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EARLY METHODS, MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS.

        People who have grown up within the last thirty years can have but a very faint idea of the methods employed by our forefathers in nearly everything pertaining to domestic economy. Our grandmothers planted the cotton, gathered the fiber from the bowls when ripened, picked out the seeds by hand, carded the cotton with hand-cards into rolls, spun these rolls on a home-made spinning wheel into thread, colored this thread with home-made dyes, and wove it into cloth on a home-made loom. This cloth, coarse and strong, was cut out and made into garments of the most simple patterns, and worn with the same pride and satisfaction that the people now wear the ready-made fabrics with costly trimmings. No regard, whatever was paid to any dictates of fashion, and if some one wished to vary some old shape or form in a garment to suit themselves, they felt perfectly at liberty to do so, without any fear that they would become a laughing stock for being "out of style."

        Woolen clothes, of course, were provided for winter wear, and the carding, spinning, and weaving were performed much in the same way as the cotton. Hemp shirts were frequently made for the slave boys and girls. These shirts could be cut, but not torn. Many a time, in crossing a fence, I have caught my shirt on a knot or splinter, and in jumping to the ground, have thrown my whole weight on my shirt, and have found myself hanging up against the fence, and my feet off the ground. Often in climbing saplings, I have hung myself on a knot by my tow shirt, but it never tore. The flax was prepared in a different way from the cotton and wool. The flax stalks were cut at a proper time and tied in bundles. These bundles were then placed in water so as to loosen the bark from the stalks. The bark was the part from which the thread was made. After the bark had become loosened, it was taken to a "break" which broke up the stems so that the bark, or fiber could be easily separated from the broken stems by drawing it repeatedly through the "hackle"--a board with a great number of sharp spikes driven through it. After other processes of preparation, it was ready to be spun into thread. But the spinning of flax thread required a different kind of wheel from the cotton or wool, and was called a "flax wheel." On account of the time and labor involved in the making of flax thread, not a great deal of it was made; but long after they ceased weaving the tow cloth, much thread was made for sewing leather, and for other purposes.

        Much of the wool was used by being spun into yarn for knitting into stockings and gloves for the family. While the children would gather around the wide fire-place and pick cotton from the seeds; the mother or eldest daughter would be spinning thread; some one would be carding rolls; the father, apt as not, would be making a pair of shoes; a split basket, or "bottoming" a chair with splits. Sometimes the mother's "evening job" would be knitting, and when she would pay her neighbor a visit, she would invariably take her knitting along, and, during her stay, would frequently knit "the old man," as the husband was called, a pair of socks. But each member of the family, unless it was the baby, had some kind of work, and no one left the circle until one of the parents called out "bed-time." There were no lamps, and as a rule, the room was lighted by huge pine knots brought from a neighboring ridge. Often, however, home-made candles were used. These were made by pouring melted beef tallow into moulds in which a wick had been suspended. When these were cooled, the moulds were slightly heated, which loosened the candles. Mutton tallow was never used for this purpose, it being mixed with rosin and balm-of-gilead buds to form a very useful salve for cuts, sores, and burns.

        The skins of the animals killed for meats, such as the cow and sheep, were tanned at home. The hides were soaked in a strong solution of lime and water, and the hair was removed. The surplus flesh still adhering to the hide, was then all scraped off, and finally the hide was soaked in a strong tan-ooze made from the bark of the chestnut oak, until experience taught the tanner that it was nowfit for leather. Generally, each neighborhood contained a professional cobbler who went from house to house, and cut out and lasted the shoes for winter wear, as few used them in the summer season. After the shoe had been "lasted," that is, the eye-seams sewed, and fitted and pegged to the last, it required very little skill to peg on the bottoms and heels, which the farmer usually did himself on wet days. The last and pegs were home-made, and comfort and durability, and not beauty, were the prime considerations. In those days we never heard of corns on the toes--nature's penalty for pride. A pair of shoes were supposed to last a person for a whole year, and they were not put to any unnecessary use. It was a custom to go bare-footed--both men and women--to almost the church, when they would sit down and put them on. At a short distance from the church on returning home, they were taken off.

