Bedsole - NCGenWeb

meant one less person to work in the fields to produce food. Whatever corn could be salvaged for food, had
to be taken to a mill or hand-ground with rocks into meal for cornbread from time to time. Since one-third of
the meal had to be given to the miller in payment for the grinding, too little was left for the family to last out a
long winter season.
Because of all the bugs and rats, when the women started to cook bread, they had to spend an hour before
that picking the weevils, worms, bugs and especially rat excrement out of the meal. Nobody worried much
about things like rat and mice droppings though, which were too small and numerous to pick out of the meal.
It was just considered "Flavoring" for lack of a better word.
There was no way to keep green vegetables through the winter months, but potato's were stored by digging
a hole in the ground about 4 feet across and 3 feet deep, lining it with dry pine straw, filling the hole with
potato's, then covering them with more pine straw. The turpentine in the straw would keep out the rats, bugs
and worms. Hand made wooden shingles were made and stuck in the ground around these holes at an angle
leaning towards the center so they formed a kind of teepee. The shingles were then covered with about a
foot of dirt. But the problem was, if just one potato started to rot, as they usually did for any reason at all, the
entire lot was lost within 3 to 5 days. In general, the most the farmers could hope for was half of what was
stored to last long enough to be eaten. That meant they had to produce and store twice as much as they
needed in order to have enough for the winter months after spoilage and pests were taken into consideration.
But that meant more cleared land, more planting and constant cultivation until harvest time.
The various but increasing needs of these families constantly demanded more and more time and labor.
Dried Peas and beans could be kept in bags but many times those were not available. When they were, the
rats soon ate holes in the bags and pests of every kind got to them and into them too. In the summer,
everybody had so much work to do they had little time to prepare, plant and take care of a garden. Work in
the fields was a twelve months a year, seven days a week, fourteen hours a day job. Hunting was limited to
meat for food, or animal hides, for clothes and bed covers. It was generally not done for fun or pleasure.
Many people could not afford a gun and with so many kids around all the time, they were afraid to have one.
However, due to the danger from Indians and wild animals, almost everyone eventually acquired a gun from
necessity to acquire food. But with the smaller wild animals such as rabbits, possums and raccoons and the
inaccuracy of the guns at longer distances, sometimes the only choice for getting these small animals was
traps and animals were usually too smart to fall for traps. So meat was a real rarity and a huge treat when
acquired. Invariably though, all the neighbors came over to share when it was acquired by any family, if they
did'nt live too far away. In due time, a log store was built near the Beaverdam settlement and trade became a
way of life.
The settlers and Indians traded with and among the store and themselves and of course, the people all
traded with the store owner. They traded cloth, sugar, salt, grease, eggs, skins, leather, vegetables, fruit,
lead, gunpowder, clothing, smoked meat, corn, lumber, shoes, farming tools and etc. and in a constant
stream, more and more such goods made their way from the supply ships and ports from England to ports in
Louisiana, Virginia, North Carolina, New York, Philadelphia and other ports in the “New Land” and then to the
frontier settlements via wagon trains. Marauding Indians quickly learned to rob and steal these supplies and
many times, to kill the accompanying people.
PAGE TWENTY TWO
The addition of guards to these wagons followed, but this necessitated higher prices being paid by the
settlers and farmers for the goods being transported, due to the cost of the guards to the transporter.