Chapter 6

Conditions during the Civil War gave a new impetus to the already frugal mode of living and all sorts of make-shifts were adopted in order to avoid having to buy at the suddenly inflated prices.

Our hats were made at home from rye straw that was cut before the grain was mature as it was most pliable at this stage and when bleached was perfectly white.  We children did the braiding; the four-strand braid was of two styles, the smooth and the "rough and ready," but we were able also to braid five, six, and seven-strand braids.  Each child's head was duplicated in a wooden block to be used by mother as she sewed the long braids we had prepared for her and shaped the hat to fit each as she sewed.

Most of our clothing those days was made from pure linen, or from a combination of linen and wool.  We manufactured the linen from flax of our own raising.  The lint of flax is a thin outside fiber that encloses a woody stem called the "shove."   To prepare the lint for spinning, the shove has to be removed.  To understand the preparation of flax, it is necessary to begin with the planting.  The seed was sown quite thick to make it grow both tall and slender with one straight root.  Thus sown, it attains the height of about three feet and, when mature, it was pulled up with the root.  It was made into small sheaves and stood in long rows for curing.   After the seed for the coming year's crop was flailed out in the barn, the flax stems were spread out thin on a stubble field to remain until thoroughly sun dried, then bundled and taken to the firing place.  This was a chimney-shaped stone wall, five feet high and open in front.  Two poles were placed over the top, on which the flax was spread out, about six inches deep.  A fire was built under the flax in the chimney and kept going moderately until the stems became very brittle when it was broken, a handful at a time, in wooden meshes.

Next came the scutching process, done by holding a handful of the flax in the left hand over the end of an upright board and striking the over-reaching flax with a wooden paddle called the scutching knife, for the purpose of removing the shoves.  This hand work was a slow process so brother Henry and I engaged a local wheelwright to make us a foot power machine of our design to lessen the labor.  It required two operators; one to hold the flax and one to furnish power to the wheel, but it was a great improvement over the hand-scutching process.

The heckling followed.  This was done by drawing the lint, a handful at a time, through a mesh of long, sharp spikes to separate the tow from the long lint fibers.  The tow was spun for woof or for rope, while the finer lint was utilized for warp and thread.  The most fish I have ever caught were on lines of mother's spinnings.

As country stores of that time carried no ready-made clothing for boys, it was necessary that the mothers should cut and fit from whole cloth.  Our mother not only did this, but, with the help of her sisters, spun the material with which she later wove the cloth and then made our suits.  Before mother's marriage, she and her sisters had a large, old-fashioned loom which she later set up in our basement; then, with the aid of Aunt Rebecca, Mary Ann, or Lavina Jane, as the case might be, they would put the warp into the loom.

The process of this setting-up is a long one, even in the telling.  Sufficient thread and yard had to be on hand ready-spun, reeled and wound into balls for the desired web.  The threads of the warp were passed through the racks and fastened to the back beam on which they were rolled.  The threads were made the required length and adjusted to the front beam.

The weaver sat in front and, with foot power, manipulated the rack, which raised and lowered alternately ever second thread of the warp.  The woof, previously wound on bobbins, was put into a canoe-shaped shuttle.  The shuttle was dexterously cast through the separate strands of the warp.  After each successive cast, the thread of the woof was struck into place.

When all linen was used, the goods were left uncolored and bleached white.  When part wool was used, it was called linsey-woolsey, and the wool material in part colored.  Brown was a favorite dye, and we procured it from walnut bark.  Black, and blue were second in point of popularity.  A white linen warp with a black woolen woof was called "salt and pepper."  Checks were made by alternating a certain number of different-colored threads in both warp and woof.

Clad in linen shirt, salt-and-pepper trousers, linsey-woolsey jacket, and with my rye straw hat on my knee, I have listened many an hour long sermon that was Greek to me, while my heart was out with the free living things.

