Pioneer Life in the Big Woods (1865-1875) of Wright County, MN
by John Lincoln PARMETER

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PIONEER LIFE IN THE BIG WOODS OF WRIGHT COUNTY, MINNESOTA

Memoirs written in 1933 by John Lincoln PARMETER (1860-1951),
son of Benjamin Smith Parmeter and Martha Ann Hopkins, 
of Rockford, Wright, Minnesota.

1865-1875

	There are no primitive conditions in Minnesota today. The farmer 
has dynamite for the stumps, tile for drainage, windmills to do his 
pumping, water for the stock, splendid roads and automobiles with which 
to speed over them, telephones, radios, airplanes, and what not--thus 
saving much time for reading, recreation, political conventions and 
"holidays". From oxen hitched to a stoneboat, to flying through the sky 
at two miles a minute. It is wonderful to have lived to see it.

	We, a colony of New York State people, landed in St. Paul on 
September 1, 1865. My father did not like the looks of the soil around 
St. Paul and Minneapolis, and decided to locate in the "Big Woods", as 
that part of Wright County was then called. Our folks were not the very 
first to settle in the big woods of Wright County, Minnesota. We found 
here and there a log cabin rotted down, with a little clearing around it, 
grown up to "second growth" brush. We came three years after the "Little 
Crow Indian Outbreak", which was in 1862, when many white people--men, 
women, and children--were killed and their homes destroyed. The first 
story I ever heard was read to the family by my mother-the history of 
the Indian Massacre of '62.

	There were no roads, and, to begin with, no clearing was done. 
The land was not really surveyed, the lines having been "run" with 
"witness trees" near the corner stakes of each forty acres. When the 
land was truly surveyed, it was surprising and interesting to see how 
many of the original lines were fairly correct.

	Father had to cut down a large tree in order to get a site for 
our first cabin, 16 x 20 ft., which was quite "good-sized" just then. 
The walls were of logs, puncheon floor (split logs), one small window, 
home-made doors, and shakes (split shingles) on the roof. The cracks 
between the logs were filled with mud, which dried solid. We had a large 
cook stove, (many had only fireplaces) and with a roaring fire of hard 
maple wood, the cabin was comfortable in the coldest winter weather.

	The forest covered the ground. The trees were as thick as they 
could grow, sometimes three feet and over in diameter. When we first 
began to clear the land, we first cut the underbrush and put it in piles. 
The big trees came next. We trimmed off the branches and put them on the 
brush heaps, then the trunks of the trees were cut into proper lengths 
for burning and piled. There were no pine nor evergreens of any kind. 
However, we had white, red, black and burr oak; white, and red, and 
"Water" elm; hard and soft maple; white and black ash; basswood; and a 
few hackberry trees. The hickory was mostly "hoop-pole" size, which was 
used in making hoops for pork barrels, and later on, in Minneapolis, for 
flour barrels.

	There was no market for any timber products of any kind and no 
railroad near. Thousands of feet of beautiful lumber of all varieties 
were sacrificed in order to clear a potato or corn patch. White oak 
(now worth $80.00 per thousand feet), "curly" hard maple, white basswood, 
all went into the "log heaps" to be burned. Even then, we had the stumps 
to plow around for several years. The crops on the patch cleared were 
sometimes "dug into" the soil, but sometimes the earth was plowed. Our 
first three acres of corn was a wonder! It ripened! New Yorkers insisted 
that corn could not get ripe in Minnesota--"The season was so short!" 
Father worked at his trade in Minneapolis that fall, to get us food and 
clothing for the winter. He walked into town; it was all of thirty miles! 
As we had no "corn cutter", Mother cut down the corn with Father's best 
axe. We boys (seven and nine years of age) stood the corn up around hills 
left standing for the shocks. We had to save the corn fodder, before the 
frost came, for our cow. My uncle would come over at night and put a 
"band" (limber corn stalk) around the top of the shocks, so they would 
stand up until husking time. 

	The pioneers built log hovels (barns) for their cows and so forth. 
We used poles from tamarack swamps for ribs (lengthwise of the roof), 
and put grass, cornstalks, or water elm bark on these ribs, which made 
an excellent roof. This elm bark, at the proper season, would come off 
the big trees, when cut down, in great slabs that would cover a large 
space of shelter. Put on correctly, such a roof would often last for 
years. I mention these simple things to show you how those pioneers 
adjusted themselves to conditions and made use of resources at hand--
and kept going. Tamarack poles were also used for sills, joists, and the 
framework of buildings. They were almost any size or length.

	The furniture of the early settlers was mostly home made. The 
bedsteads were made of poles the right length, with holes bored with 
brace and bit about eight inches apart, and half-inch rope was woven 
both ways across. With a well filled straw tick and comforters or 
blankets, this made a very good bed. However, if the tick was not well 
filled, a fleshy person would look like a waffle in the morning. This 
was called a "cord bed".

