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

Cold weather was a real problem back then and a never-ending source of suffering
and sickness. But the constant shortage of adequate food, was the absolute worst of
all problems they had to deal with every day. Mountains of firewood were needed all
the time. In the summer, it was used for cooking. In the fall, cooking, smoking meat.
In the winter, it was needed to heat the house. It was needed all the time for washing
clothes, making soap and the cane mill.
So, for long full-time periods of labor and in any spare time, the Bedsoles sawed
down trees, trimmed trees, sawed up logs, chopped limbs, split logs, toted wood,
loaded wood, hauled wood, stacked wood and then repeated it all in the hunt for
"Literd" (Lighter wood), which was old, dry pine stumps and the hunt for what was
called knots, or literd knots which were rich in pitch and resin and which were used
by everyone to start fires. Because of this, pine stumps were kept and dried out. The
literd was cut into fine splinters which were easily lit and which, due to its high
turpentine content, burned fiercely for a very short time, but hopefully long enough to
dry out and set fire to the regular firewood stacked on top of it, usually consisting of
split pine.oak or hickory wood was preferred because these burned slower and
produced a hotter fire.
But oak and hickory were hard, dense wood and required much backbreaking
chopping and sawing to produce firewood. The problem was, with the unbelievably
tiny fireplaces inside houses back then and with all the holes in the walls, floors and
roof's, there was no way in the world to get warm in the winter time. Once they
thought the settlers had enough mountains of wood, for the fireplace to last all
winter, that work temporarily slacked off, but then it was discovered they had to do it
all over again for the cane mill, washing clothes and for the making of soap.In the
winter, they had to put so many covers and animal skins on the bed to keep from
freezing, they could barely turn over with all that weight bearing down on them.
After supper during winter, everyone always had to shell peanuts, shuck corn, work
on leather, repair stuff, or do something for another three hours before going to bed.
So they sat in the “living room”, which always had two or three double beds in it
anyway and sniffled and froze to death while they did that work too. They couldn't
wait to get in bed and hopefully warm up some.
Nobody had adequate winter clothes, so everybody froze equally. Most people wore
2 pair of breeches, two shirts and some kind of coat, if any
or all of that was available, which was seldom the case. Some wore animal hides as
overcoats. But no matter how tired people got, there was no such thing as a vacation
or time off. Any time off meant someone else had to take up the slack and this was
usually followed by a period of less to eat.
.......................................PAGE 12........................................................................
For Planting
Seeds