The Wyandot pioneer. (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1853-1868, 1857-08-13
UPPER SANDUsKY, OHIO, THURSDAY, AUGUST 49, 1851

gular race of people, to whom / may prof
itably devote few paragraphs of des
caption.
/, In passing through the "middle coun
, try" often passed the rude squalid cab
ins of the Sand hillers. All the inmates
usually flocked to the door of their win
dowless domicile to stare at me. AND
such lank, scrawney. filthy. set of be
ings | never beheld elsewhere-not ever
within the "purlieus of the " Five
Points,
Their complexion is ghastly yellowist
white, without the faintest tinge of whole.
some red. The hair of the adults is gen.
orally sandy. and that of the children
nearly as white as cotton. The children
are even paler. if possible, than the adults
and often painfully haggard and sickly
looking. They are entirely uneducated,
and semi -barbarians in all their habits,
very dull, stupid. and, in general social
position, far below the slave population
around them. In fact, the negroes LOOK
down upon them with mingled feelings
OF pity and contempt. They are "squat-
ters" on lands belonging to others, Ell
ther with or without their consent. They
sometimes cultivate, or rather plant, a
small patch of ground near their cabins,
raising little corn and few cabbaces,
melons. and sweet potatoes. Their agri.
cultural operations never extend any be-
yond this.
Corn bread, pork and cabbage (fried in
lard, seems to be their principal articles
of diet, Toprocure the latter, and what
over clothes they require, they make
shingles, or baskets, or gather pine knots,
or wild berries, which they sell in the
villages but beyond what is required to
supply their actual limited necessities.
they will not work for.
Their principal employments are hunt
ing and fishing. and their standard amuse-
ment, drinking whisky and fighting.
Their dress is as primitive as their hab-
its. The women and children invariably
go bare-headed, bare-footed. and bare
legged, their only garments being appar.
emily coarse calico dress.
The men wear cotton shirt and trou.
sers OF the coarse homespun cloth of the
country, with the addition sometimes of
an upper garment, too rude and shape
less to be named or described.
l one day met migrating family of
these miserable people. On mostsorry,
lank and almost feshiess substitute for a
horse were packed the entire household
effects of the family, consisting of bed
and a few cooking utensils. Two small
children occupied the top of the pack
Two larger ones. each loaded with bum
die, trudged behind the mother, who ap-
peared not more than seventeen years of
age.
The father, a wild, sinister looking
fellow, walked in advance ofthe rest. with
hts long rife on his shoulder, and his
hunting pouch by his side.
A correspondent of one of the city dai.
lies thus describes an encounter with a
Sand hill family. l.
Here, on the road, we met a family
who had been in town. A little girl Of
ten years old. with a coarse fragment of
a dress on, is sitting on the backbone of |
a moving skeleton of horse, which has
the additional task oftrailing along rick
ETY. specimen of wagon, in which is seat
ed mana real outside squalid bar
BARN, maudlin and obfusticated with bald
faced whisky, with a child four or five
years old by his side. Behind this hag-
gard looking boy upon another skeleton of
a horse is coming.
What an old. outlandish, low wheeled
cart the horse is pulling! There sits the
old woman and her grown up daughter,
with nothing on. apparently, except We
~ dirty bonnet, a coarse and dirty gown.
The daughter has basket by her side.
and the old woman holds fast to a suspi-
cious looking jug, or half gallon meas
nre, corked with corn cob. You can
bet your life on it. that is a Jug of whisky.
The family have been to the village with
a couple of loads of pine knots used for
light wood. They have probably sold
them for dollar, half of which has
doubtless gone for whisky, and now they |,
are getting home. Degraded as they are,
Vou see it is the man who is helpless, and
he woman who has care of the Jug, and Il
conducts the important expedition. There
are hundreds such people dispersed
through these Sand hills.
You see the whole of this party are
and bare-footed. And how
'ony and brown they are? And it is GU
'ious fact. that, Incorporate countries, the
children Of all semi-barbarous white peo-
pie Eexcept Sir Henry Bulwer's black or
red headed Celts, and all Anglo Saxon
backwoods or mountain or prairie, have