Stumps were plentiful in the home fields in those days.  An idea of what had once been there could be gained by observing the few small adjacent groves that had escaped the woodman's axe.

Several circular black spots about thirty feet in diameter were to be seen in the fields and they were quite conspicuous after all the stumps were gone.  To the outsider, they were a mystery, but to us they appeared as naturally in place as the stumps themselves, for we had seen some such black spots in the process of making.  They were the hearths where the timber had been converted into charcoal to be used for the manufacture of pig metal.

The manufacturing of charcoal, locally called "coaling," was done in the open by making a hearth on which the wood was stacked on end, slanting toward a common center.  The wood was cut uniformly, four feet long and thus ranked in tiers, until the apex was reached, giving the so-called "pit" the appearance of a haystack.  The wood was next thoroughly covered with leaves to sustain a thick covering of earth preparatory to firing.  When the wood was fired, a man had to be in constant attendance day and night to see that it was kept completely covered; otherwise, a current of air might create a draft and flame which would soon have left nothing but a heap of ashes.  This light product of imperfect combustion was next loaded into schooner-shaped wagons and hauled to a furnace.  For this work, three pairs of mules constituted a team, the heaviest at the wheels, the lightest as leaders.  The driver's saddle was on the "near wheel mule," and a single jerk line on the left leader was the only guide.  A long-lashed blacksnake whip hung over the driver's shoulders' his face and clothes were as black as the coal he handled for when loading he carried on his head the open meshed baskets of coal and the grimy dust filtered through, literally covering him.

While charcoal was available, the manufacture of pig iron, or more correctly pig metal, was the main industry of a considerable section which lay in close proximity to the lower Clarion River.  At one time, there were a score of charcoal blast furnaces in Clarion County.  I have seen a dozen dismantled remains there, but of all, only Sligo survived in active blast when I attained my majority.  Five of the Presidents, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Polk, and Buchanan, were honored by furnace namesakes.

There was no big body of ore, but there were general outcroppings of a vein or veins from the foothills on either side of the river.  In many places, there was but little earth lying over the vein, which made the ore easy of access.  Nearly every farmer had his ore bank which paid him wages for digging and hauling and a little something beside for his mineral right.  The ore was rich in metal, but of a hard, stubborn nature, requiring limestone for fluxing.  Fortunately, limestone was abundant in the immediate vicinity.

The furnace proper, called the stack, was of heavy stone masonry, the exterior being the frustrum of a pyramid, about twenty feet square at the base and twenty feet high, while the interior was cylindrical.  The site was always against a bluff bank, in order that a road could be easily graded to reach the top of the stack, into which the charcoal, limestone, and ore were fed.   An archway at the front base admitted the blast and allowed the exit of the metal and slag.   These two were easily separated as the slag would float on top of the molten metal as oil floats on water.

When the molten mass had reached the proper consistency, the metal was led off into small trenches on a sand hearth for cooling.  There were usually two central grooves, from which branched at short intervals to right and left others of about thirty inches in length.  Technically, this was "pigmetal"; the central piece was the "sow" and the side pieces the "pigs." When thoroughly cool, these laterals of a hundred pounds or more were broken off, and the central part was also broken into pieces of nearly the same weight.

Pittsburgh was the nearest market for this metal.  It was hauled to Clarion and from there floated down on flat boats.  The hauling was generally done in the Winter and the metal ranked on wharves conveniently near for transferring to the boats in early Spring.

Boat-building itself grew to be an important industry as boats were also used to float coal down the Ohio; the building of boats was thus kept up long after the furnaces had "blown their last." The "boat bottoms" as they were called, were a hundred and sixty-five feet in length by twenty-five feet in width.  They were built bottom-side up in scaffolds and turned over into the water.

Soft whit sandstone was also loaded into these boats and taken down the river to the various glass works; also about this time fire clay from this locality was carried in these same boats to the brick yards.  A boat that had been used for carrying down a load found a more ready sale with the coal dealer at Pittsburgh than a new and untested boat.

