1901 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
635 
Western New York Sixty 
Years Ago. 
lu 1832 a New E3ngland family, seized 
with the emigration fever, left their 
home in Vermont to try frontier life in 
western New York. They bade a long, 
and as they believed a last, farewell to 
their relatives, for they were going to 
the then primitive Far West. They re¬ 
joiced in the luxurious mode of travel, 
altogether new at that time, by which 
they could have the shelter of a roof as 
they journeyed, and could be moving on 
towards their destination while sleeping 
in their beds. Their hearts often swell¬ 
ed with gratitude to Governor Clinton, 
whose enterprise had secured for them 
the Erie Canal with its easy and rapid 
mode of transit. In two weeks this 
family made their journey of 400 miles, 
settling about 30 miles east of Buffalo. 
Here a log house—a log cabin we 
would say to-day—awaited them; the 
heavy timbers of this building anchored 
it so firmly to the soil that the Winter 
winds did not blow it away, but they 
came in at every crevice, with their 
bitter blasts, freezing the dish towel in 
the hands that used it, and biting the 
fingers that held it. The fire on the 
hearth did its utmost to drive out this 
discomfort; I think the wide open chim- 
uey-piace would have taken in a cord 
of primeval forest wood at 10 mouth¬ 
fuls. 1 have seen the first cut of a forest 
tree rolled with a crowbar into its place 
as a back-log; the andirons, which had 
oeeu removed while the log was rolled 
in, being set back, huge sticks of split 
wood were piled high in this crater. 
One word about these andirons. They 
were made of unadorned iron; if they 
had bad brass knobs on them we should 
have thought we belonged to the aris¬ 
tocracy, so slight were the gradations 
between this class and the common peo¬ 
ple. Soon this fuel gave out a wealth 
of warmth and brightness, as it blazed 
and crackled and shot up great tongues 
of fire. Our times can afford no such 
luxury as this oak or hickory back-log; 
but to know what wonders such a fire 
could do you need to taste some of the 
dishes it had flavored for the table; the 
matchless short cake baked before the 
fire, rounded at its edges, its whole face 
wrinkled and fluted as only the richest 
cream could make it, with such a deli¬ 
cate brown as the kiss of the firelight 
alone could give. The utensil in which 
this was cooked is as much a thing of 
the past as the back-log. We called it 
a spider; I think this was the name by 
which it was sold in the market; its 
three long legs, by means of which it 
was tilted up before the fire no doubt 
suggested the name. These supported a 
modern frying pan. On bi’ead days this 
spider yielded its place on the hearth to 
the tin baker; some ingenious Yankee 
is said to have made a fortune out of 
this baker, by selling a large stock of 
them to southern ladies for side saddles. 
Certainly one of them would have held 
the rider in securely on three sides. 
When the vegetables were boiling in 
the pot and the teakettle was seething 
and bubbling on the crane, making the 
Hd dance merrily to its music, and the 
meat was sizzling and sputtering in the 
spider, now set over a little heap of 
glowing coals that had been drawn out 
on the hearth, the times were lively in¬ 
deed. We little thought then that the 
power in that teakettle was so soon to 
revolutionize the ways of the world; that 
it would send long trains oi elegant 
buildings on steel rails from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific, from Maine to Mexico, in 
less time than it had taken to make our 
little journey on the canalboat. That 
we did not discover the power under 
that teakettle lid was our lost opportu¬ 
nity. The world seemed very vast in 
those days; soon after we began to learn 
from our geographies that it must be a 
globe, for Captain Cook had sailed round 
it in three years. The gladdest day in 
all the year to the children was when 
the turkey turned its glossy sides round 
on the spit, dripping, and oozing out its 
sweet odors, in the heat of the blaze, 
until it was done to a turn, so crisp and 
brown that not an inch of the original 
color was left. In this open fire and in 
the savory dishes it furnishes is found 
to-day the highest charm of gipsying 
during our Summer vacation. The hap¬ 
piest time of all the day was when we 
gathered round the hearth ure, which 
had driven out the darkness and the 
cold, and left us merrily to crack our 
nuts; to listen to the jokes of our elders; 
to eat doughnuts, and to drink our own 
sweet cider. The shadows dancing on 
ceiling, wall and floor, playing at the 
same time hide and seek in the corners, 
were things to sink deep into the heart 
of a child. One day our little girl of 
more than 60 years ago had told her 
first lie, the penalty for which she served 
out by sitting down one half hour alone 
in this great room. She well remembers 
how gloomily the fire burned, though 
it was blazing high, and the twilight in 
her soul fell much faster and deeper 
than it did in the world outside. 
