James William Cox and Mary Elizabeth Mitchell - Part IV

Trapping, Hunting and Fishing

Sometimes after the evening chores were done, the livestock fed, and holes chopped through ice in the springs and branches so the animals could get water, the Cox boys and perhaps their cousins would head for the woods.  They took their bait, axes, hatchets, hunting knives, game bags, and dogs and set out to carefully set their traps and rabbit snares.  Traps were placed at the animal hole entrances or at feeding places.  While their fathers engaged in setting traps on their farms for bigger game like deer, wolves, and bears, sons were encouraged to trap smaller animals to keep them from destroying crops and stocks. Deer and turkey were watched and shot to keep them from eating the growing corn and grain. Squirrels could riddle a corn crop in a short time. 

No doubt the boys had exciting adventures, trapping possums, weasels, coons, woodchucks, muskrats, squirrel, and rabbits.  It was customary to set their traps before nightfall and hike back to them at daybreak to see what they had caught, before going on to school.  Sometimes, a skunk was an unwelcome catch!  But they were a big nuisance, too, and often wreaked havoc in the hen house. Hides and pelts of rabbits, mink, fox and other animals were sold for money or bartered for other goods.

Old records reflect the payment by the court for wolf hides and the newspaper often had ads such as,

“Coon Hides. Coon Hides.  George Williams wants them all, and pays

 the best money.” 

So then the boys got busy setting their traps, dreaming of what they would spend their money for.

Hunting was largely a matter of necessity to put fresh meat on the table.  Just as their fathers had done, men and boys also liked the challenge of hunting, and every farmer had favorite hunting dogs. Most were good shots and brought home deer, squirrels, wild turkeys, rabbits, and birds. 

Nearby rivers and creeks provided all the catfish, blue gill and black bass the men and boys could catch and their families enjoyed having fish fries with big platters of fried fish, served up with heaping bowls of fish gravy, and plates of golden fried potatoes.

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Finally, when the snow and sleet were about all gone, the roads got really muddy, but by then, spring was just around the corner, and usually in March, everybody got busy planting potatoes and breaking corn ground.  Young and old looked forward to pleasant weather and to the new farming year ahead. 

So there were good times and hard times for the Cox family - but at the end of the year, looking back, it must have been a satisfying experience - planting the crops, tending the animals, and bringing in the harvest to keep the homestead going.

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James Cox, the Young Man

James Cox was born with a crippled foot – the left foot was smaller than the right, so he learned to walk wearing two different sized shoes.  Though it had a crippling effect, the disorder didn’t keep him from doing almost everything other children could do.  When he was grown, however, it did prevent him from serving in the Civil War. 

In 1859, when James William Cox turned twenty-one, he became old enough to vote in the 1860 election for the United States Presidency.  Several candidates were running for the office:  Abraham Lincoln from Illinois, Republican Party; John Cabell Breckinridge from Kentucky, Southern Democratic Party; John Bell from Tennessee, Constitutional Union Party; and Stephen Arnold Douglas from Illinois (Northern) Democratic Party.  The little-known politician from Illinois, Abe Lincoln, who ran on a platform that promised to halt the expansion of slavery, resulted in a land-slide victory for the Republicans with a popular vote of 1,865,908 and electoral vote of 180, followed by Breckinridge of Kentucky with a popular vote of 848,019 and electoral vote of 72.  Lincoln’s first election in 1860 set the stage for the American Civil War.

We don’t know for sure how James William Cox voted, or if he voted, but it is believed his family was inclined to be Republican, and he probably voted for Abraham Lincoln.  We know his brother, Leonard Cox, who fought on the Union side in the Civil War, cast his first vote for Abraham Lincoln in 1864, because it is recorded in his Ohio County biographical sketch. 

When we were doing an oral family history interview in 1969, my grandfather told me: 

            “My father voted in the elections every year, but he was not a party

  man.  You know, he voted for the man he thought would make the

  best candidate; therefore, he was an independent.  He was ninety-three     

  years old when he died.”

It was on his father’s farm that Jim learned his blacksmith skills, which later became one of several occupations he held during his lifetime.  He also taught school at a number of places in the county.  At some point in his life, he was appointed postmaster at one of the communities where he lived.  More research may reveal the community name where he served as postmaster.  Most likely it was at Pincheco, a few miles southeast of Hartford.

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Schools and Education

By 1860 at age twenty-two, Jim Cox was operating his own blacksmith shop in Fordsville, up in the northeastern part of Ohio County, but primarily he was a school teacher. By studying at home between calls on him for work around the homestead, he sought every opportunity possible to get an education, attending school at odd times.

Thus as a young man he was able to obtain a position as a school teacher and it was under his teaching that many young people throughout Ohio County got their education.

Teaching and learning in that day consisted mainly of literacy, penmanship, arithmetic, and “good manners.”  To become a teacher in that period, a person simply had to know how to read, write, and figure arithmetic.  That was where the term “Three Rs” came from - reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic.  Probably, the self-sufficient and hard-working settlers also wanted their children to learn to read so they could study the Bible. 

When the children were needed to help work at home or on the farm, school was suspended and they were not taught at all until the crops were in. School sessions usually lasted about three months at a time.  Teachers frequently boarded with a community family.

People in those days entertained one another with music, storytelling and other recreation and much of it took place at the rural school house, a major center of community life, as were rural churches. 

In the “olden days,” pupils received much more attention from their school teachers than is given today, even with all the modern methods and equipment we have.  Although times were hard in those days, there was a closeness, as a rule, between teacher and pupils that we don’t have today.  They felt like a family and they learned to work together and they helped each other learn.  Sometimes parents sent under age children to school with older brothers and sisters because they had to work in the field that day.  Otherwise, the older children would have had to stay home to take care of the little ones. 

