David and Sarah Bowen

By Velma Rose Smith

It was a fall day in the year of 1863. The young orchard behind the house scenting the air with the pleasant odor of ripening apples. The vegetable garden, which had looked so pretty a few weeks ago now looked bedraggled. The ragged corn stalks stood, with now and then a pumpkin came in view. A row of cabbages were still waiting to be pulled, and probably would be made into sauerkraut. David Bowen stood a few minutes taking all this in before entering the open door of the log house. He said to his wife Sarah, as she turned from the fireplace to greet him, “It is finished, we can move tomorrow”.

It was suppertime on the farm, the aroma of their boiled dinner, of which there is nothing like it, filled the house. A boiled dinner was a piece of pork, carrots, turnips, onions and cabbage all boiled together. Delicious loaves of fresh baked bread were cooling on the shelf. A large brown earthenware bowl filled with applesauce was sitting on the table. A big loaf of sour cream cake filled with hickory nuts was cooling on the shelf. It was a special meal for it was their last supper in the log house.

The air was full of expectancy, with the eight children and each one making plans of what it will be like in their new home. Sarah was excited too but there were moments of nostalgia. Here is where her babies were born. There are memories of each one, crawling and learning to walk.

When Sarah said “supper is ready’, they all sat down around the long homemade table. David at the end, and Sarah at the other end, next to the stove, ready to jump up as mothers always do. Little Martha on one side and Margaret the oldest, sat on her right, a mother’s helper. There was William, Thomas, David, Mary and little John. Janet was ill, but she wanted her chair pulled up to the table. As their chattering subsided, it was perfectly quiet as David gave the blessing and a thank you prayer to the old house that had sheltered them for years

Their dinnerware was beautiful. It might not seem what you would expect in a log cabin. Sarah had brought it with her from England. It had a heavy gold trim around the edge and a cloverleaf of gold in the center of each plate. Pewter salt and pepper and sugar bowl, a large pitcher of milk set in front of David, and he poured it into the cups.

When they had finished eating. Margaret and Mary cleared the table and washed the dishes at the dry sink. The smaller children got out their slates and slate pencils and with their mother sat at the table to do arithmetic and spelling words. David and the older boys went to the barn to do the chores. They only milked 3 or 4 cows, as that was enough to furnish them fresh milk, and the rest was put in large pans and set away. When the cream was set, they skimmed it off and churned it in the barrel churn. This made their own butter. From their skim milk they made cottage cheese. They had the buttermilk to use for baking and some of them liked to drink it.

When the men came in from the barn they brought in a pan of apples and they all ate apples before going to bed.

The boys had one bedroom, the girls had one and David and Sara had the bedroom off the kitchen. They pulled out the trundle bed and the youngest one slept there. The door was locked, the cats were asleep on the rug, the Seth Thomas clock was wound, the kerosene lamp blown out. The “old house” didn’t know it was the last night it would protect the Bowen family.

The next morning all was hustle and bustle. The wagon was loaded and the first load arrived at their new home, a plank house, clap board and painted white. So they moved across the field. Jane was weak but she wanted to walk with the others. Martha carried the little cherry rocking chair, when Janie tired she would sit in the chair and rest. They traveled slowly but she made it all the way. They walked up to the front door, onto the little entrance porch and into the hall, down the hall to the kitchen, where the furniture was being brought in, out the back door to the summer kitchen where there was running water from the spring. They reached for the tin dipper and each one had to turn the faucet and have a drink of water.

Back in the kitchen again, they went into the large living room then into the hall, a cool breeze came in through the open door, where they would spend hours, playing or day dreaming according to their age. Margaret had a boyfriend, Aaron Douglass, a neighbor boy.

They opened another door across the hall, another living room or parlor, it was called, and off from it the spare bedroom. Back in the hall again, down the hall they were back in the kitchen again, but they looked into the large clothes press at their right before they entered the kitchen. Then they decided to look upstairs to see their bedrooms. They noticed the lovely banister as they climbed the stairs, at the top of the stairs was a door which led to the attic, to their left was a clothes press, back along the hall were doors. One to their left led into a large bedroom, to their right a smaller room and off from that a little bedroom. They would have to decide how to arrange their bedrooms, not many bedrooms for eight children.

Sarah was thinking of the work ahead, to make this house into a home. Months before, Sarah had sent bags of carpet rag balls to the lady with the loom that wove carpets. What a lot of rags her and the girls had sewed. The woven strips were a yard wide and the length of the room. When she got them back she had to sew the strips together with carpet warp. A good layer of straw was spread over the floor, and the carpet stretched over it and using carpet tacks, was tacked close to the wall.

