OHIO STATEWIDE FILES OH-FOOTSTEPS Mailing List Issue 29 ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES(tm) NOTICE Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgenwebarchives.org ************************************************************************** OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest Volume 05 : Issue 29 Today's Topics: #1 Fw: Tid Bits Part 17 ["Ohio Archives EV1" To: OH-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-ID: <07f201c53649$f4ac6b20$0300a8c0@margaret> Subject: Fw: Tid Bits Part 17 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Darlene & Kathi kelley" To: Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2005 7:34 PM Subject: Tid Bits Part 17 Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Darlene E. Kelley March 8, 2005 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Historical Collections of Ohio And Then They Went West Know Your Ohio by Darlene E. Kelley Tid Bits - Part 17. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Pioneer Cooking Cooking has always been important in our lives, and the pioneer woman was counted on to prepare the meals no matter what circumstances required. In those days meals were cooked over a campfire, fireplace and later if they were lucky enough, a wood burning stove. Many of the pioneer women became some of the finest cooks in the west. They did not use a measuring cup, but a bit of this, or a pinch of that, a handful of sugar or a pinch of salt; but somehow they had a sense of measurement that made for good cooking. They tested their oven by the feel of heat upon their hand and knew their bread was baked by the way it looked. Ice Cream was made from snow to which milk, sugar and a little flavoring had been added and a good drink was prepared by adding a pinch of tartaric acid to a glass of sweetened water flavored with lemon extract. Watercress was gathered, wild plums stewed, wild currents made into jelly, kegs of brined cucumbers were stored. Children were sent for the skimming from the old molasses mill and the mothers made delicous candy for them. On their journey across the plains and hills, only bare necessities of cooking were packed, but the woman usually squeezed in a few spices such as cinnamon and products for sweetening such as honey, sugar, and molasses. Most of their recipes used basics such as flour, beans, corn meal, salt pork, and at the first of the journey, they might have a few eggs. If they were lucky enough to have a milk cow, they had butter, buttermilk, and whole milk. Cooking on the plains was usually done in cast iron dutch ovens or heavy fry pans. Beans, which were a staple were cooked at night in the heavy pans, buried in the coals of the fires and cooked until the coals burned out. Breakfast usually consisted of Johnny cakes ( pancakes ) or dutch oven biscuits, the beans that had cooked overnight and fried meat. When supplies were especially low, pancakes ( or Johnnny cakes ) batter was made of only flour and water and maybe a pinch of salt. Lunch was what was left over from breakfast, eaten cold and supper usually included fried or boiled meat; deer, antelope, buffalo or bear; depending on how the hunting had gone, beans, corn bread or biscuits and when time and supplies allowed a dessert made of dried fruit. The pioneer woman were ingenious and made the most of whatever was on hand. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Johnny Cakes on a skillet [ usually cooked on a trail ] Beat one egg and stir in two cups of cornmeal. Add 3/4 teaspoon salt and 1 1/2 cups milk. This is your batter. Drop spoonfuls of batter on a well greased pan and fry until they are brown on both sides. [ cooked at home ] 2 eggs ( beaten ) 2 Cups buttermilk 2 Tbs Honey or molasses 2 Cups cornmeal 1/2 cup flour 1 tsp soda 1 tsp salt 2 Tbs butter Beat eggs until light Add buttermilk, honey or molasses. Combine all dry ingredients and stir into batter along with butter. Pour into a large dutch oven buttered. Bake in hot ( 425 ) coals or oven 20 min. or until done. Cut into squares. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Housewives' Egg and Butter production on the fronteer was sometimes the difference between surviving or not. It wasn't just a daily chore to gather eggs and churn butter, it was a business with many women and helped the family financially at 2 and 3 cents a pound. How to Make Good Butter Have the milk closet on the coolest side of the house, or in the dryest and coolest part of the cellar, and with a window in it covered with wire net or slats. Good butter cannot be made without a free circulation of fresh air. Allow no drops of cream or milk to remain a day on the shelves. Every inch of such closet must be kept perfectly clean. Strain the milk as soon as it is brought in, and set it immedately in its place. To remove milk after the cream had begun to rise prevents its rising freely. For the same reason the smallest quantity should not be taken from a pan set for raising cream, therefore all the milk wanted for the day's use must be set apart from the other pans. Those who have ice through the summer, have a valuable aid in making good butter. A large piece as large as a peach should be put into a pan containing 3 quarts of milk, as soon as it is placed in the closet. The milk will not sour as soon, and of course will afford more cream. Skim the cream as soon as the milk has become