Where I first saw the light of day has had no geographical existence for many years.  It was a nook in that ridge of the Allegheny mountains which extends into the northwestern part of Pennsylvania.  Situated in McKean county which joins Cattaraugus county, New York, on the north, it is one of a number of hollows formed by creeks that flow into the Allegheny River, which is not as large as it passes through that region.  The river itself runs through an opening in the hills that deservedly is called a valley.  But along the creeks, the hills are too close together and the floor too narrow to justify the appellation of valleys.  Hollows they were called, and each hollow had a distinction of its own.  It so happened that they were settled largely by immigrants from Ireland and later by their descendants.  One hollow might be occupied by people from the north of Ireland, another by immigrants from the south of Ireland.  It might be that County Kerry, Tipperary, Limerick, or others, might predominate.  And naturally, there was a feeling of clannishness, and early neighborliness prevailed.

    Irish Hollow, as must have been the case elsewhere, was originally covered by the primeval forest and farms had to be cleared, never being found in the open as was the case in the plains country of the interior United States.  Where there was no timber growth, the surface was covered by loose stones and grave formations and rocks of immense size often projected from the hillsides, allowing stunted shrubs and trees to push through the crevices and make a struggle for survival.   A brook ran through the hollow with its quota of swimming holes and spotted trout and dense growth of underbrush and tangled weeds on each side.

    The first farms were carved from the forest and undergrowth by hardy pioneers, many of them veterans of the wars with England.  Many of them were from the state of Connecticut, and these Yankees settled along the river taking the best land.  The land everywhere was stony, and it was necessary to remove these surface stones as well as to clear off timber.  Indeed, picking stones was an annual task for they seemed to come back every season, the wonder being where they came from.  Most fields contained large piles of stones that were gathered from year to year, but sometimes instead of piling them in the field they were made into fences, which had to be repaired constantly because of their disposition to get out of place and scatter.

    The early settlers erected substantial houses and barns and planted fruit trees and shrubbery.  Some of the stone fences were standing many years after the last pioneer had left the hollow.  The old log house in which I was born was said to have been built by a soldier of the Revolution by the name of Peckham.  The barn, never painted, was erected by the same owner.  In the early eighteen forties, there was an unusual immigration from Ireland into the eastern part of the United States.  Owing to the failure of the potato crop, it became necessary for many to leave the old sod and seek opportunity beyond the sea.  Another thing that drew immigration to the United States was the internal improvements going on in the eastern part of the country.  Railroads were under construction and the system of canals then being promoted was well under way.  Common labor was done by the Irish, who had not yet taken over the political machine of the country, and there was great demand for their work, at wages considered fair, for that time.  It was taken for granted that Irish labor was to do the work and working on the railroad was left exclusively to them, a condition that lasted till long after the Civil War.

    The Irish, too, furnished the labor in lumbering which was extensive in the timbered part of the country, beginning with the decade of 1850.  The large pine and hemlock forests were felled and cut into saw logs which were made into rafts and floated down the Allegheny River to mill towns in the vicinity of Pittsburgh and on down the Ohio River.  Work of the railroad dove-tailed into lumbering, as it was done in the open months when the weather was suitable.  Lumbering was possible through the winter months and rafts were built so as to be ready to be floated down the river when the spring floods made possible their drift down stream.

    Most men were anxious to earn money with which to pay for their modest homes and were away from home much of the time, while the women folk worked the small farms and cared for the family.  These were the reasons therefore why they came to this country and urged others to come.  The prospect of getting homes of their own, something their ancestors never enjoyed, was sufficient lure to attract thousands to eastern states, and thus the foundation was laid for a sturdy population that peopled not only that part of the United States, but states of the interior and further west.

    Those Irish immigrants laid the background of community that for decades was a replica of the Old Sod whence they came.  They developed prejudices and superstitions and an attitude towards one another that marked life in the old country.  They believed in ghosts as firmly as in the things of the material world.  Ghosts, or spirits if one preferred, were the souls of the departed, not perfect enough to be admitted to the heavenly kingdom, nor bad enough to be condemned to eternal torment.  In a probationary state, they wandered up and down the earth in various forms, differing according to degree of guilt, as animals and various and indefinite forms, often changing from one form to another.

    It was but logical that they were devoted to the faith of their ancestors, and so it was that they were intense in their devotion to the Catholic church, and its teachings.  Newcomers found the church, the priesthood, and every ritualistic observance effectively organized as ever could be found in the town of Dingle.  They stepped into another Ireland with its ghosts, its social peculiarities and indulgences.

    Life with the inhabitants of the Hollow was very primitive at first, as might be supposed.  The homes were small, poorly furnished and lacked many appointments that in this day are thought necessary.  In the smaller houses, there was only a single door for entrance, and generally one window was considered sufficient for light and ventilation.  There was not a cook stove in the entire neighborhood, and such a thing as a sewing machine was not known among them.  The most approved illumination was by candle light, and tooth brushes were as unknown as bath tubs.  Soft soap, homemade, sufficed for domestic use, though store soap made appearance once in a while among the so-called rich families.

