Welcome to The Progress Museum

The 1850 cabin

We begin in the 1850's at your house that you would have built by hand.  Meet my friends Jonas and Jency.  They came across the mountains with their 6 children, He bought his brother and She brought Grandparents.  They used the felling axe to chop the trees down, the broad axe to flatten the logs on all four sides so that they would fit together, and the Adze to make the knoks.  Finally, they would fill the gaps with material such as clay, mud, straw, hay, or cloth to chink up the walls.  

They used beeswax candles for light, the Hearth for cooking and heat. You have to make all of our furniture and grow all your food.  Since you could not carry alot of items across the Mountians, you needed to make everything once you arrived.  

Food had to be grown and the crops tended.  Preparation and perserving of food was a high priority. 

Making all your clothes was very important.  You could share the sheep, grow cotton or flax.  Spinning and weaving were skills you needed.  Most clothes were made during the Winter months.  

There were two questions that you had to have answers for in 1850 inorder to survive:  1.  How do you make it?   2. How do you fix it?

Source of Heat and Light