uments with which to make their farming
implements and their household cooking utensils? Who were their weavers,
their shoemakers, tailors, tanners and wagon makers? Of course there
were none, for each farmer and his family had to rely on what they could
do with their own hands or what they could trade to some neighbor in
return for something done for him.

The first mills or hominy blocks were made of wood. A block of wood
about three feet long was burned at one end, wide at the mouth and
narrow at the bottom, so that when the pestle hit the corn it was thrown
up and as it fell down to the bottom it was mashed. Gradually, each
grain of corn was ground to a like size. When the corn was soft, as it
was in the Fall, this grinding made a fine meal for mush or "journey
cake" as they called this form of bread. However, this was slow work
later on when corn got hard.

The farmer also used a different kind of mill. He used a sweep made of
springy wood, thirty feet or more long. This pole was supported by two
forks, placed about a third of its length from its butt end where it was
securely fastened to some firm object. To this was attached a large
mortise, a piece of sapling five or six inches in diameter and eight or
more long. The lower end was shaped like a pestle and a pin of wood was
put through it at a proper height so two people could work the sweep at
once.

Kercheval says he remembers the one which he helped work in his own
home. It was made of a sugar-tree sapling and was kept almost in
constant use either by his own family or by the neighbors who came to
use it. He says these sweeps were used to make gunpowder from the
saltpetre caves which the settlers soon found.

The women often used a grater for the corn when it was very soft. This
was made of a piece of tin, a few holes punched in on one side and then
nailed to a block of wood and the corn scraped against it. This produced
a form of corn-meal but was a very tedious method. Another kind was a
mill made of two circular stones. The one on the bottom was called the
bed stone and the upper one the runner. These were placed in a hoop with
a spout for discharging the meal. A staff was let into the hole in the
upper surface of the runner near the outer edge and its upper end
through a hole in a board fastened to a joist above. The grain was put
into the runner by hand. This type of mill, is one of the earliest ever
known by man.

Then every man tanned his own leat