Jr. High History Lesson Includes Hex Culture
BY BARBARA MILLER
Lycoming Co. Correspondent
WATSONTOWN - One of the
most popular exhibitions during
Heritage Days at the Hower-Slot
House in Watsontown is a rare flax
culture demonstration performed
by Richard Nomhold.
Nomhold, a geography and
social studies teacher at Warrior
Run Middle School, has a strong
interest in colonial culture. He also
teaches a class in local history.
His interest in the culture of the
early settlers, Nomhold says,
began when he was a boy.
“When 1 was a kid I collected
Indian relics ... Then I became
interested in the culture of the
people who replaced them. I find
everything about it fascinating,
terribly fascinating. How did
people make their clothing ...
raise sheep? How did they do it?”
Nomhold owns many original
pieces from the colonial period. On
the wall of the Hower-Slote House,
currently being restored by the
Warrior Run-Fort Freeland
Heritage Society, hang
memorabilia such as arrowheads,
musket balls and powder horns.
Nomhold found some on the
property while Penn State students
excavated others from nearby
Fort Freeland in 1979. According to
Nomhold, Fort Freeland was the
site of the only battle of the
Revolutionary War fought in
central Pennsylvania.
Nomhold uses the Hower-Slote
House, built in 1829, as a classroom
where his students leant about
colonial life first hand. The house
is located about a quarter of a mile
from the Warrior Run School.
There, in addition to flax culture,
he teaches students about colonial
living, including lessons in cooking
over a fireplace using authentic
period utensils to prepare dishes
enjoyed by the early settlers.
For the past few years Nornhold
and his students have sown a 30-by
-40 foot section with flax near the
Hower-Slote House in what may be
the only remaining flax patch
under cultivation in Pennsylvania.
Here in a hands-on experience they
learn flax culture from the plant
ing of the seed to the weaving of
fibers on a loom. They relive a
tradition that was once an
essential part of the lives of the
earliest settlers to the region.
“When I teach, I just don’t want
to tell them,” Nomhold says.
Hackling the flax removes the final particles of the outer
stem, leaving behind fiber only.
Richard Nor ix in one. jx
he has processed in the other. The processed flax is ready to
be spun into yarn.
“When they participate, they
remember it forever.”
According to Nomhold, sizable
quantities of flax were being grown
in Pennsylvania as early as 1698.
Flax was cultivated then, as it is
now, for seed as well as for its linen
fiber. Linseed oil extracted from
the seed is used in the production of
paints and linoleum among other
things, while linseed cake, because
of its high protein content, is
valued as an animal food. Mid
western states such as South
Dakota, Nomhold says, grow flax
for linseed oil, whereas flax grown
for fiber is cultivated overseas in
countries like Holland.
Before the advent of the cotton
gin, growing flax was necessary to
produce clothing for the family and
to provide household linens. The
average family planted two acres
of flax, allowing approximately
one quarter acre of flax per person
per year.
In April, Nornhold says, early
settlers broadcast the flaxseed on
the prepared soil and harrowed it
lightly into the ground. Since the
flax plant doesn’t compete well
with weeds, the task of weeding
usually fell to the young girls while
the young men often sat around the
edges of the field keeping watch to
protect their counterparts from the
“devil.” Folklore at the time,
explains Nornhold, associated the
flax patch with the devil and,
therefore, the young girls needed
protection.
In mid-July the flax was har
vested by pulling handfuls out by
the roots since the fiber extends
into the root of the plant. The
handfuls were then tied into small
bundles and shocked like sheaves
of wheat in the field. By harvest
time flax achieved a height of 18 to
36 inches and its small blue flowers
had turned to a seed boll.
Threshing to remove the seed
boll was the next step in the flax
growing process, according to
Nomhold. It was accomplished in
varying ways, but was usually
done by hand on the bam floor.
Next, in a ritual peculiar to flax,
the bundles of flax were retted or
rotted by spreading the flax out in
a field for three to five weeks until
the outer fibers began to rot. This
procedure, known as the dew
retting process, rotted the natural
muscUage of the outer fibers or
husks so they loosened from the
inner fibers. Some farmers
preferred to immerse the flax in
pond water for a certain period of
time for the same purpose.
Braking of the flax, which
Nomhold says was considered the
hardest part of the flax operation,
came after the flax had been dried
in a rough fireplace to make it very
brittle. The flax brake was a piece
of equipment usually constructed
of oak timbers which sat on four
legs and was used to break the
woody boon of the flax while ex
posing the inner fibers. It was
operated by one person who held
the flax in one hand while with the
other hand lifting the heavy hinged
top which came down to break the
brittle plant.
Although Nomhold agrees that
braking flax is the most physically
demanding component of the flax
(Turn to Page B 18)
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