- VILLAGE
- Village family farm, c. 1911. Pictured are Mrs. N.R. (Susan Fannie Harris) Hogg and her six-year-old son Henry T, Hogg. Picture from Henry T. Hogg. Copy work by Robert Walz.
LIFE ON A FARM IN COLUMBIA COUNTY IN THE EARLY 1900's
(as related by Henry T. Hogg of El Dorado in a letter to Dr. Robert B. Walz of SAU, Magnolia).
My parents Mr. and Mrs. Needham Reynolds Hogg moved from Union County to Columbia County in 1901, settling one mile south of Village. They cleared the land, built a log house, set out apple and peach orchards, and cultivated 160 acres.
Our house had a stick-and-dirt chimney above a fireplace that burned 4-foot stave bolts. There was a stave-bolt mill near our house from which we obtained the knotty (or faulty) bolts for our use. The good staves were hauled to Magnolia for rail shipment to a barrel factory.
My father had a sirup mill (sic) where he processed sorghum and ribbon cane sirup (sic). One year he cooked 1100 gallons for the neighbors and himself. The toll he charged was 1/5 (every fifth gallon) for sorghum and 1/6 for ribbon cane---provided the neighbors furnished the firewood, one "hand" to grind the cane, and also a horse to pull the device that crushed the cane. (Some mills charged a higher 1/4 and 1/5 for their services.)
Cornie [Creek] Bottom had plenty of hardwood to supply food for hogs that ran wild. Acorns and beech mash grew plentifully on virgin timber. Each farmer had a mark for his own hogs so they could be identified. Our mark was a swallow fork in the left ear, and two underbits in the right ear.
Dogs were specially trained to "track and bay the hogs"---that is, to confront them---until the owner could shoot his hogs with a rifle (my father used a 32 caliber) .
Life was good even though we ate mainly the basic foods. We took corn to be ground into meal, and dried as well as canned both apples and peaches. Some apples were put in a barrel of sand for winter, and one treat I especially enjoyed upon coming home from school was to get an apple from the barrel, and place it in the molasses pan before eating it. Even the thought is still sweet.
(Mr. Henry T. Hogg was a school administrator, including the principalship of Barton Junior High, before serving as postmaster at El Dorado. He was also a Visiting Professor of Education at Southern State College (now SAU) for three surmners. He is now retired.)
|
| |||