The soil here, almost a virgin one, 
was very, very deep, up to the hubs it 
came in muddy weather. The father 
of this pioneer family was very fond of 
fine horses, a span of which he always 
kept, but when the bottom dropped out 
of the roads a yoke of oxen only could 
drag the wagon which carried the feim- 
iiy to church on Sunday. Our log house 
was set where two ways met. One day 
while standing in the open door, we saw 
a fawn rise from the ground, much as 
a huge bird might have done, fold its 
legs under its body, and leaping high in 
the air, clear the rail fence, then scarce¬ 
ly touching the road which it crossed, 
bounding over a stone wall, it paused 
one moment to drink from a brook 
which ran in front of the house, and 
sped away across the field to covert. 
Through wide open eyes memory took 
in here a piece of statuary such as no 
sculptor could ever make. This was the 
only time we ever knew of a deer pass¬ 
ing that way; there was no game left in 
this region for the Indians. 
A tribe of Tonawandas who had a 
reservation near Buffalo made our 
neighborhood one of its trading posts. 
A little company of their squaws came 
often to our house, bringing splint bas¬ 
kets of all sizes which they wisned to 
exchange for food, apples or cornmeal, 
which seemed their favorite article of 
diet, or pork; this last they called sques- 
quaw. They were so honest that we 
could trust them to pay on their return 
trip any little balance that might have 
been left due us. The squaws brought 
their papooses with them; after having 
swathed the baby in clothes until it 
looked like a small-sized mummy, they 
lashed it to a board which was shaped 
much like a little coffin-lid; equipped in 
this manner for a journey the mother 
would sling the baby over her shoulder 
until it was well balanced on her back 
in a perpendicular position; then draw¬ 
ing across her own forehead a broad 
band or strap which supported much of 
the weight, she would set out for home, 
a walk of many miles. 
The trundle bed, drawn out from un¬ 
der the larger bed where our parents 
slept, held two little ones, and on the 
floor in the same room sometimes In¬ 
dians, who had been welcomed to a free 
lodging for the night, snored out the 
weariness of their day’s tramp; I say 
snored, for I think this must have 
wakened me one night, as I have a dis¬ 
tinct “picture hung on memory’s wall’’ 
of several of these huge-bodied men 
wrapped in their blankets lying scat¬ 
tered over the floor, while the dying fire 
light made the whole scene visible, but 
I felt no fear. Our latchstring was al¬ 
ways out, and a veritable leather latch¬ 
string it was, while the door of which 
it formed an essential part, had neither 
MOTHERS.—Be sure to use“Mrs.Wins- 
low’s Soothing Syrup’’ for your children 
while Teething. It is the Best.— Adv. 
lock nor key. There was not one haunt¬ 
ed house within 50 miles of us, and we 
had never read the record of any mur¬ 
der that had been committed in all that 
region. We had learned from the story 
of “Blue Beard’’ that men did sometimes 
break the sixth commandment, for had 
not Fatima escaped death, only by the 
timely arrival of her brothers; and in 
the story of “Jack and the Beanstalk’’ 
we had almosi heard the dreadful giant’s 
“fe-fo-fum”; these brought down nearly 
to our own time the fact that men who 
had blue beards might hang up long 
rows of their wives in some secret 
chamber, or if they were giants they 
might greatly desire the blood of some 
little boy, who like Jack, had climbed 
up out of his sphere; the Bible too told 
us of the assassination of kings and 
queens and of a few others, but these 
were to us, only the deeds of very 
wicked men, in a very wicked age and 
very long ago. 
