@@sparkyphantom92 Considering you don't personally know the OP or their struggles and life circumstances, you may want to think before leaving such a clueless comment.
I've done the dirt camping with very little food and shelter. At this point in my life, roughing it is a hotel that doesn't have room service. Cheers from sunny, if crazy, California.
Don't forget Samuel Whitmore Jr. 1696-1793. Fought at Lexington and Concord at 79, killed two or three British grenadiers, was shot in the face and bayoneted, left for dead and subsequently recovered and lived another 18 years dying of natural causes.
@@Vandal_Savage Yep, I'm sure of that. bless his old heart. Well, what's that old saying, "the Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." I've worked in nursing homes, and some of the old fellers still felt a little "spry", shall we say?
In 1904, my great grandfather, a barber, slightly knicked his hand pulling a cork out of a hair tonic bottle. A few months later, he was dead of what was probably blood poisoning. We all take for granted: public sanitation, clean drinking water, the development of antibiotics, and "Modern Medicine" overall.
You don't need modern antibiotics near as much as you think. Oregano oil. You should never take antibiotics more than 5x in a life time because it kills your immune system longterm
I have a similar story. My great grandmother received word one of her sons was killed in WW1 and the body was being shipped home. She busied herself with chores. One day she was working in the garden and cut her hand on something (we just don’t know what) and died shortly after with blood poisoning! All this while waiting on her sons body to come home 😢
well my tribal reservation does not and never has had clean drinking water, thanks US Government. We don't have access to clean water in a first world country. What in the hell.
Me too! I just got over a bout of the throwing up disease and I thought I was going to die just yesterday! lol But, when that started happening back in the day - people really did die of what we consider now to be - Oh, I just had a stomach bug.
Every time we twist a faucet and potable water comes out, we should be glad to live in the times we have. A History professor of mine described it as the single greatest advance in Public Health ever made.
The times and places we live in It's started to hit me pretty hard recently how much of a luxury that is, knowing that even in first world countries there are people without clean water.
tbf both asthma and allergies are not necessarily something innate to your genetics and could be different just by growing up in different conditions, but yes, your chances aren't looking too great
well you can take consolation in the fact that you would have been exposed to horses early on and would not be allergic to them (research shows early exposer to allergens prevents allergies)
My Dad's family would have had no problem being transported back into colonial times. Grandpa was an Oklahoma sharecropper during the Great Depression, still farming with mules because he couldn't afford a tractor. Dad and his twin brother were born and raised in a log cabin, with an outside well for water, kerosene lamps for light, and a wood-burning stove and fireplace to cook on and for heat. They kept hogs, chickens and a couple of cows, and Grandma had a big garden. Dad and his twin brother would hunt squirrels, rabbits, and whatever else they could find for something other than hog meat. If the kids started looking "puny," Grandma would send them out to scour the ditches for greens so that they would get some vitamins. For something sweet, they grew sorghum. There was one guy in the county who had a mill and he charged a share of the syrup for using it, you had to bring your own mule to run it though. For money to buy necessities, Grandma and the older kids would second-pick harvested cotton fields for cotton to sell. They did the same for harvested corn fields to feed the hogs. The family didn't have electricity, indoor plumbing, or running water until they moved north after Grandma got a job building bombers during WWII. Grandpa still farmed though, but now with a tractor. Grandma worked as a riveter at Boeing for 30 years. There are B-52s still flying that she helped build.
@@odysseusrex5908 Grandma never said anything about Boeing ever contacting her about not remaining at her job. I think the reason why many women left the work force after WWII is that they were young, their men were back home, and they wanted to start families. Grandma already had kids in grade school. Boeing liked having a few small women riveters because they could get into places that the larger men couldn't. I suppose that once robotics were developed this wasn't so much of an issue anymore but grandma was retired by then.
I really appreciate the constant references to the diaries, journals and other writings of actual people from those times like William Byrd, Nicholas Cresswell, etc.
If anyone here has kids, a cartoon series called Liberty's Kids from 2002 actually follows the Revolution from the perspective of three kids. Joseph Plumb Martin is actually in it too!
Superb video. Towards the end he says they probably thought they were living in the best of times. Makes you wonder if 200 years from now there’ll be a future Townsend video asking if future people could survive during our lifetime.
