Item

One Hundred Years Ago

Pilot
Jan 9/1879
A Hundred Years Ago
One hundred years ago not a pound of coal, not a cubic foot of illuminating gas, had been burned in the United Stats. No iron stoves were used, and no contrivances for economizing heat were employed until Dr. Franklin invented the iron-frame fireplace which still bears his name. All the cooking in town and country was done by the aid of fire kindling in the brick oven on the hearth. Pine knots or tallow candles furnished the light of the long winter nights, and sanded floors supplied the place of rugs and carpets. The water used for household purposes was drawn from deep wells by the creaking “sweep.” No form of pump was used in this county, so far as we can learn, until late in the commencement of the present century. There were no friction matches in those early days, by the aid of which a fire could be easily kindled; and if the fire “went out” upon the hearth over night, and the tinder was damp, so that he sparks would not catch, the alternative remained of wading through the snow a mile or so to borrow a brand of a neighbour. Only one room in any house was warm, unless some of the family were ill; in all the rest the temperature was a zero many nights in the winter. The men and women of a hundred years ago undressed and went to their beds in a temperature colder than that of our modern barns and wood sheds and never complained.