Tadeusz Kościuszko, Romantic Hero

by Kit Hawthorne

Readers of historical fiction—and of history—are familiar with the plight of members of European gentry and nobility who have fallen on hard times. We have all read about poor but worthy gentlemen who earn their bread through military service, church work, or educating the children of the upper classes. Any other form of work was considered a degradation for the gently born. Tutors and governesses were in a particularly sad state, isolated both from the laboring staff of the household and from their employers.

Such was the case with Tadeusz Kosciuszko, the youngest son in a noble Polish family, who ultimately fought on the Patriot side in the American Revolutionary War. Kosciuszko’s family was at the lower economic end of the szlachta, a broad class of Polish nobility. In my last month’s post, I wrote about how his education at a military academy prepared him for a distinguished career in the fledgling United States. Under the guidance of the academy’s superintendent, the Oxford-trained Englishman John Lind, Kosciuszko not only learned the art of war, but was exposed to Enlightenment teaching that emphasized democratic ideals and personal freedom.

While the storm of war rose in the American colonies, Poland was experiencing its own political turmoil, which culminated in the nation’s being carved up by the stronger European powers of Russia, Prussia, and Austria. The Polish people, chafing under this humiliation, found common cause with the colonists in their struggle against British Imperialism. They applauded the brave protests of the Sons of Liberty, whose exploits across the Atlantic were written about in Polish press reports.

But there was another pivotal experience of Kosciuszko’s that set him on the road to the New World, and that one concerned his love life.

Engraving by Josef Grassi

In 1774, after finishing his studies in France, Kosciuszko returned home to find that his older brother’s profligacy had nearly bankrupted the family’s estate. According to Gary B. Nash and Graham Russell Gao Hodges, “Kosciuszko’s bleak future seemed to be that of half of Poland’s nearly landless noblemen, who, owning no serfs, plodded into the fields to do the farm labor themselves, often hanging their sword on a tree while plowing and harvesting. As a partitioned Poland fell into a deep slough, only a sense of class superiority based on birth, equestrian skills, and physical bravery remained for such impecunious gentry” (Friends of Liberty: Thomas Jefferson, Tadeusz Kosciuszko, and Agrippa Hull).

Like many an impoverished romantic hero, Kosciuszko took a job as a tutor. His employer was Józef Sylwester Sosnowski, a member of the high-ranking magnate class of Polish-Lithuanian nobility, and the wealthiest man in Poland. Kosciuszko went to work teaching Sosnowski’s daughters…and soon fell in love with one of them.

Portrait by Josef Grassi

Eighteen-year-old Ludwika Sosnowska was no mean scholar herself. While under Kosciuszko’s tutelage, she and her sister made the first ever French-to-Polish translation of La Physiocratie, a comprehensive treatise by Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours on physiocracy, an economic theory that emphasized the role of agricultural production in national prosperity. Ludowika’s father refused Kosciuszko’s request for her hand, telling him that “ringdoves are not for sparrows, and the daughters of magnates are not for the sons of the szlachta.” Undeterred, Kosciuszko and Ludwika planned to elope, but they were found out. Sosnowski had Kosciuszko beaten and driven from his estate under threat of death. Living on borrowed funds, Kosciuszko left Poland in search of a new livelihood.

His travels ultimately led him to the United States, where he enjoyed a brilliant career fighting valiantly on the Patriot side. Later, after the end of the Revolutionary War, he returned to Poland and continued to contend for the cause of liberty in the uprising that bears his name.

Ludwika ultimately married Prince Józef Aleksander Lubomirski, a member of the magnate class, at her father’s behest. In 1788, she used her influence as a Polish princess to try to get Kosciuszko an appointment in the Polish army, but was unsuccessful. (Six years later, he rose to prominence as the leader of Kosciuszko’s Uprising.)

Kosciuszko himself never married. To the end of his days, he carried a lock of Ludwika’s hair and kept it close to his heart.

