A History of Southern Missouri and Northern Arkansas: Being an Account of the Early Settlements, the Civil War, the Ku-Klux, and Times of PeaceMonks, William
History
A History of Southern Missouri and Northern Arkansas: Being an Account of the Early Settlements, the Civil War, the Ku-Klux, and Times of Peace
Monks, William
Arkansas -- History -- 19th century; Arkansas -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865; Guerrillas -- Ozark Mountains -- Biography; Missouri -- History -- 19th century; Missouri -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865; Monks, William, 1830-1913; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Personal narr
The customs and habits were entirely different from those existing now;
the wearing apparel was entirely home-made; they would raise their
cotton, pick it out with their fingers or a hand gin, women would
spin their warp, spin their filling, get their different colors from
different barks for men's wear; the women used indigo and copperas for
the main colors in manufacturing the cloth for dresses, wound their
stripes on a stick and then wove it into cloth; you could scarcely
visit a house but what you would see a loom, big spinning-wheel and
little wheel; sometimes you would see three or four wheels at one
house. They made both their every day and Sunday wear; the women
appeared to take great pride in seeing who could weave the nicest piece
of cloth, make it into a dress, make cloth and make it into what was
known as Virginia bonnets, and the men tanned their own leather, made
shoes for the whole family. When the women were dressed completely in
their homespun they appeared to enjoy themselves, in church, in company
or any other gathering, and felt just as independent and proud as the
king upon his throne; they appeared to meet each other and greet each
other and all appeared to realize the fact that they were human and
they had but one superior and that was God. The women spun the warp,
spun the wool, wove it into cloth, procured the different barks from
the woods and dyed it, the general color being brown, made it with
their own hands into coats, pants, undershirts; made overshirts out
of homespun cotton and the whole suit was home-made, and very often a
cap, made either of the raccoon or a fox, was worn on the head. When
men met each other at any public gathering they appeared to be proud
of meeting each other; appeared to realize the fact that they were all
American citizens and human, bound together by the ties of love and
affection, and the highest ambition appeared to be to make each other
happy and help one another in time of need.
I don't believe there was as much dissipation by partaking of
intoxicants, or other wickedness, as exists to-day among the same
number of persons. It is true that then any man who was able to
purchase a little still and had a spring could erect his own still
house and make his own whiskey without paying any tax or duty upon the
same, and anyone of his neighbors who wanted a gallon of whiskey could
carry a bushel of corn to the still-house and get a gallon of whiskey
in exchange for it. And if men became drunk on the whiskey it did not
appear to make them wild and crazy as the whiskey of to-day does.
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