EXCERPTS FROM AN UNCAPHER GENEALOGY
[p.42] The average Virginia home was mean and small, of one story, with
a loft-roof, with two enormous chimneys, one at either end, and outside
the house, which gave it a picturesque appearance. The chimneys were
constructed of wood and lined with clay. Very few of the dwellings were
lathed and plastered. Such is the picture of the early colonial home of
Philip Ungerfehr. Were we to step in the cabin we would find the
spinning wheel and reel occupying a prominent place and a small loom
not far distant. The old fire place was strung with pots and vessels
for cooking while over the mantel hung the old musket. The tallow
candle was the only means of artificial light, except the blaze in the
old fire place during cool winter nights.
Almost
entirely the food of the household was the product of the plantation.
In a paper published in the American Museum in 1787, an old farmer
says: "At this time my farm gave me and my whole family a good living
on the product of it. The most I spent was for salt, nails, and the
like. Nothing to eat, drink or wear was bought as my farm provided all."
In
place of sugar they used dried pumpkin and honey, and for tea they were
drinking a beverage by boiling raspberry leaves, loosestrife, hardtack,
goldenrod, dittany, blackberry leaves, yeopon, sage, etc. and for
coffee parched rye and chestnuts.
[p.48] There was at this time
(1799) a general influx of German people into western Pennsylvania from
the eastern communities and from Virginia, whose ancestors had come
from the banks of the Rhine, from Alsace and Lorraine, from the
Netherlands or from Holland, and had settled at Germantown (PA) and
near Pittsburgh. At the time of the Revolution they formed nearly
one-third of the population of Pennsylvania and occupied large
districts of western Pennsylvania. They were called Pennsylvania Dutch,
and spoke a language that was a mixture of German and English, with now
and then a word or an expression engrafted from other European tongues.
It very greatly resembled pure German, so much so that a German scholar
can converse readily with a Pennsylvania Dutchman, while the latter has
even today no trouble whatever in making himself understood in German.
This language was even in its best days, almost entirely colloquial
dialect, and consequently has declined very rapidly to the present time.
They
lived isolated lives compared with the Scotch-Irish, which enabled them
to retain their Dutch characteristics even to our day. They never went
abroad seeking public preferment or office. They were almost
exclusively farmers, and they were good farmers, too, with apparently
little ambition to engage in other industries. They were sober,
industrious, economical and honest.
The early settlers of this
race believed in ghosts, haunted houses, signs, etc., more than their
neighbors of other extraction did. Many of them even yet plant their
crops, kill their live stock, cut their grass, roof their houses, build
fences, etc., in certain signs which they learned from their ancestors.
In the early years many of them had horseshoes nailed above their doors
to keep away witches. They burned brimstone in the coop to keep the
witches from bewitching the chickens. Many a fond mother taught her
children that as long as they wore the breastbone of a chicken tied
around their necks with a string, they would not take whooping-cough.
They made tea from the dried lungs of a fox to cure consumption. The
rattles of a snake killed without biting itself would not only cure
headache but would ward off sunstroke as well. So it was that long
years after the last Indian had been driven to the Mississippi valley,
they imagined that they heard warwhoops of savages on dismal evenings,
and the music and drums, once so common nightly at forts and stockades,
often came back to dispel the Indian spirits which nightly hovered
around their former hunting grounds. Many believed that children with
certain ailments could be cured by putting them three times through a
horse collar. So a felon (inflammation) could be cured by a child which
in its youth had strangled a ground mole by holding it above its head.
This peculiar ability remained with the child even to the age of
manhood. Diseases of horses were cured by words and charms, and water
was discovered by the twigs of trees held in certain positions. They
believed that erysipelas, a feverish skin disease with painful
swelling, could be cured by taking the blood of a black rooster killed
before sunrise and covering the diseased parts thoroughly with it. Now,
the blood of the rooster when dried formed a covering which kept the
air from it, and doubtless, in many instances effected a cure. The
skilful modern surgeon would apply colloidion, which would effect a
cure in the same way.
But it can scarcely be said that they were
ignorantly superstitious, or superstitious greatly beyond the age in
which they lived. It must be remembered that Blackstone, the greatest
of English law commentators, believed in witchcraft, etc.
In
this new country they found plenty of wild game, but the scarcity of
salt made it impossible to cure their meat. The crying need of all the
settlers was salt. This they could not procure from their land, and
neither they nor their live stock could get along without it. In
Craig's "History of Pittsburgh" is quoted a letter from Broadhead,
written to the president of the council, in which he says: "Salt will
purchase material which money would not buy." He urges them to send
salt, and that they cannot possibly send too much salt. All the salt
was then brought here on horseback from Hagerstown, MD., or from
Philadelphia, hence its great scarcity. In 1790 one bushel of salt was
worth twenty bushels of wheat, so the scarcity of salt brought about a
corresponding scarcity of meat. In 1806 salt was worth fourteen dollars
per barrel, although the barrels were about one-third larger than they
are now. For many years it was worth 12� to 20 cents per quart at
retail. Deer licks were known here long before the Revolution, but the
farmers had neither the money nor knowledge to bore for and manufacture
it. It was not infrequent that a train of packhorses went east laden
with skins and returned with salt.