History of Egg Nog

Blogger: Amber Lemus

Photo by Jill Wellington on Pexels

One of my favorite things during the holiday season is Egg Nog. I wait for that creamy deliciousness all year long. And once it gets here, it is added to my coffee, pancakes, oatmeal...but I will not admit to drinking it straight out of the container. So for this month's History of Ordinary Things, I thought I would feature this delicious holiday drink.

Who came up with the idea of chugging a spiced milk and egg yolk concoction? Well, it seems that it originated from the strong alcholic drinks and evolved into the milky non-alchoholic version we find in the supermarket today. Most culinary historians agree that egg nog probably originated from "posset", a drink consumed by medieval Brits. It was a hot, milky, ale-like substance. By the thirteenth century, monks were known to drink it with eggs and figs. Since eggs, milk and sherry were foods of the affluent, egg nog was often used to toast to wealth and good health.

Wooden cups called "noggins" used to serve alcohol
Photo by Robin Wood

The origin of the name "egg nog" has two main explanations. The most common is that it stemmed from the word "noggins" which was what the British called the wooden cups in which they served liquor. "Noggins" was shortened to "nog" and paired with the main ingredient for "egg nog". Others dispute that theory, saying it doesn't have enough proof and assert that "nog" is related to the Scottish term "nugg" or "nugged ale" which refers to a warmed ale.

Either way, it seems to have been the American colonists who coined the name "Egg Nog", as well as developed the popularity of the drink. Since they had farms where dairy was plentiful, and they had access to cheaper liquor such as rum, the recipe was well accepted. Records show that President George Washington was known to serve an egg-nog-like drink to visitors with the recipe calling for a variety of alcoholic ingredients.

The first written use of the term "egg nog" comes in 1775 from a poem written by a clergyman, Jonathan Boucher, who apparently enjoyed the beverage very much. The poem was published after his death:

"Fog-drams i' th' morn, or (better still) egg-nogg,
At night hot-suppings, and at mid-day, grogg,
My palate can regale..."

It also seems to have been the American colonists who linked egg nog with the Christmas holiday season. As early as 1783, it is recorded that gentlemen in Virginia toasted with egg nog for the holiday.



In his book Travels Through the States of North America and the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, Isaac Weld Junior mentions that American travelers would take a hearty draught of egg nog (spiked with rum) to ward off any sicknesses they might encounter on their journey. The Medical Brief of 1892 likewise suggested that egg nog could be a treatment for the flu. Not sure I'd recommend that today. Especially since most of our egg nog now a-days is non-alcoholic and the liquor seems to have been the active ingredient in those remedies.

Do you enjoy egg nog during the holiday season? If so, what recipe do you like?

*****

Two-time winner of the Christian Indie Award for historical fiction, Amber Lemus inspires hearts through enthralling tales She has a passion for travel, history, books and her Savior. This combination results in what her readers call "historical fiction at its finest".

She lives near the Ozarks in her "casita" with her prince charming. Between enjoying life as a boy mom, and spinning stories out of soap bubbles, Amber loves to connect with readers and hang out on Goodreads with other bookish peoples.

Amber is a proud member of the American Christian Fiction Writers Association. Visit her online at http://www.amberlemus.com/ and download a FREE story by subscribing to her Newsletter!

QUILTING MYTHS

I would like to shine a light on five quilting myths most of us have believed to be true at one time or another. 

QUILTING MYTH #1 ~ A common task for women during Colonial America times was quilting. 

In Colonial times, quilting wasn’t a task of necessity or frugality. It was a pastime of the wealthy. The cottons and silks used in quilting at the time were expensive imported fabrics. Those who could afford the fine textiles quilted, but the ordinary person in early America was hard pressed to keep their family in clothes with days spent spinning, weaving, knitting, sewing, and various other chores for survival. No time for something as frivolous as quilting.

Around 1840 with the industrial revolution, the widespread production of affordable textiles made fabric plentiful and available for more women. As textiles were being mass-produced, some fabrics went from $5 a yard to 5-cents a yard.

Quilt from Elko Museum

QUILTING MYTH #2 ~The Underground Railroad used special quilt designs & patterns as signals. 

This myth has great romantic appeal. I love the idea of slaves escaping from the South knowing where to find safe refuge by a quilt hung on a clothesline or a special block pattern in a window. But research on the Underground Railroad has found no evidence of such a practice. 

