The Easy Life?

As settlers pushed west from the original 13 colonies they inevitably followed two main corridors.  The northern route made use of the Ohio River and was through the Ohio Valley and the southern route followed the road through the Cumberland Gap pioneered by Daniel Boone.  Settlement of the vast area between the east coast and the Mississippi River progressed steadily for about two hundred years, but seemed to stall at the Mississippi River.  The reason for this was that it took a whole new set of techniques and talents to survive on the prairie, beyond the “tree line,” than had previously been necessary in the heavily wooded areas of the east.  History during this era is rife with stories of families who made the trek west only to return within a year or two completely disheartened.

Water was not as abundant, wood for building houses was almost non-existent in some areas, and even wood for fencing was not to be had.  Eventually, wells were dug to alleviate the water problems but early settlers were still dependent on the weather to supply enough water for crops, and rain on the plains, unlike Spain, did not fall on the plains.  Even in good years, the yearly annual rainfall on the plains only averaged about 17 inches, just about the same as the deserts of Southern California!

“Sod huts” provided crude shelter until lumber could be brought in from the east, but even these had their drawbacks.  One of my ancestors, Elias Frew brought his wife Fannie and their four children “out west” in a covered wagon and moved them into a sod hut.  Tragedy struck during an unusually wet rainstorm when the dirt roof collapsed, killing Fannie and two of her boy children.

Fencing might not seem like a pressing issue, but try to imagine being on a farm with an assortment of livestock without fencing.  Protecting gardens and water sources would be very difficult, and containing herds of horses or cattle would be impossible.  Some enterprising individuals went so far as to build fences out of mud, hence the term “uglier than a mud fence” but even that was labor intensive and only worked for small areas such as gardens. The fencing problem remained until the development of barbed wire.

For the few who were prepared to overcome these obstacles, a sizeable family farm could be established for a relatively low cost.  Now all they had to do was survive the tornados and the extended droughts that plagued the area every 30 years or so.