Exhibit Text for the Lane County Historical Museum’s 1880s Kitchen Exhibit:

Daily Life of Lane County’s Early Settlers

Upon their arrival, early settlers in Lane County found themselves with a lot to accomplish after their long journey west. Most travelers on the Oregon Trail had timed their journey to take advantage of spring and summer weather and good supplies of grass for their ox teams and livestock along the way. By the time they reached their destination the weather was turning grey and winter was not far off. Shelter and getting their crops in the ground were their first goals.

Depending on the man power, and the amount of time (available before the onset of cold weather) a family might manage to put up the walls of a log cabin (covered by the canvas from the covered wagon) or survive their first winter in a tent.
The Land Grant Act

The Oregon Donation Land Claim Act of 1850 gave 329 acres to each white male citizen, age 18 and older, who took up residence in Oregon Territory between December 1, 1850 and December 1, 1853. If he married, his wife was also granted 320 acres.

In 1853 the Donation Land Law was extended to 1855 and the land allotted was reduced to 160 acres per man and 320 to married couples. This land was given away free to more than 7,400 claimants who acquired more than 2.8 million acres, most of which was located in the Willamette Valley.

In order to “prove up” on a land grant and own the land outright, early settlers were required to build a 10x12 foot dwelling and live in it. More than half of the individuals who attempted to acquire land through the Land Grant Act failed to “prove up” within the five year period.

For many of these early settlers, the first year or two in their new home was not much different than life on the trail. They were still camping, and still eating pretty much what they ate on the trail. Meals were comprised of only beans and game when it was available. What the settlers endured through their first winter and the success at life in this new place depended on how well they had prepared for their journey across the plains. Some of them had nothing left on their arrival. Others managed to make the journey with some reserve of food and supplies to help them through their first winter in their new home.
Log Cabins

An average log cabin required 30 to 40 logs. The average size of a log cabin was 10x20 feet, no matter how many individuals it needed to house. A complete tool box might have been considered too heavy, but an ax and auger were among the few tools that survived the trip to Oregon. An ax was the most important tool for building a log cabin. The weight of the logs and the way in which they were notched to stack together insured stable walls. The large gaps between the logs had to be “chinked” to keep out the weather. Mud, clay, moss, sticks and strips of wood were all materials that might be used to “chink” the space between the logs and make a cabin less drafty.

The floor of a log cabin was often dirt or it might be a “puncheon” floor. Puncheon floors were made by splitting logs in half lengthwise and placing them with the split side up. Often the split side was smoothed with only the skillful use of an ax. Windows in log cabins might be just an opening cut in the walls that could be covered with a feed sack or closed with a shutter. Anything made of hewn boards, such as a door, was usually put together with wooden pegs. The holes for the pegs would have been created with an auger.

To build the log cabin, settlers depended on the remainder of the team of animals that brought their wagons to Oregon to drag the logs to the cabin site. Felling the huge logs and getting them to the top of a wall were both dangerous undertakings. Despite the hazards involved, a cabin was often completed within a few days.
Houses of Milled Lumber

The railroad came to the Pacific Northwest in the 1880s and as more settlers traveled west, supplies for building became more available. Logging developed, along with sawmills, and milled lumber became available. Settlers who could afford it and were within driving distance of a sawmill could make their first home out of lumber. These were often basic structures that were added onto as the years passed or abandoned when a real house was finally built.

Eventually catalogue businesses like Sears Roebuck & Company made mail order houses available. Houses could be selected from a catalogue of elevations and floor plans. The materials and plans for the house were then shipped by rail or came around the Cape Horn by ship. Many of these houses are still homes for residents in the Northwest.
The Heart of the Home

In the 19th century and for early settlers, the kitchen was the main living area of the home because almost everything was done there. Since families had to be more self-sufficient, cooking, food preserving, and other kitchen activities were much more extensive than they are today. In addition to being the location for smoking and salting meat, pickling vegetables, drying fruit and doing laundry in the winter, the kitchen served as a sitting room in the evenings. In any given evening a family members might be engaged in sewing and mending clothes, candle making, repairing harness and other such tasks in order to fit into a day all of the chores that were necessary for survival. Family members might also sleep in the kitchen.

When the earliest settlers in this area first built a home, cooking was done in the fireplace. Most fireplaces were made of stones and often had chimneys of sticks coated with mud. Open hearth cooking provided both heat and light as well as a place to prepare food. Often a metal hook or pole was built into a fireplace in order to provide a way to suspend a pot over the fire.

Sometimes a fireplace in an early kitchen would have an oven built in on one side. Usually the baking was done in a dutch oven. The dutch oven was a legged pot that had a lid with a lip. This allowed coals to be piled under and on top of it, baking the contents of the dutch oven with an even heat. Reflector ovens were another way to bake in open hearth cooking. The open side of the reflector oven was placed in front of the fire with the food to be cooked towards the fire. The reflector wall of the oven was placed on the side of the food away from the fire and reflected the heat of the fire onto the food.

Though wood burning stoves became popular in the late 1800s, they were not readily available during the early settlement of Lane County. They were very heavy items to ship and though some families started their journey west with a stove packed in the family wagon, they were one of the first items left behind when difficult circumstances on the trail called for a lighter load. Having a cast iron cook stove was a convenience that most cooks desired. A cook stove was a big investment and a prized possession. The stoves had names that denoted their significance such as Majestic and Kitchen Queen.

