168 HISTORY OF OHIO. 



bushel on his return home, to his neighbors. When the car- 

 riage of iron cost two hundred dollars a ton from Baltimore to 

 Ohio, that article was dear. As to foreign cloths, they were 

 dispensed with by the mass of the people. The homemade 

 hunting shirt, a cap and mocasins, were not very uncommon 

 in the western country. Those times are passed away and 

 with them all these articles of dress. Our people now dress 

 as well, if not even better, than those of any other state. 

 And as a whole they are quite as able to do so. They work 

 hard and earn the clothes, and use the right to wear them. 



At the early day we speak of, our houses were logs, not 

 always laid very close together. Before our people had time to 

 clear fields that would produce a harvest, the woods furnished 

 nuts on which their hogs fed and fattened. The wild grasses 

 fed the cattle and horses abundantly, winter and summer. 

 Better beef or sweeter pork, never was tasted, than the wild 

 grasses and the nuts fattened, in almost all parts of this now 

 state of Ohio. Many of our old settlers, mourn the loss of 

 that breed of hogs, which ran wild in the woods, and lived 

 on nuts, acorns and wild roots. The beef too, of that period, 

 the old settlers think, was sweeter and more like wild animals' 

 flesh than ours now is. In this opinion we agree with them. 

 The honey of those days, was made by wild bees. The Indians 

 abundantly procured it, and often sold it to our people. Our su- 

 gar was made from the maple tree, and not a few of us even 

 now, prefer it, to that which, at a low price, we now procure 

 from Louisiana. Wild turkeys were abundant all over the 

 woods, and were so easily taken, that they sold in market for 

 only twelve and a half cents each. A good deer sold for one 

 dollar, or even less. Hogs were almost as easily raised as the 

 deer, and thousands were never seen by their owner until with 

 his gun he went out to kill them. 



The friendships of those days were pure and disinterested; 

 and no small portion of the pure friendship, now existing ra 

 this state, among the people, is found among the old settlers 

 and their posterity. Even in these days of party feeling, 

 this ancient friendship breaks down, all party distinctions and 



