When we're studying the lives of people in the 18th century it is rather easy to research someone
who is rich or important if we want to know something about George Washington there are
reams of data about George Washington letters he's written people wrote letters about him
there are paintings there's all this information about somebody like George Washington in history
but it gets much more difficult when we're trying to understand the lives of ordinary people in the
18th century or even more difficult poor people in the 18th century so one of the places we can go is
travel journals and we get people describing their travels in the 18th century and there are a number
of travel journals and they are so so illuminating they give us so much depth and interest depending
on the person and the time period and where they're traveling there are some very very
interesting adventures written about early 18th century one of these journals that I really enjoy
is the Journal of Sarah Kemble Kight she writes about a journey that she's having in 1704 this is
very early and she's travelling in the Northeast area New York and Massachusetts Connecticut and
at the time this was pretty rough country that she was traveling and she traveled this alone on
horseback for the most part and she was a woman of some wealth she had a store and she did business
and she was obviously a very extraordinary woman but she describes a particular time when she was
traveling she was very weary and she decided to stay at a particular house and because it was the
closest thing around and she had the wait until the river wasn't as high so she could cross it
because there were not very many bridges or very many ferries to get you across so many
times you had to wade across a river she says "and now I'm at my lowest ebb by reason of my
weary very weary hungry and uneasy circumstances so taking leave of my company she was travelling
with a few extra people though with no little reluctance that I could not proceed with them
on my journey I stopped at a little cottage by the river to wait the waters falling which the
old man that lived there said would be in a little time and he would conduct me safe over
this little hut was one of the wretchedest I'd ever saw for a habitation of human creatures it
was supported with shores enclosed with clapboards laid on lengthwise and so much asunder that light
comes through everywhere the door tied on with a cord in the place of hinges the floor the bare
earth no windows but such as the thin covering afforded nor any furniture but a bed with a glass
bottle hanging at the head of it an earthen cup a small pewter basin a board with sticks to stand
on instead of a table and a block or two in the corner instead of chairs the family were an old
man his wife and two children all and every part being the picture of poverty notwithstanding both
the hut and its inhabitants were very clean and tidy with the crossing the old proverb that bare
walls make giddy housewives" she goes on to relate more of this particular story about staying there
waiting for the waters to recede somebody comes along and she gets across and describes this I
thought that the this particular encounter well in fact her whole journal very very interesting
all the different encounters she's very a very funny writer and illuminating certainly for what
this woman of fairly well-to-do means is as she describes the countryside in the places that she
visits but she gives us this wonderful description of what's happening in the cabin doesn't she this
house that's made it's shored up so it's probably just sticks right and it's got clapboards probably
rived out little planks that are put on for the walls and hardly a door and then just the
amount of items that are within this house such a wonderful description and she's indebted to these
people for helping her out and and she even at after this little portion she has a little piece
of verse talking about this encounter very very interesting a wonderful picture of what it was
like for someone living in very poor circumstances in this northeast area in 1704 this next journal
very another very interesting journal in 1728 William Byrd accepts a commission to go out and
with a number of commissioners and surveyors and woodsmen and survey the line the official
demarcation between North Carolina and Virginia and this is 1728 again early and the area that
they're surveying is very wild unpopulated and and he relates this particular expedition he
relates the things that go on with it he has he actually records two different ones the
official one and the secret one the one that isn't necessarily meant to be public and the
secret one is the one I've got here a very very interesting reading because you know it doesn't
have to be official right and I will read or I will probably do future episodes about what
happens on the expedition because that is really interesting reading about you know how this how
this group functions what they have where they go you know what happens to them but there's
this little part that I wanted to relate here and this is at the very end when he's getting back to
civilization and they're sort of breaking up the group this is probably again in fairly backwoods
Virginia and he writes he says "I made a visit to Cornelius Keith who lived in a rather in a
pen than a house with his wife and six children I never beheld such a scene of poverty in this
happy part of the world the hovel they lay in had no roof to cover those wretches from the injuries
of the weather but when it rained or was colder than ordinary the whole family took refuge in a
fodder stack" so they all found a haystack to hide under instead of being in house "the poor
man had raised a kind of a house but for want of nails it remained uncovered it gave him I gave
him a note on Mr. on Major Mumford for nails for that purpose so making the whole family happy at
a very small expense the man can read and write very well and by way of a trade he can make and
set up quern stones and yet his poorer than any Highland Scott or bog trotting Irishman"
so here's a man who has a family he's probably moved out into this frontier area that he's in
and he has started to build his cabin but he only has the walls up and he doesn't have and
the walls he could make without any nails all he needed was a tool and the logs just like we
saw in the the barn video that we've like part one of the barn where they raise the walls up
and then you get to the roof and what do you do it gets to be a lot more difficult how do
you put a roof on a house or a cabin without any nails and this man did not have that skill and so
there his house sat he didn't have the money for the nails couldn't go any further so so they have
to they have to shelter themselves in other places waiting for the time when they have the nails and
luckily this person takes pity on them and gives them the money so that that they can put a roof
their house and he goes on to describe this man as being able to read and write and he has a trade of
setting up quern stones which are he's talking about mill stones their corns are usually small
mills that you would have in your house fairly probably rare in the 18th century but of course
this is fairly early on so that's before there are a lot of bigger mills set up in areas so a
hand quern a hand mill might be something that was a little bit more common in the colonies I
have not seen them any references to querns and so he could mean larger mill stones and he just used
the word for smaller mill stones but two really very interesting descriptions of situations with
poor people what their houses were like what the people were like at least in certain circumstances
here so that we can get a glimpse we can get a picture of what just one or two again these are
just anecdotal sort of descriptions of people but that's what we have to work with we can learn so
much by going back digging into these journals into these writings they're so very interesting
illuminating understanding what life for common people poor people was in the 18th century in the
early 18th century in these circumstances and it helps us understand our life today doesn't
it boy puts everything into perspective very rapidly I am so happy that that I can curl up
in a nice warm bed and I can be warm whenever I want to but then I can come out here and I
can experience some of what it was like to understand just how difficult life must have
been in the 18th century these journal readings are so very illuminating I'll try to put a link
down in the description section to point you to some of both of these works I think we'll be able
to find them on online in readings and if not I'll make sure to put a link to an Amazon book
or something so thank you guys so much for coming along and having this adventure it's
adventure in early 18th century in the lives of poor people journeying we're on this journey too
just like these folks we're just experiencing on the other side so experiencing what it was
like just so just trying to imagine is is so very very interesting and a great thought experiment so
thanks for coming along with me today thank you for all your just tremendous support for what
we do here on the channel watching our videos commenting sharing going to our store our merch
whatever you know all the things you do thank you so much for that and thanks for watching today