Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1891-01-01

the pioneer housewife IN the discharge
of the ordinary duties of the cabin.
The lack of costly furniture, handsome
carpets, fragile bric-a-brac and expen-
sive hangings did not lessen her care.
She was both mistress and servant.
matron and nurse, housekeeper and
charwoman, dairymaid and cook.
Neatness was not less demanded of her
than of the modern housewife, and her
split broom and scrub brush found
ample service in keeping floor and fur
niture clean and white. The labor
was pretty well divided between the
sexes. "The men," the early writers
tell us, hunted and brought in the
meat; they planted, plowed and gath
cred the corn, grinding it into meal at
a hand-mil or pounding it into honiny
In the mortar, which was occasionally
the work of either or the Joint labor of
both" But with these offices the Ia
Dor of the women was scarcely begun.
Custom and necessity united to lay
upon her the care of providing for
every household need that the rude
supply, and in all the multifarious du-
ties which engaged her skill and ener-
gy she labored unaided by 1abor-saving
machinery. And so she MIXED the
COWS in all weather, while sturdy men
and boys watched an operation too eff
Terminate to enlist their services. She
churned the butter. carried the tubs to
a spring a quarter or half mile from
the cabin, or caught rain water in
troughs and barrels from the caves for
the washing" made her own soap !;
washed, picked, carded and dyed the
wool; pulled, broke and hacked the
flax; spun the thread and wove the
cloth; contrived and made the gar
ments; reared her children, nursed the
sick, sympathized with the distressed
and encouraged the disheartened Ia
borer at her side. In all this, and
above it all, woman was the tutelar
saint of the frontier.
The first cloth made in Kentucky
was in 1776, by the wife of William
| Poague, who, that year joined the set
Element at Harrodsburg. She brought
with her the first spinning wheel ever
| seen west of the mountains, and she
! spun thread from the lint of the nettle,
which grew abundantly in the new
country, and upon a rude loom con-
trived by her husband she worked it
| into cloth. This she called linen, but
by adding filling" spun from buffalo
| WOOL she maze c1OLIl Sle cal10Q nnSSy-
woolsey. Considerable of such, cloth
was made in the West before the in
PRODUCTION of sheep, and before the
people began TO cultivate fax and
| hemp.
Time was when every family in the
Western and border Southern States
manufactured linen, jeans, and liasey
for their home use. 1t was ali done
| by the women. The thread was spun,
| the cloth was woven, and the garments
made by them. A suit of country
brown jeans is rarely seen now. But
following the period of buckskin
breaches, every man wore homemade
| Jeans and linen. The celebrated duel
between Henry Clay and Humphrey
Marshall in 1887 grew out of Marshall's
sarcastic criticism of Clay for wearing
Jeans clothes. Marshall was an aristo-
crat socially and Federalist political
". He believed Clay's republican ideas
and plebeian tastes affected, to give
him prestige with the people, and he
gave his "stinging pen and bitter
tongue" full swing at him, until Clay
could no longer endure his biting sar-
casm, and he challenged him.