to
the fact that "status" was a luxury which the Fair Play settlers could
not yet afford.[29]

Threshing was either done by hand with flails, or, if the family had a
cow or two (and the tax lists indicate that they did), the grain was
separated by driving the livestock around and around over the unbundled
straw. Finally, the chaff was removed by throwing the grain into the air
while the breeze was flowing. The grain was then collected and readied
for milling.

Gristmills were available in the West Branch Valley almost from the
outset of settlement due to the many fine streams which flowed through
the territory. As a result, few farmers had to travel more than five
miles, generally on horseback, to carry their bags of grain to the mill.
If the farmer had no horse, he had to carry his sack of grain on his
shoulder. If the settler lived on or near a stream, he put his sacks of
grain in a canoe and paddled downstream to the nearest mill. In the
early days before the mills, the grain was pounded into meal by using a
heavy pestle and a hollowed-out stump, a crude mortar which served the
purpose.

In time, the gristmill owners also operated distilleries, converting the
pioneer's wheat, rye, and barley into spirited beverages which were
freely imbibed along this and other frontiers. By the time of the
Revolution, distilling was so common as to cause the Committee of Safety
to take action to conserve the grain.[30] "Home brew," however, was
quite the custom, and it was not long before most farmers operated their
own stills.

Self-sufficiency was both a characteristic and a necessity among these
Scotch-Irish, English, and German settlers of central Pennsylvania.
Bringing their agrarian traditions with them from the "old country,"
where they had operated small farms, they were bound to a "subsistence
farming" existence by the inaccessibility of markets to the frontier.
One diarist found this conducive to a "perfect Independence" which made
a "Market to them, almost unnecessary."[31] This economic independence
carried over into frontier manufacturing, if it can be called that,
because the industry, except for the gristmills and their distilleries,
was strictly domestic.

It has often been said that the frontier farmer was a "jack-of-all
trades," and the West Branch settler of the Fair Play territory was a
typical example. With no market of skilled labor, or any other market
for that matter,[32] he was his own carpenter, coo