Whisky
and brandy were medicine, used as first aid, regardless of the ailment,
while awaiting the arrival of the doctor with his saddlebags of pills
and powders. Their social value, too, was recognized, and the gourd and
demijohn appeared almost simultaneously with the arrival of any guest.
But it was bad form--evidence of a weak will--for anyone, save the old
men, to show the influence of what they drank. This was, however, a
perquisite and one of the tolerated pleasures of old age.
In the records of a lawsuit tried in Fentress county in 1841 the
price-list of some necessaries and luxuries are shown:
"To two gallons of liquor, $1; one quart of whisky and six pounds of
pork, 80 cents; one deer-skin, 75 cents; two kegs of tar, $2; two ounces
of indigo, 40 cents; one gallon of whisky, 50 cents; five and one-half
pints of apply brandy, 31-1/4 cents."
They were almost uneventful years at Pall Mall from the days of Coonrod
Pile until the Civil War. Less than a score of years lapsed from the
death of the pioneer in 1849 until over the mountains broke the warstorm
in a fury that has no parallel except in wars where father has fought
son, and brother fought brother; where the cause of war and the
principles for which it is fought are lost in the presence of cruelties
created in personal hatred and deeds of treachery perpetrated for
revenge.
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