Life in the Canadian/American Old West

       Our diet on the farm was simple. The mush pot was a great factor in our home life. A large iron pot was on the stove where the mush slowly boiled and bubbled, and such mush made from yellow cornmeal cooked two to three hours, plenty of milk, plenty of maple syrup and maple sugar for pancakes, plenty of venison, some eggs. Lots of fresh fish. I heard father say he got along fairly well for being in a forest; he had to walk five to eight miles to work. We moved to the town of Nanticoke. In town there were two stores, two taverns, a gristmill, a sawmill run by water power, a blacksmith shop, a wagon shop and a tannery. Mr. Banfield tanned leather with tan bark; he could stand in water all day without getting wet feet. Can’t get that leather today. There were two churches.

       There was a plank road laid from Hamilton to Port Dover. Those planks were three inches thick by twelve inches wide. That pine today would be worth $250 a thousand. On this road were toll gates; toll on each gate - horse and buggy, 10 cents; a team and wagon was 25 cents to 35 cents. There was a little town called Dog’s Nest, one store and a country tavern - whiskey at that time was 50 cents a gallon. A cross  road run from Dog’s Nest to the town of Nanticoke – a corduroy road through the forest. The timber wolves were so thick one could not travel that way at night. There was a man and his wife and two children devoured by wolves on that road. A man taking his grist to the mill and it getting late in the day would have to stay at the mill all night,  as one couldn’t travel that road at night.