QUILTING MYTH #3 ~ Scraps used for quilting was a frugal measure. 

This myth implies that most if not all quilts were a product of needing to be frugal. Most women of the past bought fabrics specifically for making a quilt, much as we do today. True, they also used scraps from worn-out clothing or the leftovers from making garments, but they most used new fabric purchased for the quilt. Women didn’t use the worn-out portion of cloth because they would already be—well, worn out. The quilt would damage or tear easily, and all that work would be fruitless. 

The frugal quilter theory suggests that quilting was out of necessity only. Many quilts were far too elaborate to be made for daily use. However, simpler quilts were made for everyday. 

An old quilt my grandma made decades ago

QUILTING MYTH #4 ~ To show humility, mistakes were intentionally made in quilts from yesteryear. 

Intentional mistakes in old (or new) quilts was never a common practice. All quilters make mistakes. It's nearly impossible to make a perfect quilt no matter how hard one tries. 

However, there are mistakes in quilts that have been put there purposefully, possibly for religious reasons or superstition. 

It is believed that Amish and Mennonite women put a mistake in each quilt because it would be prideful to make something perfect, because only God is perfect. But to include a mistake on purpose would presuppose that one believed herself to be perfect and that would be prideful. 

So, when you find a mistake in a quilt, it’s unlikely to have been made on purpose. It’s just the quilt maker being human. 

QUILTING MYTH #5 ~ While migrating west, pioneer women pieced blocks and quilted. 

On the long trek westward, a woman rarely worked on a quilt. Any able-bodied person, including women and children, walked most of the roughly 1,500 miles, so doing any form of sewing would have been pretty much impossible during the day. If a woman would have been fortunate enough to travel in the wagon the rough ride would have made fine sewing nearly impossible. 

Once stopped at the end of a long day, there were many chores to be done; tending to the livestock, gathering wood, cooking, and so much more. If a woman had any energy after all that, the poor evening light would have made sewing hard, and so they preferred knitting that could be done in low light. Though a few pioneer women might have pieced blocks together for a quilt along the journey, it was uncommon. 

So there you have it, five quilting myths that are sadly not true. 

MARY DAVIS is a bestselling, award-winning novelist of over two dozen titles in both historical and contemporary themes. She has five titles releasing in 2018; "Holly & Ivy" in A Bouquet of Brides Collection in January, Courting Her Amish Heart in March, The Widow’s Plight in July, Courting Her Secret Heart September, & “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in MISSAdventure Brides Collection in December. She’s a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.

Mary lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband of over thirty-three years and two cats. She has three adult children and two incredibly adorable grandchildren.

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THE WIDOW'S PLIGHT ~ A sweet historical romance that will tug at your heart. This is book 1 in the Quilting Circle series. Washington State, 1893

When Lily Lexington Bremmer arrives in Kamola with her young son, she’s reluctant to join the social center of her new community, the quilting circle, but the friendly ladies pull her in. She begins piecing a sunshine and shadows quilt because it mirrors her life. She has a secret that lurks in the shadows and hopes it doesn’t come out into the light. Dark places in her past are best forgotten, but her new life is full of sunshine. Will her secrets cast shadows on her bright future?

   Widower Edric Hammond and his father are doing their best to raise his two young daughters. He meets Lily and her son when they arrive in town and helps her find a job and a place to live. Lily resists Edric’s charms at first but finds herself falling in love with this kind, gentle man and his two darling daughters. Lily has stolen his heart with her first warm smile, but he’s cautious about bringing another woman into his girls’ lives due to the harshness of their own mother. Can Edric forgive Lily her past to take hold of a promising chance at love?

THE WIDOW'S PLIGHT releases in ebook on July 1 and will be out in paperback by mid-June.

Christmas in Ohio for Missionaries in 1773

by Tamera Lynn Kraft

In the wilderness of Ohio in 1773, a small band of missionaries and Lenape Indians celebrated Christmas at Schoenbrunn Village, the first settlement in Ohio. They’d come to this wilderness and started the village a year earlier to preach the Gospel to the Lenape, also known as the Deleware.

