A Day in the Life of... ? in the Year of Our Lord 1800

1800: A January Monday in the Life of…
    I can only guess at what it would have been like in the Year of Our Lord 1800 but here’s my guess.
    It’s 5:30 a.m. on this dark, cold winter’s morn and the roosters are crowing. It’s so co-o-old! The windows are rimed with hoar-frost. Even though you arranged the wood in the fireplace last night for maximum burning time, the wood fire has burned low or gone out. But at least, there isn’t that acrid smoky smell that was here in the house last night when the fire was high and bright. You’re so sleepy! You don’t want to get out from under these warm quilts but you have to go to the bathroom. You step behind the curtain and use the chamber pot. One of your first chores in this frigid room is to add wood to the fire. Now you’ll probably stand by the fire for a few minutes trying to get warm. (Unhappily, it’s often so cold in this room that your back gets too hot while your front is still too cold.) After a few minutes, you’re ready to "wash up" in that pan of water that’s sitting there by the fire. You brought it in last night so that it could get warm by the fire. If you’re a man, you may shave (vary carefully) with a straight razor (sharpened with a shaving strop), shaving soap, and alcohol or cologne, or maybe soap and water, as an after-shave lotion. At this point, you might comb your hair with a wooden, ivory, or bone-carved comb (18th -century plastic). You pull on your woolen socks and your leather boots, and you bundle up in your knitted woolen sweater, your greatcoat, your woolen scarf and your knitted woolen gloves. Next you’ll probably need to empty the chamber pot and rinse it with well water or snow. While you’re out there in the snow, you’ll need to gather the eggs, and milk the cow. You carry the eggs and the milk into the house, where one of the women (your mother, or your wife and/or your daughters) will be cooking breakfast over the open fire. (Later, the women will churn part of it into butter and possibly set some of it aside to make cheese.) Then you’ll have to feed the chickens, the horse(s), the cow, the pigs(?), the goat(s), and the sheep(?).By now, the children will have wakened and used the chamber pot and you’ll have to rinse it again. You all eat a hearty breakfast sitting in front of the fire—ham and eggs, fried potatoes, bread, butter, and preserves, with maybe a piece of cheese, washed down with milk or tea. By now, it may have warmed enough that you’re no longer cold. You’ll probably have to trudge down through the crunching snow to the frigid, smelly outhouse to finish your morning toilette. Now, it’s 6:30 and the day’s labors will begin.
    Women: Churning, making cheese. Cooking, preserving. Growing vegetables Spinning thread, knitting, weaving or crocheting cloth, sewing, making clothes. Cleaning, washing, tending the sick, nurturing children and relationships.
    If you work in town, you’ll either ride your horse, if it’s more than half a mile, or walk to your business address. In town, you might serve as a barber, blacksmith, carpenter/furniture maker, circuit lawyer/judge, clock-smith, constable, general/millinery/haberdashery store proprietor, minister (revivals), printer/newspaper publisher, postmaster, sawbones, school master/teacher, smith (blacksmith, goldsmith, silversmith, tinsmith, coppersmith, gunsmith, etc.), stone/brick mason, town crier/lamplighter, or a veterinarian. Or you might be a clerk or scribe working for one of these other men. Out of town, you might be a farmer/beekeeper/butcher, harness & saddle-shop/livery stable/stage depot/innkeeper, or a grist or saw mill owner. Or you might be a hired man working for one of these proprietors. (Of course, in the South, you could also be a slave.) Circuit judges, circuit lawyers, artists, musicians, actors, writers, poets, revival preachers. Wagon-wright, ship-wright, tanner, harness and saddle shop, Sewing bees, house-raising bees, taffy pulls, spin the bottle, musical chairs, bobbing for apples, pin the tail on the donkey, square dancing, church socials, picnics, country fairs. In town, as a clerk or a scribe, you’ll have to write your documents and records by dipping a goose-quill pen into an ink well. If you ply a trade, most tools are hand tools. There are, however, foot-treadle lathes, potter’s wheels, and blowers for the blacksmith’s forge. You will have learned your trade by serving a several-year apprenticeship with a master craftsman. If so, most of your time will be spent doing his work for practically nothing. You’ll pay dearly for the little bit of knowledge he’ll impart. You’ll work 12 to 14 hours a day, six days a week if you attend church, and seven days a week if you don’t. After that, you’ll cut the wood, eat supper, tuck the children in bed, bank the fire, etc.
    Your summers are extremely busy, with planting, weeding, tilling, and harvesting, followed by food processing to lay up a store of preserved food for winter, spring, and early summer. In the spring, the lambs must be sheared, and their wool carded and spun into thread. Then during the winter, the woman of our house or her daughters will weave, knit or crochet the wool into clothing—mittens, gloves, scarves, sweaters, afghans, etc. The ragbag will yield the material for patchwork quilts. Spring is also calving, foaling, baby chicken, and piglet time.
    Linen (flax), cotton, wool, dyes, chandlers, glass & glass blowers, gunpowder, sugar, salt, metal stock, screws, nails, tools, jewelry, fine furniture, fine china, pewter, and silverware, candy, apothecaries, rugs and tapestries, water glasses. Locks.
    Candles and soaps are made from hog renderings in the fall. Maple syrup is made in the fall. Dried pork, beef jerky, wheat, peas, and beans form some of the staple winter foods. Dried corn and hay are used to feed the livestock. Dried apples, raisins, and other fruits. Potato bin, apple bin, root cellar, dried-apple barrel, rutabagas, maybe carrots,
  . Sometime during the day, you’ll have to bring in more water (from the spring or the well) and more firewood.
    Communication will be by letter, and when the mail rider comes in, by word of mouth. Announcements will be posted on the door of the printing office. There may be a daily or weekly newspaper delivered by a paperboy.
    If you have to travel out of town, you’ll probably go either on your horse or by stagecoach. Ideally, you’ll have friends or relatives along the way with whom you can spend your nights on the road. If not, you’ll have stay at inns or tourist homes. You’ll be able to make something like 30 to 50 miles a day. If it rains, you’ll get wet. If it snows, you’ll get cold. If your horse goes lame, you’ll have to board him at a livery stable and rent one of their horses. Hopefully, there are no highwaymen along the way to take your money, your horse, or your life. If you have to go over water, you’ll have to book passage on a sailing vessel. Good luck! There won’t be any weather forecasts to warn you of bad weather. Poor Richard’s Almanac is your best bet. Are you sure you want to make this trip?
    No screens. No aspirin. Citronella? No antibiotics. Herb garden for medicine. Alcohol for antiseptic, anesthetic..