Not the least of the hardships of the pioneers was the procuring of bread. The first settlers must be supplied at least one year, sometimes longer, from other sources than their own lands. Many who settled in the eastern part of this county, were obliged, for several years, to make a two or three days’ journey to Ohio, going and returning, for their grain and meal. And after they had raised grain for themselves, they had to get grinding done there, until mills were built here.

 Thomas Bulla, a settler four miles south-east of Richmond, was mentioned in a “Pioneer Sketch,” in the Richmond Palladium of March 13, 1856, says he took a grist of his first crop of corn to Bruce’s mill near Eaton, O., 12 miles. Having been badly frost-bitten, it was found unfit for bread, and was fed to his cow. Having no money to buy with, he went to his father-in-law in Ohio, and got nine bushels of corn, for which he was to pay when able. He bought of his brother William 2 bushels of wheat which was all he had the first year. Settlers had to pack all their grain from the settlements in Ohio on horseback, until they raised a supply at home.

Jeremiah Cox, son of the elder Jeremiah, gives an account of packing grain from Ohio, in substance as follows: His father brought some breadstuff with him from the Miami country. This, with the corn he bought with his land from Woodkirk, carried him through the first winter. The corn was ground with an iron hand-mill they had brought with them. It was constructed on the principle of a coffee-mill, but was much larger, and was propelled by two cranks; and he says: ” It was believed that it never ground the meal too fine.”

 The neighbors joined the next season in blazing out a bridle way to Stillwater, O., for the purpose of packing breadstuff from there on horseback, and Jerry, the son, and one or two others, made one or two trips in that way. But his father thought this too slow a way to supply his large family with bread, and conceived the idea of sending wagons through on the ” Quaker trace,” as it was called. Jerry took his father’s small four-wheeled wagon; and the two fore wheels of their large wagon were ” rigged up ” for his uncle James Morrisson. Thus equipped, with an ax and three or four days’ provisions, they set out on their journey. After a tedious drive over weeds, chunks, logs, and saplings, they reached their place of destination. They procured their lading of good, sound corn; but, to their great disappointment, they were unable to get it ground without staying longer than was deemed expedient; and they accordingly started homeward.

 Having heard that there was a water mill at New Lexington, and that there was a road cut out from Dayton to Eaton by way of New Lexington ; and Cox dreading the grinding of so much hard corn, by hand, he insisted on getting it ground before they returned; to which his uncle Morrisson very reluctantly assented. They traveled from place to place, winding, backing, and turning, to almost every point of the compass, until they found the looked-for Dayton road. Traveling along in cheerful mood, they met a man who told them they presently would come to an old ” hurricane,” through which there was only a bridle way, and there was no possible way round. [The reader perhaps understands, that the word hurricane is here used to signify a thick second growth of small timber, and not the storm itself, by which the earlier growth had been prostrated.] The hurricane was soon reached, the saplings standing thick on the ground. They went vigorously to work, and cut their way through, a half mile or more. It was near sunset; and soon coming to a house, they put up for the night.

Early the next morning they were on their way—reached Kesbit’s mill at Lexington—got their corn ground, and started for home. But before they had got to Eaton, they sunk into a slough, which, Cox says, answered the description Bunyan gives of the ” slough of despond.” They could extricate themselves only by unloading their wagons, and carrying their sacks of meal on their backs through the swamp to firm ground. To do so, Cox took off his shoes and laid them on a log. After a good deal of splashing in the mud, they got their wagons out; but, like the poor ” pilgrim,” they were much ” bedaubed with the filth of the slough.”

 They reloaded their wagons and started on their way. But in the hurry and confusion of the moment, Cox forgot his shoes, and never heard from them afterward. “Without any further difficulty, they safely reached home with a good supply of well-ground meal, which was a luxury indeed to the family, after having been fed for some time on meal none too fine, and from corn not sound. They had overstaid their time about two days. Many other cases might be given, showing the difficulty in obtaining this indispensable article of food.