So many aren’t surviving our time so much death from poverty and lifestyle diseases and so many still don’t have good healthcare access or funds etc. it’s pretty barbaric! As averages those at the midpoint of middle class and above live 15 years longer than those below that point.
@@lijohnyoutube101When I was an assistant editor for a history journal, we published an article on how life expectancy changed at the beginning of the industrial revolution. In Belgium, the life expectancy dropped from 27 years to 17 years when people moved into town. So, when you complain about not surviving modern life, think about having a life expectancy where, at best, you'll probably not survive to 30.
@@lijohnyoutube101Here's another example. Barbara Hanawalt scoured the coroner's rolls of medieval England and found that the average marriage only lasted ten years because one spouse would be dead by then. In other words, if you lived long enough to marry, you had a 50/50 chance of dying before the age of 30-35. You would have six children, only half of whom would live to adulthood. That was the life of an average couple. I've seen theories that "many" people would have lived to be 70 or 80, but they don't explain what they mean by the word "many." One out of a thousand? One out of a hundred? Imo probably not, except in rare times of unusually good harvests and absence of epidemics.
@@edennis8578 oh yea people joke about OSHA but factory and city life was dangerous. Farming also had issues but the barbaric working conditions in the city, bad living conditions, lack of sleep, often poor nutrition, transfer of diseases in cramped environments etc etc The horrific nature of the Triangle Waist Company fire and the locked doors to prevent breaks and theft. The book The Jungle by Sinclair is also a great read! Yes we have made progress but our society particularly in the US is barbaric. We don’t value life, we say we do but in reality we value profit WAY WAY WAY more than life. We have very very little emphasis on quality of life. If someone has half a pulse no matter the horrific nature of their life we have totally normalized whatever it is, deal because all we care about is alive. It’s pathetic…and it’s inhumane. It’s 2024 and look the two employers with the by far percentage of employees on aid, they are Walmart and McDonald’s. The walmart family is collectively currently work around 250 BILLION dollars. That amount of money is so HUGE it’s impossible to even understand the enormity of the size of their wealth. Walmart doesn’t need to be employing at poverty wages to the point it’s employees can’t even pay for housing, food etc. they pay the employees that way due to inconceivable insatiable greed.
I can cook from scratch with 18th century techniques thanks to Townsends. I spin, weave, knit all fibers. I grow flax for linen plus all that takes to process. We had a derecho which took out everything 21st century. Had my Townsend lanterns and could cook over a fire. Big favor we had running water! But I do keep big bottles of water in storage. Skills! Skills. Having basic survival skills and skills to swap.
Yeah, but knowing medicinal skills then wasnt like it is now. I wouldn’t go to a barber/do tor back then. I would find a green woman/herbalist. And Im one. I would grow my own.
In my case I can say with near certainty that I wouldn’t have seen my 20th birthday. Some of my Swiss ancestors tried moving to a Swiss colony in North Africa (Algeria) in the 1850’s. After losing four of their eight children to cholera and typhoid in 1854 and 1855 they went back home. In the 1870’s they tried again and moved to Canada where one of them had 18 children and didn’t lose a single one. Luck played an important part.
My 5th great grandfather was a 9 year old drummer boy during the revolution. He served with his 11 and 16 year old brothers in a unit separate from their father. They were Loyalists so by 1783 they were refugees in Quebec, Canada. When he was older he served in the War of 1812. He died at age 86 in Belleville, Ontario, Canada!
The big difference between us is in the 18th century, children would just die of disease, while in modern times we vaccinate to provide the same resistance that they get by surviving an infection. Medical technology is the main area in which we really move beyond the 18th century. Everything else largely just serves to allow more work to be done with less labour, or for more humans to live in an urban area. The absence of this is overcome through learning - just like a colonist from England would also need to do. People don't survive hard times because of toughness, people get tough because of surviving hard times.
Actually they don't get tough, in fact they have worse health and quality of life outcomes. Manual work takes it's toll on body even today people who do roofing or flooring are basically crippled by the time they are 50.
