Appalachian History

"One of the most popular pages of the monthly publication of a tool collectors’ club is its Whatsis Column. Antique gadgets that stump the experts are frequently turning up. In the era of hand-made tools, it was logical that one-of-a-kind implements were created—the man who custom-made his own tools could allow himself the luxury of making tools to meet his needs.

"Then, too, there were devices that had many uses. Ladders were used as tobacco driers; the bars of a ladder-back chair held candleholders; meat hooks doubled as grappling hooks that retrieved things from the bottoms of wells. If you think it strange that a hook was so necessary to a household, remember that the well was used many times a day, that foods needing refrigeration were often lowered into it.

"Items lost beneath the water could not, of course, be seen, so they could be retrieved only by groping. The well hook was used as much as any other implement of the old-time household. After all, who wanted to drink water from a well filled with old pails?

"Today we think a hammer is a hammer—the same thing that lays a roof, cracks a nut! But the early craftsman (like a good golfer) knew that how you hit and what you hit with could make a difference in the job being done. See, in the drawing below, how the flail separates the grain while the pestle grinds it; yet both tools hit.

"The ‘flinting pick’ did the job of making gun flints; the ‘bricklayer’s hammer’ and ‘axe’ and ‘raker’ did work that is still admired after two centuries. The ‘printing mallett’ stamped designs on painted floor cloths (popular before linoleum). The ‘flood gate hammer’ didn’t smash the gate; its massive weight just moved it. The ‘zax’ cut roofing slate and made nail holes in it. The ‘trunnel hammer’ knocked trunnels in without smashing them. And so on. Each ‘hammer’ hit a special kind of blow to do the specialty the craftsman needed done."


Source: "A Museum of Early American Tools" by Eric Sloane, 2002, Courier Dover Publications


farm+tools appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history barn+implements

"The log cabin no longer adorns the landscape. Instead, is the stately mansion, indicative of wealth, of taste and of hospitality. There are spacious, nicely painted barns, hedges, orchards, well-fenced, well-tilled fields. Steel bridges span the turbulent streams, and macadamized roadways wind among the valleys and skirt the rising hills. Where the wigwam once stood, temples dedicated to the deity now dot the surrounding scene.

"The farmer has become a prince. The telephone has put him in touch with all his neighbors. The daily paper with the markets of the world, is regularly at his gate, and ere he goes afield he may scan its pages, and know the commercial history of the universe.

"The sickle, the hoe, the cradle, the flail, are the ancient farm implements about which he tells his grandchildren. All the modern scientific, up-to-date methods of farming are employed in Harrison County. Instead of bathing at the back porch pump of an evening, the farmer now adjourns to his porcelain bath tub.

"The gas grate has succeeded the back log: the swinging crane and the Dutch oven, the spinning wheel, and the perforated cream skimmer have disappeared. The tallow candle is regarded as the 'light of other days.' Where the rifle once adorned the chimney piece is a portrait in crayon or oil of 'mother' or of 'father.'

"In the parlor are music and books; in the kitchen sunlight, conveniences and comfort. The farm today, in Harrison County, is a scene of art, of taste, of plenty, of comparative ease, and delightful independence. Gone are the 'good old times,' and the Harrison County farmer has fulfilled the poetical idea ---

“The farmer’s the chief of the nation;
The oldest of nobles is he,
How blest beyond others his station,
From want and envy, how free.”


HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF HARRISON COUNTY, OH
1909 Souvenir edition of the Harrison County Democrat
source: www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ohharris/scan0001_1.pdf