 But the first crops of the earliest settlers, however abundant, gave only partial relief. There were no mills to grind the grain. Hence the necessity of grinding by hand power, as in the case mentioned by Cox. Few families, however, it is presumed, were even thus poorly provided with the means of cracking their bread corn. Another way was to grate the corn. A grater was made of a piece of tin, sometimes taken from an old worn out tin bucket or other vessel. It was thickly perforated, bent into a semi-circular form, and nailed, rough side upward, on a board. The corn was taken in the ear, and grated before it had become quite dry and hard.

As early, however, as the fall of 1807, Charles Hunt started a mill on the Elkhorn, a mile above its mouth, which did grinding for the people in the vicinity of Richmond, until Jeremiah Cox built his mill near the present site of Jackson, Swaine and Dunn’s Woolen Mills, below the National Bridge. This, like Hunt’s, was a tub-mill. The stones were 2 feet in diameter, and ground 2 bushels in an hour. Wm. Bulla built the next mill a short distance north of Richmond. These mills were covered by planting in the ground stout poles with forks at the upper ends, in which were laid poles to support the roof, which was made of split clapboards, after the manner of covering log cabins. “This,” says Jerry Cox, “sheltered the hopper and the meal trough pretty well, when the wind didn’t blow.” A few months after Bulla’s mill was built, Cox built one himself where he now lives, six miles north of Richmond. This he sheltered with a log house similar to a log cabin, 20 feet square, covered with a cabin roof in the usual style. In a favorable stage of water, this mill would grind two bushels of frost-bitten corn in an hour. He judges the three last mentioned mills to have cost, in the aggregate, about $500.

 Corn was eaten in various ways. The earliest mode of baking, (cast iron ware being scarce,) was to put the dough on a smooth board, two feet long and six or eight inches wide, placed on the hearth slanting toward the fire. When the upper side was baked, the bread was turned over for baking the other side. When lard was plenty, the bread was well shortened, and called johnny-cake. Some baked in a Dutch oven, when that article could be obtained. Sometimes the dough was made into lumps, which, when baked, were called corn-dodgers. Others raised the dough with yeast, and baked it in a Dutch oven. This was called pone, and was a decided improvement.

Mush, or hasty-pudding, eaten in milk, was then a common article of diet, especially for supper. In its green state, corn was boiled in the ear, and sometimes roasted before the fire. Before there were mills near to grind the corn, hominy was much used as a substitute for bread. The corn was soaked in lye made from ashes to loosen the skin, and then pounded in a wooden mortar with a wooden pestle till the skin was peeled off. This was called bye hominy. This mortar is said to have been a piece of a solid, dry log, in one end of which was burned a cavity or hollow of sufficient depth to hold the corn.

 A story is told of an old settler who had on his farm a small stream with a considerable fall, on which he placed a water-wheel, to which he attached a contrivance for raising a heavy piece of timber and dropping it into the mortar holding the corn. Tradition (not always reliable authority) says this mill one day played havoc with its owner’s sheep. Leaving the mill at work during a short absence, his sheep, putting their heads into the mortar to eat corn, were struck on their heads by the pestle, and several of them killed.

 Our aged friend Cox, among the numerous incidents he has furnished us of “life in the woods,” gives the following “bill of fare ” of the settlers. It differs less in the number than in the kinds and quality of the articles in the lists on the tables of our best modern hotels: “We had our large hominy and small hominy, large pone, johnny-cake, hoe-cake, and dodgers, boiled dumplings, and fried cakes, all made of corn meal. Of meats we had hog’s meat, venison, opossums, raccoons, and squirrels.

 Of fowls we had wild turkeys, pheasants, wild pigeons and ducks, all of which were cooked in divers ways to suit the taste, or in accordance with the customs of the times. There were in use several kinds of coffee ; as, bread coffee, crust coffee, meal coffee, potato coffee, and, after wheat was raised, wheat and flour coffee. Those who used the imported had to pay 33 to 50 cents a pound. In the spring we had many kinds of wild weeds boiled for greens to eat with our meat. And for dainties on particular occasions, as weddings, quillings, house raisings, and log rollings, we had custards and finuities [boiled wheat], with milk stirred in and sweetened to taste. With maple sugar, this was deemed quite a dainty. For tea, we had sassafras, spicewood, beech leaf, sycamore chips, etc. In the summer and fall we had Irish potatoes; for fall and winter use, pumpkins and turnips in abundance. The pumpkins were dried for winter use, by cutting them in rings and placing them on poles, and hanging them on the joist in front of the fireplace.