The older kids helped teach the younger kids if they needed help when the teacher was busy on the other side of the room.   In this day and time, all of the teaching is left to the teacher. 

Not to be forgotten is the fact that some of the scholars might often be older and larger than the teacher in charge.  On picture days, smaller siblings were sometimes brought to school so they could have their picture made.  Now and then old school pictures are found showing non-school age children included with the group because their parents wanted to have a picture of their smaller children.

           

When James William Cox taught school in Ohio County they had a tradition at the end of school whereby the teacher took all the boys to the Green River to swim in a favorite swimming hole and have a picnic.  The area had a high bank overlooking the river and a few of the older kids who were brave enough enjoyed jumping or diving off the high embankment into the water. 

One memorable summer, about the last day of school, James Cox took a group of his boy students, ranging in age from eight to fourteen or so, to the river to swim.  The boys had made it up in advance to gang up and throw or push their teacher into the river.  So when they got near enough, they all crowded around him and began pushing him closer toward the edge of the bank.  Realizing they would be strong enough to push him over, just as they got to the brink’s edge, he spread his arms wide and hugged them all in to him. 

When he went over the bank into the water, he took all the boys with him, arms and legs flailing every which way.  And lots of laughter and whooping and hollering.  The news quickly spread far and wide in the county because these boys told this story for years, even to their grandchildren.  They considered it a big joke because their teacher turned the tables on them and they all got wet together.

One of the duties and responsibilities for Jim Cox was to fill out the absentee report and make out academic reports on each student for the school trustees to go over.  Teachers were the key to the success of the schools.  Parents were no different then than they are today – all wanted a good education for their children.     

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It was good that Jim’s mother lived long enough to see her son use the education he received in the county where he lived.  Susannah Miranda (Leach) Cox died an untimely death at age fifty-two on June 7, 1859.  It is unknown if she had been ill or just what caused her death.  Thomas Jefferson laid his wife to rest in East Providence Cemetery next to their little son, John T. B. who died at age five.  The cemetery is located on Prentiss road, not far from their Cromwell farm where they lived for many years.   

Jim was about twenty-one when his mother died.  His older sister, Elizabeth Mary, had been married for about eight years and was about twenty-seven, and his younger brother, Leonard, was only sixteen, and was probably still attending school.

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Blacksmithing

In the 1860 Ohio County census records, James Cox, 22, blacksmith, was the first name enumerated on the census page in the Adams Fork District.  Fordsville was listed as the post office.  H. Baltzell, the census taker, may have gone to the livery stable early that morning on July 25 to get his horse and buggy hitched up, before starting out on his rounds to visit the county residents.  Since he found young James Cox already at work there, he just made that his first visit of the day and began the first census page with the name of “Jas. W. Cox.”  George W. Ezell, 19, also listed as a blacksmith, was recorded with James at dwelling No. 1. James put a value of $50 on his real estate and $150 as the value for his personal estate.  George Ezell listed the value of his personal estate as $100, which was probably the value of his blacksmithing tools and supplies; he was listed without real estate.

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My grandfather told me his father became known as one of the best horseshoers in the county.  In that era horses were essential for both work and transportation.  Jim Cox performed a variety of services in his community, but keeping horses’ hooves in good condition kept him busy.  Good horseshoes, properly fitted and shod on a regular basis, contributed to the working life of the horse.

Jim located his blacksmith shop near the livery stable and at first he worked alone.  Eventually, he employed an apprentice, George Ezell, to assist with such tasks as pumping the bellows to stoke the fire.  The bellows forced air to the fire to make it burn hotter during the production of horseshoes and other farm tools.  In return for his assistance, Jim taught the younger man the art of being a blacksmith.  Most likely, George may have later bought his own tools and gone out into a nearby community to practice his new skills.

It is interesting to note that George W. Ezell became the brother-in-law of James Cox when George married Ellen B. Mitchell, the sister of Mary Elizabeth (Mitchell) Cox.  Their marriage occurred on October 17, 1860, about three months after the marriage of James and Mary.  It would be fun to know how and where the Mitchell girls met James and George.  Perhaps it was at the blacksmith shop, though I’ve often wondered if Mary Elizabeth was one of the pupils James taught in school.

With basic tools such as a forge, hammer, anvil, tongs, and bellows, Jim may have produced a variety of other iron and metal items for use in homes and around the farm.  Many blacksmiths produced such things as iron pots and pans, fireplace utensils, hinges, brackets, and other hardware.  In addition they forged wagon wheels, plows, and farm tools like chains, axes, saws, shovels and even cow bells and traps for hunters.  A full-time blacksmith was an important man in the early communities.

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In a 1969 oral history interview with my grandfather, Jasper Newton Cox, he said this about his father, James William Cox:

            “My father had an education, and in his younger days, he taught school.

            And then he was a farmer, a blacksmith, and he had the post office. 

            When he left Rough River he bought a farm close to Cromwell.  My

            brothers ran the farm and he had the blacksmith shop.  He studied and

            learned to temper iron and was one of the best horse shoers in the

            country.  At first he didn’t always have the money to buy the iron he

needed for his blacksmith shop, but his word was his bond, and he

            would get the iron he needed and pay for it when his customers paid

            him.  The man he bought his iron from told him he could buy all the

            iron he wanted and he would ship it to him.  And when my father got

            it worked up and got his money, he paid for the iron.”          