The missionaries, both white and native families moved from a town in Pennsylvania called Bethlehem. Moravians had come to Bethlehem years earlier when a preacher named John Wesley had donated the land to them. But the Lenape had been forced west as more white men had moved into the area, so the Moravians decided to move west with them.

Life was hard in Schoenbrunn. Cabins were quickly made and community gardens were planted that included beans, corn, and squash. Most villages also planted potatoes and turnips next to their cabins. The rest of their food came from hunting. But the real danger came from the many Indian tribes surrounding the village, some of them hostile.

They didn’t have time to build a fence to keep out varments and the first Ohio church until Spring, 1773, but they did manage to build a school, the first built in Ohio. The school taught both boys and girls, a first for the colonies, how to read the Scripture in their native language and in English. The Moravians printed a Bible in the Lenape language.

The village council was led by David Zeisberger and including white Moravians and Lenape converts. The rules for the village were established by the Lenape Christians. These missionaries did not consider the native converts to be beneath them but instead brothers in Christ.

After a year and a half in Schoenbrunn, the villagers were excited to celebrate their first Christmas. They had many traditions that we still use today. They would have a candlelight Christmas Eve service called a Lovefeast. During this service, they sang Christmas hymns, shared sweet rolls and coffee together, and prayed for each other. The service concluded when they gave each child a bleached beeswax candle and a scripture to hang on their trees at home. The white candle symbolized the purity of Christ and the flame showed that Jesus is the light of the world. A red ribbon would be wrapped around the candle to symbolize how Jesus shed His blood for a lost world.

In every home in Schoenbrunn, families decorated artificial Christmas trees with candles and papers with scriptures written on them. The trees were made by putting together a wood frame and decorating it with real pine branches. The family would also make a putz, a nativity village that included the nativity scene, the wise men, and other Biblical scenes and place it under the tree. Most Moravians gave small gifts at Christmas, but resources were so limited that the children in Schoenbrunn were happy with their candles they received at the church. After a Christmas feast, the family would read the verses hung on the tree and talk about God’s blessings at Christmas.


Schoenbrunn Village has been restored and is open to tourists. Find out more at this link.


Tamera Lynn Kraft has always loved adventures and writes Christian historical fiction set in America because there are so many adventures in American history. She has received 2nd place in the NOCW contest, 3rd place TARA writer’s contest, and was a finalist in the Frasier Writing Contest. Her Novel, Alice’s Notions and her novellas Resurrection of Hope and A Christmas Promise are available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Making Linen

By Joan Hochstetler

When I think of drudgery, the task that springs to mind is turning flax into linen. Ugh. That has to be the next worst thing to mud wrestling with a hog, though admittedly cleaner and somewhat less smelly. I’ve never done it, mind you, but just the description of what you have to go through to end up with a piece of linen fabric—which then still has to be laboriously hand cut and sewed into a garment—makes me tired. Let’s take a look at what was involved so we can dispel from our minds any romantic ideas about life in previous centuries. I gleaned the following information from Alice Morse Earle’s Home Life in Colonial Days, an invaluable resource for those of us who write about historical times.

Flax Field

The first step, naturally, was to plant a field of flax, which the farmer usually did in May by broadcasting the seed across the plowed ground. Children and young women got to weed the stuff once it was about 3 or 4 inches high, working barefoot and facing the wind so if they accidentally stepped on any of the plants, the wind would hopefully push them upright again. In June or July, when the flax was ripe, the men and boys pulled out the plants by the roots and laid them out to dry for a couple of days, turning them several times.

Ripple

The next task was to “ripple” it in the field by rapidly drawing the stalks of flax through a coarse wooden or heavy iron wire comb with large teeth. This broke the seed boles off onto a sheet spread to catch them so the seed could be saved for the next crop or to sell. The stalks were tied at the seed end to form bundles called beats or bates, with the stalks spread to form a tent-shaped stack called a stook. Then the stooks were formed into squares called a steep-pool and piled into running water with each layer set at right angles to the one below. Boards and heavy stones were laid on top to keep the flax under water. This is called retting.

