Person:Philip Foust (3)

Philip Foust was the eldest of John Foust's nine children. He came with his family from Pennsylvania to North Carolina in 1764, where they settled in the north central part of the colony. He married Catharine Clapp and they were parents of ten children, seven boys and three girls. The Clapps had come to NC with the Fousts and Albrechts. By the 1780's, Philip had moved his family over the Appalachian mountains, to the area which later became Sullivan county, in the northeast corner of Tennessee. There he bought 200 acres of forestland along the Holston river. Two later purchases added another 73 acres. The woods offered good hunting to provide meat for the family, as well as nuts, berries, and wild greens until the land could be cleared for a garden, crops, and pasture.

    Corn was a staple of the diet, made into cornbread, grits, johnnycake, hominy, and roasted or parched. Wheat flour for baking and other uses was only sporadically available as wheat was primarily grown in the middle colonies. A typical meal might include a stew of vegetables with bear meat or venison, which often simmered overnight in an iron pot hung over the embers in the fireplace. Since there was no canning or refrigeration, the winter diet consisted of salt-cured meat and cornbread, supplemented by dried fruits and vegetables. The pelts from animals taken in hunting could be tanned for making into clothing or exchanged with traders for the few other necessities the family needed.
    A house in the settlement was typically a structure built of logs, so deftly notched with an ax that no nails were needed. The chinks between the logs were tightly filled with clay and straw or moss and the roof consisted of wooden slabs over poles that, in turn, were held down by additional poles or stones. Any window was small, covered with greased paper and usually provided with shutters. The door was of thick planks sturdy enough to resist assault; it was locked in place by a wooden bar, to which was attached a leather latch string. The string was pushed throug a hole to the outside so the door could be opened during the day and pulled in at night for protection against intruders. It was this device which was the origin of the saying "the latch string is always out" to indicate a warm welcome to visitors.
    The cabin probably contained one room and a fireplace with a sleeping loft for the children that was reached by ladder. It had a packed earth or puncheon floor (A puncheon floor consisted of logs split into planks). The furniture was primitive and hand made on the premises. Beds were canvas ticks stuffed with corn husks or pine needles and covered with animal skins, placed either on  the floor or on wood slab frames supported at one end by pegs driven into the wall and by two legs at the other. More comfortable feather ticks were used by those who raised geese.
    Basic cooking utensils and tools were usually brought along by the settlers, although many made their plates and spoons of wood or horn. Clothes for the women were of simple homespun linen or linsey-woolsey; men wore clothing made of the same material or dressed deerskin, buckskin moccasins and legging wrapped around the lower legs to protect against briers and snakes.
    This was wild country to which Philip had brought his family, with its attendant privations and danger. There was no government to offer protection and rule of law. The region was originally a territory of North Carolina and the settlers had, from the time of the first arrivals, implored the colonial Governor to provide protection from the Cherokee, Creek and other Indian tribes. Due to the remoteness of the area on the west side of the rugged Appalachian mountains, North Carolina did not respond. Although trading was conducted with the Indians and several agreements or treaties were negotiated, one side or the other, or both would violate the accords and killing, burning and pillaging would resume. The settlers were not blameless; the Indians suffered depredations as well.
    To partially address the problem, several leaders of the earlier settlers had, prior to the Fausts arrival, organized a quasi-governmental group called the Wautauga Association and drew up one of the first written constitutions in the colonies. While this resourceful endeavor was most useful in governing the settlements, it did not solve the vexing Indian problem. That problem escalated even further at the start of the Revolution when the British incited the Indians to attack the colonists and provided them with guns. They took many scalps; at one time, in grisly response, a bounty was offered to the settlers for Indian scalps.
    Owning land was an especially hazardous proposition. Indians did not believe land could be owned, only used, and that was the basis upon which it was conveyed to the settlers when they agreed to "sell" it to them. The settlers, on the other hand, believed they were buying the land. A further complication was that the same territory was often claimed by several tribes. Also, occasional unscrupulous land promoters would sell the same property to more than one buyer and, with the lack of official governing bodies, the mechanism for identifying boundaries and proper recording of deeds was poor.
    After the Revolution, despairing of getting help from North Carolina, three counties in the east Tennessee area revolted and formed the new state of Franklin. A government was established based in large part upon the constitution drawn up by the Watauga Association. But it had no currency, so pelts became the primary means of exchange; even the Governor was paid in pelts. The state of Franklin was not recognized by either North Carolina or the newly establishing federal government and lasted only from 1784 until 1788. In 1789, the area became a territory of the new United States government and, in 1796, Tennessee was accepted as the 16th state in the Union.
    Philip and Catherine Foust and their fellow settlers persevered during these tumultuous times, provided for their families, tamed the territory and laid the groundwork for the new state in a new country.

From A Family History by Don Faust, 1997.

1. ↑ A. Donovan Faust (Foust). A Family History: The Ancestors of Thomas Wilson Faust. (1997).
2. ↑ From the Files of Sissy Hime Norris, 9/2001. (sissyhimenorris@@juno.com).