I agree it was a great question. :-) My 4th great grandmother was Jenny Wiley of Indian capture fame. Jenny Wiley b. 1760, d. 1831 In discussing Jenny Wiley, p. 21/22/23 of The Founding of Harmon's Station, William Elsey Connelly says: 'Before going on with the work in hand it will be profitable to note a few features of backwoods life. The pioneers were their own tanners, harnass- makers, and shoe makers. They built their own houses and made their own furniture and agricultural implements. Salt and iron were indispensable and had to be brought in upon pack-horses from the stations or older settlements where they were purchased with skins, furs, dried venison, and ginseng. Both were used sparingly. Often a cabin was completed without there being a single nail, bolt, or spike used in its construction. Flax and cotton were grown by almost every settler. These with the wool from the few sheep that escaped the wolves furnished material for cloth which was woven in looms in the pioneer homes. The feathers of ducks and geese furnished beds which found so much favor that they have not been discarded to this day. Clothing for the women was home spun, home woven, and home made, coarse, but substantial and comfortable. That of the men was of the same manufacture and often supplemented with skins, dressed and not dressed. The fringed hunting-shirt and leggins, fur cap and moccasins, made a picturesque garb, and for the scout, guide, hunter, trapper, explorer, or any other dweller in the wilderness it was the most appropriate that could have been devised. For food the pioneer depended upon Indian corn, his hogs, and the fruits of the chase. The cornfields surrounded every cabin. Bacon was the favorite meat. Vegetables and fruits grew quickly and of fine quality; many edible fruits were found growing wild. Coffee was unknown, and tea was unheard of; substitues were made from spicewood and sassafras. Chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese were found about most cabins. The division of labor was not so distinct as it is now. Women often worked in the field, plied the axe, sheared the sheep, pulled the flax, plucked the feathers from the geese and ducks and frequently did effective service with the rifle. These things were in additon to their ordinary work of preparing food, spinning and dyeing thread and yarn, weaving cloth therefrom, making the clothing, and attending to many other affairs amid all the cares and anxieties incident to rearing large families on an exposed and dangerous frontier.* * The manner of living here described had not entirely changed in Eastern Kentucky even in 1875. Many of the features here described remained in the home of my grandfather, Henry Connelly, Esq., who lived on the Middle Fork of Jennie's Creek, Johnson County, until his death in 1877. Most of the cloth for the clothing of himself and his family was made by my aunts from cotton, flax and wool produced on his farm. I often assisted in this manufacture as a child. I could spin on the 'big wheel,' fill the 'quills,' for the shuttles used in weaving, and I have 'reeled' thread and yarn, much against my will, sometimes, I must say, until my arms ached. My grandfather raised on his farm his own bacon and dried and cured his own beef. He manufactued most of the agricultural implements used on his farm. He had large orchards. For more than forty years he made his own sugar from the maples growing on his land. He manufactured his own cheese. He was an industrious and independent American citizen, and his manner of life was the best. A return to it by the people would solve many serious questions now troubling the Republic.' p. 25 'My great grandmother, Mrs. Susan Connelly, knew Mrs. Wiley well; she told me that Mrs Wiley had very dark hair, was tall, handsome in form and face until old age made her heavy and slow, very intelligent, kindly disposition but firm and determined, and a devout and earnest Christian.' Nancy Sparks Morrison