PA Beginnings

if you would thrive, be up by five;
for there is health, and certain wealth
when at the plough, or milking a cow.

pork and beans make muscles strong
something farmers seek.
it is a dish to make life long,
when cooked but once a week.

a smokey chimney may be cured,
a scolding woman not endured;
a farmer’s wife, like cream or curd,
is to be seen but seldom heard.

of all the crops a farmer raises,
or capital employs,
none can bring back such comforts and praises,
as a crop of girls and boys.


Because regular wagoners liked their whiskey and habitated the many taverns and inns along the freight routes, it was customary to drink evenings after a hard day on the road. Regulars often charged drinks at taverns and innkepers kept the record on a sheet of paper or a slate at the bar. If the teamster bought a pint, he would record the letter ”P" after the driver’s name, if it happened to be a quart, he wrote “Q”. when several “P’s” and “Q’s” were after a person’s name the barkeeper would remind him to “mind your P’s and Q’s.”

Wagoners not only enjoyed strong drink but also strong tobacco, mostly cheap cigars, which resulted in the creation and production of a roll-up cigar which sold at four or five for a penny and became know as the Conestoga cigars or “Stogies.”. H.L. Fisher’s poem Wagoning aptly describes the Pittsburgh Stogie, “Mid clouds of cheap tobacco smoke’ think, dark and strong enough to choke.”


Taken from: Pennsylvania Dutch Folklore, 1965