Chapter II: Life In the New House

These were busy days, a lot of work to be done before cold weather. All hands were busy, even to young John’s. Martha stayed nearby Jane, to wait on her and to keep her company. There was the garden to gather, the sweet corn ears were husked, kernels were cut off and dried in the oven. The dried corn was stored in large tin containers with covers. The popcorn ears were tied in bundles and hung from the ceiling of the summer kitchen. Also hung up were bundles of peppermint, spearmint and catnip and red peppers. Cabbages were hung where they shouldn’t freeze. Much of the cabbage had been cut up and placed in a large crock and was changing into sauerkraut. The smell of it filled the air. John was gathering caraway seeds in jars to be used in cakes or on cookies in the winter. He and Martha took care of the chickens. They gathered the eggs, hunting for nests in the barn. They wanted all the eggs they could find. At the foot of the cellar stairs was a crock, filled with a mush salt solution, where the extra eggs were put to preserve them for winter use, for baking.

The homemade cider press was set up and as they picked apples to put into barrels in the cellar, bushels were poured into the cider press, to make sweet cider. A barrel was filed with this. Last years barrel of sweet cider, had “mother” put into it and now had turned to cider vinegar.

A rack had been put in one corner of the yard, wood ashes had been put into this, and water added. Now acid (lye) was leaking down into a trough. This acid was used later to make soap.

Butchering day arrived, the big iron kettle brought out, a good wood fire built with a rack over it on which the kettle was hung and filled with water. The scalding barrel was placed nearby and two wooden saw horses, with boards across, making a table. The throats of the pigs were cut and let bleed out, then the pigs were scalded, laid out on the boards where the men scraped off the bristles. Then everything was flushed clean, the pig slit open through the belly. They carefully pulled out all the insides. They cut out the heart and place it into a pail of water, also cut out the tongue and put it with the heart. All the fat was pulled loose and put in a big pan. All fat was later put in the oven and slowly melted. This was their lard or shortening for baking, also to put with lye for making soap. The intestines cleaned and cleaned, and later cut in lengths for sausage holders. The head was set aside to clean later and make head cheese. The feet were cut off and cleaned for pickled pigs feet. The meat was cut into hams, shoulders, bacon, all to be hung in the smoke house. Hickory wood was cut and burned in the smoke house. Side pork was salted to preserve it. Later the heart and tongue were cooked, the tongue peeled, and made into pickled heart and tongue.

As usual they had raised a bull calf, and now he was over a year old. Some day later, they would butcher the beef bull, cut it up, and place it where it would stay frozen.
The meat was cut and stored where it would stay frozen, in the granary, or wrapped and put in a barrel in the seed oat bin where it wouldn’t be disturbed. The hide was cleaned and stretched out on the side of the granary and probably later sold. The beef fat saved for suet and tallow, the tallow for making candles and Gilead salve and the suet for steamed suet pudding etc. The heart and tongue also were pickled and liver from the beef and pigs was saved and furnished some good liver and onion suppers.

Going back to apple picking, their orchard was young and they had a variety. The King Apple was a favorite, it was large and deep red. They kept good until Christmas or after. In early fall they had the early sweets, the Pippin, large, white often wonderful. Also the Sheep nose, shaped like a bell, the Baldwin, Spys, so good for pies and applesauce, the Wagner, something like our McIntosh. A large quantity of the sweet apple cider was boiled down in the iron kettle in the yard. When thick, it was kept in a jug or crock, used to make minced meat later. A lot of it was used in making apple butter. (Applesauce boiled in boiled cider, also made in the iron kettle). All the family took turns making apple butter, after it got cold.

The two children, Martha 10 and John 8, on the cool fall mornings took their pails and went to gather hickory nuts, to get ahead of the squirrels. The old dog ran on ahead of them. The nuts would be used in cakes or cookies, or just to crack and eat on winter evenings. Later they would climb to the top of the hill and pick chestnuts from the small grove of chestnut trees. When they had a bushel of nuts, they called it enough. These they would roast on the platform of the big living room heating stove.

Rhubarb, squash and pumpkins will be stored where it is dry and dark. A large bin was ready for the potatoes and a smaller one for carrots, beets, rutabagas, and turnips. Most of the turnips had been used during the late summer months. Bushels of onions that had been pulled, dried and put in cheesecloth bags had been hung up to dry where they wouldn’t freeze.

A list of groceries was ready for David and the older boys when they went to a store. A barrel of flour, barrel of sugar, two 100 pound bags of cornmeal, baking powder, soda, cream of tartar, jugs of molasses, nutmeg, nuts, raisins, booms of loose green tee, bags of coffee beans and whatever household articles like needles and thread and maybe some cloth for new clothes, or shoes.

The Children

Margaret born 1848 Married Aaron Douglas
Thomas born 1647 Married Martha Bailey
David born 1848 Married Emma Wheeler
Mary born 1849 Married Daniel Rose (My Grandparents)
Sarah Jane born 1850 (Janie)
Will born 1852 Married Elsie Webster
Martha born 1854 Married John Kimball
John born 185? Married Helen Walker