My great grandparents immigrated from Europe to the US in 1867. They voyaged on one of the “coffin ships,” a freighter that had a deck added below after its original cargo was unloaded. These ships were so named because of the numbers lost at sea. Their party of ten included their aging parents, an uncle, and their children, including an infant. I’ve read that these temporary decks allowed six feet of headroom, just enough to stand. Families were allotted a 6-by-6 foot space on deck-people stacked like cordwood. My imagination can’t do justice to those conditions. I am forever astonished that they all survived. Alas, twelve years later, my great grandfather was shot dead while plowing.
My husband's great grandfather left his home in New York state at 17, tagged along with a wagon train and walked to California, a year later decided to go home and so walked to Panama, crossed the isthmus, was captured by bandits, freed, and caught a ship back up the East Coast. Maybe when you see so many people die young you figure what have I got to lose? Amazing.
Since you mentioned the Lewis & Clark expedition: one of my favorite bits of biomedical history is that the Corps of Discovery were supplied with powerful laxatives called “Rush’s Thunder-clappers” after their creator, Dr. Benjamin Rush (considered the founder of American psychiatry and an ancestor of the doomed Titanic sub guy Stockton Rush). These were used to help treat constipation due to the explorers’ unbalanced meat-heavy diet, and they contained so much mercury that even 200 years later, archaeologists were able to trace their route using chemical analysis of where they stopped to poop.
I am old enough to remember the 1970's, an era of no cellphones and landline phones only, no internet, no personal computers, no GPS or directions online with road maps only, if you missed seeing a movie during it's original theatrical run you missed, and if you missed watching something on TV, you missed watching it!
@@rosskardon7195 VHS and Betamax came out in the 70's old timer so not really no. Also all those movies came back out in the 80's so once again, no not really. You just had to wait a few years.
As a woman, I'd have to worry about working while pregnant and childbirth. Not only that my child might die but many women still die from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth.
I was thinking the same thing. Each of my three children were transverse birth C section births. Would any of us have survived? Most likely not. Child birth, Childhood illnesses and injuries, the lack of antibiotics...it gets pretty bleak.
@@sharpaycutie2 that is an ignorant statement. Please do some research before speaking on this topic. Nature isn't perfect. People and animals die from pregnancy and labor related complications.
And THEN, have a dozen kids!! The Lewis and Clark expedition was amazing. I’m glad I read about it with my kids. Carry On, Mr. Bowditch was another good book to read with them.
Beautiful video! I am very proud to be the descendant of a Huguenot man who moved his family to the frontier of Tennessee. I don't know much about him except he loved good food and wine, but he gave it up for his faith.❤
Kind of like what happened with some of the earliest European settlers, where a lack of knowledge could heavily contribute to mortality in a settlement.
I always think about cutting hay with a scythe and stacking it in haystacks. And then having to winnow the grain. Watering stock… best I can think is they must have driven the animals down to the water. Hauling water for just one horse would be an incredible chore.
I think the first question really is how well do you know yourself. Trying to live with out everything we take for granted would definately show the difference between what a person thinks they can do and what they actually will do. I think the most sensable approach would be to pick a challange, say see what can be foraged for food in the local area and try just living on that for a few weeks. There would be so much to learn.
The living history, reenacting community may be best suited for a permanent transition back in time. Having spent 25 years living, learning, teaching in the 18th century and early 19th and having the tools and skills I can say I can instantly live in the 18th century. For how long, who knows.
I work as an interpreter and foodways demonstrator at a living history museum and am surrounded by amazing people with skills that were mostly forgotten generations ago. Much of what I cook on the open hearth is grown, raised, or processed right there in the village and I often joke to guests that if there was ever an apocalypse, the “villagers” would probably survive! (Well, unless there were zombies involved!)😁
My ancestor, I believe he is my 7th great grandfather, came over to the Americas on the 3rd resupply of Jamestown. He was on the Sea Venture, which was hit by a hurricane and shipwrecked in Bermuda. Made it to jamestown. Eventually the family moved to North Carolina, and following the revolution, made a 3 month trek by ox pulled wagon and by river to be one of the first settlers in western Kentucky. It's crazy to think of how much my family endured. Im actually curious how much ADHD had to deal withy ancestors decisions. Adhd runs in my family's. And everytime ive read a passage about am ancestor, the description sounds like someone with adhd. And that goes hand in hand with risk taking behavior.