” My father contracted with Ewell Kendall for several bushels of wheat, the first I knew of being raised on Whitewater. I do not remember the price paid for it. I was sent for it, and recollect George Holman’s being present and remarking to Kendall, that he was “a money-making man.” This wheat we ground in our hand-mill, and sifted the flour through a meal sieve of horse hair. Out of this flour we had many excellent breakfasts.”

 Corn was the principal grain crop of the settlers. The soil was adapted to its production, and the yield was abundant. Yet the farmers found one serious difficulty in its cultivation. Vast injury was done to cornfields by birds and quadrupeds, both by picking up the seed and taking the grain from the ear. Farmers, sometimes, unaware of the secret working of these little predators, found their planted seed corn nearly all picked up by crows and squirrels. Blackbirds, in large flocks, would light upon the ears before the grain was hard, and injure it badly. And in the fall the squirrels and raccoons would diligently carry on the work of devastation.

 Squirrel hunts were frequent, and prizes awarded to those who killed the greatest number. These hunts were often got up in the spring to protect the planted cornfields. A subscription paper was circulated, and subscriptions were taken payable in corn to be distributed as prizes among the hunters. On the day set for counting the scalps, the men and boys of the neighborhood would attend, eager to learn the result. Some of these hunters, it is presumed, were stimulated no less by the expectation of a “good time” and the honor of being the best hunter, than by the prizes offered.

The woods were valuable also for the meat they furnished. While the clearings were yet small and corn was scarce, the forest furnished subsistence for hogs, which would often fatten on beech nuts, hickory nuts, and acorns. But running in the woods, they soon became wild, and when wanted for meat, were not easily taken. Some would escape for years, until their tusks had grown to nearly the length of a man’s finger. These old hogs were formidable resistants to their pursuers. In defending the younger ones of the gang when seized by a dog, they have been known to spring at the dog, and rip out his entrails with one flirt of the snout. Men without guns to defend themselves, have been compelled to climb trees to avoid their attacks. Neighbors joined at killing time to hunt their hogs with dogs and guns. Their hope of success depended chiefly upon first shooting the old ones.

 An old settler, [H. C. T.,] says he was one of about a dozen who went on one of these hog-hunting expeditions. Being told that the hogs were young, and that only dogs and knives were needed, all went without guns, except one, a weakly man, who, being unable to run, fortunately, as it proved, took his rifle. After an hour’s hunt, the hogs were discovered and overtaken. Being stopped by the dogs, they huddled together with their noses out, ready for a fight. Two were caught by the dogs, and knifed; after which, an old hog, which was among them, would, when the dogs caught a hog, fight them off, until he was shot by the man carrying the rifle. After a chase of about three miles, the last hog was captured.

The forest was also of no small value as a hunting ground for deer and other game. Deer hunting in the winter was a common business. Much of the meat of deer was sometimes lost. The hunter, if alone and far from home, would shoulder the more valuable part—the hams and the skin—and leave the rest for the wolves, or, as was sometimes done, hung up to a sapling or a large limb of a tree, which had perhaps been bent down for the purpose, and which, springing back, would raise the meat beyond the reach of the wolves. Having delivered his first load at his cabin, he would return, though perhaps not the same day—conducted to the spot by his tracks in the snow, and bring home the remainder. If two hunters were in company, the legs of a deer would be tied to a pole, and the animal carried away, each hunter taking an end of the pole on his shoulder.

 But the principal meat of the early settlers did not long consist of game. Pork and poultry were soon raised in abundance. The common fowl furnished both meat and eggs. Geese, though sometimes eaten, were raised chiefly for their feathers, with which the settlers replenished their old bed-ticks and filled their new ones. Doubtless, many still repose on beds made by their mothers or grandmothers more than half a century ago.