I’m not certain if my grandfather was speaking of a community called Rough River, or if he was referring to an area where his father had located his blacksmith shop, near the river.   Rough River is a tributary of the Green River, 136 miles long, in west-central Kentucky.  It has also been known, historically, as “Rough Creek” – rising in north-western Hardin County, and flows generally west-southwestwardly through or along the boundaries of Grayson, Breckenridge, Ohio and McLean Counties, past the town of Hartford.  It joins the Green River at the town of Livermore, on the common boundary of McLean and Ohio Counties.  

At one period of time, a newspaper column, called “Rough River Ripples,” appeared in The Ohio County News, begun in 1953, written by McDowell A. Fogle, but that may have just been a selected name for his column.  Later, Dorothy Gentry edited this column in the Times-News.

Marriage

On the eve of the Civil War, James William Cox married Mary Elizabeth Mitchell, on Saturday, August 4, 1860, just as the harvest season was over.  He was twenty-two and she was sixteen.  Because she was under age, Mary Elizabeth’s father would have had to give his consent in writing to the county clerk before a license could be obtained. While we have no record, it was customary in that day, unless they eloped, for weddings to be performed in the home of the bride.  Weddings were a special time for families with only close relatives and perhaps a few friends present.  The ceremony may have been solemn, but was surely filled with personal commitment, sincerity of feeling, with the promise and hope of a happy future.  As far as is known, no photos were made of the happy bride and groom in that early day. 

Often called “Bettie,” Mary Elizabeth was the daughter of Joseph Martin Mitchell and Susanna C. (Acton).  Her paternal grandparents were Robert and Judith (Benson) Mitchell, of Ohio County, but formerly of Shelby County, Kentucky.  Her maternal grandparents were Bartemus Acton and Sarah (Robey), who moved to Ohio County from Charles County, Maryland, in 1831.  He was a large landholder until his death in 1868. 

Mary was the oldest of the nine children of her parents.  Her brothers and sisters, in order of birth, were Ellen Boatman Mitchell, who married George W. Ezell; Anthony T., who died at four months; Sarah Ann “Sallie,” who married William Neighbors; Corella Evelyn, who married Robert H. Daniel; Martha Benson who married Calvin W. Daniel; Robert B., who died two weeks after birth; Joseph G. Mitchell, who married Henrietta A. Hurt; and Allison Pierce Mitchell, who married Viola V. Miles.

Mary Elizabeth (Mitchell) Cox

What money Jim Cox had saved from profits in his blacksmith shop and school-teaching was used to help the newlyweds set up housekeeping.  Most likely they started marriage while living in the Fordsville area since Jim’s blacksmith shop was located there.  As usually happened, children began to come along very close together, and their first son, Joseph Thomas, named after his two grandfathers, was born thirteen months later.

On June 6, 1870 the census taker visited household No. 77.   Listed there as living in the Cromwell precinct, Hartford Post Office, was James W. Cox, age 32, farmer, and his wife, Mary E., age 26, along with Joseph T., 8; Susannah, 6; Delana, 4; John W., 2, and Mary E., age 6 months.  William Bratcher was living with the family, age 23, and was listed as a farm laborer.  He probably helped with plowing, feeding cattle, and other work around the farm, until the little Cox boys grew big enough to help out and became little farm helpers themselves.  Later the Cox boys ran their father’s farming operations, while he ran his blacksmith shop.

Two years later on November 11, 1872, James Cox purchased a lot of land at Rosine, described as being near the tunnel on the E.& P.R.R. on the south side, and nearly opposite the house of  his brother, L. T. Cox.  He may have located a blacksmith shop there for awhile.  Or, he may have just been dabbling in land - buying and selling - when he thought he could make a little profit.  In a December 1883 deed, James and Mary E. Cox are shown selling two acres – a certain tract or parcel of land, lying adjacent to the town of Rosine, containing about two acres.  It may have been the same land he had previously purchased eleven years earlier.  His farm, however, was located near Cromwell.

Along with school teaching and shoeing horses on the side, Jim Cox still had a good deal of farming to do.  Enough can’t be said for the large crops of corn, grain, oats and wheat that had to be raised to feed all the livestock around the Cox farm, as well as for the needs of the family.  Each week’s work was a step onward.

NOTE: This article is Part IV of several.  It was written by Janice Cox Brown, an expert genealogy researcher whose ancestry is from Ohio County. Janice now lives in Texas. We thank her for her work and her desire to share her family research.

James William Cox and Mary Elizabeth Mitchell - Part III

Winter

Wintertime was hard in Kentucky.  Sometimes great drifts of snow piled up that had to be cleared from the paths to the well and privy.  Shoveling and clearing walkways was another job for the boys.  Looking after the livestock meant going every day, sometimes twice a day, to chop and break up the ice on the spring where the cows watered.  Cows got so thirsty they followed the boys to the spring to get a drink.  Water was heated and put out in the chicken pen so the chickens, turkeys, geese and ducks could get a drink.  All of the farm animals had to be cared for in winter first thing, and, with the fall of nice new snows, if time was left over, it was also a time for bobsled rides and making snowmen.   Green River sometimes froze completely over, several layers, and when that happened, the young people had quite an enjoyable time skating on the ponds and rivers.

There were times in winter when the steamer boat couldn’t get down Green River because it was frozen over.  Needless to say, folks and merchants were always made happy when it made its regular trips again.  Sometimes in January and February, farmers were collecting hogs and cattle for shipment, so they were always glad to see the days start lengthening, the river start rising, the ice all out, and boats passing again so trade, commerce, and shipping could continue.

