How to throw a feast and get stewed, early Mount Vernon style

MOUNT VERNON — In my recent foray to the Ohio Genealogical Society, I took time to look through the old books they had for sale and came up with a copy of the two volume Historical Collections of Ohio by Henry Howe.

I hope to slowly sift through it for stories of interest, but to start with, I dove right in to his chapter on Knox County to see what was on offer.

It’s a renowned early collection, because Howe roamed all over the state in the 1840s, collecting stories and statistics for his book. He published the first version in 1846, and lived long enough to do an updated edition nearly 40 years later.

Those originals are rare and quite pricy today, but what I found at the OGS was an Ohio Centennial reprint from 1908, two thick volumes for a fair price.

One of the values of these books is simply that Howe was collecting material while some of the state’s original settlers were still alive. This allowed him to collect stories that would otherwise have been lost to time.

He was truly a man after my own heart, though a comparison of the two pictures of the man, taken around the time of the two publications of the book, sure shows what studying history will do to you.

Working on Knox County almost two decades before our first county history by A. Banning Norton, Howe collected a lot of good information, some of which Norton repeated in his book.

Where Norton found new information, Howe included it in his later update. One particularly enjoyable item is an extended description of how the early settlers of Mount Vernon would throw a feast.

I figured November would be a good time to run this, in case any of you out there are looking for ideas for your Thanksgiving celebrations.

A fair variety of crops were raised even from the start in Knox County, according to Howe. Corn, oats, rye, and buckwheat were widespread.

Wheat was common in the uplands, but was avoided in the low areas along the rivers because of early incidences of what was called “sick wheat,” which caused bread made from the wheat to work as an emetic and produced feelings similar to seasickness.

Potatoes were popular, sweet potatoes less so, but still present. Grapes were actively grown, as were sugar maples and sorghum for sweeteners. Beekeeping also provided honey as a sweetener.

Apples, peaches, and pears were raised as early as possible, too. These were no doubt helped along by the seedlings sold by Johnny “Appleseed” Chapman, who kept a nursery orchard on the banks of the Kokosing (though there was a movement for a time to call it the Vernon River, the term which Howe uses).

In these early years, settlers had to support each other in order to survive. It was customary to split farming duties, and share produce at harvest, just as they would all share the proceeds of hunts for wild game.

Howe describes the accounts of early feasts that would be held for a wedding or any other special occasion:

…[A] puncheon table, formed like a bench, without a cloth, was covered with refreshments.

These were plain and simple: wild turkeys that had been gobbling about in the woods, were stewed and eaten with a relish; corn, that had grown on the river flats, made into “pone” served as wedding cake; while metheglin and whiskey, the only articles probably not indigenous, were the beverages that washed them down.

Their plates were either of wood or pewter, perhaps both, and no two alike: they knives frequently butcher knives, and their forks often of wood. A dance was the finale of their festivities.

They made merry on the puncheon floor to the music of the fiddle. Cotillions were unknown, while jigs, four-handed reels, the double-shuffle and break-down were “all the rage.”

A puncheon table is one made very crudely from the split trunk of a tree, without any kind of cosmetic finishing. This was also typically the way the floors of settlers’ early cabins were made, thus the reference to dancing on the puncheon.

Metheglin is a traditional sort of mead (honey wine) steeped in herbs and spices. It was often used for medicinal purposes on the frontier — indeed, the name comes from the Welsh words meaning “health drink” — and I don’t doubt that after you drank a fair amount of it, you wouldn’t feel any pain at all.

Howe also gives the recipe for a locally popular drink known as “stew.”

First, a huge kettle of several gallons’ capacity, would be placed on the ground, resting on three stones. A fire would be built underneath it.

Two or three buckets of water would be poured into the kettle, along with a few pounds of maple sugar. A few ounces of allspice should then be wrapped in a rag and pounded to break it down.

That would then go into the kettle to steep, along with a pound of butter. Last, but most certainly not least, would be two or three gallons of whiskey.

After it boiled for a bit, those gathered could dip their tin cups in to partake of this “stew,” which sounds to me like a cross between a mulled drink and a hot toddy. Storytelling, dancing, racing, shooting, and, occasionally, fighting would follow.

If anyone chooses to make this “stew” for Thanksgiving, I should hasten to point out that I’m available to attend. Fighting optional.