Flax Brakes

The bales were taken out after 4 or 5 days and the rotted leaves cleaned away. At this point the strong young men took over, breaking the flax on wooden flax brakes, which were about 5 feet long and constructed as you see in the illustration on the left. The flax was draped across the lower slats, and then the heavy top was dropped on it. If the brake’s top wasn’t heavy enough to do the job, it was hammered with a heavy wooden mallet. Flax was usually broken twice, the first time with an “open-tooth” brake, and then again with a “close” or “stait” brake. The next step was to scutch or swingle it with a swinging block and knife to remove small particles of bark that had survived the brake. A man could swingle 40 lbs. a day, but it was backbreaking work.

All of these steps had to be done in clear, sunny weather when the flax was dry as tinder. But the preparation still wasn’t done. Now the swingled flax was collected in bundles called strikes. These were swingled again, and the women spun and wove coarse fabric for bags from the refuse, called swingle-tree hurds. The cleaned strikes were sometimes beetled, that is, set into a wooden trough and pounded with a large pestle-shaped “beetle” until it was soft.

Now at last the flax was ready to be hackled or hetcheled. The fineness of the linen depended on how many hacklings the flax received, the fineness of the hackles (combs) used, and the skill of the hackler. The hackler dampened the flax and, holding the bunch at one end, drew it through the hackle teeth toward her. With one stroke the fibers had to be divided into fine filaments, the long threads laid in an untangled line, and the short fibers, or tow, separated and removed. The first hackle was called a ruffler, and the flax was then pulled through as many as 6 more hackles, each finer than the last. Finally the fibers were sorted by fineness, called spreading and drawing.

Hackling Flax

All of this was dusty, dirty work and had to be done during the dog days of summer at a time when air conditioning meant opening the windows and hoping for a breeze. The amount of good fiber left from the large amount of raw material you started with didn’t look like much, but a surprising quantity of linen thread could be made from it.

The fibers were now finally ready for the small spinning wheel. They were wrapped around the spindle and the spinner used the foot treadle to spin the fibers into a long, even thread. A small bone, wood, or earthenware cup or a gourd shell filled with water hung on the wheel so the spinner could moisten her fingers as she held the twisting flax while it wound onto the bobbins. When all of these were filled, the thread was wound off in knots and skeins on a reel. There were usually forty strands in a knot, and a clock reel counted the number of strands, clacking when it was full. Twenty knots made a skein or slipping. Two skeins of linen thread was a good day’s work, with a spinster being paid 8 cents a day and her keep.

Treadle Spinning Wheel

Naturally, if you wanted fine linen the skeins had to be bleached to get them as white as possible. They were submerged in warm water for 4 days, with the water being frequently changed, then rinsed until the water ran clear. After that they had to be repeatedly “bucked” or bleached using ashes and hot water in a bucking tub; laid in clear water for a week; and subjected to a grand seething, rinsing, beating, washing, and drying. Buttermilk and slaked lime were also sometimes used for bleaching, and the woven fabric was also often placed outside on the grass in the sunshine for further whitening.

All this was just to get to the point where the thread could finally be woven into fabric on a loom. Whew! Hemp was also grown and processed in much the same way. Wool was not quite as labor intensive, but still needed a lot of processing. Obviously keeping one’s family clothed, sheets on the beds, and linens on the table was an ordeal, to say the least. Whenever you get a hankering for the good old days, keep this firmly in mind!

Earle quotes one of her sources, who wrote: “Few have ever seen a woman hatchel flax or card tow, or heard the buzzing of the foot-wheel, or seen bunches of flaxen yarn hanging in the kitchen, or linen cloth whitening on the grass. The flax-dresser with the shives, fibres, and dirt of flax covering his garments, and his face begrimed with flax-dirt has disappeared; the noise of his brake and swingling knife has ended, and the boys no longer make bonfires of his swingling tow. The sound of the spinning-wheel, the song of the spinster, and the snapping of the clock-reel all have ceased; the warping bars and quill wheel are gone, and the thwack of the loom is heard only in the factory. The spinning woman of King Lemuel cannot be found.”

