I’ve said so many times that our people came from everywhere. They came to America to start anew. They came to build, farm, and be blacksmiths. They came to be gunsmiths. They came to be carpenters, masons, doctors, preachers, and teachers; but mostly they came to work and build a new life. No doubt some were tired of England’s rule, and some were tired of taxation, some were unable to have land across the sea, but here the land was there for the taking and working. Later on, when the government was established 160 acres was allotted to every man who proved the land. In other words, built a shelter and cleared the land for crops. They did not have to clear the whole 160 acres, just a small portion. Here in North Carolina, men claimed the land for homesteads. They built on it and farmed it. It was exhausting work from daylight to dark, but by Grannies it was theirs, and they had a fierce pride and determination to “make do”.
Early on it was “use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without” Nothing, I mean nothing was wasted. It has always intrigued me about the makers of moonshine in the hills. Where did they sell it? How did they get it to market? Did the buyers come into the hollows and valleys to pick it up? It was just like ginseng hunting for cash money. From the earliest settlers to today, ginseng was bought by the Chinese mostly. So when the crops were laid by and the Bakker was in the barn along about late August and September, the men and boys went to the woods and dug that most beautiful plant and harvested the roots for cash…
Another thing the folks did was tan their own leather and made their own shoes. A lot of moccasins were made fashioned after the Indians footwear. I imagine the leather was stiff and torture to break in. I’ve seen photos of ‘brogans’ that had to be brutal to wear, But our kinfolk in the mountains made do. Don’t misunderstand, folks were hardy and handy all over this great country. They worked and made life work. I so admire them.
Did you know that the ax may well be the oldest tool that man-made? The ax conquered the wilderness. The ax built this nation. These men and their families came into these hills and valleys and the mountains with a long rifle in one hand and a tempered ax in the other. I know that the ring of the ax was heard thousands of times at daybreak, just think of what all the ax was used for. It cut the trees down and trimmed them and hewed the bark off and shaped the logs so they were suitable for building that log cabin; their home and shelter… They split the white oak for shingles, they shaped and hewed out tables and chairs. They split the pine and poplar for doors and benches. The ax kept him warm; it cut and split stovewood for those fortunate enough to have a stove. Most cabins had fireplaces laid out of fieldrock and chinked with mud and clay.. The ax was used to cut and split firewood for the chill of winter.
Can you imagine the amount of wood that was needed for cooking and winter? I’d say at least one day a week devoted to gathering wood and working it up. The chainsaw and log splitters took my job that I had when I was just a boy; I was the kindling and wood box filler. I was taught at an early age how to split kindling with a double-bitted ax. I knew to keep the box full. No use complaining or not doing it. That was never an option and I took great pride in doing it well. We drug chestnut logs out of the woods near Mt Pisgah, and with a saw, sawed them stove wood length and I split them. Chestnut was light and so easy to split and was a superb source of kindling. When I say we drug logs out I don’t mean large stuff. Limbs and smaller stuff that would slide down the mountain that came to the back of our house was our size of choice…
The ax cleared the ground for planting. It split the hickory slats for his chair bottoms, the ax made the barrel staves, Did I mention that it split the locust and cedar rails for his fences?
History has said that the mountain man valued his ax as much as his horse or mule or ox. He kept them razor sharp and could plane wood slick as a baby’s butt. He made his ax handles out of either ash, the wood of choice, and white oak. He always had extras because not many, if any, days went by without using his ax. The ring of the ax being driven into a tree is rarely if ever heard anymore. Most of the men and boys, even after the ’50s, have never used an ax or heard the distinct ring of one. I’ve been told, and have read that most of our settlers and pioneers could draw a line on a tree where they needed to notch it and make it fall where they wanted. They would center their marks every lick, no wasted motion or strength. Notches would look like they were sawed and also the cuts.
I am sure most of our young folk have no idea how important the ax was in settling this great country. It’s part of our history, that just like a lot of it, is fading into the twilight. Oh, I forgot to mention the homemade sleds, and that the ax shaped the runners and the boards for the bottom. The horse or mule or ox or steer pulled the sleds on the hillsides where if you had a tractor you couldn’t use it My grandfather had a good one that I got to take to the top of the hill above his house one time.
I do not remember my Grandfathers ax, but I remember my dad’s well. I used it at an early age. I have two axes today, and they are sharp. Trouble is, I can no longer use them effectively. I look at them occasionally and I am reminded of our pioneers, their rough, wrinkled, calloused hands, gnarled and bent from hewing out a country …Not to mention barns, schoolhouses that doubled as Churches, and on and on I could go. I guess you can probably tell by now how respectful and thankful I am for our heritage.
I had no reason to leave the womenfolk out, but I can assure you that they were proficient in the use of the ax. Who would split the stove-wood and carry it in before there were children to do that? The womenfolk. They worked alongside their men and worked pregnant a lot of the time. A lack of storage containers was the reason most of their winter food was dried and cured, hence leather britches, green beans dried and hung up on strings or strips of mostly poplar bark. The fruit was dried and the meat was dried and smoked. These are just a few of the chores that the women of our land had to do.
This country would never have become what it was and is without the entire family; and like the ax and the rifle gun and the barns and the home canning and even gardens and even churches, they are fading into the twilight, and that my friends make me sad. I have enjoyed this ride in my ole reddish wore out canoe on the rivers of my memories this day. I wish I could get up in the morning and hear the ring of an ax, a coon hound treed, and a quail whistling, “Bob White” .. .I wouldn’t want to wake up from that dream You are blessed, act like it so somebody may want what you got-you hear me????