	Chairs were a thick slab, about a foot square, with no backs, 
and auger holes for the legs. Once, six months after we had arrived, 
an eastern lad of ten or twelve years came  with his folks to visit us. 
After greeting the family, the boy stood around until my father said, 
"Have a seat, Dick." The boy answered, "Where's your chairs?"

	The woods were full of mink, muskrats, woodchucks, red squirrels 
and chip-munks, the black and grey squirrels coining later on. Partridges 
were abundant and very good to eat. In season, wild ducks were abundant, 
and occasionally a deer was killed. Once we had a "sand bill" crane. We 
also tried cooking parts of a large turtle that was caught. (Not so good!)

	Occasionally, we heard a link (lynx), or wildcat, which sounded 
much like a crying child. Once Mother was so sure it was a child crying 
that she all but sent us into the woods looking for it. There were no 
dangerous animals, but we "kids" were usually afraid to go through the 
woods at night. The moon cast such grotesque shadows in the forest that 
darkness was much the lesser evil. When we had a dog, he was always 
invited to go along.

	In the woods were also some wild plums, cherries, cranberries, 
ginsang; and wild grapes made a very refreshing drink--non-alcoholic. 
The pioneers of the big woods had more natural resources than those on 
the prairies, although they were perhaps longer reaching a comfortable 
living. They had game, fish for food, plenty of fuel, building material, 
hay for all kinds of stock, for the cutting and hauling home, and the 
marshes grew good coarse grass. For income, there were ginsang,
cranberries, fur (mink and muskrat, etc.), and when they got to it, 
there was maple sugar and syrup, which was a great help when a little 
cash was needed.

	I must not forget the wild birds of the forest, which helped to 
make summer time glad. Many were very beautiful, and sweet singers, too. 
Bob-white, red-wing, brown thrush, golden robin, and others. Even the 
little humming bird came "humming his tune", while he sipped honey from 
the flowers--of which there were many. Of course, the ubiquitous crow 
was there from spring to fall, helping to dispel the silence and 
lonesomeness of that strange new country! There was also the wood-cock, 
his cousin the woodpecker, and their small distant relative, the 
sap-sucker. There were many more of them in summer than in winter, as 
most of them left for the south as soon as cold weather threatened. We 
used to begin to plan for winter when the thousands of wild geese were 
seen going south. In winter, there were snowbirds, the handsome blue jay, 
and others; so we remember that at all seasons there was "life" in the 
woods.

	We cleared the land as fast as possible, but it was slow work. 
At the end of seven years, my father had sixteen acres "under the plow", 
with many stumps still in the ground, but there was always a cheerfulness 
of spirit and confidence in the future that gave courage to all. They 
loaned all tools indiscriminately and borrowed  anything and everything 
needed at the moment. They even "exchanged" work, which was necessary--
having "logging" bees, "husking" bees, barn raisings and so forth. The 
spirit of unity prevailed--cooperation and general good-will, throughout 
the community. If there was petty envy, or jealousy, it was not then 
apparent. That came later on! These young pioneers had boundless faith 
in themselves and the new country; great courage and fortitude (a modern 
preacher calls it "intestinal fortitude"); and gradually made themselves 
homes to be proud of, and a living for the family. I believe that every 
member of those families now living (1933) looks back with pride and 
satisfaction on the battle fought and won by those wonderful pioneers.

	Our cabin was located on the shore of a nice lake, from which our 
folks caught all the fish we could eat; so that, except for flour and 
groceries, we got along very well. These two necessities were the great 
problem of that time. Being a cooper by trade, my father was very 
familiar with all kinds of tools. After we got started and were used to 
the country, he made pork barrels for the neighbors. We received $1.25 
for the single head and $1.50 for double head barrels, which helped a 
lot. White oak furnished all the material for staves, and hedding were 
riven in the woods in the spring and piled loosely in the sun. By fall, 
they would be "seasoned" and ready for use in the winter. At first, 
Father made the barrels in the cabin, but soon we had a little "shop". 
Father also made axe-helves for the neighbors. As everything was cut 
with an axe, the pioneers must needs be quite expert. The "best axe" 
was always in fine shape; the blade as thin and sharp as a razor. Woe 
unto him or her who dulled it!

	Father taught all five of us boys how to handle an axe--how to 
chop right and left-handed so that when a tree was cut down the stump 
would be fairly level. A novice with an axe would leave a stump looking 
like a sawbuck!!  In my time, we used the pole-axe, not double bitted. 
The latter had a straight handle while the pole-axe had the regular 
crooked helve. My mother could chop one-handed, and it was well that she 
could, as it came in handy later on.

	Oxen were the first teams available. A yoke of steers was a 
proud possession of the early settler. The heifer, giving milk--the 
children's friend--was a necessity; the "team" meant a general advance 
in Wealth! A neighbor woman used to dig several grain sacks full of 
ginsang in a day. Her husband would start "toward night" with their 
team of steers hitched to a stone-boat (planks spiked together, serving 
as a sled), go through the woods and haul the sacks of ginsang home, 
where it would be washed and put to dry. When ready to sell, it would 
bring a dollar a pound. This woman paid for the steers digging "sang".