On cold winter evenings, when it was bad weather, it was a time for burning wood and coal.  While it was sleeting and snowing outside, the Cox family sat around the fireplace piled high with wood they had cut during fall.  While they ate apples, picked out hickory nuts and walnuts, and listened to the wind whistling and howling around the corners of the house, the children enjoyed all the old yesteryear stories their parents told. The family shared a closeness at these times and enjoyed talking to each other and discussing everyday happenings.  They felt blessed, even when they were reminded that while farm work was hard, it also had its rewards.

In some years, December, January and February in Kentucky brought in deep snow and ice, especially, when it rained and then froze.  When sleet and snow fell on top of this, folks might not see the ground all month, as it continued this process.  Ice might become five to seven inches thick and completely cover the ground for an entire month or more.  Weather like this caused hardships and some people suffered as a result of it.

However, the Cox family always had plenty of hog meat in the smokehouse, eggs from the henhouse, a crock or two of sauerkraut, barrels of flour and meal, and since they milked several cows, they had plenty of milk and butter.  So they got along pretty well in prolonged cold weather.  Like most everyone else, though, the biggest difficulty they experienced in cold, icy weather was looking after the cattle and livestock.   

Some families, though, were not so fortunate and may have suffered from hunger when it was impossible to travel anywhere, even if they had the money to buy food.  People who could not get around on the ice had a hard time even getting enough firewood to keep their families warm, and according to one newspaper article, many of them cut their shade trees out of their yard for firewood.

Toward the last of November many wagon loads of tobacco were going to Fordsville, and many more passed through en route to Owensboro. As the New Year neared, farmers in Ohio County were about through delivering tobacco.  Many communities pooled their tobacco at either Fordsville or Hartford.  Some of the larger tobacco growers took their crop to Owensboro in Daviess County.

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Barns and Tobacco

To farmers, barns were as essential as houses. Tall hay stacks were stored at the side of the plank barn and also in the hayloft, which had doors that opened on both ends.  Wagons could drive through and hay could be pitched up through a set of overhead hay doors, from either end, into the hay loft. Rooms were built to hold tack, equipment, and grain bins for oats and corn.  Stalls that sheltered the animals were built with feed boxes where several cows were milked twice a day, morning and evening, without fail.  Most of the time, the boys did the milking unless they had to get out to the fields early.  When that happened, the girls pitched in and did the milking.  Milk was kept for family use to be used for cooking and making butter and the rest was either poured into the hog troughs or large buckets to sour.  The hogs, chickens and geese liked the curdled milk and whey.

The barn was a great place for farm kids to play, especially on a rainy day when the hay was dry and sweet and the rain could be heard peppering down on the roof.  Barns provided a good place to play hide and seek, and it was fun to climb up the ladder into the hayloft and hide and play in the straw stacks.  The barn was also a place where a lot of work was turned out in all seasons, like shelling corn, rubbing linseed oil on the shovel, axe, rake and hoe handles to make them last longer, oiling the leather harnesses, bridles, and saddles to soften and preserve them, or straightening out a keg of bent nails.

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If a farmer raised tobacco to bring in a little cash to help make ends meet every year, then he also needed a tobacco barn.  In Ohio County, they raised burley tobacco.  To make a tobacco crop required an enormous amount of back-breaking work and it was pretty much a year around job.  Everyone in the family who was old enough was expected to help with tobacco work.  It constantly had to be manipulated, hoed, handled, and every leaf examined to oversee its development, from the time the seeds were first planted in the “burn beds” until it was delivered and weighed for sale at market, usually in the months of November or December.  

To begin the laborious process, the farmer burned the previous year’s old plant bed site.  Plant beds were usually about 9 feet wide and about 100 feet long or so, depending on the number of tobacco acres he planned to cultivate. The farmer piled wood on the old plant bed and set it on fire to kill and get rid of the weeds and grass seeds.  Burning was usually done near dusk and the farmer raked the fire and spread the ashes to make sure every inch was covered.  

Then he planted the seeds and kept the plant bed weeded until the little plants grew large enough to set out in the field.  Next he transplanted the tobacco sets to newly plowed, fertilized fields, and later as it grew, walked up and down the rows, picking off the big horned, speckled green tobacco worms.  Fields were plowed and grass and weeds chopped several times, then the tobacco was primed, stripped and cut.  Finally it was time to take the cut tobacco leaves, load them onto wagons, and take them to the barns to be fire-cured for ten days or so. 

“Firing” (fire-curing) tobacco took a lot of close attention and work.  Sawdust was used in low-smoldering trenches or pits.  The farmer had to manage and control the heat, humidity, and air circulation in his barn, extremely necessary to market good yields of high quality tobacco. 

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Occasionally, a few tobacco barns burned down every year, in spite of all the care the farmers took to keep their fires at a low smolder.  One newspaper article in the Hartford Herald reported a barn that burned in September, 1905, for example:

            “The large tobacco barn of Mr. Jeff Smith was burned Tuesday night,

            with about 175,000 pounds of tobacco in it.  The loss was covered by

            insurance.”

Another news item reported in the Centertown Record on January 6, 1915:   

            “A tobacco barn burned in Centertown.  It belonged to Sam Smith

 of Rochester, was worth $2,000, and was not insured.”

Burned barns of any kind were a major loss for farmers.  If it contained both tobacco and hay, it burned fast and hot.  Not only did they lose their tobacco (their livelihood), but they may have also lost the feed for their animals and their farm equipment, not to mention losing their wagon or perhaps a horse-drawn buggy, and perhaps a bushel or two of walnuts that had been picked up in the fall. 