Elaborate detail in the decoration was not unusual. Many cast iron cook stoves were lavishly embellished with relief decorations, nickel plated fenders and other details. They were equipped with a fire box, an oven, and often a hot water reservoir to one side and warming oven above. Cooks became adept at judging just how hot a fire was and keeping it at the desired temperature. In the summer time the cook stove was usually dismantled and moved to outside or to a back porch for use to keep the heat out of the house. The wood-burning stove was used to cook food, heat water and boil laundry.

Before ice boxes became available in the west, families had to find other ways to keep their perishable food fresh. When ice was available on ponds and waterways during the winter months, it was cut and packed deep in sawdust to last into the summer months.

If there was not an ice supply, perishable food would be stored in a cellar or spring house built over a water supply to cool it. During a cold winter meat and produce might be kept cold in an attic. Refrigerators cooled by ice (commonly known as iceboxes) were available in the late 19th century but many homes did not have them. Ice boxes depended on the regular delivery of a block of ice.
Water

Prior to indoor plumbing, water was pumped by hand or drawn from a spring or well. If a kitchen had no indoor plumbing it meant that water had to be carried from the well. Hauling water for household use and for the animals was a daily chore. Early indoor plumbing might mean having a small hand pump at the kitchen sink that drew water from the well.

Wells were dug by hand and the dirt was hauled out of the hole in a bucket. If the water table was low and therefore deep it was necessary to lower the man digging by rope. The bucket to empty the dirt had to be hauled up by a rope. When a pocket of gas was encountered by the person digging he would have to be removed from the hole quickly and digging would cease until the gas dissipated. Digging a well was two or three days’ work and dangerous.
The Food Supply

The protein in the pioneer diet consisted largely of meat from domestic animals, wild game, fish and legumes. Milk, cheese and dairy products were only part of the diet when a family owned a cow.

In the country and in smaller towns families would often have at least one cow and a few chickens and a kitchen garden. Laws about keeping animals in town were more relaxed than in modern times, and it was often a necessity to do so because transportation was less dependable and a family’s food supplies needed to be locally available. Households had to be self-sufficient. One family would often exchange with another. Professionals, such as doctors, would accept goods for their services.

Households kept kitchen gardens to ensure a supply of produce. They grew items like pumpkin, squash and turnips that were stored in an attic or a cellar through out the winter months. Summer vegetables and fruits were dried, pickled or canned to supplement winter meals.

The slaughtering of larger animals such as cattle and pigs usually occurred in the fall, when the weather turned cold so that the meat would keep.
Butter and Cheese

Before the mid-nineteenth century, all butter was made at home and cheese was more often made at home than purchased. Cheese making was usually done in the summer when cows were producing more milk. It was a long process and required daily turning as the cheese dried before it was finally wrapped and stored in a cool place.

To make butter, milk was taken fresh from the cow and poured into a wooden tub. The cream was skimmed off the top and saved for a day or two until there was enough to make butter. It was then put into a churn. The churn’s dasher was plunged up and down until the cream separated from the liquid and turned to butter. Churning was hard work and usually took about 30 minutes until the butter set. The butter was removed from the churn and placed into a bowl to be pressed by hand or wooden paddles until the water was worked out. Last, it was packed into small tubs or pressed into molds.
Wash Day

In the early 1800s, family clothes and linens were washed outside when the weather permitted. Water for washing was heated in an iron or copper kettle over an open fire. Clothes were lathered, scrubbed and rinsed in a large wooden wash tub. A laundry plunger or sturdy wooden stick was used to lift, push and beat the clothes in the water. Clothes were hung on a line to dry.

The wooden washboard with corrugated scrubbing surface was invented in 1797 and came into use in the mid 1800s, along with the tin or copper oval wash boiler or a cast-iron pot that was heated on an open fire or a wood-burning stove. And the invention of the crank-handled wringer with wooden rollers wrung water from the wet clothes around the turn of the century. It was a welcome aid to the women of the family on wash day.
Sewing and “Making Do”

New uses were found for old garments. Quilts were made from scraps, and sheets were “turned”. As they became worn in the middle, sheets were cut in two and the two lengthwise and the outside edges were sewn together creating a sheet with a less worn middle. Mothers cut garments for children from the skirts of their worn dresses. The collar and cuffs were what wore out first on a garment. The collars and cuffs of men’s shirts were turned to get more use out of them. What had been the front side of a collar became the underside.

To keep a family clothed a woman would spend all her evening hours sewing or knitting. In some cases, if the family kept sheep, she would spin and weave her own cloth as well. Women taught their daughters what had been taught to them. Girls learned how to sew at a young age. Socks had to be continually knit. The production and maintenance of clothing was a constant part of women’s lives. The bigger the family the more hands that were needed to help.

Women’s dresses took six to eight yards of fabric and were often hand stitched until the sewing machine became affordable and available in the west in the 1860s and ‘70s. Often the collars and cuffs were made detachable so that a woman could vary her dress by changing the collar.

Fine handwork was a more usual pastime when lace and decoration on garments was not available. Fine handwork was an indulgence that came last, after a long list of everyday chores necessary for survival.

Exhibit Text, Lane County Historical Museum, March 2011