Home Life in Colonial Days

								

and thatch on poles; this made a comfortable shelter, especially when
the cracks between the logs were "chinked" with wedges of wood, and
"daubed" with clay. Many cabins had at first no chinking or daubing; one
settler while sleeping was scratched on the head by the sharp teeth of a
hungry wolf, who thrust his nose into the space between the logs of the
cabin. Doors were hung on wooden hinges or straps of hide.
A favorite form of a log house for a settler to build in his first "cut
down" in the virgin forest, was to dig a square trench about two feet
deep, of dimensions as large as he wished the ground floor of his house,
then to set upright all around this trench (leaving a space for a
fireplace, window, and door), a closely placed row of logs all the same
length, usually fourteen feet long for a single story; if there was a
loft, eighteen feet long. The earth was filled in solidly around these
logs, and kept them firmly upright; a horizontal band of puncheons,
which were split logs smoothed off on the face with the axe, was
sometimes pinned around within the log walls, to keep them from caving
in. Over this was placed a bark roof, made of squares of chestnut bark,
or shingles of overlapping birch-bark. A bark or log shutter was hung at
the window, and a bark door hung on withe hinges, or, if very luxurious,
on leather straps, completed the quickly made home. This was called
rolling-up a house, and the house was called a puncheon and bark house.
A rough puncheon floor, hewed flat with an axe or adze, was truly a
luxury. One settler's wife pleaded that the house might be rolled up
around a splendid flat stump; thus she had a good, firm table. A small
platform placed about two feet high alongside one wall, and supported at
the outer edge with strong posts, formed a bedstead. Sometimes hemlock
boughs were the only bed. The frontier saying was, "A hard day's work
makes a soft bed." The tired pioneers slept well even on hemlock boughs.
The chinks of the logs were filled with moss and mud, and in the autumn
banked up outside with earth for warmth.
These log houses did not satisfy English men and women. They longed to
have what Roger Williams called English houses, which were, however,
scarcely different in ground-plan. A single room on the ground, called
in many old wills the fire-room, had a vast chimney at one end. A
so-called staircase, usually but a narrow ladder, led to a sleeping-loft
above. Some of those houses were still made of whole logs, but with
clapboards nailed over the chinks and cracks. Others were of a lighter
frame covered with clapboards, or in Delaware with boards pinned on
perpendicularly. Soon this house was doubled in size and comfort by
having a room on either side of the chimney.
Each settlement often followed in general outline as well as detail the
houses to which the owners had become accustomed in Europe, with, of
course, such variations as were necessary from the new surroundings, new