Yellow Springs Historical Society

[In which he describes the process of preparing the apple harvest for use]

In the evening after the regular work of the day was finished, paring and coring apples preparatory for drying was a part of the duty of the whole family. Several bushes of drop apples were brought from the orchard to the house during the day. This labor was generally performed by the women and children, the men being too busy at field work to stop to pick up a few bushels of apples.

After the supper dishes were cleared away the kitchen table was surrounded by all hands able to aid in the important work of saving the fallen apples and adding to the winter supply of edibles.

The paring was usually done by a paring machine – a home made affair – consisting of a wooden frame containing a band-wheel six of eight inches in diameter, turned by a crank. By means of a leather belt the power was conveyed to a spool wheel of inch and a half diameter immediately above the crank wheel. The axis of the spool-wheel was an iron spindle the left end of which had two prongs like a fork. On this fork an apple was stuck and a modest turn of the crank gave a rapid revolution to the apple. As the apple spun around a short knife blade fitted into a wooden base with a short handle, was held against it, paring the skin thick or thin according to the setting of the knife in its wooden frame. Any good carpenter could make this machine. The spindle on which the apple revolved was shaped by a blacksmith. I think ours was made by brother Milton, who was skillful in the use of carpenter tools. An expert hand with this machine could keep four or five persons slicing and coring to keep up with him.

[Note: examples of such early apple paring machines can be seen in the Virtual Apple Parer Museum’s Gallery.]

The modern metal parers are fastened firmly to the edge or table by means of a set screw, but the one above described was framed to the end of a board about two feet long, which, when in use, was placed on a bench or kitchen chair and held firmly by the operator’s own weight as he sat astride it.

Personally, I must confess that I did not always take kindly to these family apple-cutting bees. They came at the time when the average farmer boy would rather sleep than work, and frequently I tried to persuade the managers that, in my particular case, the former was more necessary than the latter. Looking at it from the standpoint of youth doubtless my parents sympathized with me, but thee was a question of duty to be considered. Children should help in providing for the needs of the family and dried apples were certainly a necessity. So with visions of dried applesauce and dried apple pies in the future, I applied my knife in quartering and coring the luscious fruit as vigorously as conditions would permit until the end of the session, which was announced by the machine man when he reached for the last unpared apple.

Machine paring was not very satisfactory with bruised or imperfect fruit as the knife would fail to catch all the rind, leaving much for the hand knife to finish. However, much labor was saved by its use.

After the fruit was prepared for drying it was spread out in thin layers on hurdles (commonly called hartels) and these were placed on a scaffold built for this purpose, located in a convenient, sun-shiny spot. The dryhouse with stove heat could be used in all kinds of weather.

Although the images are missing from the document, one can get a glimpse of a typical log cabin in this post, and Della Miller provided the photo of the house which replaced the log cabin below.

BUILDINGS AND HOME SURROUNDINGS AT BETHEL FARM HOME

It is stated that when my grandfather, Frederick Miller, purchased the quarter section of land (1817 or 1818) which after his death in 1822, soon became the property of my father, John Miller, there was a log cabin on the land which served as the family abode until the more commodious house, built in the year 1822, was ready for occupancy. Not a vestige of this primitive structure remained in my time. It is hardly probable that it occupied the space needed for the new building, making its removal necessary. There were plenty of building spots, and, besides, the cabin was needed as a residence while the new house was in process of erection. What does it matter now, nearly one-hundred years after its destruction, where it stood, how it looked or what became of it? However, to my mind a picture of that primitive cabin, real or imaginative, is needed as a starting point in the associated interests of my ancestors during that period. No one is now living that can give me a rough memory sketch of it sufficiently accurate to enable an artist to reproduce its size, shape and general appearance. I am left to imagine that it looked like hundreds of other back-woods log cabins still standing in Clark and adjoining counties of Ohio during my boyhood days.

On page 18 of the Miller genealogy brief mention is made of the new log house built in 1822. I attach to this writing (page ) a print of same reproduced by Herbert B. Judy from a description given by brother Samuel, who well remembered the building as it appeared before the pride of the family demanded weather-boarding to conceal the logs and mortar. This improvement with a one-story addition to the rear, and later a porch in front, marks the appearance of our homestead as it was added to the house and its surroundings which the accompanying kodak snap-shots will show, but the same old log structure built by grandfather Frederick Miller in 1822 still supports these modern features with its enduring strength.

The barn seen in these late photographs was built by my father in the year 1848. It took the place of an old log barn of primitive type. Here again imagination must be drawn upon to restore to mind the old building. Much of the timber of the old barn was utilized in building the new frame, but many of the old logs lay heaped up in one corner of the barn yard there to rot if not used to meet special needs on the place. These logs would serve a good purpose as bridge material across ditches in marshy localities; or if cut in short lengths (two or three feet) they made lasty ground-chunks under the corners of rail fences. The purpose of the ground-chunk was to prevent the lower rail of the fence from settling in the ground too far, thereby absorbing moisture which would soon cause the bottom rail to rot. It was a part of the farmer’s work, as soon as the spring weather would permit to repair the fences, pry up the corners and replace the rotten ground-chunks with new ones. Here was work for a ten or twelve year old boy to assist, and I had plenty of it to do.

One of these log heaps (relics of the old barn) lay under a walnut tree which stood in the barnyard not far from the water-trough which was supplied with spring water after it had passed through the milk-house trough, depository for milk and butter. Here was a delightful shady place to play, much enjoyed in my youth. In the fall of the year when the walnuts were dropping, one-half of the labor of hulling was saved by their striking these logs as they came rattling down from the top of this tall tree. My recollection of the happy hours spent in hulling and drying for winter use these delicious nuts is quite vivid. I say delicious advisedly, for I feel and speak as a boy of nine or ten years.

The new barn was a frame and stood on a hill but a short distance southwest of the dwelling (see photographs). It stands today (1917) as built in 1848 with no change except a small shed addition at the northeast corner to give more stable room. Being a bank-barn the lower story was devoted entirely to stabling stock. The upper story contained room for a threshing floor in the center and a large mow on each side for hay or grain. A loft space over the threshing floor was also used for mowing purposes. A granary occupied a part of the space of the westside mow. It was a tight room entered by a special door off the threshing floor and contained bins to receive the different grains when threshed and cleaned. From the northeast corner of the threshing floor a narrow stairway led to the basement story. Down this stairway-opening hay and other feed was pitched to the hall-way below to be parcelled out to the horses in their separate feed troughs and hay-racks (mangers). Sometimes a boy would pitch himself down this gang-way along with the feed. We always had to guard against a misstep or a slip.
All the necessary out-buildings found on farms of an early date were located on spots convenient to the central home, – viz., bake-oven, built of stone or brick under a shed roof; wood-house, smoke-house, carriage-house, spring-house, hog-pen, sheep-pen, wagon-house with corn-crib on one side, a dry-house, heated by means of a wood stove, for drying fruit – the only means of preserving the surplus stock of fruit then known.