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After the curing process, the tobacco was ready to move and had to be packed up in a pile with all the tips turned one way, then penned with all the sticks to the outside for ventilation purposes, then graded, by sorting into three or four grades, depending on the color.  

Lastly, the farmer bundled the cured tobacco into bales, before it was sent off to market or warehouse auction, where he prayed for a good price when it was auctioned off to the highest bidder.

In Ohio County, old weathered tobacco barns, some as old as eighty to a hundred years, could be seen with practically every curve of a country road.

On a farm there was always something for everybody to do – every minute of every day - sunup to sunset.  All said and done, most farm work was a matter of survival.

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Cutting Wood

When fall chores were done, it was time to go to the woods to cut wood for the fireplace.  All of it came from the farm place.  Jim, Leonard, and their father, cut any trees that had blown down during the year.  They took turns with axes and crosscut saw. While Jim stood on one side of the tree, his brother or father stood on the other side and they pulled the two-man saw back and forth and probably yelled “tim-ber” as the tree fell. 

Next, they sawed off pieces just right to fit the width of the fireplace.  Some of the thick timber blocks were split in half and then, using axe and hatchet, they split each of the two large halves into sticks for their old wood-burning black iron kitchen stove.  Sounds of the axe and saw filled the quiet forest all day long.  When enough wood was cut, they stacked it onto a sled or wagon, drawn by horse, and took the heavy load to the barn to be stacked in the woodshed to begin a drying process.  

Wood chips and kindling were also picked up.  A chunk or two of good dry wood and kindling would start a quick, hot fire in the kitchen stove on cold mornings.  The kitchen stove also provided heat to the kitchen where everybody ate in cold weather. 

It must have given Tom, Jim and Leonard a certain solace of spirit and satisfaction that they had once again provided the family with a winter’s worth of warmth for the cold days ahead.

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Hog Killing

Pork was one of the main meats for the early pioneer families, in addition to wild game, like deer and turkey.  The first frost usually meant it was hog-killing and butchering time. It was done in cold weather so the meat wouldn’t spoil while it was being prepared.  Generally, hogs were penned and fattened up with corn a few weeks ahead of the event.  Once again, families pitched in to help each other, sometimes slaughtering as many as ten or twelve hogs in one day, to be cut up and divided among those helping.  Knives were sharpened on the grindstone the day before; they would be needed the next day to shave off the bristly hair, dress the carcass, and carve the meat. 

It was an all day job for both men and women.  A large amount of wood was needed to heat the water to scald the carcass.  Children old enough helped carry fire wood to keep the big black pots and barrels filled with scalding water. After the hogs were killed, scalded, scraped and hung up to cool out, they were ready for the final processing and carving into various cuts of meat.  The butchering process was repeated as required until all the hogs hanging from the ridge poles were ready to be carved.

Carving usually started in the afternoon. Hams, shoulders, and bacon slabs were cut, salted down, and put into the smokehouse to cure for several days. Sausage was prepared and cured by smoking in the smokehouse.  The cuts of meat were individually rubbed with salt and placed in barrels of salt.  About ten days later, the salt was brushed off, wire hooks were inserted, and each piece was hung from nails in the smokehouse rafters.  A small fire pit was dug in the center of the room, filled with hickory wood, where a fire was kept going night and day that required careful attention for about two weeks of curing and smoking.  During this time, pepper was spread on, as well as molasses or other concoctions desired by the family.  Without any refrigeration, January and February were good months for a bountiful supply of fresh ribs, shoulders, souse meat, and chitlings.  Cured meat would keep for a long time in hot weather without spoiling.

Sausage, headcheese, and cracklings were also made from other parts of the hog. Lard was rendered from the fatty parts of the hog by boiling it in kettles, straining out the crumbling renderings, and storing in wooden or metal tubs.  The renderings, called cracklings, were one of the best delicacies from the hog killings. Crackling biscuits and cornbread were unbeatable with a good meal of beans, baked potatoes, hominy, and sauerkraut.  Salt pork was put in brine barrels and after a few weeks of curing, it would keep indefinitely without refrigeration and could be used as needed for frying, cooking greens or baked beans.

  

Hog-killing time in cold weather was always an event where family members and neighbors with helping hands depended on each other.

NOTE: This article is Part III of several.  It was written by Janice Cox Brown, an expert genealogy researcher whose ancestry is from Ohio County. Janice now lives in Texas. We thank her for her work and her desire to share her family research.

James William Cox and Mary Elizabeth Mitchell - Part II

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Spring

In the spring the Cox family orchards, planted in apple, cherry, peach and pear trees, were filled with pink and white blossoms.  Bees hummed a tune as they worked among them, gathering honey.  When the apples were about as big as cherries, Jim and Leonard had to pick off every other apple from the branches to “thin” them so that apples left on the trees would grow bigger.  It was hard work climbing up and reaching out as far as they could on the tree limbs to get the thinning done.  While they were working, though, their father probably reminded them how good the apple butter and apple jelly was going to taste on hot biscuits with freshly-churned butter, when the apples were harvested in the fall, not to mention the cherry and peach cobblers their mother and sister would make.  

Like everyone else, the Coxes raised a large vegetable garden, well tended, to feed themselves and their families.  Without refrigeration, they depended on the garden and farming to survive.  Jim and his brother and sister helped their mother, Susannah Miranda, sow vegetable seeds, saved from the year before, in the family garden. All the planting was done by hand and the garden had to be weeded every week.  They preserved and stored everything possible.  Their root cellar was a cool, damp place dug in the ground below frost level, where they stored all the root crops they grew.  Beets, carrots, potatoes, turnips, and a few other vegetables were stored until the following spring when fresh vegetables were again available from the new spring garden. 

