Lincoln County leader. [volume] (Toledo, Lincoln County, Or.) 1893-1987, 1909-02-26

mountain districts between the Scnuyl.
kill and the Juniata watersheds the
sparse population was chiefly of rude
and rugged woodmen and their fam
lilies, many of them descendants of pure
Pennsylvania Dutch stock Scores Of
them depended almost entirely on their
skill with gun and. trap for their food
supply. f.
"The cabins of these mountaineers
were built of logs, the chinks between
which were filed in with clay. A huge
stone chimney rose at one end of the
cabin outside. covering that entire end,
while on the inside it opened on a
broad fireplace across that end of the
room.
"The cabin was banked all around
with earth. against which hemlock and
pine boughs were heaped. Sometimes
ranks of cordwood were piled up al
most to the caves, the better to keep
out the cold, which is always intense
during the winter on these windswept
hills.
There was rarely cabin with more
than one room. The walls were dark
and smoky, and from rafter or beam
hung plentifully strips of jerked veni-
son and chunks of smoked bear meat,
along with hams and bacon from the
family pigs fattened in the woods and
| almost as wild as the bear and the
deer. But the choicest and best beloved
thing Of the cabins larder was the fat
and well frozen wild turkey,
while the woodman's cabin was al
ways prepared for a turkey eat, it
never knew when it was coming. A
turkey eat began with the making up
of a party in a neighboring village or
settlement. Taking along a fiddler,
they would appear at this, that or the
other woodsman's cabin of a winter
evening and the woodsman and his
family did the rest.
Instantly the brentwood pail of
cider came forth. While the cabins
guests drank cider the host prepared
and spitted the turkey over the hickory
Goals in the fireplace to roast for the
feast. When it was ready for the table
it was placed before the guests on a
big tin platter Each one carved .for
himself, the plates being squares of
birch bark
The turkey eat was not complete,
though, without a liberal supply of
'paan haas and headcheese; and with
it went the sweetest of rye bread and
butter Paan haas is a strictly Penn
sylvania Dutch creation.
at is made from the rich juices left
after boiling the ingredients for head
cheese, these being thickened to a stiff
paste with buckwheat -four This paste
is pressed in forms until cold and Is
served in slices. 1t is a dull blue il
color, very rich and very good.
"After the feast the turkey eat was
rounded out by a night of joliity super
induced by the fiddle and maintained
by it in it's music for the old-fashioned
cotillon figures and reels, which were
danced until the gray Of morning.
But most of those old-time woods
men have passed away, and on those
who are still dwellers in the noun
tains the game laws have forced a sit
uation that leaves them with their an
cient occupation gone and the hunt
being no longer a source of mainten-
ance it's traditions have departed with
it. The newer generation of these peo-
pie Is of other taste and association, so
while the wild turkey is yet in proX-
unity in that Blue mountain region to
supply the material for the festive tur-
key eat the traditions and associations
that made it possible are no more and
it is gone, like the apple cut, the quilt
ing bee, the pig-killing frolic and 9th
ers of the old-time rural pastimes that
are now but memory"