Journey through Fort Harrod - Part 3

Frontier life is a use of the imagination and a use of nature.  Most things in this fort town are made of wood because it is plentiful.  Wooden pegs are the nails for building.  The hardwood forests around the fort are good sources for the wood needed. 

Fish swim in the stream behind the walls, geese and ducks are nearby, and swarms of pigeons darken the sky. Panthers and bobcats, elk, wild turkey, buffalo and grouse  live in or near the forest.  The animals provide food, clothing, grease and window "panes."  Doeskin membranes are made translucent with bear grease.  (more like our frosted glass today).  They would be used only for windows that faced inside the fort.

All ages gather herbs, nuts, wild grapes, crab apples, persimmons, and berries.  They tap maple trees for sugar, get salt from natural brine springs by evaporating the water, and they make dyes from berries, lye from charcoal and urine.

Even milking cows takes 2 people...while one milks, the other stands guard against Shawnee.  They transport the milk back in "noggins",  wooden buckets with handles carried on poles across the shoulder. 


Men wear moccasins, shirts of deerskin or homespun, trousers of deerskin or burlap (ouch!),  In hot
weather they leave off breechclouts (Native American for loincloths) and suspend leggings from their belts.

A group of men arrive from a military base with gunpowder carried in a drum shaped keg.  Powder is stored in an earthen magazine camouflaged as a root celler. 

The carpenter makes clapboards, barrel staves, plow handles, powder kegs, furniture, washboards, small noggins called "piggins", noggins, and paddles.

All these pioneers work together, constantly it seems, to survive in one of the first communities west of the Alleghenies...all the while watching for danger.  Every one has a job to do. The survival of the community depends on it!

Next time...Ann Lindsey, Blockade leader of the Women
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Today in Pioneer History:  On October  22, 1775, after years of poor health, Peyton Randolph, former president of the Continental Congress, dies at the age of 54.
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