Press enter after choosing selection

Miscellany: Letters From Michigan: Number One

Miscellany: Letters From Michigan: Number One image
Parent Issue
Day
11
Month
December
Year
1843
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

In passing through the interior of this State, the travelier cannot avoid noticing the difFerence in the dwellings ofthe inhab itants, and if heis a thinking man, he must draw conclusions from their appearance. respecting the habits, coudition, and prospectsof the occupants. In the newly settled parts of the State, the cabin of the settler may be discovered here and there in the dense forest, inclosed perhaps, in a very small field, which is thickly studded with stumps of every size and kind. - His habitation consists of a single room, constructed of logs,and enlightenedby one or two windows whose dimensions wou ld be calculated to aiford small encou ragement to glass manufacturers, while from the roof curls up the bluo smoke, through a chimney constructed of sticks and clay. Here, in a single room, which answers the triple purpose of pirlor, sitting room and kitchen, the enterprising settler is content to dweil until he shall be able to erect a better dwelling. A little further on you will sec another house, of a more commodious character. This also, like the precceding is composod of logs, but containstwo or more rooms, besides sundry additions in the rear, constructed under the same roof, and here called a stoup. The 'chimney is of brick, the roof is substantially made, and the Windows display larger draughts upon the industry ofthe glassmakers. Thé enlarged ficlds, the framed barn, the numerous stock, and the farming implements indícate that the owner is prospcring, and in comfortable circumstances. At a a small distance ahead you may discern the two story framed house, painted and corniced, with a green dooryard, guarded by a picket fence, and ornamented with fruit trees and rose bushes. The barns and sheds denote substantial wealth, while the buggy" that is carefully stowed away beyond the reach of the storm, indicates that the inmates of the family have genteel facilities för making visits,or attending balls, singing schools or meetings, as their taste may lead them to choose. All the farmers do not, indeed, construct their dwellings on the models here mentioned, but yet these several gradations in architectural skill are observable here, and also through the Western country Some years since, Henry Clay remarked in the U. S. Senate, how much his feelings of patriolism had been gratified by seeing these three kinds of buildings standing together on the same farm - a demonstration of the steady prosperity of the owner, and of the adaptation of the climate, soil and civil institutions of our country to improve the condition of the industrious laborer. The fact that aman lives in a log house is here no evidence of his poverty, or want of intelligence or respeetability. - Some of our judges, and many of our legislators have come forth from log houses to enact and ddminister the laws. In some of them may be found graduales of our New England colleges, wieldingthe axe, or swinging the scythe, with as much sang froid as though they had never studied Euclid, or pored over the contents of a Greek Grammar. Mány of the clergy, of all denominations, are translated from the brick walls of a Theological Seminary to the rough hewn walls of a log house, and doubtless fïndthe changeto be for their benefit. But in the more settled parts of the country, comfortable frameddwellings are gradually tak ing the place of those first constructed. The Western farmers generally pay too little attention to the comfort and improvement of their dwellings. The spirit of the people leads them to seek gratification chiefly in exertion. Aciion, continued, inoessant action, is its great demand. People are earnest after property here as in other paris of the world; but they do not desire it that they may sit down and enjoy it. They scek to add new barns, new fields, and larger crops to those already possessed; and it is in adding them that they receive gratification and delight. This spirit of enterprize make them indifferent to those minor inconveniences which would be sensibly feit by persons whose chief object is the enjoyment of luxurious ease. - ETencc, in the habitations of men who own hundreds of acres and well improved farms, may be found crevices through which the cold, the storm and the tempest enter, or window frames from which a considerable portion of the glass has disappeared, the place of which is by no means made good by the numerous substitutes of the broken pannels. A corresponding destitution is found in the interior arrangements of the house. The cookingutensilsare few, antiquated, wornout or inconveniente there is no carpet on the floor, no whitewash on the walls, no books on the shelf unless, perhaps, a Bible and Webster's school books, and the hundred little conveniences which add to the comfort and refincment ofdomestic life, are missing. This is not the result of poverty, nor does it ahvays origínate in avarice. The mind of the proprietor is so intcnt on the operations of his farm, that he has no interest in those 'minor affairs, by which, with a small expense, the sum total of the happiness of his family might be largely increased, and a thousand little irritations and misfortunes prevented. In this respect, men every where miss there real interest A large portion of life must be passed by most people at home, and every thing that adds to the comforts and enjoyments of domestic life, or diminisb.es its vexations and annoyances, should not be regarded with indifference. The same eager pursuit of business makes a portion of the farmers indifferent to the beauty and utility of shrubbery and shade trees. A very small expense, would set out shado trees in every door yard; and a little care would secure them from injury. They add to the beauty as well as the value of ihe premises, and añbrd a wholesome and delightful shelter from the heat of the sun. What traveler has not contrasted the appearance of wo handsome houses, one of which was urrounded by green foliage of every description, while the other appeared in ts naked proportions, a monument of he workmanship of man, but isolated entirely from the scenery of nature. - The green foliage of nature is to a dweling, what drapery is to a statue, or fine apparel to the female form. The original object may be beautiful, but taste and refinement can add much to the pleasure of the beholder. Females seem to more ensibly alive to the power of natural scenery than men; and henee the rosebushes and flower beds which adorn the premises of many a poor looking farm house, regard them as unerring indications of refinement and humanity in the female part of the household. I say the female art, because it may well be doubted whether in a society composed entirelyof men, flowers would ever be seen, save in the original wildness of nature, or in the garden of the Flowerbeds are not found among savages, whose desires are confined to the realization of mere brutal wants; but they are invariably found in the gardens of the most enlightehed portions of society, and are at once an cvidence and a means of refinement.

Article

Subjects
Signal of Liberty
Old News