Water on the old farmstead was not something taken for granted. We had quite an array of equipment that was pressed into service from time to time. First there were the pumps. There were two pitcher pumps and a wooden plunger pump. Later there was a force pump, but that was after I was gone from home. All were very simple devices. The pitcher pumps were made of fewer than ten parts, plus a few bolts and nuts. There was a top, a handle, a cylinder, a base, a plunger rod and disk, and two valves. All parts except the rod were made of cast iron. The top had two ears extended to hold the handle, a slot in the top for it to work through, and a cast spout. The cylinder was just a straight piece of pipe about 3 inches in diameter. The base was cast with threads cut in it to attach the pipe.

The valves were interesting and practical devices. The plunger valve was a cup shaped piece of leather with a hole in the center that had a cast iron rounded disk sitting in it. The foot valve was leather disk with a cast iron slightly dome shaped disk bolted on top of it. Because the leather was flexible, and had a cutout going most of the way around the inside about an inch from the edge, it could work like a flap. When the pump was put together, the bottom of the cylinder held the foot valve against the base. The handle was fastened to the top, with the rod through the slot, and a set screw (square head) held the top to the cylinder. Now you were ready to pump, if there was water in the well. You poured water into the pump through the slot in the top to wet the leather in the plunger valve (by the way, it was called the sucker), causing it to swell enough to let you pump out enough air to bring the water up to flow out the spout into your pail. You had to work the handle very rapidly to get the water started, but after that it was not difficult at all to fill a pail. You could leave the pump for an hour or so and come back and pump without priming, but eventually the water would leak out and you had to start all over again. There were two other very important, but simple, features on the pump. The iron disc in the center of the sucker had a short nipple cast on its bottom surface, and the foot valve had an angled short projection just over the hinge on its casting. In winter, you were very careful to lift the pump handle as high as it would go and hold it for a few minutes. The nipple on the sucker would be pushed up slightly by the foot valve, and the sucker would raise the foot valve slightly by pushing on the projection over the hinge. This would drain the water out of the pump back down the well, so that in the morning you would not have a frozen and cracked pump. Needless to say, the prime water had better be warm on a winter morning.

In my high school years, my usual routine was to get up, build a fire in the kitchen stove with kindling and coal, heat a kettle of water, carry it a quarter mile to the “other” barn, thaw out the pump and get it started and water the horse. She usually drank about three pails. Then drain the pump and walk back home for buckwheat pancakes, sugar and redeye gravy, and salt pork if we had had a pig to butcher in the Fall. Walking a half-mile to catch the bus was not much after all that activity.

Back to pumps. The other pump was something found only in museums now. Almost all of it could be made right on the farm. There were only two metal parts on it, not counting nails or bolts. They were a spout and the metal part of the sucker valve. Just like the pitcher pumps, it had a cupped leather suction valve, but as far as I can remember, there was no foot valve. You really had to pump that one when you primed it to get the water started. The rest of the pump was all wood. It was a long piece of clear pine about eight inches on a side. Down the center was drilled a four inch hole, all the way through. At the top a slot was cut vertically for about eight inches down. Into this slot a wooden handle was inserted, with a pivot rod through the sides of the slot and the handle. and hanging from the handle was a wooden pump rod. At the bottom end of the rod was the sucker valve. It was deep enough in the well that freezing wasn’t a problem. We didn’t use pipe in that well, but “pump logs”. They were four by four inch, eight foot lengths of clear pine. Lengthwise through the center of each was drilled a hole about an inch and a half in diameter. One end was tapered internally and the other externally. When enough of them had been jammed together, they formed a tube down to the water. The final feature of the pump was a flat square board nailed over the top of the pump. Also there was a little nipple cast on the top of the spout over which you hooked the bail of your water bucket. Priming this pump was more complicated than the pitcher pumps because there was no handy funnel cast into the top. It wasn’t practical to take the top off because it was nailed on. If you had the teakettle you could do a pretty good job of directing the water through the vertical slot. Otherwise you had to slop the water in the general direction of the slot and hope that enough got down into the pump. Then make that handle fly up and down before the water drained past the dried out leather!

But there was more to the water business than the pumps. There was also an old wooden washer tub. The mechanical parts had broken before my time and had been removed, but the tub still held water. There was a copper wash boiler, a galvanized wash tub, a large and a small wooden barrel, and finally the stone boat. Of course there was also an assortment of milk pails and other water buckets. The reason for all this was that all of the water had to be carried to the house, and the wells were not dependable in dry weather. There were three of them. The one nearest the house was only twelve feet deep, just through the first seam of limestone. Below that was a layer of shale, and next was coal, with a high sulphur content. This well had water in useable quantities only six to eight months each year. The next well was about seventy yards from the house near the smallest of our two barns. It was a little deeper, and further down the hill, so that it was deeper into the water table, even though it was only about sixteen feet deep. It usually had enough water for drinking and cooking, but not for washing in the dry months. It had the wooden pump that I described previously. On the day before wash day we had a regular ritual of getting ready. First the copper wash boiler was put on the back of the stove. Then a parade of kids would start for the wooden pump. The bigger ones carried two pails, the smaller, one. Pump them full and carry them to the house. Try not to slop too much on the ground and yourself. When the wash boiler on the stove was full, start on the wooden tub. That was the biggest container. Then came the galvanized tub, and of course, leave all of the pails full. Even with that much effort, washing was done with the white things first, then the dark clothes in the same water. Nothing was double rinsed. The hand wringer did a pretty good job of getting the water out.

But when the main well got low, other things had to be done. The third well was across the hollow and too far to carry a large quantity of water. Besides it was shallower than the main well and would only produce a few buckets a day in dry weather. First came the exciting part. We went done to the run and built a dam of logs and sod. As it slowly filled, creating a miniature estuary, we watched with excitement, fascinated by the deepening water and watching for leaks or weakness in the dam. If a leak were found there would be a scurrying with wet sods and clay on the inside of the dam until the water was stopped. Nobody was either dry or clean when that job was done. We learned early that you couldn’t plug a leak from the outside. The next day we would load the two barrels and the galvanized tub onto the stone boat, hook up Nellie, and drag it to the dam. We had to dip water out of the dam carefully, or the mud would get stirred up. Then there was a long wait for it to settle again. Finally there was the long drag back up the hill to the house. We parked the stone boat as close as we could get to the back porch so that transferring water to the wooden tub and the wash boiler could be done without a lot of walking. That usually went quite fast because we didn’t have to pump.

The run was usually dependable enough to keep us in washing water and drinking water for the cows and horse, but it was too contaminated to use for cooking and drinking. When the main well went dry, we had another fallback. About a half-mile across the hollow and partway up Thompson’s hill was a spring that had a very reliable flow. It was a pleasant walk across the fields and through the woods to the little spring. But it was far enough that you tried not to go more than once a day. That meant that we were pretty careful about how much water we used. Usually in the evening, we would organize a safari of at least three, each carrying a pail, and make the trip through the woods to Thompson’s hill. There we filled the buckets a dipper full at a time, and hiked back to the house. The experience was similar to Robert Frost’s “Running Brook”, but we couldn’t hear the water because it was little more than a seep forming a tiny spring. One of my pleasant memories is of the time after Lucile and I were married that we visited the farm during the dry season. We both love walking through a hardwood forest and our evening walks through the woods to the spring were especially fulfilling.

On the whole, I remember water carrying more as a pleasant chore rather than the contrary. Maybe those experiences explain in part my fascination with lakes, rivers, and boats.

Paul B. Campbell
1988