Sanford - Martha Beck
Source: Jamestown Press Jamestown, (Boone County) Indiana Friday,
15 September 1905 page 1
Martha
Beck Sanford, daughter of Solomon and Elizabeth Beck, was born near Old Town,
North Carolina, 12 November 1823. When she was five years old her parents moved
with their family to near what is Beckville, Montgomery County. They settled in
an almost unbroken forest and for quite a while had no neighbors nearer than
four miles.
They
lived on an Indian trail that lead from Thorntown to Cornstalk Creek. The
Indians came frequently by her home to trade beads, silver plates, blankets,
soap and eatables. These Indians had in their possession two white women whom
they had doubtless stolen. They gave their names as Nancy and Sallie Batiste.
Little Martha's home for the first summer was a small three- sided tent made
with poles and covered with bark. Before winter came, however, her parents had
erected a small, low log hut, with a string door latch and a stick and mud
flue. The floor of the cabin was made of puncheons and its roof of clapboards.
The loft was reached by means of a peg ladder stairway. She had as her
neighbors the turkey, black bear, deer, wild hogs, pheasants, wolves, wildcats
and rattlesnakes. Her bread for the first year was made of Indian meal ground
by a water mill, more than a score of miles from their home. Her parents made
their own hominy in a mortar. Their turkey and venison were cooked in the broad
fire place on a spit. Later they made their bread from wheat they grew on their
place, which they cut with a sickle and threshed with a flail.
Her
education was received from subscription school, which lasted only three months
in the year. In accordance with the times, her master had a very limited
education. She studied the testament, the spelling book and wrote a little. The
schoolhouse where she first attended was a low building made of logs. It had a
puncheon floor, a broad board door, a fireplace, nearly across the end of the
room, benches supported by round sticks, and a writing desk made of hewn log,
which extended along the sides of the room. The windows consisted of greased
paper. She wrote with a goose quill pen, made and kept in order by the master.
She learned to scutch, hackle and spin flax, which she wove into towels,
tablecloths, sheets etc.
Remnants
of her work are kept in the family, which have been in use over sixty years.
While her opportunities for an early education were poor, she afterward
acquired a fairly good, practical education. One of her superior
accomplishments is that of cooking. She has earned many prizes at the County
fairs on her most excellent bread. Her immediate relatives belong largely to
the Peredestinarian (sic?) Baptist Church. Her father's house served as a
Baptist tavern and people rode for many miles on horseback to attend Church.
She
has been a faithful member of the Disciples Church for about a quarter of a
century. She is a great lover of flowers and adorns her home with most
beautiful ones. She is of a kind cheerful disposition and has not an enemy on
earth. She was married to George Sanford in 1847, with whom she has lived
happily ever since. She has seven children. They are Mary E. Stancel, of
Advance; Sarah J. Stephens, R.W. Sanford of Lebanon, and Eliza M. Evans of
Indianapolis. Her daughter Ella died in 1879. She has moved only twice in her
married life of 58 years. She has had a good comfortable home all these years.
She and her good husband are living at present at new Ross, Montgomery County.
Mrs. Sanford is in her 82 year. Being the only one living of the old generation
of Becks, she was chosen to allow her picture to be placed on badges worn by
the Beck people at their reunion, Sept. 7, 1905- Lebanon Pioneer.
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Note
by Janet ISLEY Price, This newspaper story was posted in the Jamestown press 15
September 1905 and was a reprint of a story in the Lebanon Pioneer. I have no
clue what some of the words mean. Scrutch is not in my vocabulary the only
mention I have been able to find on the Internet is it is a tool like a hammer
to make bricks. I am not related to this woman or the Beck family. I am just
posting it for others.