Here I must digress by calling attention to the many natural resources of that part of Pennsylvania.  Underlying the rich forests, the fertile soil, and the valuable sandstone, were found immense quantities of limestone, coal, iron, and petroleum; in some instances, all of them were found on a single hundred-acre tract.  Yet, we poor, benighted creatures turned our backs on it and went scouting all over the land for a mess of pottage.

Much of the home place was near the outcropping of a vein of coal overlaid by a heavy, clay soil.  In time, such soils become "dead," although literally full of organic matter.  It did not require a scientific analysis of the soil in those days to teach these wide-awake farmers that quicklime greatly benefitted clay soils.  The lime did not act as a fertilizer, but changed the composition and physical state of the soil, liberating the organic matter.

Father purchased and added to his original holdings thirty acres of upland that were rich in coal and limestone, both easy of access.  As we boys grew older, we assisted in the work of burning lime.  The limestone lay near the surface and required no blasting, being in large flakes easily broken with a sledge and not hard to burn.  Commercial lime is burned in kilns, but we burned it in the open, calling our contrivance a kiln just the same.

We generally burned about fifteen hundred bushels of lime at one operation.  This was the amount father ordinarily used on a ten-acre field.  The lime and coal would be hauled in Winter to a spot near the center of the field.  For convenience, the bed of the kiln was made in the proportion of one-to-two in width and length.  Three trenches were dug crosswise of the bed of the kiln to extend a foot or two beyond at either end.  These we would fill with dry, split wood to use for starting the fire.  At the center, upright poles were used for a draftway.  A layer of eight or ten inches of wood was laid lengthwise and covered with a few inches of coal, then alternating layers of limestone and coal in the proportion of two parts of limestone to one of coal.  The pile now assumed the shape of a great heap of potatoes.  A coating of slack coal was added, after which it was all covered with dirt, except the ends of the six ditches.  The kindling was fired simultaneously at these openings and allowed to burn until well under way when they also were covered up.  The kiln became intensely hot, but did not cinder when carefully kept from currents of air.  In two or three days, it would burn out, but was allowed to remain covered to gradually cool; otherwise, the outside lime would air slack and be difficult to handle.  The limestone remained intact, but was reduced nearly a half in weight.  The unslacked lime was hauled out and put in small piles to be scattered when slacked.  To get the full benefit of the lime, we had to plow or harrow it in at once after slacking.  So treated, our heaviest clay soils became rich and loamy.

Labor-saving machinery was little known by the agriculturist as I remember in my boyhood.  Hay was cut with the scythe and raked by hand.  An agent came to our farm with a horse rake, a small affair, requiring the driver to walk behind and to lift it over the windrow by the rear handles.  Father showed some skepticism about its strength.  To reassure him on that point, the agent picked up Olive, who stood near, and with her on the rake started the team off at a trot.  This demonstration dispersed his doubts, and he was a willing purchaser.  Several years afterward, when Alex Wilson, the most thrifty and progressive farmer in our section, brought in the first mower, it aroused keen interest among the farmers.  During my stay at home, we had to use "arm-strong" power.

Grain was cut with cradles.  Father had two small cradles made, one for brother Henry and one for me, which we began to wield while we were yet boys, and, in time, we became expert in their use.  We could lay rye in straight swaths when the rye grew as high as our heads.   In later years, Henry was the only cradler to whom I would take off my hat.

The little threshing machine was our greatest labor-saving device.  It was called a "four horsepower tumblingshaft machine," because the power was given by four horses, and transmitted by tumbling shafts.  The threshing coming at the end of a busy season was hailed as a sort of jubilee.  The three sets of cousins were a strong and jolly combination and, as we went from barn to barn, it made the labor light on each of our farms.  The days were short and the evenings were long; fruit and nuts were in season and plentiful; the fall air was bracing, and we had time after work to engage in all kinds of athletic sports and afterward spend the rest of the evening in a round of merrymaking.