per, shoe-maker,
tailor, and blacksmith. Whatever he wanted or needed had to be made in
his own home. Thus, frontier industry was of the handicraft or domestic
type, with tasks apportioned among the various members of the family in
accordance with their sex and talent. It was truly a "complete little
world" in which the pioneer family supplied its every demand by its own
efforts.[33]

Although the role of the women was to take on status significance as the
frontier areas became more stable, in the earlier years of settlement
their tasks were extensive and varied. Though they were busy with
household duties such as churning butter, making soap, pouring candles,
quilting, and weaving cloth for the family's clothing, it was not
uncommon for the women to join the men in the field at harvesttime. The
domesticity of the American housewife may be one impact on American life
made by the Germans.[34]

The children, too, were important persons in the economic life of the
frontier family. Their labors lightened the load for both father and
mother. With no available labor market from which to draw farm hands and
household help, it was both necessary and useful to give the boys and
girls a vocational apprenticeship in farming or homemaking. The girls'
responsibilities were usually, although not exclusively, related to the
hearth; the efforts of the boys were generally confined to the field and
the implements employed there, although they did service too as
household handymen, hauling wood, making fires, and the like.[35]

In addition to their farming and domestic industry, the other economic
activities of these agrarian pioneers included the care of their
livestock and the exploitation of the available natural resources in
their subsistence pattern of living. The tax lists for Northumberland
County indicate the possession of two or three horses and a like number
of cows for each head of a household.[36] There were also "various
Breeds of Hogs" although they were not listed by the tax assessor.[37]
Mr. Davy's comment that "Sheep are not well understood ... often
destroyed by the Wolves ... few ... except [those] of good Capital keep
them" may explain their absence from these same assessments.[38]

Maple syrup provided the sugar supply, a fact noted by land speculators
who touted this "Country Abounding in the Sugar Tree."[39] Anti-slave
interests later thought that maple sugar would replace the
slave-produced cane sugar.[40] Mr.