There was always something that needed doing on the farms of the 1800s

Shopping malls, restaurants, theaters. Combine those amusements with the host of church and school events that take place in our communities these days (especially as the winter holiday season progresses), along with home entertainment options ranging from TV shows to streaming videos and surfing social media, and it’s pretty clear we don’t lack for things to do in the Illinois of the 2020s.

But in the Illinois of the 1860s, most of those entertainment options weren’t even possibilities on the horizon, much less made available to the farm families then dominating Kendall County and the rest of the Midwest.

So what did people do then? Mostly, they worked, although there were a surprising number of entertainment options available then, too, ranging from oyster stew suppers to lively dances.

The seasons then had a much larger effect on life than they do today, largely because of the heavy reliance on agriculture. In those days, there really was “a time for every purpose under heaven” when livelihoods depended on jobs on the farm getting done in a timely fashion.

In 1861, John Savage, a farmer in Salem Township, Henry County, Iowa, kept a diary in which he recorded many of the activities of his family. While Henry County, Iowa, is a ways from Kendall County, Illinois, the monthly work schedule of the Savage family closely mirrored the same kind of work farm families were doing here in northern Illinois. The difference was that much of the work the Savages were doing was more common in Kendall County a decade or more before 1861, meaning it was closer to what was happening in Kendall County in the 1840s and 1850s.

What was the Savages' farm year like? It started in January when hogs were butchered for the use of the family. The hams and bacon were smoked in the farm smokehouse, and lard was rendered out of the carcasses for use in cooking and in preserving the rest of the pork, which was cooked and then layered in crocks or barrels with melted lard, which created an air-tight seal. In addition to butchering, fence rails and firewood were cut in the farm’s timbered sections, and corn that had been bundled into shocks the previous fall to dry was hauled in from the fields, husked by hand and fed to the livestock.

In February, the family continued cutting rails and firewood and hauling in corn shocks to feed livestock.

In March, Savage and his son used grub hoes to clear hazel brush from the 10 acres they planned to plow for crops later in the spring. Rail splitting continued, and lambs were born.

When April rolled around, the Savages painted a solution of lye and lime on the trunks of apple trees in their orchard to discourage pests. Oats were sowed that month, and the male lambs were neutered. Meanwhile, the cattle and pigs were released from confinement to graze freely. By the 1860s here in northern Illinois, that practice had disappeared – livestock was kept fenced in.

May was the month to plant potatoes, sorghum and corn, while work on clearing the 10 acres continued, and the stacked brush was burned. The rails cut during the winter were hauled to surround unfenced improved land plus the 10 acres of former hazel brush the Savages planned to cultivate; fences were required to keep roving livestock out of fields. At the very end of the month, the Savages washed their flock of sheep in their creek in preparation for shearing.

Sheep shearing was done in early June and the 10 acres cleared over the winter was plowed. The Savage men worked off their road tax (road taxes could be paid in cash or labor; most farmers chose labor) by helping repair township roads damaged during the winter and spring. Then they cultivated their corn for the first time, to remove weeds.

In July, the corn got its final cultivation. From then on it was high enough to shade out the weeds. Hay was cut and stacked. Later in the month, the farm’s ripe stands of wheat and oats were cut, bundled, and stacked in shocks to dry.

The wheat and oat harvest was completed in early August; threshing, however, wouldn’t take place for another month until the grain had completely dried. Manure that accumulated over the past year was cleaned out of the cattle yard and the barn and hauled to and spread on the acreage planned for planting winter wheat.

September was a busy month. The fall wheat crop was planted, and the pigs, which had been roaming free and feeding in the vicinity, were rounded up and penned for fattening. That particular year (1861), the Savages built a new stable and repaired the fence around the barnyard. They cut their sorghum crop and pressed it to provide a sweetener similar to molasses. Threshing – removing grain from the stalks – began as the neighborhood threshing ring swung into action. In addition, the corn harvest began as part of the crop was cut and stacked into shocks.

In October, threshing oats and wheat was finished and the corn harvest shifted into high gear. Apples were harvested and stored for the winter, as was the potato crop.

November saw corn husking completed. The hogs, now nicely fattened on corn, were herded to market. The remaining rails cut the previous winter were hauled out of the timber and more fence was built to protect cropland.

By December, most of the year’s work was done. Additional rails were split in the timber, and hauled to the barnyard where they were stacked around the hay stack to protect it from the cattle, which with the onset of cold weather, were now spending most of their time at the farmstead where food was plentiful.

And in January, the cycle began anew.

The Savage family’s year, with surprisingly few variations, was the same one most farmers experienced during the next 100 years. While most farms have now turned into grain factories, today’s farm families would probably find the Savage family’s activities perfectly comprehensible—which is what makes history so fascinating to study.

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