If our fire of coals had gone out at 
night under its heavy covering of ashes 
there was a great stir in the house next 
morning, and once our six-year-old girl 
I remember was sent to the neighbors 
to “borrow’’ some fire, which she 
brought home on a shovel. Lucifer 
matches were then in the dim but not 
distant future. Our only mode of get¬ 
ting the fire was by striking steel and 
flint together and catching the spark in 
tinder. If matches had been in the 
market I am quite sure the manufac¬ 
turer of them could never have made a 
fortune, and we should still nave been 
without them, for there were fewer pen¬ 
nies in those days than there are $10 
notes to-day; much of our business was 
done by barter. Even 15 years later, a 
man in Rochester who was worth $50,000 
was called the rich man, and he was so 
beset by appeals for charities that little 
time was left him in his office to at¬ 
tend to his own business! I well remem¬ 
ber too when John Jacob Astor was con¬ 
sidered marvelously rich—^the marked 
man of the nation—with half a million 
of money. Everywhere through hamlet 
and country the question ran “How did 
he get such a fortune?’’ this to be quick¬ 
ly followed by the answer: “He has been 
dealing in furs.’’ The madly rushing 
world has left behind it these pic¬ 
turesque days of quietness and safety, 
but in its onward sweep it has gathered 
up much of comfort, and luxury, and 
knowledge, and even brotherly kindness 
which we would not exchange for the 
good things of the past, and which check 
the sigh for that which is fast sinking 
Into oblivion. h arr ikt s. osmond. 
Some Laundry Suggestions. 
Even with set tubs two wooden ones 
of handy size help out amazingly. One 
had better be kept especially for table 
linen and for rinsing the finest white 
things, says Emily Holt in Chicago Rec¬ 
ord-Herald. Use the other for soaking, 
but do not soak too long. An hour is 
long enough to soften and dissolve the 
dirt, yet not long enough to set it all 
through the garment. Soaking suds 
strong with soda will eait and destroy 
the fabric, but dirt comes out easier, 
and without damage to the fiber if the 
soiled things are wet through with and 
well wrung out of warm soda water be¬ 
fore they go in soak. This wetting and 
wringing out will whiten and sweeten 
without hurting the clothes. The caus¬ 
tic soda attacks the dirt first and is 
washed out, or dissolved away, before it 
has time to eat the fabric. It must not 
be too strong—a tablespoonfiil of soda 
to three gallons of soft water is about 
the right proportion. Hard water re¬ 
quires a fourth more soda, as some of it 
goes to neutralize the lime. 
Keep a sharp lookout for spots and 
stains in the sorting. Either wet fruit 
stains in alcohol, whisky or camphor, or 
pour a stream of full boiling water 
through them. A stain once set by suds 
is thenceforth almost hopeless. Beware 
especially of grass, paint, mud and 
wagon grease marks—all of which must 
be taken out before washing or not at 
all. 
Kerosene in the boil whitens clothes 
safely, especially such as are yellow 
from long lying. Use a tablespoonful 
to a gallon of water. For things very 
yellow or grimy make an emulsion of 
kerosene, clear lime water and turpen¬ 
tine in equal parts. Shake together un¬ 
til creamy, then add a cupful to a boiler¬ 
ful of clothes and keep over the fire half 
an hour. The same emulsion is good 
for very dirty things, as jumpers, over¬ 
alls, working shirts, children’s trouserz. 
Use it in conjunction with very strong 
suds, as hot as the hand can Dear, and 
rub it well upon the dirtiest spots. Leave 
the clothes five minutes before washing 
out, and be sure the second suds and 
the rinsing waters are as hot as the first 
suds. 
DON’T PAY PROFITS 
TO IRON COMBINES. 
g — We iteloiitf to no TruMt and 
oWriiiK. sell direct to you a single Stove 
for less than reuutar wholesale price. 
FREE CATALOGUE. 
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'Z'd'i 8outh Despiuiiiea St., CHICAGO, XL.li. 
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159 Lake Street, BEAVER DAM, WIS. 
Recently St, Louis, Mo. 
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STEAM 
^ DOME 
IEmAU2fDWrTH STERILIZED OXYGEH 
JutCItll 
ISttAMl 
^UTUt 
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WI< 
WILI. 
FIT 
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CORRECTLY. 
We will fit your eyes with 
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eye, select the smallest word you can 
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word selected we will mail you either 
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>1.on. i.op’t C il.OO. 
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\ 
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(COLD BLAST) ♦ 
Has a No. 2 burner, taking a 1-inch wick, and burns kerosene, T 
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R. E. DIETZ COMPANY, 87 Laight St., NewYorkClty. t 