An abundance of cabbage was grown in early gardens because it could be preserved in cellars, or by burying, or pickling. More often, it was made into sauerkraut by shredding the leaves into a large crock with water and a little salt, and allowing them to ferment. The family may have used a kraut cutter to speed up the job. The shredded leaves were weighted down with something heavy to compact the leaves and force the water out.  This process allowed the fermented cabbage to be stored for long periods of time and was served in the winter along with sausage and a big pot of beans.  Susannah also made pickles, relishes and chutneys from the produce of their vegetable garden. 

Nearly every pioneer household in that day and time had a good perennial and fragrant herb garden, and maybe a tub of dill, mint or some other favorite herb growing by the kitchen door or out near the summer kitchen.  Most farm women reserved a space in the garden for herbs and spices, used for seasoning food.  Susannah Miranda probably had small patches in her garden of parsley, chives, thyme, rosemary, garlic, and nutmeg, as well as medicinal herbs such as chamomile, tarragon, basil, cloves, cinnamon, and ginseng, used when necessary to hasten a cure for sickness.  After all, with doctors far away and with little cash to pay for them anyway, she had to be the primary health provider. 

  

Springtime was planting time on the farm when wheat, corn, and other grains were planted in the fields.  While his father followed the family plow horse, steering him down a straight furrow in the field, Jim and his brother, Leonard, walked behind, planting the rows in seed as they went.  Only a slight hint of sound could be heard as they tilled the soil – an occasional squeaking of the leather harness, the clunk of the plow as it hit a rock, the raucous call of a crow, or a braying donkey in the next field, otherwise, it was mostly peaceful silence.  

Spring was a season of extra hard work, from sunup to sundown; a lot had to be done to get fields prepared for the tobacco and other crops. And as the day wound down, all the livestock had to be tended.  Horses, mules, oxen, pigs, chickens, geese, ducks, cows, calves, sheep, and lambs – they all required a lot of care.  It also took good crops of grain, corn and oats to feed them throughout the cold winter months.

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Summer

Summer time was growing time on the farm and the James Cox family counted on the sun and summer rains to make a good harvest.  In their orchard, apples grew round, red and yellow on the trees, that would make sweet apple cider and wonderful fried apple pies in winter. Strawberries grew and turned red in the rows of the strawberry patch.  While the wheat grew tall and golden in the fields, the young lambs, calves, pigs, baby chickens, geese and ducks grew fat in their pens near their large barn – a barn that stood for over fifty years!  When a new heifer was born, it was good news to the whole family!

Summer was a busy time, too, with plenty of work to go around for everyone in the family.  The first thing after breakfast, Thomas Jefferson Cox grabbed his coal oil lantern and went to the barn to milk. The minute the milking was done in the morning, the cows were turned out to pasture, and they headed out for the fields.  Crops had to be brought in.  Berries, fruits and vegetables were gathered or picked.  Basketsful went to market, but most were canned or dried by Jim’s mother and sister, Elizabeth Mary.  The boys helped with their mother’s work, too, spreading sheets on top of the sheds where fruit was laid out in layers to dry, with another layer for covering to keep the birds away.  So air-drying was another way of preserving their food for winter.

In late May or early June, tobacco bedding plants were taken out of the beds and set out in freshly plowed Kentucky soil, and not long afterwards in June, hoeing commenced, followed by topping.  Usually, in July, farmers were about done cutting wheat and oats and laying by corn. 

In August, tobacco cutting and corn cutting were the order of the day.  Ohio County farmers felt really lucky when the hills and bottoms gave an abundant yield and they made good corn crops.  Farmers also got busy that month threshing wheat, and breaking ground again for another wheat crop. Getting together with neighbors and pitching in to thresh the grain near the end of summer was just about the most important event of summertime on a farm. Harvest was a cooperative effort and sometimes they had to work fast and furious before rain clouds rolled over the fields.  Everyone helped out during haying season and wheat harvest.  

The family whose fields were being harvested provided the midday meal for all hands.  Women started cooking early in the morning and usually served it outdoors under shade trees on long, make-shift tables.  Children helped by setting out the dishes.  Tables were piled high with bread and rolls, roasts, chicken and fish, bowls full of fresh garden vegetables, and cakes and pies.  When it was ready, someone rang the dinner bell out by the well.  Field workers would come to the house, wash up, and walk around the tables, filling up their plates.  They had worked hard and ate heartily, sitting down to eat under shade trees where it was a little cooler. 

Before returning to the fields, the men and boys filled their burlap-wrapped water jugs with cool well water.  It would be nearly sundown before they could quit the fields again and come to the house.  Afterwards, women and girls busied themselves washing dishes and cleaning up.  At the end of harvest, part of the wheat was taken to the grist mill at Cromwell to be ground into flour for the coming winter.  Corn, oats and other grain to feed the farm animals were hauled by wagon from the fields and stored in the barn.

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Fall

When fall came, more work was ready to do around the farm. Nuts grew brown and fell from the nut trees – walnuts, hickory nuts, chestnuts and pecans – and these had to be picked up before the squirrels carried them off.  Walnuts had husks, but hickory nuts were collected after the husks fell off.  Nuts always fell thick to the ground after the first frost. Sometimes Jim and his brother climbed the pecan and walnut trees and shook the branches vigorously with their feet to shake down a feast of nuts at one time. 

