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["Lynda" <lurine AT com-pair.net>]

Nope, my great-grandfather didn't do any work off the homestead.  The boys
worked the homestead until they were older and choose to pursue work off the
homestead but that was a life choice, not a "support the homestead" choice.

My Grampa worked in timber and ran a tramp steamer to the gold fields of 
Alaska (I have the gold nugget ring he had made up there on one trip). 
Uncle Henry made musical instruments (one violin was played at the Boston 
Pops, one at the SF Symphany, one cello is in a museum, I have the first 
violin and I've lost track of the rest).  Uncle Dan became a gold miner. 
Uncle Mark headed on down to Bisbee, Arizona and did various things after he 
did mining and made jewelry from what he mined out at Crysal Hill.  Uncle 
Andrew and Uncle Stephen ran a cattle ranch.  And so forth and so on after 
my great-grandfather died and the homestead was divided up between the 17 
kids.

Out of his 1870 journals, here's a few things he sold:  mutton - $0.08/lb,
beef - $0.07/lb, pork - $0.05-$0.10/lb, carrots & turnips - 1/2 cent/lb,
beets, cabbage & peas - $0.01/lb, eggs - $0.25/doz., apples - $0.01/lb, soup
bones - $0.50/pkg, mixed veggies - $0.25/basket.

Somethings he bought:  flour - $8/bbl (200 lb), sugar - 12-1/2 cents/lb,
syrup - $4.50/keg, coffee - $0.25/lb, cornmeal - $1.75/50# sack, whiskey -
$1/qt or $1.75/1/2 gal, calico - 12-1/2 cents/yd, gingham - $0.25/yd, shoes
(for the boys) - $2.50/pr, overalls - $1/ea, men's boots - $5/pr, hayrakes -
$0.75/ea, slate & 8 slate pencils - $0.25, pocket knife - $0.25-$1.75.

Somewhere I have the cost of the wagon and team.  Part of the price was the
riding horse he had used for packing in to begin his homestead.

He didn't grow corn for eating, only for the livestock.  Wheat doesn't do
that well in Humboldt County, so he didn't grow wheat.  All the girls
clothes and the men's/boys' shirts were made.  Along with the gingham and
calico, he also had purchases of cottonade and lindsey listed in other
years.  He didn't buy chocolate or tea or nuts, except one year where he
bought almonds.  He bought cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg (whole, not 
ground).  He also bought saleratus (used for making biscuits).  Bread was 
made using sourdough.

Lynda
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Clansgian AT wmconnect.com>
> The Southern Appalachians is definately not what you'd call wheat country
> for
> a variety of reasons.  Yet in the times we are talking about, no one
> bought
> flour.  They raised wheat, took it to the local gristmill (and there were
> scores of them at the time still tesitified to by the large number of
> avenues
> called "XXX Mill Road" we still have) and miller took out a toll of the
> flour for
> his cut.
>
> Lynda, I'm going to reference your previous post here rather than send
> two.
>
> So you mean that you have records that clearly indicate that your family
> did
> not take on other work, did not engage in the common trades of the day,
> etc.
> but instead relied entirely on farm products for all their enterprises?  I
> still wonder.   Herself's paternal great-grandfather reclused himself to a
> mountain top in Dickenson Co (VA), a more remote and inaccessible place
> you cannot
> find, and ostensibly raised cattle for the cash needs of his 17 children
> much as
> you describe.
>
> Until recently there had been a great gathering on top that mountian every
> August of all the descendents of said patriarch and people had begun to
> gather
> and share all and sundry papers and artifacts from that period (from about
> 1880
> until 1910 or so).  Turns out clan wasn't so reclusive as family stories
> had
> it.  The patriarch and/or one of his chidren had engaged in all and sundry
> trades and projects as was testified from letters, tools, and items that
> had been
> passed down through various branches of the family.  Journals and ledgers
> don't account for everything.
>
> But, even playing the ball where it lies.  During the time we are talking
> about, as I have pointed out, food made up more than half and often much
> more
> than half of household budgets at that time.  You actually could raise
> beef
> cattle with no outside inputs of hay, feed, medicine, etc. and even a cow
> or two
> would be a great sum of money and a great percentage of the cash needs of
> a
> household at the time.
>
> I can't find the references right now, but this sort of thing came up in
> another forum and someone supplied the price of things in the late 1800's.
> You
> could buy a wagon and two horses with harness for the price of six to
> eight
> yearling steers buy their reckoning.  The price is hard to pin down with
> fluxuating prices but how well do you think you'd get buying a new pickup
> truck with
> six yearlings?
>
> Another factor in this is that those times were not a time of specialized
> labor for the most part.  Among the artifacts from my family are cobblers
> tools,
> wheelwrights jigs, all the equipment for processing fiber and weaving
> cloth
> (alas, none of it still fucntional), and ferrier tools.  I am still using
> in my
> shop the anvils and hammers from the homestead smithy.  I have an old hide
> banjo my great-grandfather carved from a poplar plank and a couple of bits
> and
> pieces of bee hive frames he whittled with a pocket knive.
>
> They didn't buy very much.  And moreover although the homestead smithy
> couldn't make a mowing machine or even a scythe, he could make hinges and
> hasps,
> shape horseshoes, and cut nails from stock.
>
> That is, they didn't buy very much.
>
>
> Now, if a steer I raised by my own labor and resources sold for 1/6th the
> price of a new pickup truck, that is, the price would be all profit in
> terms of
> cash required, you betcha I'd have a couple out here on the back pasture
> right
> now!   But this is a very, very different proposition than we most hear
> from
> the modern "homestead" where we calculate that we have $6 in expenses in
> raising a chicken and see if we can meet our cash need by selling it for
> $10.
>
> THAT is the thing for which I am saying there is not precedent.
>
>
> James
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