spoken was situated on the main road leading up the Sandy River country. It was 9 or 10 miles below Prestonsburg (the County seat) and was 3 or 3/12 miles above Paintsville, which was then in Floyd County but since then has been cut off by a new division of counties and belongs to Johnson County and is County seat of that new County.

Father bought and located on this old farm soon after he and mother married, which event happened in 1812 or 1813 (am not exactly certain which one of those dates). Nearly all of my brothers and sisters were born there, only two of them being born in the far West, as this country and Arkansas were then called. I was the first one born in the big new house situated on the road just mentioned a few lines back…..

…The house referred to was built of hewed poplar logs, was two stories high, had large brick chimney, a huge fireplace below and a smaller one upstairs. House cealed, had good pine floors and was furnished with several glass windows. The "upstairs" was the most pleasant part of the house. There was also a large kitchen built at the southwest corner of our dwellings and to it was built a large stone chimney and a fireplace adapted to cooking in those days. A large swinging iron crane was fixed in the jam of this fireplace, to hang pots and kettles on. Our house has a long porch on the front or east side and one also one the west, that extended up against the kitchen and made a very convenient passway into that department.

We had smoke house, stables and other outhouses, a good paled-in garden, in which we used to pick up scores of Indian arrow points made of very hard reddish-colored flint. The spot had once been an Indian Village, or at least a noted camping ground for them. This whole region was at one time their grand hunting ground and must have been a perfect Indian heaven! as it abounded in all kinds of game when new and its streams were full of fishes and the woods full of nuts, fruits, berries &c &c, all in lavish profusion. The climate was also mild and the whole face of the country was covered with heavy forests. The surface of the country was uneven, there being hills, ridges, hollows, valleys and many undulations and uneven places.

The hills, many of them, had pine trees on the tops, sometimes spruce and there were lots of cedar trees along the river bluffs. Beech and poplar grew in profusion and many large chestnut trees were found on the mountain sides and sometimes in the vales. Many other trees and shrubs grew there, that are not to be found in the western states, or at least west of the Mississippi River.

The whole country was full of fine timber, a great deal of which was cut and floated down the river to market. We also used to cut, saw and make thousands of barrel and hogshead staves and peel cords of tan bark, all of which we shipped in flat boarts built for the purpose, to Cincinnati and other markets. Some of my early lessons in sawing were taken, sawing logs for staves. That was hard work for a boy. We cut white oak trees that were 3 feet diameter and worked them into staves, one tree sometimes making over a 1,000 of them. This lumber business was carried on there to a very considerable extent at that time and still more afterward. The saw-log business became all the rage nearby in after years, tens of thousands being cut, hauled to the river, rafted or floated down to market at different points along the Ohio River.

About 1828 Grandfather Mankins, Uncle George Lewis, Uncle John Mankins and others of our relatives on the mother’s side and all of whom have a place in my early recollections, sold out their lands in Kentucky and emigrated to Illinois, going in old blue-colored wagons, drawn by fine horses. I can well remember the grief of friends, various scenes of the starting — Mother and Granmother and Mother’s younger sisters parting — they going to wilds of the Far West and we and others of the conexion remaining behind. It was almost like being parted by death itself, as we supposed the separation was probably to be one of forever as to the present life.

Several of us camped with them the first night, at a place called "The Dopp Hole" in Big Paint Creek, which was 3 1/2 miles below where we lived and was only 2 to 3 miles from where they all started, which was "Long Horn Bottom", 6 miles from where we lived. The starting road led up the stream called Big Paint and was west in direction. …

…In ’37 we deserted our old and long occupied home and moved to the River a mile or so away, so as to be handy to our hauling and boat building, for we had two big boats to build to carry off the lumber. This we proceeded to do. We cut our gunwale trees, poplars, one of which furnished us a pair of gunwales 84 feet in length, 7 inches thick, 2 feet 2 in at the bow-rake and about 20 in. at the stern-rake. Of these, with the other timbers necessary, with 2 in. plank for bottom and sides, we constructed the larger boat. We built the smaller one, in which we carried the tan-bark, 60 ft. long and 18 ft. wide and sided up 6 ft. high from the bottom of the boat inside. The larger one was sided up the same way. In this one, when ready, we placed 53,000 staves and heading; in the other about 30 cords of bark. It was very serious job to do all this work, as we had to haul the bark off of the mountain top, a mile or two away, and the staves from many a hollow and branch bottoms, 1 to 3 miles away from the River …."

I don’t have time to comment about the things Mr. VanHoose wrote right now, but maybe I will come back to this entry and write a more fitting conclusion in the future. Anyhow, I was amazed at this glimpse back into a bit of what life was like around here some 180 years ago!