Morgan Pioneer History Binds Us Together use that for a broom. For a door, we would hang up an old quilt or piece of old carpet. Built bunks out of poles to sleep on, for chairs we would split blocks of wood and bore holes in the lower part and put round sticks in for legs. In a rain storm, we were about as well off outside as in. The rain seemed to fall through the roof in chunks. There seemed to be more water inside than out. As soon as possible, there was a saw mill built, an old fashioned up and down saw. It could saw out from three to five hundred feet of lumber a day. The lumber was sawed out of cottonwood logs. As soon as it was sawed, the hot sun would warp it. Then it would crawl like a snake, and there was a danger of it pulling the saw mill down. Soon we had better houses, all built of logs with chimneys and fireplaces. Not one family out of ten had a stove. There were no lights, except a tallow candle. Not even coal oil. Those days you couldn't buy not even an already made shirt. All dry goods were sold by the yard. Our mothers would sit up at night sewing and making our clothes, all done with their fingers; there was no sewing machine. Cooking, scrubbing, washing dishes, washing on the wash board, do all the work through the house, milk the cows, take care of the milk, make the butter, perhaps all small children, no one to help her. Work hard and live a hard life. Fathers and mothers that have dug and slaved and labored and toiled almost day and night, what for, to prepare better days and better times for their children. Those days there was no machinery to help the farmer. We would cut our grain with a cradle, mow our hay with a scythe, swing the cradle from morning till night in the hot sun. The same cutting hay with the scythe. It was common to see women and girls in the field taking care of the crops. While all this is being done, the teams would stand idle in the stable till the crop was ready to haul. The first grain that was threshed was trampled out with oxen on a clay floor. A man would stand in the center of the floor driving the oxen around till it was all tired out. Then the straw was shaken with forks and put to one side. The chaff and wheat was put on a pile waiting for a wind so that it would be separated. Winter came on before we could get to the mill in Kaysville or Farmington. The snow fell very deep and the road in Weber Canyon got blocked with snow slides. Many of us lived on boiled wheat for months. The fruit we had was Indian fruit. Serviceberries and wild currants. No sugar, but our mothers once in a while would bake us a currant pie; one small slice was plenty. It was so damn sour it would turn our faces crooked and tears ran down our cheeks. It was common in those days for the mothers to put the children to bed while they washed and dried their clothes, because they didn't have the second suit to put on. Matches were very scarce. As a rule, people would, on going to bed, cover the coals with ashes in the fireplace, so as to have fire the next morning without using matches. Those that neglected doing it would go to their neighbors and get fire and carry it home on a shovel. Our coffee those days was wheat barley and peas roasted, then put in a rag and taken to the fire hearth and pounded with a hammer until it was fine enough to use. For a little amusement we would have a dance in private homes. We had no dance hall. Our rooms were small and by taking everything out of the room, we could manage to dance one set of old fashioned quadrille. Our lights was a piece of board with a hole bored in it and a tallow candle, perhaps five or six, fastened to the wall. Our music was one violin and a triangle. Very often we would dance to daylight. No sickness to speak of. Finally the doctors began to slide in on us and people began to get sick and they have been sick ever since. In the year 1887 I went to a place called Dry Creek. I lived there till the spring of 1916. While in Dry Creek, Croydon, I had a small ranch; eight children in the family. We raised stock, milked a number of cows, fed pigs and raised chickens. Game was plentiful. I was fond of hunting and trapping beaver was plenty. I am safe in saying that I killed more deer than any man in Morgan. I shopped many of them to Ogden, Salt Lake and Park City. I killed one out of season and gave it to a friend of mine. I was fined $80, in the Morgan County Court. The gun I used is a 40.70 caliber Ballard rifle single shot. It is as good as it was in 1880.1 also shot mountain goats and bears. The Union Pacific Railroad was built in 1868-1869 and money matters began to get better. Trade was done away with. Manpower on the farms was done away with; machinery took its place. I was told that Brigham Young made the remarks on the stand that all those who pulled a Handcart across the plains would get a through ticket to Heaven. It is hoped his sayings won't fail and we get those tickets for we surely dearly earned them. I will close wishing you all a happy voyage and prosperity through life. What I have written is part of what I have seen and went through from the year 1860 to 1922.1 dedicate this to my family and all who wish to read it.