@@AlbertRasch-ev8ucI wonder this as well. But some types of ADHD are not observant at all. My son notices nothing! My daughter is a bit better and I see everything. Maybe its age and maturity too?
@@AlbertRasch-ev8uc This is probably true, I'm probably not fully adhd, but I have many traits, I'm very perceptive and I can see movement from a very long way away.
Just came back to your channel after having to ignore it for a long time (when things got political), was happy to see you were still at it and making even better content! Love the message at the end, we seem to live in a time where people are afraid to do the hard things, and they are OH so necessary ... perhaps now more than ever
As is the case so often, your videos give us an opportunity to learn from the past to help us prepare for the future...... May we have eyes to see and ears to hear......
Great video like always. As someone with medical problems who can't really take anything for pain (allergy to the most common) aside from Tylenol, it's difficult to be in varying levels of pain/nausea every day without pause. So I can understand having to endure a ton of discomfort and always looking for ways to get done what I need to get done. I always try to think about the things that I'm happy I don't have to deal with despite it all. Anyways, looking to the past helps to inspire because there is always a lot to learn and it's fun and cool to be able to implement things into your daily life (like, maybe you end up using an 18th century recipe as the base of a new dish you make at home, etc, etc). Thanks for all you do at Townsends!
Can't help but think of that line in Dances with Wolves, "I bet someone out east is saying 'why dont he write?'" I couldn't imagine not hearing from someone for months, but then after several months, you have to assume they died. You stopped hearing from them, and there would be no reason except death, and you'd never know how. Couldn't deal with that. I text my adult sons EVERY DAY. I have to know theyre okay. In fact, i panic if they take too long to respond. Answers: no, i couldn't survive. I'd have a stress induced heart attack worrying about someone.
Why would anyone "have to assume" death just because they weren't contacted by someone simply too far out in the big, wide, beautiful (back then) world & too taken up with living a real, non-screen life to be constantly connected? A stable, realistic person of the 18th Century, not consumed by ego or co-dependency would not. They didn't think that way; they understood their world & had the psychological/emotional, as well as the physical, strength to live in it. You're right, you couldn't survive. Life (back then, again) was too simple a proposition for a 21st Century version of a human being to comprehend.
@@user-mz1kt6iz4e no, I couldn't and I wouldn't want to. I love the ability to carry a little computer in my pocket, so that when I get bored, I can be entertained easily. Like how some people are like "omg I would give anything to go back to the 80s." The 80s weren't that great. I remember them very well. Take off your rose tinted nostalgia glasses. In fact, my Internet was out for near 24 hours last week. It was the 80s and it fecking sucked. Hell, the song "burning heart" by survivor invokes the 80s smell (cigarettes, dep and aqua net) and I am instantly transported back to being a child, in McDonald's with my mother with the bad hair, eating my nuggies, while she sits across from me reading a newspaper, and smoking a cigarette. And the chair I am on, is a hamburger
@@DyslexicMitochondria _You_ *overestimate* it by gargantuan amounts, because you live in a lucky modern age where thanks to vaccines, antibiotics etc. you don't need to live and die by your "natural immunity." Ffs still back in early 1900s around 30%-50% of children died before age 5 due to diseases alone. Going back to colonial era it'd be much worse.
One of the things we often don't think about these days is the mortality rate from disease in children under the age of 5. In my area, if you go through the various cemeteries, you'll find any number of small gravestones of someone's child who died back in the early 1900's.
Looking back through my genealogy shows that most generations past my grandparents' one lost children to disease. When I caught rheumatic fever as a child, my grandpa and grandma drove 300 miles to see us because they just knew that I was going to die. Fortunately for me, penicillin was available in the early 1960s. Polio is nearly unheard of today but even in my parents' time most people knew someone who had been crippled because of it.
@@Snargfargle One of the sad stories from my family history is a small headstone in the local cemetery, a girl who died in 1903 at the age of 3. She was my grandfather's cousin. Back in the late 70's, another of his cousins was visiting my aunt, and went to pay his respects at the cemetery. When he saw the headstone he stopped, and said "Oh. You know, I always thought that I'd had a sister, but was sure my memory was right. My parents never talked about her." One of my sister's friends father had survived polio as a youth, but needed crutches to walk.