All I have to say to that is praise God!!

I’ve watched spinsters and weavers at reenactments and marveled at their skill. Since we can just go to the store to clothe ourselves and our families, it can be enjoyable to try our hand at some of these crafts to get a feel for life in previous centuries. Have you ever done any spinning or used a loom, or are you an expert? Have you ever wanted to learn how to do these crafts or others from the “olden days”? Please leave a comment and share your experiences and thoughts with us!

~~~

The daughter of Mennonite farmers, J. M. Hochstetler is an author, editor, publisher, and a lifelong student of history. Northkill, Book 1 of the Northkill Amish Series, won Foreword Magazine’s 2014 Indie Book of the Year Bronze Award for historical fiction. Book 2, The Return, released in April. Her American Patriot Series is the only comprehensive historical fiction series on the American Revolution. One Holy Night, a contemporary retelling of the Christmas story, was the Christian Small Publishers 2009 Book of the Year.

The Colonial Farmer

Plowing and planting

In my last few posts we considered the lot of the colonial housewife. Well, the farmer’s life wasn’t a piece of cake either. If you know anything about today’s highly mechanized farms, try to imagine what it would have been like to do all that work without any of our modern tools. Today we’re going to take a look at some of the implements the colonial farmer had at hand and how he went about the daily work of tilling the land, planting seed, and harvesting his crops.

The barn was the farmer’s most important “tool” and the first structure he built after raising a modest cabin to shelter his family. In fact, sometimes the barn was built first while the family lived in a lean-to or other temporary structure. Barns housed farm implements and some livestock and provided a place for milking the cows and storing the harvest. They also provided a large open space for hosting extended family or community get-togethers for work and for frolics that lightened the farm families’ hard lives.

Before the industrial age most work had to be done with hand tools and muscle power. That’s why farm families usually had a lot of children. More children meant more hands for the work, but also, of course, more mouths to feed, which necessitated larger fields for crops and thus more work and workers and…well, you get the idea. Every solution has its own problems. But as they say, necessity is the mother of invention. Over time ingenious inventers developed a wide variety of tools to make farm work easier and more efficient so that fewer laborers and less time were needed.

One of the first real innovations was to harness animals to do some of the work. A horse is as strong on average as five men. The average horse weighs around 1,000 lbs. and can carry 250 lbs. A draft horse can draw around 1,600 lbs. and can pull a carriage approximately 25 miles per day on level roads. A horse can only pull up to 1 ½ times its weight, however, while an ox can pull around 2 ½ to 3 times its weight, which makes it preferable for heavier loads. By colonial times the majority of even the poorer farmers had at least one ox or horse. Nevertheless, many jobs still had to be done manually.

Cutting Mattock

When it came to preparing the soil for planting, a number of hand tools were available. A tool similar to a pickaxe called a mattock was used for chopping through and digging in hard soils and grubbing out roots. Cutter mattocks have an ax blade on one side of their heads and an adze on the other, while pick mattocks pair the adze with a pick. Spades and several kinds of hoes also aided the work. A narrow or hilling hoe was mainly used to create the mounds on which plants such as squash grew and for maintaining weed-free hills. Broad or weeding hoes were used for shallow cultivation, and grubbing hoes were used to dig up roots and heavy soil.

Moldboard Plow

The most important tool for preparing the soil for planting, of course, was the plow—or plough in British parlance and as it used to be spelled in America before Daniel Webster reformed our spelling. Forget John Deere’s sharp, tough, steel plow that sped the work of breaking up tough prairie sod into fields. The overwhelming majority of farmers on the colonial frontier wouldn’t have been able to afford one even if it had been invented by then. Which it wasn’t. We’re talking about the venerable old wooden mold-board plow, which was just beginning to be supplemented with an iron plate on the cutting edge. This form of plow could be pushed by the use of handles or pulled by an ox or horse.

Harrow

