Eli Cooper
Information from his son,
Eli Franklin Cooper
recorded by Nellie Cooper Rogers
Life on the Frontier
By Libbie E. Cooper Olsen
In frontier living their nearest neighbor often lived miles away. People in the frontier lived
far from cities or even towns.
At that time, there was no electricity. There was no light except from the fireplace and
candles. The family made their own candles. They made their own soap, both for
washing their clothes and themselves. The family also made their own shoes and
clothing. It seemed that there always was thread or yarn to be spun, cloth to be woven,
because only then could clothes be made. Living in Alabama and Georgia in the early
1800's was very different than now. Most of the land was full of trees and brush. Ifa
person bought land or claimed it under the homestead program, he would have to cut
the trees down, pull out the stumps left after the tree was cut, then dig up the bushes
and brush that grew under the trees. The first year, most men would clear just enough
ground to put a house, maybe a barn for the animals, and a place for their gardens.
Then they would begin with a small plot to plant crops for food. Almost every man
learned to hunt the woods for wild animals for their family to eat. This was how they
provided enough meat for the family, and that meat also had to be cut, cured, smoked,
or dried.
We do not know many specific things of Eli's life as a child in Alabama. We do know it
was a pioneer life with lots of fishing, hunting, trapping, building of log cabins and
working in fields, caring for animals and helping his father and mother with many tasks.
They raised their own food, so there was gardening to be done, as well as working in
the fields. There were chickens to be cared for, cows to milk, and then the milk had to
be cared for, and butter to be churned. When they could spare a cow or pig for meat,
then they had meat to cut up, to cure or to smoke or to dry. They had no refrigeration,
so all meat had to be specially prepared so they could eat the meat for a period of time
after slaughtering the animal.
If the family was to be comfortable and provided for, all members took the responsibility
of keeping prepared and ready. Always there seemed to be candles to be made, or
hides to help tan, sheds that needed mending or adding to and then the ever present
weeds that continually tried to take over the good soil.
Everyone in the family worked because every person was needed and was important to
the family. As the family did their chores, they talked to each other. They made plans for
the next day and the next month. Each person shared their ideas and hopes with each
other.
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The children worked along with their parents. The family raised their own food and
made their own shoes and cloth. Each night the children were required to fill their shoes
tightly packed with seeded cotton, picking the seeds from the cotton by hand. As they
had no gins, this is the way they got seeds from the cotton. Martha spun this into cloth
and made their clothes by hand.
Eli, The Man
A Cooper by name and A Cooper by trade
By Nellie Cooper Rogers
Cooper means "barrel maker". My grandfather was a Cooper by name and a Cooper by
trade. He made barrels, tubs, and wash basins, milk pans, buckets, foot tubs, and so
on.
Eli was also a millwright, a wagon maker, and he made all their furniture including the
chairs. He also made almost all the chairs in the settlements around. They were leather
bottomed. The skins of the animals were tanned into leather, and then made into chair
bottoms. The wood for them was hickory and was secured from the swamps.
He made all his family's shoes and also his neighbors. All the leather was tanned and
prepared by Eli, before it was ready to make shoes. Hickory (pegs) were used instead
of nails, and hog bristles were used as a needle.
He was also a blacksmith. His plows were made from steel bars ordered from Savanna,
Ga. After moving to Florida, he was the only shoemaker and blacksmith for twenty miles
around.
Eli also made Martha's looms, spinning wheel and a small hand gin. Eli also made and
repaired guns. You have often seen old pictures of water mills. Eli made the water
wheels to many of these old mills. They were called "tub wheels".
Lots of the dippers which they drank out of were made out of water gourds. I have had a
drink out of these myself but the water does not taste very good. I guess they got used
to that though. They also had gourds made into wash pans and hand gourds (to carry
water to the field just as we would use a canteen) until Eli made them of wood.
Florida
By Nellie Cooper Rogers
They were said to have arrived in Orange County (now Lake County) in December
about 1860.
When Eli Franklin was a baby his parents moved to Florida to improve their financial
condition. They had heard of the citrus boom in Florida and had heard much about
gathering "gold" from trees. When they reached Florida their draft animals gave out.
They also found to get an orange grove one had to fill out papers and file them on the
land with the government, clear it. When that was done, they had to then buy young
orange trees at a high price, plant them and then wait several years before they began
to yield. They were discouraged.
