[10] If the newcomer chose some settlement for his home, the neighbors would gather when the logs were cut, hold a "raising," and build his cabin in the course of one day. Tables, chairs, and other furniture were generally made by the settler with his own hands. Brooms and brushes were of corn husks, and many of his utensils were cut from the trunks of trees. "I know of no scene more primitive," said a Kentucky pioneer, "than such a cabin hearth as that of my mother's. In the morning a buckeye backlog, a hickory forestick, resting on stones, with a johnny cake on a clean ash board, set before the fire to bake; a frying pan with its long handle resting on a splint-bottom chair, and a teakettle swung from a log pole, with myself setting the table, or turning the meat. Then came the blowing of the conch-shell for father in the field, the howling of old Lion, the gathering around the table, the blessing, the dull clatter of pewter spoons on pewter dishes, and the talk about the crops and stock." [11] For an account of the social conditions in 1820, read McMaster's _History of the People of the U. S._, Vol. IV, Chap, xxxvii; also Eggleston's _Circuit Rider_, Cooper's _Prairie_, and _Recollections of Life in Ohio_, by W. C. Howells. [12] A story is told of an early settler who was elected to the territorial legislature of Illinois. Till then he had always worn buckskin clothes, but thinking them unbecoming a lawmaker, he and his sons gathered hazel nuts and bartered them at the crossroads store for a few yards of blue strouding, out of which the women of the settlement made him a coat and pantaloons.