        There was a great demand for the labor of every person who possessed the slightest mechanical genius. The man who could make split baskets, bottom chairs, make scrub brooms, and the various necessary household contrivances was considered a very useful person, and usually got plenty of work to do, and made a respectable living by doing such work. The baskets were carefully made of selected white oak splits, of different sizes and shapes, and for different purposes. The common farm basket was made strong, and in sizes to hold a peck, half-bushel, three pecks, and a bushel; and each readily sold for its fill of corn or wheat, or an equivalent in some other kind of produce. Other kinds of baskets were made for the housewife for holding her clothes, and household articles.

        The chair seats were made of the best quality of hickory and white oak splits, and woven in fancy and difficult designs, and with ordinary use would last twenty years.

        The chair maker was a man of more mechanical skill than the last referred to. He turned his posts out of good hickory, only partially seasoned. The rounds were of seasoned locust, turned with a shallow groove in the end that was driven into the post. The post then seasoning and shrinking down on these rounds, would render it impossible for them to ever become loose. Chairs made by "Uncle James Webster" in Knox county, over a half a century ago, are as strong and intact now as when first made by him.

        The chair maker, having a turning lathe, and being usually a mechanic of sufficient skill, would generally also make the spinning wheels. These had to be made and balanced in the most accurate manner, or else they would be continually "throwing the band," which was most provoking to the spinster. The reel was considered the work of a great genius, and it is to be regretted that the inventor's name is lost in the dim and distant past. It consists of a very clever arrangement of interworking cog wheels, so that in turning the large wheel upon which is wound the thread, a sharp "click" indicates that a "cut" of thread has been wound. As services for spinning and weaving were charged for, as so much the "cut," it is difficult to see how the reel could have been dispensed with.

        The main working parts of the loom could be made by almost any ordinary mechanic, but the "slays" were exceedingly tedious and difficult to make; and this gave rise to a new industry, and furnished employment to a "slay maker," who enjoyed quite a monopoly of his line, as he had few competitors. Old ones were continually giving out, and as these had to be mended, or replaced by new ones, he found plenty of work to do, and his services were in constant demand.

        There was also the cooper whose trade was a very important one in the early settlements. He made the buckets, churns, lard stands, pails, barrels, and kegs. As these articles were in constant use, he was kept quite busy until the families were all supplied. The smaller vessels were made mostly of red cedar, and would last a life-time. The barrels and lard stands were made of good white oak, and were likewise very durable. Vessels made by these old-time coopers may be found at the present time, as sound and serviceable as they were half a century ago, but considered somewhat out of date.

        But perhaps the most useful of all the mechanics in the early settlements was the blacksmith. His work covered a wider range of useful articles than any of the other mechanics. It is easy to see how in cases of emergency, the articles made by the other artisans mentioned, could have been substituted for; but it does not appear how a community could have existed without the services of a blacksmith. He made the plows, hoes, mattocks, wagons, and chains for the farmer; the augers, planes, nails, hammers, and chisels for the carpenter; the shovel, tongs, hooks, and andirons for the fireside; all the nails, hooks, staples, rings, bands, rods, and every kind of tool used by everybody. His iron came to him, not as it reaches the blacksmiths of today, in convenient sizes and shapes, as rods and band iron, but in large bars, several inches broad, and several inches thick, which had to be forged out and hammered down to the required sizes. These huge bars of iron were heated in a fire made of charcoal, burnt of pine or chestnut wood, often in a pit in the shop yard. While the blacksmith was burning his coal-pit, or using the light, sparkling fuel on his heavy bars of iron, the people of Virginia and Pennsylvania were bursting up, and building roads with the very things that revolutionized blacksmithing--stone coal-- and did not know its value. It is amusing to one who remembers the introduction of stone coal into the old-time blacksmith shop. There was almost as much prejudice evidenced by the people generally as by the blacksmith. Some said that it would burn and scorch the iron so that it would be brittle. In many agreements between the customer and smith for work, it was stipulated that the iron work was not to be done with stone coal. But, like all other improvements, it came into use gradually, and its superiority over charcoal for a high, quick heat, had to be established by experience. Another fact, equally patent, is, that no mechanic or artisan has been so completely put out of business, or his trade rendered almost next to useless by the invention of machinery as the blacksmith. Once, the most indispensable, now perhaps, his entire disappearance from the mechanical trades of the country, would produce the least inconvenience of any. Every article that the blacksmith was once looked to to make, is now produced by machinery, and can be bought much cheaper than it could be made by him.