Sometimes the Cox children went with a group of young people to gather nuts in the fall, using hand-made baskets, made entirely from split hickory.  When the baskets were filled, the nuts were transferred to tow-sacks to carry them home in.  After the nuts had been spread out on boards and dried out a few days, the Cox children helped husk and pack them away for winter months.   Their mother made delicious hickory nut pies and pecan pies.

In fall, late apples were ready for picking and packing in barrels.  Some were dried and some were saved for canning.  On a clear, crisp autumn day, the Coxes may have gotten out their apple mill and cider press, then invited friends and neighbors for an apple picking and cider making party to make a batch of fresh sweet apple cider.  Sweet apple cider was a popular drink before the days of “soda pop.”  Apples for sweet cider took a lot of work and first had to be picked, and the older kids climbed the trees and wildly shook the branches to make apples rain down in a shower of fruit.  The younger children and adults scrambled to pick them up.  Next, the best apples had to be washed, cleaned, cut up in quarters, rinsed again, and then came the milling and pressing process.   Milling involved loading the apples into a large hopper, manually cranking a grinder that chewed and chopped the apples to release the juice.  This was followed by straining the juice through cheese cloth several times.   Apple butter could also be made from the pulp that would have otherwise been discarded in the process of producing apple cider.  Still later, apple cider could be turned into apple cider vinegar by allowing it to ferment past the stages of sweet cider.  Cider parties lent truth to the old folksy adage, “Many hands do make lighter work.”

 In the United States, history reports that the early English settlers introduced cider to America by bringing with them apple seeds for planting. Apple orchards were cultivated and apples became plentiful for making apple cider.  Hard cider during the colonial period was one of America’s most popular beverages.  Much later, in apple picking season, Ohio County old timers, as well as the young ones, thought nothing tasted better than the sweet, crisp flavor of the very first chug of freshly squeezed apple cider.

With the arrival of fall, pumpkins that had grown big and golden in the corn fields were gathered, loaded in a wagon, and stored in the barn.  Some were saved for making pumpkin pies and laughing Jack-O’lanterns at Halloween.  Around the time of the first frost, late fall potatoes and sweet potatoes had to be dug and stored away. 

Fall time was corn-husking time, too.  It was the largest of all crops on the farm, and grew so tall that it was almost like a forest.   Each corn stalk was chopped down, one at a time and stacked in shocks to dry.  Harvesting was a tough job and required more labor than any other farm crop. Later, the dried stalks were gathered and drawn by wagon to be put in the corncrib. At “husking bees,” neighbors helped one another shuck the cornhusks, and children tried their hand at making corn-husk dolls. The kernels were stored in barrels and bags in the barn.  Some farmers had a corn sheller to shell the cobs for hog feed, as well as other uses.  Part of the corn was taken to the mill to be ground into corn meal; the rest was saved and ground to feed the farm animals throughout the cold winter days. 

By mid-September most people were through cutting and housing tobacco and were baling hay; in many neighborhoods making molasses was the order of the day. By October most were done sowing wheat, and around the first of November, they were busy stripping tobacco, gathering corn and hauling coal.

NOTE: This article is Part II of several.  It was written by Janice Cox Brown, an expert genealogy researcher whose ancestry is from Ohio County. Janice now lives in Texas. We thank her for her work and her desire to share her family research.

JAMES WILLIAM COX & MARY ELIZABETH MITCHELL - PART I

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 JAMES WILLIAM COX

February 24, 1838 - September 30, 1931

MARY ELIZABETH MITCHELL

June 1, 1844 – February 7, 1903

James William Cox, the son of Thomas Jefferson Cox and Susannah Leach, grew up in Ohio County, Kentucky, as his father had done before him. His parents named their first son for his paternal and maternal grandfathers, James Cox and William Leach.  Family and friends mostly called James by the familiar nickname of “Jim.”  His paternal grandparents were James Cox and Elizabeth Leach; his maternal grandparents are believed to be William and Aley Leach, all of whom were among the first newcomers to Ohio County.  Tax records prove they arrived in the county in 1801, having migrated with other settlers from Maryland and Virginia to Kentucky, about three years after the county was first established, December 17, 1798.  Deed records provide additional proof of their entrance into the county. 

Kentucky became the fifteenth state to join the Union on June 1, 1792.  By the time James William Cox was born in 1838 at his parent’s home near Cromwell, Ohio County, the original thirteen states had been expanded to twenty-eight.  The U. S. population had grown from 3.9 million in 1792 to approximately 17.0 million.  Martin Van Buren was serving as the eighth President of the United States (1837-1841).   James Clark, a Whig, former lawyer and judge, was governor of Kentucky (1836-1839), known for creating the State Board of Education, and establishing a public school system in every county.

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James Cox had an older sister and two younger brothers: Elizabeth Mary, born about 1832; Leonard Thomas, born May 3, 1843; and John T. B., born in 1848, died at age five of fever, November 4, 1853.  Little John Cox is buried at East Providence Cemetery, near the graves of his parents, Thomas Jefferson Cox and Susannah Miranda (Leach) Cox.

Elizabeth Mary Cox, the only sister of James Cox, married Allen W. P. Pool on January 27, 1851. Allen appears to be the son of Augustus P. and Susan Pool, found in the 1850 Breckenridge County, Kentucky census, where Allen was listed as thirty-four, born North Carolina.  Records are sparse for this man, other than a mortgage from Allen P. Pool to J. F. Paxton on two cows and ten head of hogs and furniture in the sum of $150.   This document is recorded in Deed Book M, page 6, in Ohio County court records. 

