leaves.  Stake and rider fences enclosed the fields and pastures and while most of the houses, barns and cribs were constructed of logs, some lumber was manufactured in crude sawmills in which was used what was known as a “slash saw”.  This was something like the crosscut saws of today and was operated by a crank that gave the saw an alternating up and down motion.  Wheat was ground into flour and corn into meal in mills with stone burrs similar to those used in the rural districts today, and power for this operation was obtained through the use of a treadmill that was given its motion by horses or mules walking on an inclined, endless belt constructed of heavy wooden slats.

Candles for lighting purposes were made of animal fats combined with beeswax.  Plows, harrows and cultivating implements were made on the plantation by those Negroes who had been trained in carpentry and blacksmithing.  Plows for breaking the land were sometimes constructed with a metal point and a wooden moldboard and harrows made of heavy timbers with large, sharpened wooden pegs for teeth.  Hats of straw and corn shucks were woven by hand.

Small, crude cotton gins were powered by horses or mules hitched to a beam fastened to an upright shaft around which they traveled in a circle and to which was attached large cogwheels that multiplied the animal’s power enormously and transmitted it by means of belt to the separating machinery where the lint was torn from the seed.  No metal ties were available during this period and ropes of cotton were used to bind the bales of lint.  About three bales was the daily capacity of a horse-powered plantation gin.

It was often difficult to obtain the services of a competent doctor and except in cases of serious illness home remedies were administered.

Churches were established in different communities throughout the County and the Negro slaves were allowed the privilege of attending the services, certain pews being set apart for them, and the same minister that attended the spiritual needs of the master and his family rendered like assistant to his slaves.

No undertaking establishments existed here at this time and on the death of a person burial was made in crude caskets built of rough cypress planks unless the deceased was a member of a family financially able to afford the expensive metal caskets that were available no nearer than Memphis.  “Uncle” Henry Turner recalls the death of Dan Wilborn’s little six-year-old boy, Abby, who was accidentally killed when crushed by a heavy gate on which he was playing, and his burial in what “Uncle” Henry described as a casket made of the same material as an old-fashioned door knob; and while I have no other authority than this on the subject, it is possible that in that day caskets were made of some vitrified substance, perhaps clay, and resembling the present day tile.