	The people of this community, Americans from New York and Ohio, 
were young married folks just beginning life. Some had one or two 
children. Naturally, with all that hard labor, there had to be some 
kind of recreation. Dancing was their chief pleasure. Their cabins were 
small, but by moving the little furniture they had, room was made for 
"a set", or quadrille. Round dances were not so much in vogue at that
time. Clothes were not so important; whether they had pumps brought 
from the East, moccasins or hobnailed boots, they "went 'er" just the 
same. They still had the puncheon floors and they weren't very smooth. 
It was great fun for a small boy to watch these big husky young men 
"hoe it down".

	They usually had one fiddler, who seldom indulged in classical 
music. What the dancers wanted was music with a "kick" in it and they 
jot it. These young people had to take the children to the shindigs or 
dances, with them, there being no grandmas, aunts, or uncles to leave 
them with. Tradition (family lore) says that when I was missed from the 
crowd at a dance, they usually found me in the corner behind the fiddler, 
keeping time with my copper-toed boots. I suppose this is where I learned 
"The Fisher's Hornpipe", 'Irish Wash Woman", Old Zip Coon" and the 
"Devil's Dream". The day of the stoneboat had passed. They now had long 
sleds with a box that would hold the family. Bed quilts were used for 
robes, the steers had now become "oxen".

	Dancing is the greatest pleasure game the world over, not 
excepting the greatest American game, baseball; nor the great college 
game, football. The music, the thrill of the whole being (mind and body) 
responding to it, the pleasure of both sexes playing the game together, 
the general exhileration of it, is all very interesting and enjoyable. 
I have known people who, I believe, could go through life dancing for 
the pleasure of it, alone. But there are many others, who would make 
harm of the sunshine. They would blister themselves in order to have a 
stylish tan! And wear "shorts" just to--oh well! The "stately minuet" 
danced by George Washington and his associates was both polite and 
graceful. The reels and square dances which followed were those in which 
only the hands met occasionally.  Afterwards came the "glide waltz", my 
favorite, which was a graceful movement, not tiresome. I have seen some 
of the so-called "Modern" round dances. At the beginning of the music, 
the couple seize each other in a close embrace (a la Jim Londos--
Strangler Lewis fashion) and continue inseparably interlocked until the 
music stops. A dance like that, it seems to me would be more 
"perspiration" than "inspiration". The pioneers danced mostly plain 
quadrilles, and while the women were usually sedate and graceful, those 
young red-blooded hustlers proceeded to "cuffer down" with spontaneous 
exhuberance! In the wee small hours, the oxen were brought out, the 
family bundled into the sled, and the all returned to their cabins--
refreshed!

	The first settlers of the big woods of Minnesota were not as the 
uninformed have sometimes falsely intimated, "a set of ignorant boors. 
They were from good families in the East, with fair educations. As the 
country improved, their ideas enlarged and as their children multiplied, 
the first care was lack of education for them. We have all heard much of 
the "little red schoolhouse", but not much about the "little log 
schoolhouse" which preceded it! It seems to me that from among those 
whose education began in pioneer days, someone with poetical talent 
could have given us a song "The Little Log Schoolhouse", similar to 
the "Little Brown Church in the Vale". It must be remembered that many 
of our pioneers in education, the "Abraham Lincolns", and so forth, 
began in the little log schoolhouse.

	As the family grew in number, responsibilities increased. Not 
only the secular education of the young was undertaken, but moral and 
spiritual conditions were thought of and considered. Up to this time, 
those young parents had given little thought, if any, to religion, 
although back home in the East many had been church folks. But now their 
hearts became anxiously alive for the best interests of their boys and 
girls, so that when a Methodist Local Preacher sent word to the 
neighbors of the community, by the school children, that there would be 
a Gospel Service in the schoolhouse that night, the place was filled to 
the doors. It was the greatest sermon I have ever heard. It brought my 
father to Christ. Out of his great, loving heart, the preacher urged 
them to prepare themselves and their children, not only for time but 
for eternity.

	The great change that took place in ideals and pastimes among 
those people, after the revival, (in which many were converted) was 
remarkable. The dancing practically ceased. Sunday School, Church 
services, and prayer meetings became the regular program. For some 
years, many of the homes had "family worship" in which a portion of the 
Scripture was read, after which all knelt down and at least said the 
Lord's Prayer together. The singing of hymns was carried on in the 
homes, also. The change in the lives of the parents, on account of 
religion, and these exercises in the home circles, greatly influenced 
the children, even in after life so that the pioneers did not fail to 
adjust themselves to the moral and spiritual need of their families when
the time came for it.

--J. L. Parmeter