loppord, which will in hot weather, be in about thirty hours. To do this, first pass the forefinger around the edge of the pan ( this is better than to use the skimmer, because there is a hard, wiry edge of cream adhering to the pan which if taken off will injure the butter ); then take off the cream, clear as possible from the milk. In very hot weather, especially in August, which is the least favorable month for making butter, 1 heaping teaspoon of salt should be put into 1 pailful of milk, after the portion for the ordinary family use is taken out; and at all seasons, fine salt should be put into the cream from day to day, as it is gathered. The effect of this is excellent, in keeping it sweet and giving a rich flavor to the butter. The finest butter is made where the number of cows renders it necessary to chum every day. The custom of churning once a week is not to be tolerated. Cream that is kept 7 days, unless it be in the coldest weather, cannot be made into good butter. If you keep but one cow, churn twice a week, and in dog days, 3 times. Do it in the cool of the morning. If the weather is warm, set the churn into a tub or stream of cold water, add ice if you have it, and put a piece also into the churn. Air is necessary to make butter come, therefore, if the cream flies out of the opening around the dasher, do not put anything around it to prevent it. When butter has come, continue the strokes of the dasher a few minutes to separate all the little particles from the buttermilk. This done, take it out into the wooden bowl with a ladle or skimmer. The bowl and ladle should have boiling water poured on them when you first begin to churn. After a few minutes it should be poured off, and cold water be poured on them, and they should stand till you are ready to use them. This is to prevent the butter from sticking to them. Work the butter with the ladle, until the buttermilk ceases to come out; then sprinkle it with clean sifted salt, as that which was put into the cream will not be enough. Work it well, and taste it to see if more salt should be added. Observation and experience must teach you how much to use. Mold the butter with the ladle into balls or lumps of any form you prefer; put it into a covered jar or tureen and set in the icehouse or cellar or cool side of the house. Butter is the sweetest to be worked but once, and if all which you make is used from week to week, it is sufficient, provided it comes hard, if it is soft at first, it must be worked again the next morning. That which is to be laid down for future use, or to be kept for 2 or 3 weeks, must be worked again after 1 or 2 days, and every particle of buttermilk must be got out. Never work butter a third time. How to keep butter sweet Take care that the butter is made in the best manner, and that the buttermilk is entirely worked out of it. Lay it in a white- oak firkin. Make a strong brine of salt and water, and put it into another and larger firkin, and set the one containing the butter into the one which the brine is. Let the brine come up very near the top of the butter firkin. Lay on top of the butter a white bag with fine salt in it, cover it close, and put on the cover of the outside firkin. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ How to Keep Game and Fowl To preserve game and fowl, take out the intestines, remove all the feathers, stuff the birds with unground wheat, and bury the fowl in a cask filled with the same grain in such a manner as to cover it completely. In this way fowl may be kept perfectly sweet for weeks on end. You can also fill the cavity of the plucked bird with charcol and a little salt, rub the exterior with salt, pin up in a linen towel, and hang in a dark, airy place. Be sure to wipe the cavity dry before filling it. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ How to Tell Good Mushrooms from Bad. Test 1-- sprinkle a little salt on the spongy part or gills of the sample to be teste.If the gills turn yellow, they are poisonous. If they turn black, they are wholesome. Allow the salt time to act before you decide on the question. Test 2 -- false mushrooms have a warty cap, or else fragments of membranes, adhering to the upper surface; they grow in tufts or clusters in woods around the stumps of trees, and so forth, whereas true mushrooms generally grow in open spots such as clearings or pastures. Test 3 -- False mushrooms have an astringent, styptic, and disagreeable taste. When cut, they turn blue; they are moist on the surface and generally of a rose or orange color. Test 4 -- The gills of the true mushroom are a pinky red, changing to a liverish shade; the flesh is white, the stem is white, solid and cylindrical. Just be sure you know they are safe !!! Put them to the test. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ How to make Cheese Strain the night's milk into the tub, in the morning stir in the cream ( if you want rich cheese do not let any of it to be taken off ) and put part of the milk over a clear fire, in a brass kettle. Heat it enough to make the milk which is still in the tub quite warm, but not hot; pour it back into the tub, and strain in the morning's milk. Put in 1 to 2 teaspoons of rennet ( stomach of a calf ), stir it well, let it stand 1/2 hour undisturbed. If the curd does not from well by that time, put in more rennet. To prepare rennet; See if there is anything inside the calf's stomach as sometimes there is a piece of curd left which is the best part. Soak the rennet in 1 quart of water, then salt it and hang to dry where te flies will not find it. Keep the water in a jar or bottle. There is a great difference in the strengths of rennets, some will make 1000 weight of cheese, while others will scarcely make 50. Experience will teach you how much to use. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Tid Bits to continue in part 18 ______________________________ ------------------------------ X-Message: #2 Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 18:34:45 -0500 From: "Ohio Archives EV1" To: OH-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-ID: <07f801c5364a$389b7880$0300a8c0@margaret> Subject: Fw: Tid Bits -- Part 18 A Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Darlene & Kathi kelley" To: Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2005 4:42 PM Subject: Tid Bits -- Part 18 A Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Darlene E. Kelley March 9, 2005 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Historical Collections of Ohio And Then They Went West Know Your Ohio By Darlene E. Kelley Tid Bits - Part 18 A +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Facts on Honey The honeybee has been found in Asia and Europe for hundreds of years and was not found in North America until the 1600's when the bee was brought to the colonies. The Native American called the honey bee " White Man's flies. " It was not easy to keep the honeybee in a confined environment at first, as it was needed to help pollinate the crops. Therefore the bee was permitted to roam free and build its hives where it may be suitable. Perferredly in hollow trees. The bees provided the pioneer with their sweet necter with the purest of honey from the honeycomb. It was not only used for cooking or sweetening, but was also used for medicinal purposes. Honey is a natural energy restorer when it was used with a teaspoonful in warm water. It contains water, pollen, fructose, glucose and enzimes, It was also used to help heal small wounds when it was applied to a bandage, and helped to prevent scarring and quick healing of the skin. The pioneer used honey with hot water for dissolving mucus when they had a cold for the children, adding a little rum for adults. When a hive was found, precious honey for the cooking was harvested by the most experienced harvestor of the family. It was used as a sweetner in many foods and the honey was kept in closed containers, and could be kept for indefinate amount of time. The bees wax was also used in the making of candles. Colors of Honey White color is from clover and alfalfas Very light Amber color is from Wildflowers Light Amber color is from Orange Blossoms. Plain Amber color is from Buckwheats The colors comes from the nectar of the plants The lightest colors have the mildest flavors, while the darkest colors have fuller flavors. Honey mixed with home churned sweet butter was loved by all on special occasions in the Ohio home. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Salt Springs in the Western Reserve Salt was a precious commodity in the pioneer days, and was sought after as gold and oil are today. Both Indians and settlers used salt to preserve and cure meats and for medicinal purposes; the settlers also used it to harden lye soap as well as a leavening agent for bread They were on the lookout for salt springs as a source for salt, otherwise they had to transport it overland from the sea, an arduous task and expensive alternative. The history of Mineral Ridge, the history of Weathersfield Township, and the histories of Trumbull and Mohoning Counties all begin at the Salt Springs. " Mahoning " is an Indian name for a salt lick. In prehistoric times salt licks attracted mammals such as mammoths and mastodons. Geologists have found fossils in Kentucky at Big Bone Licks and in southern Ohio at the Scioto Salt Springs. Salt licks also attacted Indians, not only for the good hunting, but also for the salt itself. On Salt Springs Road, where four springs spread over two to three acres, Indians boiled the sightly sulphurous water in pottery vessels until the water evaporated and nothing was left but salt. Fur traders were familiar with the Salt Springs, as they traded furs with the indians for brass and iron kettles for boiling salt. The springs were noted on a map printed in 1755 by Benjamin Franklin. The first settlers to arrive paddled their canoes and flat boats from Pittsburg to the Beaver River and up the Mahoning River, which was 1/2 mile north of the Salt Springs. The settlers cut down trees for firewood and built cabins where they lived while boiling salt. The camp became a gathering place for a colorful group of salt boilers, settlers, ruffians, traders, and indians. Famous for salt and the springs became infamous for murders and drunken brawls. During the Revolutionary War, General Hand, who was in charge of the American forces at Pittsburg, heard a false report that the British were storing supplies at the Salt Spings camp. In what became known facetiously as the " Squaw Campaign, " General Hand and his troops proceeded to the Salt Springs, where they attacked the peaceful indians who were boiling salt and killed three squaws and a young boy. In 1796, Kribs, a storekeeper for traders Duncan & Wilson was murdered by Indians and