Such were the observations of one traveler on that early American Frontier. The following picture of frontier life comes from a more understanding writer, John Scripps, a Methodist circuit rider of pioneer times. It would be difficult to equal the vividness which he relates the hardships he and his fellow ministers encountered during those early days; nor could we learn better than through his words the hospitality which was to be found in even the rudest of cabins.
Our roads were narrow, winding horse-paths, sometimes scarcely perceptible, and frequently for miles, no path at all, amid tangled brushwood, over fallen timber, rocky glens, mountainous precipices; through swamps and low grounds, overflowed or saturated by water for miles together, and consequently muddy, which the breaking up of the winter and the continued rains gave a continued supply of; the streams some of them large and rapid, swollen to overflowing, we had to swim on our horses, carrying our saddle-bags on our shoulders. It was a common occurrence, in our journeying, to close our day's ride drenched to the skin by continually descending rains, for which that spring was remarkable. Our nights were spent, not in two but in one room log cabins, each generally constituting our evening meetinghouse, kitchen, nursery, parlor, dining and bedroom — all within the dimensions of sixteen square feet, and not unfrequently a loom occupying one-fourth of it, together with spinning wheels and other apparatus for manufacturing their apparel — our congregations requiring our services till ten or twelve o'clock; our supper after dismission, not of select, but of just such aliment as our hospitable entertainers could provide (for hospitable, in the highest sense of the word, they were); corn-cakes, fried bacon, sometimes butter, with milk or herb tea, or some substitute for coffee.
At the Rock-and-Cavc camp meeting, the measles being very prevalent in the congregation, I took them. Very high fevers were th first symptom; but unconscious of the cause and nature of my affliction, I continued traveling through all weathers for upwards of two weeks, before the complaint developed its character. My stomach became very delicate, and through a populous part of our journey I inquired for coffee at every house we passed, and was invariably directed to Mr. L.'s several miles ahead, as the only probable place for the procurement of the grateful beverage. On making known my wants to Mrs. L., she searched and found a few scattered grains at the bottom of a chest, of which she made me two cupfuls.
We have sometimes sat in the large fireplace, occupying the entire end of a log cabin, and plucked from out the smoke of the chimney above us pieces of dried and smoked venison, or jerk, the only provision the place could afford us, and the only food the inmates had to sustain themselves, till they could obtain it by the cultivation of the soil. Our horses fared worse, in muddy pens, or tied up to saplings or corners of the cabin, regaled with the refuse of winter's fodder, sometimes (when we could not restrain over-liberality) with seed-corn, purchased in Kentucky at a dollar per bushel, and brought in small quantities, according to the circumstances of the purchaser, one hundred miles or more at some expense and trouble. This, when they had it, our remonstrances to the contrary could not prevent being pounded on mortars to make us bread. Our lodgings were on beds of various qualities, generally feather-beds, but not infrequently fodder, chaff, shucks, straw, and sometimes only deerskins, but always the best the house afforded, either spread on the rough puncheon floor before the fire (from which we must rise early to make room for breakfast operations or on a patched-up platform attached to the wall, which not unfrequently would fall down, sometimes in the night, with its triplicate burden of three in a bed. Such incidents would occasion a little mirth among us, but we would soon fix up and be asleep again. Now, I would here remark, that many of these privations could have been avoided by keeping a more direct course from one quarterly-meeting to another, and selecting, with a view to comfort, our lodging-places. But Brother Walker river, which afforded the only means of transportation sought not personal comfort so much as the food of souls, and he sought the most destitute, in their most retired recesses, and in their earliest settlements."
Extracted from History of Hardin County, Illinois, written in 1939 by the Committee for the Centennial, pages 37-40.
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