After plowing, a harrow, a wooden frame with wood or iron teeth, was dragged across the soil to smooth it and make it finer for small seeds to grow. Wheat and most other grains had to be broadcast by hand from a pouch or bucket, and then a harrow might be used again to cover the seeds lightly with dirt. After plowing, a harrow, a wooden frame with wood or iron teeth was dragged across the soil to smooth it and make it finer for small seeds to grow. Wheat and most other grains had to be broadcast by hand from a pouch or bucket, and then a harrow might be used again to cover the seeds lightly with dirt. 

The method was different for planting corn. The farmer plowed furrows across his fields at right angles to each other to create a grid pattern, with the distance between the furrows’ intersection varying according to the variety of corn. For large varieties like gourdseed, furrows were spaced so they crossed from four to eight feet apart, with six feet being most common. Three to 6 kernels were planted 2 to 3 fingers’ breadth deep at each intersection and thinned to 2 to 4 plants per hill after they sprouted. The soil could either be hilled first, then planted or planted first and the hills built up around the base of the plants as they grew. Some colonists planted beans and squash in the hills of corn as the Native Americans did. This was an effective practice since the cornstalks supported the growing bean vines, while the beans fixed nitrogen in the soil for the corn, and the large squash leaves shaded out weeds at their base.

Harvesting wheat with sickles

When sun and rain had done their work and harvest time arrived, grain and hay had to be cut by hand using a crescent-shaped hand sickle with fine cutting teeth, a smooth edged reap hook, or a scythe. This isn’t an easy job, to say the least, but in colonial times an efficient farmer could harvest, bind, and stack crops from a quarter of an acre in one day—which may not seem like much today, but believe me, that’s a stretch when you’re doing it by hand. Scythes were larger and more efficient for this job, but they were also more expensive and took more strength and skill to use. They did minimize bending and saved the poor farmer’s back, however! Grain crops were generally bundled into stocks for storage, but had to be threshed before the grain could be used. Hay was simply left in the field to dry, and then was tossed into wagons with pitch forks and taken to the barn for storage.

Flail

Threshing, or separating grain from the plant’s stalk, was done either by beating the grain heads with a flail (a stick tied to a handle), or by treading—spreading the grain across a circular, packed-earth threshing floor and walking horses across it to dislodge the grain. Once separated from the stalks, the grain was passed through a riddle (a course sieve) on a windy day or through a winnowing or Dutch fanning mill to sift out chaff and dirt. Corn was shelled either by hand—which, trust me, will really tear up your hands!—or by pulling the cob across an iron scraper attached to a tub that collected the grain. I’m sure there was joy on the farm when the automated corn sheller was finally introduced!

Conestoga Wagon

Naturally it was also important for a farmer to have a wagon to transport his crops and other goods and his family as well. Smaller vehicles such as hay wagons were used for most purposes, but in the early eighteenth century a specific type of heavy covered wagon for transporting goods, called a Conestoga, was developed. First mentioned in 1717, it was used extensively well into the nineteenth century, carrying so many pioneers west across the plains that it came to be called a prairie schooner. It could carry up to 12,000 pounds, and its upward-curving floor prevented cargo from tipping and shifting. The seams in the body of the wagon were sealed with tar for protection against leaks while crossing rivers, and a tough white canvas cover protected its contents from the weather.

I grew up on a farm in central Indiana, so I’m very familiar with the hard work farm families do. Even so, the sheer amount of manual labor our ancestors had to do during colonial times is really intimidating. Whether male or female, our ancestors had little time off from their labors! 

Were there any tools mentioned in today’s post that you weren’t familiar with? Are there other farm or garden tools I didn’t mention that were used in colonial or earlier times that you’ve learned about? If so, please share!

~~~

J. M. Hochstetler is the daughter of Mennonite farmers and a lifelong student of history. She is also an author, editor, and publisher. Northkill, Book 1 of the Northkill Amish Series coauthored with Bob Hostetler, won Foreword Magazine’s 2014 INDYFAB Book of the Year Bronze Award for historical fiction. Book 2, The Return, released April 1, 2017. Her American Patriot Series is the only comprehensive historical fiction series on the American Revolution. One Holy Night, a contemporary retelling of the Christmas story, won the Christian Small Publishers 2009 Book of the Year Award.