"Elijah Oliver . . . was born in the Cove in 1824. After he married, he and his family moved out of the Cove before the Civil War. After the war, he bought this property and moved back in. In the time and place of this family, more buildings were required for living than now. With no refrigerator or freezer, they needed the springhouse to keep milk and butter cool. They needed the smokehouse to store and preserve hams, shoulders, and side meat for an entire year. They ate mostly pork because it was easier to preserve than other meats. They needed the corn crib to store enough corn for grinding into meal to last until the next harvest. Having no automobile or motorized farm equipment, they needed horses or mules to pull plows, harrows, buggies, sldes and wagons. And they needed a barn to shelter these animals, along with the cows that provided milk. Hay to feed them was stored in the barn loft. Water for drinking, cooking, bathing and laundry had to be carried from the spring. No easy task. Much later than the time of Oliver, just one family in the Cove had wate piped from a spring into the house to a homemade kitchen sink. Two or three other families piped water from springs to faucets just outside their houses. . . . Buildings were of log construction until the 1870's because there was no nearby sawmill to saw logs into lumber."


The fireplaces in the house.







I love Cades Cove, Aleta. So glad you all got to see it. I could stay there forever ---and just enjoy everything at the park. Great pictures of the Oliver place. Did you stop at any of those precious churches?
ReplyDeleteHugs,
Betsy
ahhhh, if those walls could talk!
ReplyDeleteHi, Betsy & Cedar -- Thanks for visiting. I know I've been lax on blogging lately. I've been working a lot outside, and my computer is so slow. I do read your blogs but can't always post.
ReplyDeleteBetsy -- We didn't have time to stop at any of the churches. Next time! There definitely will be one!