Contents ▼▲
Front Matter At Boonesborough Beginning of the Story Boone on the Yadkin Boone Moves his Family Ready for the Journey What we Wore Driving Cattle and Sheep Camping at Nightfall The Long Halt Jimmy Boone Goes to Clinch Murder of Jimmy Boone A Time of Mourning The Faint-hearted Return A New Home Making Moccasins Tanning Leather Governor Dunmore Our Home on the Clinch Household Duties Attacked by a Wildcat Fighting the Wildcat Boone and Father Return The Wilderness Road Building the Forts Boonesborough Gathering Salt Boonesborough Precautions Our Home in the Fort Ready for Cooking Furnishing the House The Hominy Block The Supply of Water Sports Inside the Fort Wrestling and Running Religion of the Indians Indian Babies Colonel Callaway Arives News from Eastern Colonies Venturing Outside the Fort Dividing the Land Who Owned Kentucky? Ready to Build a Home Billy's Hard Lot Preparing Flax Spinning and Soap Making Broom Making More Indian Murders Indian "Signs" Woodcraft and Hunting Pelts Used as Money Petition of the Settlers Making Sugar Building Fences Capture of the Girls My Willful Thoughts Finding the Trail The Pursuit The Story Told by Jemima Elizabeth's Heroism Rescuing the Girls Alarm Among the Settlers Indians on the Warpath The First Wedding The Wedding Festivities The Brides Home The Housewarming Attacks by the Indians Besieged by the Savages In the Midst of the Fight The Assault by the Indians Failure of the Assault Watchfulness of the Indians The Sortie My Father Wounded Our Wounded

Hannah of Kentucky - James Otis




Furnishing the House

Father soon made our home as nearly as possible like the one we had left on the Yadkin. Because we had loaded our one pack horse with such farming tools as it was believed would be needed immediately after we arrived, mother and I had little or nothing with which to set up housekeeping. It seemed as if we were well supplied with conveniences when the fireplace was ready for use, and we had exactly such a stone for baking journey cake as one could desire.

On our long journey we had been able to buy meal now and then; sometimes, it is true, we were forced to go without it. But here in the fort each must grind his own corn, or eat it whole; so father made his first purchase in Kentucky when he bought a hand mill of a settler who had determined to go back over the Wilderness Road, so fearful was he lest the Indians might succeed in capturing the fort.

We had never owned such a thing, for on the Yadkin there was a water mill, to which Billy and I carried the corn for grinding; therefore this machine was to us almost a curiosity.

It required two men to set the mill up in one corner of our cabin. First, there is a large rock, called the bedstone, nearly the size of a small cart wheel and rough on the upper side; on top is placed another of the same size, with a large opening into which the grain can be poured. This rock is called the runner. Around these two, encircling them as a hoop does a barrel, is a broad band of wood with a spout in one side to let the meal run out when the corn has been ground.

[Illustration] from Hannah of Kentucky by James Otis

Another hole, but shallow, in the upper surface of the runner, near the outer edge, is intended for a pole fastened in firmly, its upper end running into a hole in a puncheon made fast to the floor above; thus two people may work at turning the runner and divide the labor.

It is not easy to move this upper rock around on the bedstone because of its roughness, so when Billy and I work the mill, mother or father must help us start it; but once in motion we can keep it going and feed in the corn at the same time, although it is wearisome labor.