Not just diseases, disabilities. They're extremely common among people today, because modern medicine has created ways to treat or help people cope with them. Those same disabilities in those days would have killed a lot of people at a young age, or caused them to meet their doom.
My great grandfather from Indiana died young of TB leaving my great grandmother a young widow with two small children. Back then they still believed that the night air caused many diseases which was why many used bed curtains. He spent many months away from home working on a farm with migrant workers no doubt he caught it while bunking together with his fellow workers.
@@lovelily8310I do believe that there is some truth in that as even a cold seems to get worse at night but that belief was blamed for way to much back then . Thank you for your input 😊
@@b.savage8953 Dew point - 100% relative humidity. Breathing in humid air can make the process more labored, and the water vapor also traps plenty of particles like allergens, mold spores, bacteria... that gets breathed in and collected in the lungs, making one more susceptible to infection. Being cold is also not very helpful to our immunity.
@@teeteetuu94 Those factors can increase the probability of contracting TB but I've yet to see any proof that those conditions can cause TB . Thank you for your input .
Wow. Truly an inspiring video. All the comments too, with details about the immigrant/colonist experiences from the British Isles. Immigration and survival in the past really was a different game. They crossed that sea.
"Pox Americana," by Elizabeth Fenn sheds light on the smallpox epidemic of 1774-8. In the process she uncovered native trade routes in the west that hadn't really been identified. Absolutly riveting read.
I would accept the challenge! But I would need a time traveler clause that I would allow me to return to my timeline when I absolutely needed to (think Naked & Afraid)
Would you still be willing to take on the challenge if you had to deal with those same situations and hardships in our present day,(with no time machine to take you out of it)?
My grandfather was born in 1892. When he got married they had a wagon pulled by horses. He and my grandmother had a farm all through the depression and didn’t really know what depression meant. It is each generation’s job to make life a little better for the next. Look at how much has changed just since 1900
Thanks for sharing with us Jon. Enjoyed the looking back and reminiscing about reenacting the Rendezvous' and the fun and adventure they brought to us and knowing we could survive off the land . Stay safe , Fred.
Your videos are always so interesting. Thanks for the perennial reminder that everything happening now, is history. That context makes me feel more determined and grateful to be alive and more at peace with the fact that there are so many societal conditions that individuals can’t control.
I have over 28 years experience in emergency medical care and clinical medical care. I have a solid understanding of human anatomy. I have a firm understanding of germ theory. I understand haw to sterilise instruments. I would become a doctor in town. Even without modern antibiotics, I could do some good in that role.
As I am now, no way. Diabetic, have worn glasses since I was seven, some serious allergies. I almost died giving birth to my youngest child, even with modern medicine and technology. Though I love studying history, I'd never be able to survive there.
@@BlackMasterRoshiDepends on the type of diabetes. If they are type one, then they'd straight up die in childhood. It was only until the 20th century that type one diabetes was a manageable condition instead of a fatal one......
@@BlackMasterRoshiExactly. I’ve got asthma and am mostly blind in my left eye, but I just live with it- no medications or interventions. Kind of hard to defeat smallpox for example off sheer willpower though lol.
@@BlackMasterRoshi Mmhmm those things are largely due to what we consume these days, which is nothing like what it was back then...plus other stuff I won't mention because most people don't like to hear so-called cOnSpiRaCy tHeOriEs (aka truth bombs)
Thanks for such a meaningful vidéo. I have spent 1/2 my life trying to be ready for a civilization crash. And honestly, I don't think I'd last long if I were "dropped into it", but if if it were bit by bit, then after some time maybe could survive.
Years ago, I used to have a book called "The Good Old Days... They Were Terrible." It really put into perspective the realities of times gone by that those of us who did not live through them tend to romanticize.
We take a lot for granted these days. Even in the 1800s, and early 1900s, in North America, the main focus of people was survival. They didn't have the modern amenities that we have in this day and age. Cheers!
@@nicholasgarcia399 I grew up in the Navy. We moved hundreds of miles every 2.5 years. The Navy only covered so much in moving expenses (by weight). AC's are heavy.
