Luckily
these traces were numerous, especially in the vicinity of the licks,
which the buffalo were in the habit of frequenting, to drink the salt
water, or lick the earth impregnated with salt.
The new colonists resided in log-cabins, rudely constructed, with no
glass in the windows, with floors of dirt, or, in the better sort of
dwellings, of puncheons of split timber, roughly hewed with the axe.
After they had worn out the clothing brought with them from the old
settlements, both men and women were under the necessity of wearing
buckskin or homespun apparel. Such a thing as a store was not known
in Kentucky for many years: and the names of broadcloth, ginghams
and calicoes, were never even so much as breathed. Moccasins made of
buckskin, supplied the place of our modern shoes, blankets thrown over
the shoulder, answered the purpose of our present fashionable coats and
cloaks; and handkerchiefs tied around the head served instead of hats
and bonnets. A modern fashionable bonnet would have been a matter of
real wonderment in those days of unaffected simplicity.
The furniture of the cabins was of the same primitive character. Stools
were used instead of chairs: the table was made of slabs of timber,
rudely put together.
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