Elizabeth Mary and her husband had at least two known children, a daughter, Elvenure I. Pool, born in July 1853, and a son, L. S. Pool, born 1856, who, according to the death records of Ohio County, died August 12, 1857, of typhoid fever.  Because this family was not found in the 1860 census lends speculation that someone in the family may have been ill - perhaps with typhoid fever, since this seemed to be a commonly reported illness in Ohio County.  New cases were reported nearly every month in the Ohio County newspapers on a regular basis.  Deaths were reported frequently, especially among young children and older people.  Perhaps the census taker didn’t want to stop by to get a census report if he had heard there was illness in the home.  Possibly they were just skipped.  All spellings were investigated. 

No further record of Allen W. P. Pool, born 1816 in North Carolina, husband of Elizabeth Mary, has been discovered.  He is not to be confused with the older Allen P. Pool born in 1812 in Kentucky, who married Elizabeth Cox, daughter of James and Elizabeth (Leach) Cox on November 29, 1836.  Both men are shown in the 1850 census; the younger one in Breckenridge County, and the older man in Ohio County.

In the 1870 census, Eliza Pool, thirty-six, widow, and her daughter, Elvenure, age fifteen, were living at Pincheco, where Elizabeth Mary was shown with real estate valued at $150, probably the lot given to her by her father, Thomas Jefferson Cox. 

Elizabeth Mary, at age forty-seven, was last found in the 1880 census, living with her daughter, Elvenure, and son-in-law at Pincheco near Cromwell.   Her land boundaries were mentioned in several deeds after 1885, so she probably died sometime between 1885 and 1894 when her daughter moved to Indiana.  

As far as is presently known, only her daughter, Elvenure Pool lived to maturity.  She married James H. Maddox and over a period of twenty-nine years, they had eleven children, eight of whom lived to adulthood.  The Maddox family left Ohio County in 1894 and moved to Greene County, Indiana, where their last child was born in 1895.   It is believed they lived out their lives there.

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When he was eighteen, Leonard Thomas Cox, younger brother of James, became a member of the Cromwell Home Guard, later mustered into the United States service as Company H, 17^th Kentucky Infantry, on January 4, 1862, at Calhoun, Kentucky.  The Seventeenth was immediately placed on active service and took part in six major battles.  Leonard remained in service until his regiment was mustered out at Louisville three years and four months later on January 23, 1865. 

That same year Leonard T. Cox married Emma E. Iler on December 21, 1865.  They had three daughters, Ola T., who married L. C. Leach, Mary “Mollie,” who married Musker L. Heavrin, and Ada, who married Cicero Maxwell Heavrin.  L. T. Cox became a pharmacist and lived at Rosine for many years.  After Emma’s death in 1871, he married his second wife, Frances E. London on March 12, 1872, and they had five children, Arthur L., Elmer Oscar and Bertie (all three died young) and Carrie E. and Emmett.  Emmett died at eighteen.  “Fannie” died September 8, 1885, in Ohio County.  On July 3, 1887, Leonard Cox married Mattie B. Layton. 

            While still a pharmacist, Leonard began the study of medicine and after attending lectures at the Medical University of Louisville during 1883 and 1884, he became a physician.  He and Mattie moved to Daviess County where he practiced medicine until his death, June 21, 1906, at age sixty-three.  He and Mattie were buried in Elmwood Cemetery at Owensboro.

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 Seasons and Working on the Farm

In 1838 when Jim Cox was born, it was an agrarian society.  Farming was the occupation of seventy percent of the families in America.  Jim Cox grew up working on his father’s farm and when he could, he attended school at Cromwell in between crops. No matter how early the chores started, whether dark clouds prevailed or a blazing sun shone down, there was always plenty to do around the Cox family homestead.  The family, like many others of that day, found a certain satisfaction in working the fertile soil and reaping its harvest.  

Usually, in February, Ohio County farmers were making use of any fair weather that came their way and were starting to farm again.  They were busy plowing for corn, sowing oats, buying their seeds, and getting ready for another year of farming with big preparations for a large crop.  Farmers who grew tobacco were hard at work burning plant beds and getting the burn beds ready for the new tobacco seeds.

How much tobacco Thomas Jefferson Cox produced on his farm, if any, is unknown, but he probably cultivated at least four or five acres, maybe more, to be sold for cash.  For some farmers, tobacco was a mainstay. 

The rewards of living and working on the farm were many – the taste of sweet cider, a herd of healthy cows, and reaping good crops. Of course, throughout the coming years, the Cox family experienced good times, hard times, and everything in between.

NOTE: This article is Part I of several.  It was written by Janice Cox Brown, an expert genealogy researcher whose ancestry is from Ohio County. Janice now lives in Texas. We thank her for her work and her desire to share her family research.

JOHN H. JEWEL

JOHN H. JEWEL (sic) was born in Ohio County, Ky., near his present homestead. He is the son of David and Nancy (Freeman) Jewel, who were from Spencer County, and who were the parents of ten children. John H. began for himself at the age of twenty-one, farming; soon after he bought 105 acres unimproved, which he has increased until he now owns 211 acres, half under cultivation, and all fairly improved. February 8, 1866, Mr. Jewel was united in marriage with Louisa Nelson, which union has been blessed with four children: Willis B., Alice D., J. E., and Clemmie.  Mrs. Jewel is a member of the Baptist Church. Mr. Jewel is a Democrat and opposed to prohibitory liquor legislation.

Source: J. H. BATTLE, W H. PERRIN, & G. C. KNIFFIN 1895

John Harrison Jewell was born 15 March 1843 and died 3 April 1925 at age 82 in Bells Run, Ohio County, and he is buried in Bell's Run Cemetery, which is located at the Bell's Run Baptist Church.