 To witness the various processes of cooking in those days, would alike surprise and amuse those who have grown up since cooking-stoves came into use. The first thing likely to attract notice was the wide fire-place before described, some eight feet in the clear. Kettles were hung over the fire, to a strong pole which was raised so high above the fire as not to be likely to ignite from heat or sparks, the ends being fastened into the sides of the chimney. The kettles were suspended on trammels, which were pieces of iron rods, with hooks at both ends. The uppermost one extended from the pole nearly down to the fire; and with one or more short ones the kettles were brought to their proper height above the fire. Before iron was plenty, wooden hooks were sometimes used. Being directly above the kettles, they seldom took fire.

The long-handled frying-pan was used for cooking meat. It was held on the fire by hand; or, to save time, the handle was sometimes laid across the back of a chair while the cook was “setting the table.” The pan was also used for baking short cakes. It was placed in a nearly perpendicular position before the fire, with coals under or behind it to bake the under side. A more convenient article was a cast-iron, short-handled, three-legged spider, or skillet, which was set upon coals on the hearth. Its legs were so adjusted that when, in baking cakes or biscuit, it was turned up before the fire, it kept its semi-vertical position. Some of these skillets had iron covers, on which coals were thrown to bake the upper side. But the best thing for baking bread was the flatbottomed bake-kettle, of greater depth, with legs and a closely fitted cast-iron cover, more commonly called Dutch oven. With coals over and under it, bread and biscuit were quickly and nicely baked. Turkeys and spare-ribs were sometimes roasted before the fire, suspended by a string, a dish -being placed underneath to catch the drippings.

 Some of the inconveniences of cooking in open fire-places will be readily imagined. Women’s hair was sometimes singed, their hands were blistered, and their dresses scorched. But frame houses, with good fire-places of brick or stone, measurably relieved our mothers and grandmothers. In one of the jambs was fastened an iron crane which extended over the fire, and could be drawn forward when kettles were to be put on or taken off. But the invention of cook-stoves commenced a new era in the mode of cooking; and none, the most averse to innovation, have indicated a desire to return to the “old way,” which will hereafter be known only in history.

 Not until after the settlers had supplied themselves with the more needful articles of clothing and with edibles of various kinds, did wheat bread become a common article of food. It had not been ” daily bread,” but had been eaten only occasionally, as on Sundays and when visitors came. Then one would get a little of this luxury, with some “store coffee.” Fortunately, there was not the same lack of sweetening material. The sugar maple furnished an abundance of sugar and molasses.

 Trees were “tapped” in various ways. Generally a notch was cut into a tree with an ax, or a hole bored with an auger, below which a spile, or spout, was inserted to conduct the sap into a trough. Troughs were made from easy splitting trees 12 to 15 inches in diameter. They were cut into pieces about two feet long, which were split exactly through the center. Of each of these halves was made with an ax a trough, holding about a common pailful of sap. The sap was generally carried in pails or buckets to the boiling place, and emptied into a reservoir, which was a long trough made of a large tree, and holding many barrels. Sometimes a number of empty barrels or casks were taken to the bush, and need for that purpose. The kettles were hung against the side of a large log or fallen tree, and the sap was boiled down to a thin syrup and strained. The straining and final boiling were usually done in the house. For molasses, it was boiled to the proper consistency; for sugar, until it was granulated, when it was poured into dishes to cool, and taken out in solid cakes.

 Great improvements on the early mode of sugar-making have been made. Wooden and tin buckets have been substituted for the rough, uncouth trough which could not be emptied without waste. Kettles are sometimes set in tight furnaces of stone laid in lime mortar. Coals, ashes, and other dirt are thus kept out of the kettles, and clean, light colored sugar is produced. The first settlers had no market for their surplus sugar and molasses. Each made for himself: and there was no store in all the valley; nor, if there had been, would a merchant have taken sugar at a remunerative price, even in exchange for goods, as it would not have borne transportation to market. The nominal price was 5 or 6 cents a pound, though its cash value was probably, for a time, scarcely half that price. Those who have spared their sugartrees, have, for several years past, received a fair reward for their labor in its production.

 The children’s dinners, too, were very unlike those of children at the present day. Their frozen corn-bread was sometimes thawed on the dirt hearth. This bread, or ” corn dodger,” as it was called, in one hand, and sometimes a piece of wild turkey or deer’s meat in the other, were eaten for dinner.

Source; The History of Wayne County, Indiana & Richmond; By Andrew White Young; 1872