Furniture for the house was made by the old soldier; this was generally of the roughest kind. They had the fashion of exchanging work, as well as of having bees. Some of them had been mechanics in other days. A carpenter was a valuable acquisition, and while others would assist him to do his heavy work, he would in return do those little nicer jobs by which the household comforts would be increased. No chests of drawers were required; benches were made of split basswood, upon which to sit, and tables were manufactured in the same style. The bedstead was constructed at the end of the cabin, by taking poles of suitable size and inserting the ends between the logs which formed the walls on either side. These would be placed, before the cracks were filled in and plastered.
A log hut constructed, wherein to live; and such plain rough articles of furniture as were really necessary provided, the next thing was to clear the land, thickly covered with large trees and tangled brush. Many a swing of the unhandy axe had to be made ere the trees could be felled, and disposed of; and the ground made ready for the grain or root.
A few years later, and the settler would, in the dry summer season, fire the woods, so as to kill the trees. By the next year they would have become dry, so that by setting fire again they would burn down. In this way much labor was saved. But sometimes the fire would prove unmanageable and threaten to destroy the little house and log barn, as well as crops. Another mode of destroying the large trees, was to girdle them—that is, to cut through the bark all around the tree, whereby it was killed, so that the following year it would likewise burn down.
A portion of the disbanded troops, as well as other loyalists, had been bred to agricultural pursuits; and some of them, at least those who had not been very long in arms, could the more readily adapt themselves to their new circumstances, and resume their early occupation. The axe of the woodsman was soon swung as vigorously along the shores of the well wooded river and bay, as it had been in the forests years before, in the backwoods of New England.
It is no ordinary undertaking for one to enter the primeval forest, to cut down the tough grained trees, whose boughs have long met the first beams of the rising sun, and swayed in the tempest wind; to clear away the thick underbrush, which impedes the step at every turn; to clear out a tangled cedar swamp, no matter how hardy may be the axeman—how well accustomed to the use of the implement. With the best mode of proceeding, with an axe of excellent make, and keen edge; and, combined with which, let every other circumstance be favorable; yet, it requires a determined will, an iron frame and supple muscle, to undertake and carry out the successful clearing of a farm. But, the refugees and disbanded soldiers, who formed the pioneers of Upper Canada, enjoyed not even ordinary advantages. Many of the old soldiers had not the slightest knowledge of the duties of pioneer life, while others had but an imperfect idea. Some scarcely knew how to fell a tree. Hardy and determined they were; but they possessed not the implements requisite to clear off the solid trees. We have seen that the axe furnished by government was large and clumsy, and could be swung only with difficulty and great labor, being nothing more than the ship axe then in use. Slow and wearisome indeed, must have been the progress made by the unaccustomed woodsman in the work of clearing, and of preparing the logs for his hut, while he had, as on-lookers, too often a feeble wife and hungry children.