Inside Jeremiah's Cabin

The estate administrator drew up an inventory of the late Jeremiah Wiggins' property, along with an appraisal of each item's value. This inventory lets us see into Jeremiah's home, and gives us an idea of his day-to-day living.


(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of Alice Flora Smedstad.

Here is my attempt to decipher this list:

1 Pair cotton sheets 1 pair [illegible] blankets
1 old coverlid
1 straw tick and pillow
1 barrel with some pork[1]
8 old bags
1 tea kittle 1 dish kettle 1 frying pan 1 axe
all right to his house and improvements
a lot of logs

It's interesting to note what's not recorded: for example, a table and chairs. Pioneer homes sometimes lacked these luxuries; when people wanted to sit, they sat on beds or trunks. But Jeremiah didn't have a trunk either, it seems. No bedstead is listed, but you'd think he'd come up with something to avoid sleeping on the floor: he had an axe, and there were plenty of trees around. He might have stuck poles into the walls of his log cabin to fashion a crude platform for his straw tick.

No clothing is mentioned. Perhaps he was buried in his only suit, but surely he had a coat, at least, for cold weather, and a hat, and gloves or mittens.

No decorative items. No books. But no liquor, either.

Other property, of a more outdoor nature, was recorded on another sheet.



This one is even more difficult to read; here's my attempt:

1 Breaking Plough
1 [illegible]
1 set whippletrees & neck yoke
1 spade
1 Axe
1 Waggon [illegible]
1 Broad Axe
1 Bay horse(?)
1 " do " do[2]
1 old harness without bridling(??)
1 Knife
1000 Rails at $1.50 per hundred

It all added up to a value of $115.87 ½ — much more than the domestic inventory.

No firearm is listed here, but as we will see later, Jeremiah did own one.

Other items as well may not have made it onto these two lists — but not many, I suspect. Jeremiah had the basics of transportation, of farming, of building a shelter, and of cooking enough food to stay alive. That was all he needed, and perhaps all he wanted.

I'd like to look into the people involved in this inventory, but that will have to wait for another post.


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[1] I expect this was salt pork.
[2] Probably another bay horse; "do" is a 19th-century abbreviation for "ditto."