Home » History » Frontier History » A Spring Day in the Life on the Frontier

A Spring Day in the Life on the Frontier

© Jim Buckenmyer

It's about 7:00 a.m. on an early spring day in 1786. Our settler, let's call him John, realizes it is time to get up. It is still cold inside his unchinked cabin. He jumps out of bed, stirs the coals in the fireplace, adds a couple of logs, and crawls back into bed to let the cabin warm a little. There is no need for John to dress as he has worn his breechclout and hunting shirt to bed. John's wife, Lucy, rises and starts breakfast.

After a breakfast of corn mush and bear grease John shaves a bit of tea from the block for his morning cup. He gives his children their chore assignments for the day. John and his eldest son go out to the woodpile to bring in the day's supply. Although they had cut nearly 30 cords of wood last year, the supply is almost completely depleted. The rest of the six children have gone after water at the spring.

John drops his load of wood on the hearth, picks up his rifle, and heads out to his newest field to work. He stuffs some fry cakes and jerky inside his hunting shirt for lunch. Several dogs follow him out as he carries an axe, hoe, and seedbag in his left hand and totes his loaded rifle in his right. The rifle will be his constant companion due to the threat of marauding Shawnee. If it comes to a fight he also has a tomahawk and knife slid through his belt. It wouldn't be the first or the last time he had to use them.

His first task of the day is preparing a section of next year's field. Instead of clearing the land he cuts a 6" wide strip of bark from around the trunk. This will kill the tree and let light down to the ground below. He will plant this field like he has all his others. Instead of plowing and grubbing the soil, he burns off the ground cover and makes little 4" hills where he can plant between the stumps. Into each hill he places four or five kernels of seed corn.

It is now about high noon. The temperature has risen into the low 60's and he decides it would be a good time to take his lunch. The jerky he chews is the last of the family's meat. Spring is a lean time on the frontier. Livestock are free-range and lose a lot of fat during the winter. The same is true for wild game. Until the kitchen garden begins producing spring vegetables, their diet is going to be very monotonous. Even with the poor quality of game meat John decides to spend the rest of his day hunting.

The copyright of the article A Spring Day in the Life on the Frontier in Frontier History is owned by . Permission to republish A Spring Day in the Life on the Frontier in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.