11/25/07 VERSION: BEDSOLE HISTORY FROM 1673 ... - NCGenWeb

The location of their log houses was important and they were located as close as
possible to a source of good drinking water, preferably a spring. Having to dig a forty
or fifty foot-deep well, was a luxury which could be ill-afforded, when they didn’t even
have a house to live in. They worked together to get the jobs done, handling the big,
heavy logs, working on first one house, then the other, cutting the trees down,
trimming them and dragging the resulting logs to the house site. The debarking and
splitting of the logs and putting up the framework and then making hundreds of
thousands of handmade wooden shingles for the roofs, took several weeks. Dirt
floors sufficed at the time. Houses were crude and consisted of only one room.
Wooden floors and porches were luxuries which would have to wait.
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The clearing of land and construction of houses took several of the summer months
and the settlers were hard-pressed to get the houses done and a supply of firewood
cut for the 4 to 5 months of winter which lay just ahead of them, beginning in
November. They also needed lots of animal hides, dried and cured, prepared for the
winter, by the women and children. Teamwork among all concerned was an absolute
necessity and meant the difference between life and death most of the time. Syrup
and cornbread for breakfast, turnips or grease/gravy and cornbread for lunch/dinner
and the same for supper, were their primary foods.
Meat was a rarity because of the small supply of gunpowder and shot, which were
expensive and needed for protection from Indians which was a priority.That forced
them to use traps for wild animals and meat. Meat was preserved by smoking it for a
week or more, but that required a small smokehouse and lots of wood, then
someone to attend to the smoking process. Vegetables were mostly non-existent
most of that first summer season. At that time, they had no means of communicating
over long distances with each other except by runner and in cases of Indian attacks,
which occurred too frequently, the runner himself would become the prime target of
the Indians.
Before long however, those who could afford one, had put a large iron bell up on a
30 foot pole at the edge of their yards which were rung by pulling a rope. About noon
every day, the ringing of these bells meant come and eat, to the field workers. With
houses so far apart, it was clear whose bell was ringing. If the bell rang at any other
time, especially at night, it meant an emergency had occurred at that particular
house, and anyone hearing it ran to help. Five peals of the bell meant come and eat.
Ten meant emergency here, need help. Twenty, meant a life or death situation had
developed at that house and when an emergency occurred some rode their mules at
a dead run, whether in daytime, or the dead of night. But when the bell rang at night,
it filled everyone with dread, for it was a sure sign of very serious trouble at that
house. The house was on fire, someone was dying, they were being attacked by
Indians, or other disasters were occurring. The settlers were collectively hard
working people who supported and cared for one another. Each depended on the
others for help if anything happened because the situation could easily reverse