    One is apt to wonder how cooking was done and household operations were carried on without cook stoves.  A fire place was a necessary part of the structure when the domicile was built, whether the structure was a frame house, log house, or a shanty.  The fire place had a large hospitable opening with a hearth in front around which the family gathered.  For cooking purposes, a crane, or iron bracket, swung from the side jamb.  With a set of hooks in different lengths and heights, it was possible to hang the pot or kettle where ever desired over the bed of coals prepared for the occasion and the cooking processes were executed as satisfactorily as in later days with modern cook stoves.  Baking and frying were done with metal ovens which were placed on the hearth, over a bed of coals.  Coals were also placed on the covers of the ovens.  The matter of keeping live coals above and beneath the baking oven was easy for the experienced cook who seldom went wrong.  Cook stoves when they came met with a reluctant reception, and it required time for house wives to learn how to use the new appliances.

    Those open fireplaces occupied a conspicuous place in the family life.  In front of a large backlog, sticks of wood were placed and these once burning furnished the coals used on the hearth in cooking and frying.  The blazing embers illuminated the room in front as well as furnished the heat that warmed the living room.  Whenever a pine knot was thrown in, the light was brilliant and the smell of pitch was liked by the pleasant family group seated around the hearthstone.

    The blazing fireplace and the flickering candle light were part of the evening's routine and the family neither dreamed of, nor cared for, anything brighter.  My brother Edgar ruthlessly interfered with complacent life when he introduced the kerosene lamp.  It was regarded with fear and curiosity when he brought the glass contraption home one evening in the second year of the Civil War. He filled the bowl with kerosene oil, and the family stood back as he applied the match to the flat wick.  How carefully he adjusted the flame till he got it right, and mother looked on with fear.  And the pater warned that he would burn down the house on top of us all.  For weeks, the lamp was never lit if Edgar was away from home, and it was more than a year before mother herself would light it.  It took a long time to overcome the fear and substitute lamps with oil for candles with wicks.

    I am reminded at this point of an incident that caused consternation in our family.  Seated around the hearth enjoying the smoke that ascended up the chimney from a large pine knot and its light that spread through the living room, we were startled as a most unearthly noise came from the wall in the vicinity of the clock.  Now that old Seth Thomas clock had ticked faithfully in its place without incident since the house was built.  It had ticked off the minutes for all the years without a single act of impropriety.  Was it the clock, or some spirit in torture giving utterance to its anguish?  The entire household was thrown into confusion, the majority were of the opinion that the noise came from the spirit land.  Before bedtime later that night, a younger brother, always given to innocent sport, informed the family that he had wound up the alarm of the clock that he had discovered that afternoon, and  maybe it was the cause of all the ungodly noise.  And so it was.  That clock had hidden parts not known to any of the family, only to be found by a curious boy growing in fascination with the mechanical spirits of this new world.

    Wall paper in those days was only for the rich.  Few homes in the country could afford the luxury.  There was a desire to get away from the rough surface in the interior, so boards were often planed, presenting a finished surface.  But more often, the walls were covered with newspapers, which first pasted on presented a bright, clean appearance, when compared with the rough dull boards.  I recall the Brother Jonathan's, New York Herald, the McKean County Miner, papers which the family received every week.  Also, the New York Ledger, the great story weekly of the period.  The Ledger was about as popular and read as generally then as is the Saturday Evening Post at the present.  Of course, skill was required to put the newspapers on the wall, but there was always somebody in the neighborhood to do the work.  They were pioneers in the art of paper hanging.

    Cellars were a necessary part in about every structure built for family use.  These cellars protected things from freezing in the winter, and in the summer, they were the coolest places to be found.  Butter, milk, eggs and other articles to be preserved in warm weather were kept in the cellar.  Likewise, in freezing weather, the cellar kept out Jack Frost, and vegetables and fruits were preserved.

    There were no washing machines then, and the washing had to be done by rubbing on the washboard.  The amount of elbow grease necessary for the weekly wash in an ordinary family by mother, easily compared with the swinging of the ax in the woods or the flailing on the threshing floor done by father.

    Homemade soap was used universally, and making soft soap was a skill employed by every house wife.  This soap was made from water strained through ashes of the hard woods which formed the lye in passing through a leach, constructed in such a way as to permit the water turned to lye in percolating through the ashes to drip in to a receptacle.  This lye condensed was boiled with fatty substances, called soap grease, and when a certain consistency was reached, the resultant was soap.  It was a crude combination, and had corroding effect on the hands of the person who did the washing.  For toilet purposes, hard soap was used, though many families found it necessary to use soft soap exclusively.

By: J.B. Hungerford
      Reseda, California - 1938