My 5X great grandfather was George Graham 1756-1840 he was born in 1756 in New Jersey. At the age of 17 he went to fight in the Revolutionary war and In 1776 he was shot in the thigh during the battle of long island. Even after everything he went through he fought on with a limp and lived to be 84 years old. After the war he got married and moved to Southwestern Pennsylvania where his family still resides. Looking back on everything that could have gone wrong and didn't it really gives you perspective on how good you really have things today.
It's a pity isn't it? Nick Cresswell was like *the* original swashbuckling rogue adventurer. He survived more horror and extreme danger than many people do in their entire lives, yet even in his journal, on what he thought was his deathbed, he didn't lose heart. I would very much like to see a miniseries about him. In the same vein as the BBC/HBO John Adams series.
I was raised in a small rural area of Oklahoma in the 70's I'm 59 now and could survive back then I really don't think I could unless I lived in the city Thank You for another great video. 🇺🇲🤠👋🇺🇲
I love these episodes especially. We can learn a lot from Mr. Townsend. I'd love to see a series of episodes going into the past and applying those lessons to today.
@@dzikijohnny there is evidence to suggest that areas with higher poverty rates tend to experience higher crime rates, the relationship is not strictly deterministic. Other factors such as social inequality, access to education, employment opportunities, and community support systems also play significant roles in shaping crime rates. So, while poverty can contribute to crime, it's not the sole determining factor.
I love the food videos, homestead videos, Ryan doing recipes, and this right here etc. I love watching how Townsends have gotten more expansive! Btw! I hope you will do another Morel Mushroom video as it is getting to that time of year I think! :)
A great video. I am a Boer. I find it so fascinating how tough our forefathers lifestyles were. From arriving in the Cape, to the Great Trek and the Boer wars. So many parallels with the pioneers of northern America. I see the hardened faces in pictures of the men during the Boer wars and always wander the same question, could we do what our forefathers did. I think not. There is a book called the Boer war in colour by Tinus Le Roux. So many pictures, each one explaining the different mens lives their names etc. Alot of effort went into it. If you're a history fiend. Highly recommend it. Awesome video again.
I could survive, but with the help from my husband. He has tactical survival skills. He had to live in the woods for months on his own without anything but his pack while on certain missions. He helped me come up with the perfect camping gear. If we went back to those times, could I bring my life straw and my compression bandadges?
Food for thought is your forté. I love listing to your commentary on common things and am prompted to be thoughtful about the subject. Thanks for your enthusiastic observations
I was sharing with my husband your very timely video on "Could we survive Colonial America" and I thought that if we were to be forced to go back to those times, that we would not make out very well, if at all. If we had been brought up in that environmendt, maybe but not from this day in age. Some people would be able to accept and adapt but not most of us. Thank you for the very thought provoking video. I will pay even closer attention to your videos and try to learn more of the "old timer" ways. Liz
If it was a town I feel like most folks here could manage in some way, frontier is a different story. As for the diseases oddly enough since most people viewing this has already been vaccined for the worst diseases and since your great great grandfathers and so on already lived through these diseases, your bodies natural anti-bodies will already know how to deal with them. It's kind of cool how your body's natural defense system gets better with time and by generation.
There is a British show called 24 Hours in the Past, which has actors try to live in the Victorian era (I know, not the same, but it's still interesting) as the working poor. It's available for free on RU-vid, and there's lots of other shows like it starring Ruth Goodman that are definitely worth the watch.
I say Yes - many of us would. Because we did. We're here because yes we did. When I was close to death with pneumonia on home care and I watched so many Townsends videos. Not only for the music and how easy it is to listen to Mr. Townsends, but also because it's inspiring to realize we can overcome hardship. I've heard other surgeons and doctors comment during livestreams that these videos are on in recovery rooms and help their patients.
Most of the subscribers to this channel should be just fine because we are educated in everything from making an apple pie in a dutch oven to start our own blacksmith business and everything in between.
@@worldwanderer91 That reminds me of an episode of "Pawn Stars" when a woman brought in a giant needle that was allegedly used to treat some sort of STD during the Civil War. She described how it worked and it made me cringe 😬
I'm curious whether modern Americans with colonial ancestry, whose ancestors dealt with these diseases, have any immune system benefits over modern Europeans? I googled and didn't see anything about it but it makes me wonder
