[Ed.: I hope you will enjoy this story written by my great-grandfather George’s brother, Ebenezer Hopkins. Uncle Ebs was a Methodist circuit riding minister, both in Missouri and Washington State. Through rain, sleet and snow he would ride hundreds of miles to preach in small country churches.
This is a letter he wrote about 1919 for the Linn, Missouri paper. The Hopkins family settled in the little town Linn in 1840, four years after arriving in New York City aboard the British barque the “Union”, from England. I believe he refers to his childhood days, between 1846 and 1870 – before they left for California in 1871.]
As Christmas is near at hand, perhaps the younger portion of your readers would like to know how the occasion was celebrated in the good old days. We began preparations three months in advance, or when the first hard frost came. After the frost came the nutting days, and we hied us away to the woods to lay in the winter supply of nuts — hazelnuts, walnuts, and hickory nuts. The hazelnuts were within easy reach, but if the frost had not done its work thoroughly, getting the larger nuts was not an easy task. We climbed the trees and beat the branches. We used fence rails or logs as heavy as we could manage, with which we assailed the trees. Bushels of nuts were hulled and put away to dry.
When Christmas came, all was merriment. Tough logs were bored and into the holes were places heavy charges of powder. A peg with a groove in it was driven and powder sprinkled from the grove all along the log. A coal of fire applied to the powder and then came the explosion. If the log was tough and resisted the force of the powder and the atmosphere was crisp, the sound went in waves over the hills, and could be head for miles. The ambition of each was to fire the biggest Christmas gun.
“Shooting them up,” was another favorite method of celebrating. Men and larger boys assembled at a place agreed upon Christmas Eve, with guns heavily loaded with powder and a towhead. They went from house to house and, “Shoot them up.” The plan was to approach the house stealthily and stand near the window – if the cabin had a window – and fired. If the cabin were built off the ground, as was sometimes the case, they would place the muzzle of their guns under the house and fire. It would almost lift the house off the foundation.
The people of the house were expected to treat, the treat consisting of whatever they had. Before the boys was brought out apples, turnips, and “cornpone”. It was not the articles, but the quantity that counted. If the response was hearty, that was all that was required. The man, or men, of every house visited were expected to join the company, which was commanded by a captain. This “shooting up,” often continued until 2:00 AM by which time the company had assumed large proportions, and the guns gave an uncertain sound.
Constantine Wolfe (Uncle Fetty) lived between Richland and Friendship, near the […] ground. Two of my chums and I one Christmas, we paid our respects to Uncle Fetty and family. We poured heavy charges of powder and then reamed with wads of cotton as tight as we could get down the barrel. Nick and George were the only children then at home. We reached the window without being discovered and looked in long enough to take in the situation. In the big fireplace was a roaring fire, before which Uncle Fetty sat roasting his shins. Nick was playing the fiddle; George was tending the fire, leaning against the mantle. Mrs. Wolfe was baking bread, or more properly, she was preparing to bake it. The sequel will show that it did not bake.
The old-fashioned iron oven was standing on a bed of coals. Into the oven she had placed the dough, and the oven lid was on the fire, preparing to bake the bread. And now the fireworks began! At the command, “Fire!” we let off our guns. Uncle Fetty yelled, “They’ve come!”
Nick threw his fiddle on the bed. George leaped with one foot into the fired and the other into the oven. But he did not tarry there. When he lifted his foot out of the oven the dough adhered to it and he lifted the whole of it. As he danced around the room howling with pain and fright he left behind him a rope of dough. His mother, poor woman, was wringing her hands in dismay.
The door opened and we were given a hearty greeting. Uncle Fetty brought out the apples, while George, pointing to the floor, said, “Boys, Mam has no bread, but, by gosh, you are welcome to the dough!”
Christmas in the log cabin homes was a time of joy and gladness. We may have been poor all the rest of the year, but we forgot all about it when Christmas came. We were all on equal footing, so that when the children of different families met to talk over their Christmas joys and compare presents, there was no envy or jealousy. We ate the nuts we had gathered in the autumn, parched corn and played games.
When bedtime came, which was sometimes late, Christmas Eve, the girls hung up their stockings and the boys their socks. Boys and men did not wear hose in those days; they wore socks, just plain homemade socks. In the morning, the boys would perhaps find a pair of mittens, or a comfort to wrap around his neck, homemade, of course. The aristocratic name now for the more expensive, imported articles, is scarf. But the boy’s joy reached high-water mark if, perchance, he found in his socks a knife. It may have been a “dog knife” or a “Billy Barlow” with a pewter blade. Little did he care of what it was made. If it would whittle, it filled the bill.
Of course, there was for dinner, venison, wild turkey or wild goose. Or possibly they may butcher a hog. In that case we had spare rib, backbone and sausage. The Epicurean, however a week before Christmas, went with his dog to the woods and caught a fat opossum. Having dressed it, he put it on the roof of the smokehouse to freeze. It was baked with sweet potatoes. A Christmas dinner of ‘possum and sweet potatoes. My, what a feast! The savory meat prepared by Esau for his father wasn’t in it.
You young people reading this will say this is all very simple and commonplace. It is. But as it was the best we had and as we were all on a level socially, and did not know that anywhere there was anything better, we were satisfied.
Today we have the well to do, the poor, and the very poor. Out of these conditions grow dissatisfaction, envy, and jealousy. In as few days, the store windowsill will have a display of beautiful things. The children of the well to do can possess them, but the children of the poor cannot. It is no fault of the child. Its heart is just as hungry as the heart of the rich child, but it cannot satisfy that hunger. Seeing the other child in possession of the beautiful present, his heart instead of being filled with love and Christmas cheer is filled with disappointment and envy.
Oh Friend, who may read these lines, I covet for you the most joyous and happy Christmas. If at this glad Christmas time you find yourself more highly favored that someone else nearby you, you will find that there is no better time to apply the Golden Rule than right now. If you want the best Christmas you have ever had, see to it that someone else has a little more happiness and joy than they could have had without you. Having done this, listen to the voice sweeter than earthly music, of Him whose birth we celebrate saying, “In as much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto Me.”
Yours for a happy Christmas,
Ebenezer Hopkins
Tumwater, Washington, ca. 1917 for the Linn Republic (newspaper).