In Pioneer days soapmaking was a important and necessary task that was performed in most of the pioneer homes under the supervision of the farm wife. Most of our pioneer grandparents believed in cleanliness, and the strong lye soap helped to keep the home spun clothes, sheets and blankets clean. The unpainted wooden floors, usually made from oak, pine, cypress or popular were scrubbed each week with a solution of lye soap water, applied with a scrub mop made from corn shucks. The strong lye water bleached the boards to the true color of the wood from which it was made.

     Prior to the turn of the century and up until World War I, many farm families obtained their supply of lye from oak ashes, saved from winter fires from the fire place. The ashes were kept in large "ash-hoppers" made from a large section of a hollow set upright, one end cut on a slight slant and placed on boards to fit the slant of the hopper, or some hoppers, as these contraptions were called were made of boards made in a "V" shape, the lye running to the bottom and through to the container. When the lye was needed gallons of water was poured over the ashes until the brown liquor (lye) was extracted.

    The fat used in soap making came usually from pork grown on the farm or the woods. During hog killing time the lard was "rendered" and the inferior fat from the chitlins was used for soapmaking. Throughout the year the extra fat from fried meats, not used for making gravies or for seasoning vegetables was also saved carefully after each meal for the soap fat. The wooden soap fat bucket or crock for holding rancid fat was kept in the smoke house, covered with a clean croker bag weighted down with a wooden lid, for it became "smelly" in time. This rancid soap fat was boiled in an iron kettle, outside; it too, had its own peculiar odor. This liquid fat was strained and mixed with the brown lye. As the farm woman stirred lye into the fat she stirred until the soap was of the consistency of jelly and that is just what the lye soap looked like, brown jelly.

    Lye soap dish water was saved after each dishwashing and mixed with table scraps and meal, was used to feed the "fatter" hogs which in turn would fatter more easily (without worms) and so the cycle would begin again, the fat hogs helped to feed the family, and furnish more fat to make soap.

    The brown jelly-like soap was kept in a large crockery jar in the smoke house, and the housewife would go there to replenish her soap gourd for the dish washing, laundry and scrubbing.

Pioneer Carlton family of Hillsborough County, Florida

    For washing clothes they had log troughs, hollowed out with a partition in the center and a solid block on one end which they used as a "battling block." Wet clothes were laid on this block and beat furiously with a "battling stick" to loosen the dirt before they were washed in the log troughs. They were then boiled in iron pots to finish the process. Their soap was made with wood ashes leached through a hopper and cooked with beef bones, until finally lye and potash was introduced to make soap from. For extra nice starching they ran arrow roots through the cane mill, washed the starch out and let it dry. Arrow root was also grown for hog feed. Brooms and scrub brushes were made from palmetto stalks and fronds. Brooms were also made from broom-straw which wild in the woods.

Confederate Receipt Soap

    Pour twelve quarts of boiling water upon five pounds of unslaked lime. Then dissolve five pounds of washing soda in twelve quarts of boiling water, mix the above together, and let the mixture remain from twelve to twenty-four hours, for the purpose of chemical action. Now pour off all the clear liquid, being careful not to disturb the sediment. All to the above three and a half pounds of clarified grease, and from three to four ounces of rosin. Boil this compound together for one hour, and pour off to cool. Cut it up in bars for use, and you are in possession of a superior chemical soap, costing about three and a half cents per pound in ordinary times.

Soft Soap

     Bore some holes in a lye barrel, put some straw in the bottom, lay some unslaked lime on it, and fill your barrel with a good hard wood ashes, wet it, and pound it down as you put it in. When full, make a basin in the ashes and pour in water, keep filling it as it sinks in the ashes. In the course of a few hours the lye will begin to run. When you have a sufficient quantity to begin with, put your grease in a large iron pot, pour in the lye, let it boil. Three pounds of clean grease are allowed for two gallons of soap.