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	• NEWS >> ATW September 6, 2007 Yearly Script Program Index -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OPEN/WELCOME Hi and welcome to a special edition of Assignment: The World. I’m Teej Jenkins. Have you ever tried to imagine what it must have been like for the early pioneers of this country? The brave individuals who moved west to build a new life had to overcome many obstacles. The first, building a place to live. PIONEERS #1 (VO) Pioneers came to the New World from Europe and settled along the East coast of what is now America. From there, they quickly began moving west. By the late 1700's, they had traveled hundreds of miles in every direction. Some decided to make their new home in the Genesee Valley in upstate NY. When they arrived, the land was wild for as far as you could see. (JIM) They said that when people moved here from New England a squirrel could get up in a tree and never touch the ground from here to New England because it was all trees. So it was a monumental task for people to come here. They were totally self-sufficient. When they moved here they had to do everything. They had to make their own soap , they had to make their own clothing, they had to store enough food to take care of their 10 or 12 children plus themselves, plus their animals. And they'd bring what they could. They'd bring pots and pans, and windows, because you can't make windows in the wilderness. And they'd just bring basic things and then they would build their log cabin. (VO) Shelter was their first priority so log cabins were the first thing built. Taking advantage of the dense forests they used trees to build their new homes. (JENNA) This cabin was built in 1809 and it's Pennsylvania German style which is kinda unusual. There’s the dove tail joints right here, and they fit together really well so it’s almost impossible to break down. And this is chinking in-between that held together the logs. (VO) Families were often very large, so these small structures were known to sometimes house 10 or twelve people. Although the quarters were cramped, you at least had a roof over your head... Unfortunately, the animals weren't always as lucky. Pioneers didn't start building the barn until a year or two after they settled... In the meantime, fences were used to keep the animals from wandering off and predators from wandering in. (JIM) Well there's a technique to the fences because nails, they wouldn't use nails to build the fence because nails were built one by one by a blacksmith and they'd be very, very expensive and probably no blacksmith around here anyway. So they have to devise a way to build a fence without nails and one of the ways is with the posts going up like that and a lot of the fences around here are zig-zag so they actually hold themselves up. Now, eventually probably a year or two after you get you cabin built you’re going to build your barn. You need the barn to protect the animals, you’re going to have more animals now so you’re going to protect the animals, protect your equipment and the food for the animals and store the food, so it was very, very useful but the house was obviously the first necessity. (VO) These brave people came to the Genesee Valley with very little and were able to not only survive, but flourish. This spirit and determination is what allowed our country to grow. POP QUIZ #1 In our story about early pioneers we told you the first priority of new settlers was to build… 1. a town hall 2. shelter 3. barns And the correct answer is number two… the first structures build by new settlers were shelters. INTRO Early settlers of the westward movement included people with a wide variety of skills. Stonemasons who helped build the Erie Canal used their skills to develop a new architecture, taking advantage of the natural resources they found in upstate New York. PIONEERS #2 (Narrator) The Erie Canal was the first transportation system that provided access from the Atlantic Ocean to the great lakes. The Canal spurred the first great westward movement of American settlers. Over time, the Erie Canal played an important role in introducing a new form of architecture to the region. (Jim) Cobblestone houses, cobblestone buildings are rather unique to the part of NYS and the reason we have so many here, we have most of the cobblestone houses in the country are located right around this part of the NYS because when the Eire Canal came through the stone masons came right along with them and when they finished up the canal we had lots of stone masons that were moving along with the canal very slowly they had settled in this part of NYS, they had families and then they were out of a job, they didn't have anything more to do. So then they decided instead of moving away and finding a different place to use their skills they put their skills to work in NYS building cobblestone houses. (Narrator) Families would gather field stones and wander the shoreline of Lake Ontario picking up stones to be used in the construction of their homes. Stone masons would pick out nicely shaped stones to be used on the front and interiors of the homes. (Dalton) In houses for cobblestones the two main elements were quoins Sort of like bricks on this side its long and the bottom one is long the other way. And then the other main part on the cobblestone house are the courses. So the courses are the rows of cobblestones. Now a cobblestone isn't really any kind of stone in particular, its usually just some old stone that someone finds in the field that's round. (Jim) Well the Erie canal came through here in 1825 and that had a tremendous effect on everything around here because previous to that if you wanted something that you couldn't make here you'd have to order it from New England, they would come here on oxcart take 8 weeks to get here and transportation was a huge issue so you couldn't have things like windows and stoves, cast iron stoves or things like that around here without having a ton of money. (Narrator) Following the Civil War the country underwent many changes, none more important than the building of the Erie Canal. This inland waterway opened up the west for economic development. Commerce drove the population westward, opening up the frontier for new settlements. It was an economic boom. (Jim) When the Erie canal came through this was a boomtown, the first boom town Rochester and you got an influx of people and you get lots of people here your going to get lots of artistes your going to get lots of craftsman and their going to be looking for jobs. So you've got people earning money all of a sudden, you've got craftsman here that want to work and you've