his body eaten by wolves. In another incident that nearly set off an indian uprising was when Joseph McMahon and Richard Story shot and killed Captain George, a Tuscarawan. and Spotted John, a Seneca, who was partly white. Story fled the area. McMahon's trial in 1800 resulted in his acquittal on self defense; ironically, he was reportedly killed by Indians while returning from a campaign during the war of 1812. The land around the Salt Springs was prime real estate; it was cleared; Pittsburg was comparatively close by; and a salt boiler could make a fortune. Samuel Holden Parsons knew a good deal when he saw one. He was a prominent lawyer from an influential Connecticut family and had been a General in the Revolutionary War. As one of the first judges of the territory northwest of the Ohio River, he was familiar with the area. In 1788 Parsons organized a syndicate to purchase 25,000 acres at 50 cents an acre from the State of Connecticut, reserving 4,000 acres around the Salt Springs for himself. In November 1789 Parsons drowned on his way home to Marietta when his canoe overturned at Beaver Falls rapids. Parson's purchase was the only land sold by Connecticut before it sold the entire Western Reserve-- 5,000 square miles -- to the Connecticut Land Co. in 1795. The Connecticut Land Co. surveyed and divided the land into Townships five miles squares. Weathersfield Township beame Township Three of Range three of the Connecticut Western Reserve. In 1809, Warren was elected county seat of the Western Reserve. In 1810, salt boilers discovered that if they drilled 100 feet or more, they could find a higher concentrate of salt. This discovery brought an end to making salt from weak surface salt springs. The first industry in Weathersfield township was also related to salt, as it was used in making glazed earthenware. In 1816 two potteries were built near the Salt Springs. They used firebrick clay found near the springs; however, the potteries moved when better clay was found elsewhere. Although salt boiling was at this site at an end, the Salt Springs still attracted people in search of what they considered medicinal water. The Niles Company built a 40 room health resort next to the Salt Springs. It was an ambitious project that called for building a road down a canyon that ran from the Saly Springs to the river, a spring house, a bath house, boat launches and a wharf. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Influence of Salt Availability on Mankind To appreciate the importance and significance of the Scioto Salt Springs, one has to think back beyond 160 years before salt became a common item. You have to go back in time when people had to rely on natural flowing salt springs at inland locations. Sucessful drilling for richer brines about 1810 marked an end to the boiling of weak surface salt springs. Prehistoric Animals The Scioto Salt Springs are but thirty miles from the glacial front and behind a range of hills which would provided somewhat of a barrier to the chilling ice. This fact plus the availability of low arctic vegetation and the salt springs made conditions favorable for the survival of prehistoric mammals. Extensive research in Kentucky at Big Bone Licks has related the above condition to the common occurrence of these extinct creatures who left their bones engulfed in the mud, clay, and gravel at their common meeting grounds-- the salt licks. Among the animals listed are: mammoths, mastodons, peccaries, tapirs, Arctic bear, elk, and the phylum of major and minor fauna. Over the hundreds of thousands of years of the existence of these prehistoric animals, the Scioto Salt Springs was an attraction to them, because there are ample records of their bones being commonly found in digging salt wells in the alluvium. The Ohio Geological Report of 1838 contains, probably, the most complete and authentic description of prehistoric animals in relation to the Scioto Salt Springs. The geologist, C. Briggs, Hildreth, and others obtained detaled information directly from their learned friend, George L. Crookham. Crookham, a naturalist, teacher and scholar had had the opportunity of examining the many fossil bones and whatever other curiosities the early salt boilers found in the Salt Springs neigborhood. The geological corp in 1837/38, no doubt, quizzed him avidly and felt assured of his accurate observations. Briggs and the other geologists had the thrill, themselves to unearth the remains of a mammoth skeleton which had been on the way or leaving the Scioto Salt Springs. They learned of the finding of some bones on a branch of Salt Creek in the northern part of Jackson County about two years previously to the time of their survey ( circa 1836 ). Their subsequent research on the site and recorded observations will be most useful in analyzing the potential for finding similar fossil bones today. Geologists are stratification experts and, in this case, may have provided the clue to findings in the valley at Jackson. It will be observed in the quotation below from Briggs' report, and his description later in this report that it was found that the Sharon conglomerate rock which is in the bed of the stream at Boone Rocks dips rapidly to the eastward. They discovered this in digging wells to procure a more plentiful quantity of salt water. Briggs explains that the " mud wells " were in stratified layers of clay, sand, and gravel, to