Both Congress and the
Legislature of Pennsylvania passed measures to relieve the people from
their crying need for salt. In September, 1776, a large amount of salt
was found secreted by some Tory merchants in Philadelphia, and it was
at once confiscated and divided among the counties, the share of
Westmoreland County being three hundred and nineteen bushels. In 1778
the Legislature purchased a large quantity for free distribution, and
they also passed a law against any one having a monopoly of the salt
trade. The Continental Congress itself established a salt works in New
Jersey, but like most of its exploits, the works were not successful.
In 1799 a "Committee of Salt" was appointed by the State to regulate
its prices and to force its sale on the part of those who had laid by
large quantities of it. In a 'Merchants Memorial' relative to a seizure
of salt made by the 'Salt Committee' on October 23, 1779, it is stated
that they had refused $220 per bushel for it, and that now when taken
from them for the State's benefit, they were only receiving 30 pounds,
or $150 for it. Flour was very scarce in the East, so President Reed
proposed in 1799 that salt be distributed among the counties in
proportion to the amount of flour sent by them.
Salt wells were
inexhaustible in Kentucky, but they had not yet begun to distill
whisky, so when people of Pennsylvania began to make whisky, boat loads
of it were sent down the Ohio River and exchanged for salt. But salt
remained high and it was not unusual for farmers to unite and send down
to Hagerstown, , or Kentucky a train of packhorses which could carry
back salt for them for the coming year. Each packhorse could carry two
hundred and fifty pounds of salt. As late as 1820 farmer boys went in
groups for salt. One horse could carry two hundred and fifty pounds of
salt, and a boy rider in addition. The rate of travel was about
twenty-five miles per day. The boys looked forward all year to the
prospect of the trip to the salt works in the fall. When they retuned
they were veritable young heroes, and were sought to tell of their
sightseeing trip. Shortly after 1800 salt was discovered in the
Conemaugh Valley by an old woman named Deemer, who saw salt oozing up
in the river bottom in times of low water. William Johnston sunk a well
and started a salt works there. His land lay near Saltsburg, where he
built a grist mill and called his place Point Johnston. This was in
1812 or 1813, and his works, which could produce about thirty bushels
of salt a day, brought down the price considerably. William Beck first
began to manufacture in that locality, that is, on Sewickley Creek. It
was found there about five hundred feet below the surface, while
Johnston bored a well only about two hundred and ninety feet deep,
where he found an abundance of salt water. On Sewickley Creek they
bored the well purely by man-power. Four men stood on the ground, four
on a platform above them, and the eight men grasped the shaft of the
auger, and raising it about three feet, let it fall. This was repeated
time after time, and the auger was turned an inch or so each time.
There was a rope fastened to the auger after the end of the shaft
passed under the ground. It is known that they were three years in
boring a hole five hundred feet deep, but it is scarcely probable that
the work was steadily pursued. The well as tubed and the manufacture of
salt began, and this reduced the price of salt in Westmoreland County
from five to seven dollars per barrel, the manufacture being fairly
started in 1820.
[A short note from Grandma McCreight (Eliza) to M.Catharine McCreight]
Dear Catharine --Oct 24th
[no year listed- possibly 1910 or a year or two after.]
Your
welcome letter received. Glad to know you had so pleasant a time on
your Trip. Bertha(?) and I were at Phila. We roomed at (indist.)
Sharps. She and her mother lived near us when we first lived on Brady
St. She was so glad to see an old neighbor. She has a large house and a
lot of roomers. We ate at restaurants. The weather was cold and wet and
I did not go out much but spent one afternoon seeing the Old State
Buildings, and the Betsy Ross House, and Christ Church Cemetery.
Dr.
Wancoast (?) applied the radium treatment again, but did not take the
"After Photo". He had taken the "Before" the first time I was there.
Pat,
Virginia, Joe and Sue were here last night. The men were on their way
to Brockwayville, did not get home until midnight. Left this morning
after a late breakfast for Punx. Sue is weaned and looks fine, is
talking some. Gertrude went to Clarion on Thurs to help with the kids.
The boy is at home. He looks fine and eats all right if they do not
spoil him again. I have seen each of the twins once since they came
home. Your mother and Rem once since you went home.
Write, Be good and happy.
Grandma.
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