NEWS: Old Time Customs, by J. B. Johnson, Sr., 1978, Whitley Co, Ky Date: Saturday, August 30, 2003 10:36 PM Submitted by Mary Lou Hudson ************************************************************* USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit, or for presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations who wish to use this material must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or legal representative and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of the consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. ************************************************************* Source: The Whitley Republican, Williamsburg, KY, Thursday, February 2, 1978 By J.B. Johnson, Sr. Old time customs……. Peddling – an early form of salesmanship Peddling – Oh, they call it salesmanship now – is as old as civilization. When Columbus came to America he and his crewmen bartered with the natives. Capt. John Smith found the Indian had useful trinkets and food to exchange. He even bartered for Pocahontas. Our pilgrim fathers made friends with the Massosoits and exchanged gifts. They were buying and selling goodwill. Our early Kentucky mountaineer farmers had a more difficult barrier to hurdle; they had no roads, no bridges and slow transportation. Some called it moving by the TM & W – two mules and a wagon. The nature of the peddling varied according to what the farmer produced. Some of the farmers had large fertile acreage. They were on or near the Cumberland River. Others had predominantly hillside land, not fertile. Many had small farms. Some were sharecropper tenants. The farmers with rich soil raised corn and fed hogs and cattle for the market. The first night I ever stayed in Williamsburg was when J.B. Siler employed me to help drive a drove of hogs from Dishman to Williamsburg. We put them in an L&N cattle car opposite the Methodist Church. We stayed all night at the Cumberland Hotel, ran by a man named Wilson. Eating there I first learned that a "Square meal" meant all you could eat. Some farmers preferred raising cattle. A few had both hogs and cattle, of course, with enough horses and mules to cultivate the crops. The plows were level land and hillside turners and bull tongues (one plow, one horse) and double shovel. The writer has used all of them. I began with the bull tongue. Hay crops required a mowing machine and rake and men with pitchforks to stack the hay or put it in the barn. All oats, barley or millet had to be cradled by hand. That was the hardest farm work to be found. Now, in those days everybody had chickens, hogs, cows and had a garden and truck patches; these were considered essential for any family. I was very young when I learned that a mine had opened at Wilton, that is near Woodbine; a short time later at Bird-Eye, near Jellico and about 1907 or 1908 at Gatliff and Packard later Long Branch, near Rockholds. The opening of these mines changed the pattern of life and living for many in our area. Some of them, mostly tenant farmers, went to the mines to work where their wages were doubled what farm hands were paid. This brought to each mining camp several hundred workers and their families. Nearly all lived in the camp. So nearby markets were created for the farmers’ products. Many farmers responded. They became truck farmers. (Now the word "truck" means farm produce. It has no relation to the auto truck.) They doubled or tripled their production of vegetables such as beans, potatoes, corn, apples, melons, chickens, milk and butter. In season they butchered calves, sheep and hogs and peddled it in the mining camps, principally at Wilton, Gatliff and Packard. They went from house to house to sell. It brought a good price. But there was one drawback on the minus side. Most of the miners had to pay in Scrip. "Scrip" was issued by the mining company as an advancement of wages and was redeemable only at the company store where prices were, like wages, about twice as high as in the country Store. For example if flour was 75 cents per 25 pound bag in the country, you would pay from $1.35 to $1.50 for it at the commissary. Yet it was an improvement in the economy and the standard of living. No one complained very loudly. Soon the farmers established regular customers and often from week to week they had their peddling load, carried by the TM&W, sold a week in advance. Some of them found CASH customers. Usually milk, butter and eggs were always sold for cash. The farmers used the "Scrip" at the commissary to buy flour, sugar, salt, pepper, coffee, shoes and clothing – things not raised on farms. But peddling was not an easy way of life. The farmers spent one day getting his load ready and had to leave home at daylight to get to the mines; then they usually did not get back home until after dark. It was a hard life, but a better way of living.