a depth of 30 feet. He says that these occupy a basin-shaped cavity in the conglomerate which they indentified as the " rock salt." " The brine," he states, " without a doubt, was produced by the percolation of water through the rock into this reservoir." The stratification record which is called attention to is that record in a plate in the 1838 Geological Report which shows mammoth bones under a stratified layer of clays of various characteristics. These gentlemen successfully dug and recorded their findings at the site of the mammoth find in the north-west part of the country. As before observed, some of the salt wells in Jackson county were dug in a depsit of caly, sand, and gravel, occupying a basin-saped cavity in the superior part of the conglomerate. In nearly all these wells were found fossil bones, consisting of jaws, teeth, tusks, vertebrae, and ribs, which, from the discriptions given by Mr. Crookham, belong to extinct species of animals. >From his discriptions, remains of the megatherium, and of the fossil elephant, were among the number. As reported; " In the early spring, some bones, so large as to attract the attention of the inhabitants, became exposed in the bank of one of the branches of Salt creek, in the northwest part of Jackson county . They were dug out by individuals in the vicinity, from whom we obtained a tooth, a part of the lower jaw, and some ribs. In the examinations at this place, during the past season, it was concluded to make further explorations, not only with the hope of finding other bones, but with a view of ascertaining the situation, and the nature of the materials, in which they are found. The mutilated and decayed fragments of the skull, two grinders, two patellae, seven or eight ribs, as many vertebrae, and a tusk. Many of these are nearly perfect, except the bones of the head. The tusk, though it may be frail, it was necessary to saw it into four pieces, in order to remove it. The following are the dimensions of the tusk, taken before it was removed from the place in which it was found: Length on the outer curve... 10 ft 9 " Length inner curve ... 8 ft 9" Circumference at base ... 1 ft 9 " Circumference 2 ft from base... 1 ft 10" Circumference 4 ft from base... 1 ft 11" Circumference 7.5 ft from base..1 ft 7.5" This tusk weighed, when taken from the earth, 180 lbs. The weight of the largest tooth is under 8-1/4 lbs. These bones were dug from the bank of a creek, near the water, where they were found under a superincumbent mass of stratified materials 15 to 18 feet in thickness. The arrangement of these materials, and the relative position in which these intereting fossils were found in the following layers; No.1 is a yellowish clay, or loan, which now forms the surface of swamp about one mile in length, and one -fourth to half a mile in breadth. It is covered with large forest trees, many of which from their size, must have been growing many centuries-- 5-1/2 feet. No 2. This layer is a yellowish sandy clay. 7-1/2 feet. No.3. is an irregular layer of ferruginous sand, tinged with shades of red and yellow, and pertially cemented with iron-- 4 to 8 inches. No. 4. is a chocolate colored clay of mud, the inferior part of which contains the remains of a few gramineous plants, very much decayed.--2 feet. No. 5. Sandy clay, colored like No.4, but a little lighter-- 1-1/2 foot. No.6. is the stratum containing the bones. It consistes, judging from external characters, of sand and clay, containing a large proportion of animal and vegetable matter-- 1 to 1-1/2 foot. These bones, from their position, had evidently been subjected to some violence before they were covered with the stratified deposits which have been described. The jaw and grinders, with the other bones which we have thus slightly noticed, evidently belong to an extinct species of the elephant, now found in a fossil state. As the teeth differ from any which are figured and described in the books to which I have access at the present time. It is possible they may belong to an undescribed species." The full effects of the glacial period was quite unknown to the primary geologists of Ohio. They surmised that drainage patterns had been altered and subsequent depositions partially filled older valleys. They did not realize the extent of interglacial flooding which filled pre-glacial valleys, including that of Salt Lick Creek. As at Big Bone Lick, there would have been a backwater into the tributaries of the Scioto or earlier Teays River. These periods of deposition left indentifiable stratifications-- many remains of trees, and other vegetation and animal entrapments. Briggs' detailed description of these 15 to 18 feet of stratification materials under which the mammoth skeleton was unearthed is a perfect clue to matching strata which might be found in the immediate vicinity of the salt springs at Jackson. Bones and tree parts have been found in deep-buried clay strata in the Hocking and Scioto Valleys which drained from glacial front. There should be a relationship between the post-glacial deposits at the mammoth site and the salt springs with relation to the possibility of finding other buried fauna. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Tid Bits continued in part 18 B. -------------------------------- End of OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest V05 Issue #29 ******************************************