My grandmother's (Martha) brothers, Jim and John McEwen had made the trip to
Florida with them, but when they found it wasn't going to be very easy to get their "gold",
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they decided to return to where they came from (where that is, we do not really know).
When their draft animals gave out, Eli and Martha could not go back nor could they go
on. So, they took up land and cleared the land. That means they cut the trees down and
they also had to cut and clear the undergrowth brush so they could build a house and
sheds for the animals as well as to clear enough land to plant crops. Eli quickly built a
small cabin of logs with a clay fireplace on which they cooked.
Frontier Life
By Nellie Cooper Rogers
Like all the other frontier families, they raised their own food. Eli Franklin, their son,
remembers that their food consisted of corn pone made from home ground corn. Corn
pone is kind of like the cornbread we eat now, only it was made with more coarsely
ground corn flour and therefore the bread was heavier. The family raised their own corn.
They also grew turnips, cabbage, beans, carrots, sweet potatoes, "cow peas" (black
eyed peas), turnips and other vegetables that were the main things they ate. They also
found that the heart of the small palms that grew thick at the edge of the swamp made a
delectable vegetable. It was called wild palm. The tender leaves, or the center of the
palm was a white color. This was gathered and made into a delicious dish of what they
called "Swamp Cabbage". It was fixed as we fix cabbage now with a nice piece of pork
to season it. There also were wild berries from the woods and swamps that they
gathered.
The family often found wild honey in the woods, and they also made molasses or syrup
from the juice of the sugar cane that they raised. For meat, they raised their own pigs
and cows and chickens.
They had whatever wild game the woods provide such as deer and bear and also wild
turkey. Deer and bear could be found almost anywhere and were hunted most of the
year. Hunting was one of the favorite pastimes of the men and everyman had his
hunting hounds.
The land that Eli and Martha lived on in Orange County, Florida was partly cultivated
and part of it was open forest and scrub. Scrub was land upon which grew an
undergrowth sometimes as high as a man's head. It was beautiful country with forest on
every side, with cultivated spots here and there, but most of it was primitive forest. Eli's
property was said to be near a lake, and there are so many lakes in Orange County,
(now named Lake County) it is very probably true.
Educating the Family
By Nellie N. Olsen Ostler
Almost all of the families taught their children to read from the Bible.
While working with their parents and with each other. Eli and his brothers and sisters
were taught by their parents how do many things. Eli learned how to farm. He learned
how to plant and care for the crops that would supply the food for his children.
His father taught Eli how to make tools that were necessary for them to do their chores.
In this way he learned to make tools and items for the household. Often the father would
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make just about all the furniture in the home like the beds, the chairs, the work benches,
the tables.
Eli's father, Robert Cooper, taught his children about the weather, the clouds, etc. Eli
learned much about the stars in the heavens. All his life, he planted crops according to
the phases of the moon. He was a very knowledgeable farmer and his crops grew
plentifully.
Eli's father, Robert, also taught him how to track animals and to hunt. Eli became a very
proficient hunter. In the woods there were bears, deer and wild turkeys. Around the
lakes there were ducks, and other water fowl. Eli learned a lot about hunting, like the
fact that it was necessary to kill an animal in a place where all the meat could be carried
out and saved. With food so scarce, they learned it was wise not to waste anything.
Almost every man and boy learned to fish. Fish could also be smokes, salted, or dried
to be eaten later.
Eli's parents also taught their children how to take care of their animals. Animals were
important to those frontier people. Horses did much of the tasks we use cars, tractors,
and trucks for to haul loads as well as to transport people.
Eli's father was also very skilled as a blacksmith, a millwright, a barrel maker, a
shoemaker, a wagon maker, and many other things. Eli's father carefully taught these
things to his children as they helped him.
Eli would often make things for others. He would trade his work for their specialized
work, or maybe they might even pay cash once in awhile.
Fiddlin'
Information by Libbie E. Cooper Olsen
Eli was a proficient fiddler. Most fiddlers learn to play the fiddle by watching other and
then imitating them and often could not read music. We don't know if Eli learned to
fiddle from his father, Robert, or whether it was an uncle or someone else. But then, he
didn't need to read notes because he didn't need to. Playing the fiddle was fun and
natural to him (of course it still took a lot of practice). Eli was the fiddler of the settlement
for the dances. They came from miles around for these dances. He was the best
musician in the country and my, "how he made that fiddle sing." Eli played often in
community functions, and church functions
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