Smuggling Tendencies of Some Early Pioneers

into the country. Every large creek along the south shore of Lake Erie concealed smugglers. The collector was distracted by conflicting reports. Some one had seen a coat made of broadcloth on the back of a man from Ashtabula; another had seen lights at the mouth of the Twelve-mile Creek; a third had seen new goods exposed for sale at Freeport; a fourth had seen the sloop Good Intent off shore, and Master Lee, as everybody knew, was a bold smuggler.*

Jefferson's policy of non-intercourse was not successful or popular in the Northwest. Smuggling increased daily. In vain did Gallatin complain and Forster report. Not a vessel could leave Presque Isle "without the special permission of the President." Gallatin instructed Forster that while temptation to import every species of merchandise contrary to law might exist, the collector would only have to encounter "the common acts of smuggling, and not the interests and prejudices of the community." Gallatin little understood the pioneers along the great lakes. Smuggling might be an offence, but certainly not a crime. They thought themselves entitled to the privilege of purchasing goods at the lowest possible price. The United States government was a thousand miles away.

At this time the settlers living in Westfield were compelled to go to Canada to have their

* Custom-house records, Erie, Pennsylvania. Also Forster's letters.

grain ground, and the farmers in Erie County went to Pittsburgh. Money was so scarce as to be a curiosity. Settlers were coming in daily. They had been three months on the way from New England; they had come in ox-carts. At night they had stopped with some of the numerous tavern-keepers along the way, paying sixteen pence for lodging and the use of the fireplace for they brought their food and cooking utensils with them. When the immigrant had located his claim, he at once began underbrushing and logging. His house was of logs saddled and notched; the roof of bark, kept down by weight-poles. The square chimney of sticks, coblaid, was plastered on the inside with mud mixed with chopped straw. The "door-cheeks" were puncheons, and the door swung on wooden pins. Many cabins had only blanket doors. The windows were of paper, or, in rare instances, of panes of glass four by six inches. The bedstead was of poles; the table was the blue chest brought from New England. A few teacups, saucers, wooden or pewter plates, an iron pot, a spider, a bake-kettle, a cotton or tallow dip, or a turnip lamp; a rude shelf supporting the Bible, a copy of Allen's Alarm, or The Pilgrim's Progress, or Baxter's Saint's Rest; a gun across two pegs; skins stitched and tacked to the logs; a few three-legged stools and a gourd dipper, completed the furniture. Near the house a similar building sheltered a cow, a yoke of oxen, and a litter of pigs.

The Cradle of Our Industries

With the heaps of glowing ashes the pioneer paid for his land. The first patent granted by the United States was for an improvement in the manufacture of pearlash. At first the black salts brought only two or three cents a pound; but the price advanced until 1825, when above five hundred tons were shipped from Westfield, and more than forty-five thousand dollars were paid to the farmers of Chautauqua County. The early settlers had not even hand-mills, but were compelled to extemporize a substitute-as a spring pole, with a suspended stone or cannon-ball, and the concave surface of a hickory stump.

The loom was soon set up, for the flax had been sown. The entire manufacture of cloth and clothing for the household was done by the women. Linen sheets, counterpanes, and handkerchiefs were woven in white and blue. As soon as the farm was stocked with sheep, woollen goods were woven, and men and boys wore butternut suits of linsey-woolsey. While working in the clearing or in the field the men sometimes wore leather breeches, and a common clause in the early wills of the region is the devise of the father's leathern clothes to his eldest son.

From an early day the teachings of Calvin gave character to the people in the scattered settlements of Upper Buffalo, Conewango, Chartiers, Meadville, Erie, and Cleveland. The Presbyterian faith prevailed. The early ministers were circuit-riders, New England licentiates, and preachers duly ordained. They came chiefly from Con

necticut or central Pennsylvania, and many were bred in the divinity school at Yale. A single sermon fed the entire circuit, which extended from Albany to Cleveland, from Presque Isle to Pittsburgh.

Armed with his Bible and his rifle, the preacher traversed the wilderness and passed his years in a life of rude romance. Overtaken by night and storm, he stopped at some friendly cabin, or, turning his horse loose, slept for safety in the crotch of a tree. He shared the rough life of the times. The news of the world travelled with him, and his saddle-bags contained the closely written and firmly sealed letter from the mother in the East to her children in the West. With day's labor the pioneers had built the meeting-house of logs and bark and puncheons. The seats were logs, the pulpit the stump of a tree. The house had neither fireplace nor stove. On the day appointed for service, people came with provisions to last a week. Fires were kindled, kettles were swung, food was unpacked, rude tables were spread, the hum of voices and the shouts of new arrivals filled the air. The lonely meeting-house suddenly became the centre of a camp-meeting. The preacher arrived in company with one of the elders, at whose house he had spent the night. After many greetings and inquiries, the service began out-of-doors, for the meeting-house was too small to hold the people. At the sound of the conch-shell, order and silence reigned, and the preacher began by lining a psalm from Rowe's

Itinerant Teachers of Christianity

version. The melody was a minor rondo or a familiar Scotch tune. Oftentimes the only hymnbook was the minister's memory. The prayer was a sermon in itself; the sermon would make a book. All the way from Connecticut the sermon had been gathering length and strength. It abounded in exciting personal experiences, thrilling illustrations, and fearful warnings.

On the fourth day the communion - tables were prepared, the seven deadly sins were reviewed, the tables were "fenced," and the leaden tokens were distributed to communicants. The sacrament was solemnly observed. With a wondering look, the Indian, hidden from view, beheld a strange sight in his native woods.

About the opening of the second decade of the century a few Methodist preachers ventured into the land; but they were suspected of heresy and were unwelcome. The severe Presbyterian held such itinerants as Lorenzo Dow in horror, and classed the British, the Indians, and the Methodists together.

The first stores in the country would now have the interest of a museum. Into one place were gathered for trade and for barter dry-goods and wafers, dyestuffs and sand, boxes, quills, and hardware, drugs and medicines, boots and shoeswhich were neither rights nor lefts-molasses and whiskey; loaf - sugar at three shillings a pound, hyson-skin tea at fourteen, pins at two-and-six the paper, powder at eight shillings a pound and shot at two, unbleached cotton at fifty-five pence