PIONEER DAYS – [Welland Tribune, 22 February 1992]

By Robert J. Foley

[Welland Tribune, 22 February 1992]

Life was hard for the ordinary farmers struggling to recover from the war of 1812. Many lived in isolation along the creeks that flowed into the Niagara from Willoughby and Bertie townships or into the Welland River from Wainfleet, Crowland and Humberstone. Rebuilding houses and barns drained what little capital they had. Most made due with the crude buildings that had all but disappeared as prosperity had come to the peninsula at the turn of the century.

The struggle to survive held the undivided attention of the entire family. Chores were complete before all else. As soon as a child was old enough to comprehend he or she was given a task, simple at first, but they picked up their share of the burden as they grew.

For us, who simply flick a switch when we want light or run down to the supermarket for our meat and groceries, it is hard to imagine having to plan carefully months in advance to light, heat and feed a household, but that is exactly what the pioneers had to do. One eye had to be kept on the wood pile. Was there enough to last the winter? Is it time to cut next year’s supply? Often if the farmer miscalculated he would have to burn green wood with the resultant smoke that inevitably would linger in the room.

The laying up of preserves for the winter was a necessary task for every pioneer housewife. The fall butchering and the preservation of meat was calculated to see the family through as well as to provide income from the sale of pork and beef to the military garrison and the growing towns.

All the cooking and heating in the pioneer house emanated from the big fireplace in the kitchen. The fire has kept blazing during the day in fall and winter as the door was often left open, despite the cold, for light and to clear smoke from the house.

For cooking purposes the fireplace was outfitted with an iron crane with hooks to hold pots. By swinging the crane out the meal could be checked without leaning over the fire. Baking was done either in a small stove fitted into the fireplace or in a crude oven built in the yard. Winter and summer the bread was baked in this manner; wood was piled into the oven and burned, effectively to preheat the oven. The ashes were scraped out and the bread inserted, cooking with the heat retained in the walls of the oven.

The utensils used in the kitchen were crude by our standards. They were often handmade from wood. Spoons, ladles and forks were laboriously carved by the man of the house. Bread pans for raising the dough were hollowed out of solid pieces of wood. The large, long handled wooden paddly used for putting the bread in and out of the outdoor oven was often cut from a single piece as well.

Health was another problem that plagued our forbearers in the 1820s. Fifty-five percent of the children did not live to age five. Doctors were often military surgeons located at the various forts around the peninsula. Doctors began to appear in the larger centres like Niagara and St. Catharines, but were too far away to be of use to most of the isolated farms and communities.

With the shortage of trained medical doctors it fell to the more educated in the neighborhood to fill the gap. These “folk” doctors, who were usually women, kept a supply of bandages and medicines obtained from the military surgeons on hand to treat their patients. They were often versed in the home remedies brought from Europe as well as those of the local Indians. These same women also acted as midwives and were sent for when the time for delivery of a baby was near.

Chronic diarrhea, dysentry and cholera, caused by the primitive sanitation, were the chief health problems threatening the populace. The local home remedy might be the only medicine available. For the above mentioned ailments this would include oak bark. The practitioner boiled an ounce of the inner bark in a pint of water and administer it to the patient. Acorns and blackberry root were also used with good results.

Children were in constant danger from diseased that are considered little more than inconveniences today. Measles and chicken pox were dangerous. Many children died of fevers brought on by teething.

Another danger facing the pioneer was the possibility of injury. Serious wounds resulting from chopping wood were fairly common. The treatment was to apply a court plaster, bind the wound tightly and hope for the best. A court plaster was made with isinglass, a gelatin concocted from the air bladders of fresh water fish and silk. Anxious watch was kept for any sign of infection that almost led to amputation of the offending limb. Before the age of anesthetics such operations were painful as well as dangerous.

The patient was taken to the nearest surgeon, usually Fort George or Fort Erie. Liberal doses of rum or some other alcohol were administered to dull the senses. Knives and saws were warmed up to lessen the shock and the doctor went to work. If the person were lucky they fainted at the first touch, sparing them the ordeal that the cutting and sawing would entail.