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THE PRIMITIVE SETTLERS.

CHAPTER XII.

MODE OF LIVING OF THE PRIMITIVE SETTLERS.

The first houses erected by the primitive settlers were log cabins, with covers of split clapboards, and weight poles to keep them in place. They were frequently seen with earthen floors; or if wood floors were used, they were made of split puncheons puncheon: a heavy slab of timber, roughly dressed, for use as a floorboard. quoted from puncheon. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/puncheon (accessed: September 08, 2008), a little smoothed with the broad-axe. These houses were pretty generally in use since the author's recollection. There were, however, a few framed and stone buildings erected previous to the war of the revolution. As the country improved in population and wealth, there was a corresponding improvement in the erection of buildings.

When this improvement commenced, the most general mode of building was with hewen hewen cut logs, a shingle roof and plank floor, the plank cut out with a whip saw. As it is probable some of my young readers have never seen a whip saw, a short description of it may not be uninteresting. It was about the length of the common mill saw, with a handle at each end transversely fixed to it. The timber intended to be sawed was first squared with a broad-axe, and then raised on a scaffold six or seven feet high. Two able bodied men took hold of the saw, one standing on the top of the log and the other under it, and commenced sawing. The labor was excessively fatiguing, and about one hundred feet of plank or scantling was considered a good day's work for the two hands. The introduction of saw mills, however, soon superseded the use of the whip-saw, but they were not entirely laid aside until several years whip-saw Editor's note: I used a whip-saw with my father during World War II and my daughter used one in the 1960s. after the War of the Revolution.

The dress of the early settlers were of the plainest material—generally of their own manufacture; and if a modern belle or bean were now to witness the extreme plainness {typo corrected} and simplicity of their fashions, the one would almost be thrown into a fit of hysterics {typo corrected}, and the other frightened at the odd and grotesque appearance of their progenitors.

Previous to the war of the revolution the married men generally shaved their heads, and either wore wigs or white linen caps. When the war commenced, this fashion was laid aside, partly from patriotic considerations and partly from necessity. Owing to the entire interruption of the intercourse with England, wigs could not easily be obtained, nor white linen for caps.