Background
Pioneer Settlement
The great majority of the ordinary pioneer farmers in Louisiana lived in plain yet adequate houses with barns, sheds, and other necessary buildings in back. These ordinary farmers grew food crops and a money crop, usually cotton. They also raised hogs, poultry, and cattle. Often the pioneer farmers put only a few acres of land into cultivation and let their livestock graze and forage in open areas or timberland.
The upland pioneers, a hardy, rugged group of mainly Scots-Irish (meaning the descendants of the Lowland Scots Presbyterians who transplanted into northern Ireland in the early 1600s and known in many parts of Ireland as Ulster Scots) ancestry, settled in northern Louisiana and the Florida parishes.
President Theodore Roosevelt called the Scots-Irish the “kernel
of the distinctively and intensely American stock who were the pioneers
of our people in their march westward.” They flourished on the
Appalachian frontier, then in the Shenandoah Valley and the Carolina
Piedmont, and then in most of the Appalachian region by the eve of
the American Revolution. They reached Louisiana about 1790.By the 1830s the Appalachian Scots-Irish had planted themselves firmly in the Florida parishes and north Louisiana. With their distinctive way of life, they brought along Jacksonian politics. They soon earned a reputation of remarkable self-sufficiency in the often-hostile environments where they migrated.
The pioneer settlers who came into northern Louisiana generally built log houses. The logs were placed parallel to the ground and joined at the corners. Chimneys were almost always on the outside of the houses at the gabled ends. The building was roofed with hand-split shingles. Leather straps served as hinges for doors and windows. Floors were generally of wooden planks and fireplaces were the central focus of the cabins. The chimney was lined with clay. Furniture was often crude and simple, usually made with the simple tools at hand.
Constructing his house with rudimentary tools (ax, auger, frow [a tool with a wedge-shaped blade with the handle set at a right angle to it; used for cleaving], etc.), the pioneer or small farmer of North Louisiana and the Florida parishes was assisted by friends and neighbors. The Scots-Irish with their long tradition of cooperation in hard work joined together as neighbors in the construction of buildings, especially houses and barns. The "building bee" or “raising bee” became a frontier institution.
As a typical house went up during the raising bee, the log walls needed special attention. Four axmen were “cornermen” that chiseled and chopped the log ends in order that neat corners that interlocked were formed. This work is called “notching.” Notching was of several kinds. The saddle notch was the simplest. It linked round logs with rounded cuts. The square notch interlocked logs neatly at the corners. The half and full dovetail notches had interlocking wedge shapes allowing rainwater to drain away. In this way the entire house was “mortised”; that is, the wood joined together with indentions or notches, etc., to hold it steadfastly only with wooden pins. There was little or no ironwork or nails used. In most building the logs were cut so as not to protrude outwardly beyond the buildings’ corners. When walls were up, gaps between them were covered with long split timber boarding on the inside. In some areas a plaster of mud or lime was used to fill the gaps between the logs. This “chinking” was not used much in Louisiana because of the rather mild climate.
In the 1840 presidential election the log cabin became a cultural
symbol. Candidate William Henry Harrison used the “log cabin
and hard cider campaign.” The log cabin stood for the domestic
American virtues of ruggedness, simplicity, honesty, and courage.
Harrison won.The log cabin’s interior was rather dark inside because windows were small and the wood walls absorbed great amounts of the little light that came in. Whitewash, if it could be obtained, on the walls would brighten the inside.
Settlers built rived palling fences for their yards and gardens. For cultivated fields they built worm or snake fences consisting of split rails. Not fastened to the ground, these fences could be easily moved for use elsewhere.
The pioneer settler farmer had to shift his cultivated fields every several years because of soil exhaustion and infertility. To clear new fields, the pioneer settler used the “slash and burn” method learned from the Indians. Old fields, after lying idle for several years, would be reclaimed for cultivation.
These pioneers quickly built churches where they were. But the churches were not often at the geographical center of the settlement as they would be in many other cultures. Churches were likely as not built in relatively remote picturesque settings. Most of these “uplander” churches projected a stark, unadorned appearance and atmosphere. The interior was plain with hard pews. Embellishment in their buildings was not a preoccupation with these folk.
Some cabin homes were really two separate parts with a passageway between the sections. These were dubbed “dogtrot” houses. The typical dogtrot cabin was one room on each side of a central passageway open at both ends. Larger dogtrot houses consisted of four rooms with two on each side of the corridor. The cabin was symmetrical and had a continuous roofline over the rooms and the corridor. A true dogtrot house had the passageway floor at the same level as the inside house floors.
Several theories exist as to why the dogtrot house came into existence. One is that the corridor provided a primitive form of air conditioning for the dwelling because of the accelerated airflow through the open passageway. Winter often brought chilling winds through the corridor. Cultural geographers do not agree to any one particular theory.
Few dogtrot cabins exist today because in the late nineteenth century most owners converted the passageways into extra living space. One example of an intact dogtrot cabin is the Absalom Autrey House in Lincoln Parish. Perhaps the finest dogtrot log cabin still in existence in Louisiana is the King House in Washington Parish.
In the rural areas of north Louisiana and the Florida parishes schools
were constructed of logs with holes left at various intervals as windows.
Split log seats with wooden pegs for legs sat on the dirt floors.
Sometimes schools were held in the small Protestant churches. The
schools were usually named after biblical characters or creeks. The
school term lasted generally from six to eight weeks!The upland pioneer in northern and western areas of the state as well as in the Florida parishes generally ate the typically southern American cooking, simple dishes without much seasoning. Most items were boiled, roasted, or fried. These common folks ate corn meal, wheat bread, and fried pork, beef, wild game, or wild fowl. There were a few staple vegetables that the common people could enjoy.
Food in upland Louisiana was usually plain and simple. The common
people ate rather bland meals: fried pork and beef, a few vegetables,
cornmeal breads, and weak coffee. In contrast, the people of south
Louisiana ate a much wider varied diet including many French, Creole,
and Spanish dishes and much fish and seafood. Their coffee was thick,
rich, and often flavored. The pioneer settlers loved corn bread
baked in Dutch ovens (iron pots). The French settlers generally
ate wheat bread prepared in outdoor family ovens. They thought corn
fit merely for animals and slaves.