got people like the Hydes here that have money, they weren't real wealthy but they are well off and they wanted to show off their wealth so they would build a fine house like this. FACTS/FIGURES Costs to move goods across New York State via the Erie Canal were 80-90% lower than by road. Tolls charged to use the canal paid back the 7.5 million construction cost within ten years. INTRO Moving to a new land in the 19th century required particular attention to finding new food sources….there were no supermarkets in the 1800s. After building their new homes settlers quickly turned to developing their gardens, not only as a source of relaxation but as a source of food as well. Even in the early days, when Europeans were first settling our nation, gardens played an important role in our lives. While the more affluent had gardens for experimentation and enjoyment, the common people and pioneers used their gardens for survival. This is the McArthur House Kitchen Garden, quite typical found in a rural house in this region. This one would not have any of the large sprawling field crops such as your winter squash or your mango warts or your corn. It would just have your crops that would be picked and used and then picked and put down or salted or picked for further use. Cabbage is the staple of 19th century food stuffs. There are consecutive plantings of cabbage, now you can see the two different plantings here. We have early jersey Wakefield, and flat Dutch one that will head up and be picked early on. It will then be pickled. The later cabbage can actually be put down or stored in a root cellar and used for food stuff throughout the coming winter. The herbs that are located in the front of the garden are primarily used for 3 purposes. Firstly for medicinal purposes, secondly for household application and third for culinary uses. We have lemon balm, which is a very familiar herb. You can make a soothing tea out of it if you have a sore throat, its what's called a strewing herb, you can throw it on the floor and you can walk on it, it emits lovely smells so its like a household freshener. And then of course the lemon flavor can always be used in broths or stews. The more established families, on the other hand, were able to have other gardens where they could grow a wider variety of plants and vegetables that weren't exactly a necessity. This is what can be called a hobbyists garden. What are in this garden are vegetables that would not be able to be kept. Here we have an heirloom tomato and this looks to be a red plum tomato. Heirloom tomatoes are called indeterminate, there vine and have to be trellised but they have one great unique property as these ripen and if kept picked they will continue to produce tomatoes right up until the first frost. So whether it was grown out of necessity or for enjoyment and luxury, people in the early days often made use of one plant in many ways. Just another example of the ingenuity of the settlers in the early days. POP QUIZ #2 Earlier we told you that the cost of transporting goods on the Erie Canal was cheaper than by road by… 1. 50 percent 2. 10 percent 3. 80 percent And the correct answer is number three….it was 80 percent less expensive to transport goods via the Erie Canal than by road. INTRO The adventures of America’s pioneers continue to inspire today. Children’s author Mary Jane Auch used the building of the Erie Canal as a source of inspiration for her series of historical fiction AUTHOR Mary : The only thing that made history come alive for me was when we would go on trips with the family and stop at all the historical markers along the way and look at those sites and know that history had happened right there and that's what I want to do in the books, I want to draw the kids in with the story and the characters and the history, they get that along the way. I don't try to beat them over the head with it. VO: Mary Jane Auch is perhaps best known for her “chicken books” like Peeping Beauty and Bantam of the Opera. She's also a gifted author of novels for young adults. She tells us a little bit about her 3 part historic fiction series set in the early eighteen hundreds. Mary: Journey To Nowhere is the story of Remembrance Nie called Mem, she’s 11 yrs old, her family lives in CT, its 1815 and her father suddenly decides that they are going to move to the Genesee country of western NY, its the story of the journey and arriving in the wilderness when home is no longer a house its simply a patch of woods in the middle of nowhere. In book 2 that is the year without a summer where they are struck with the cold. Mems mother has a baby right at the beginning of the book. And Mems mother is not doing well living in the wilderness, she's miserable, she's homesick and she goes into a real decline. Mem now has to take over the care of the new baby + supervision of her mother who is becoming unreliable and on top of it all they have the snow in June and the killing frost all summer long. Road to home, the third book of the series the family is now moving back to CT because they have not been able to survive and thrive in the Genesee country. On the way back they stop in Rome and that’s the beginning of the Erie Canal. And this is a different take on most Erie Canal books are further along in the building of the canal, this is way back in the very beginning of the canal. And Mems father becomes absolutely enamored with the idea of earning money by working on the canal so that he will not be going home in disgrace but he will be going home with money from the canal. VO: Mary Jane was able to use the Genesee Country Museum outside of Rochester, New York to assist her in the research process of these historic novels. She found that many of the exhibits were exactly the way they would have looked in her story. Mary: When I walked into the cabin I was all excited, I said, oh wow I'm writing a book that takes place in 1816 and this is exactly what it would look like. I said to the women, wouldn't this be perfect and she turned to me and said how would I know. And I thought oh brother, I found the one person in this entire museum that is unhelpful, she said, you’re asking me about the future, I don't know what’s going to happen in 1816. And then I realized that I had a gold mine. GOOD-BYE Life in the 19th century was a hard but exciting time… a period of great growth and exploration for our country. Be sure to check out your local library for more information on the Erie Canal, pioneers and life in the 19th Century. That’s it for this week’s show. From all of us here at Assignment: The World, I’m Teej Jenkins. Have a great week! © 2007 WXXI-TV/ Assignment: The World. All Rights Reserved.