Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1896 — THE PIONEER. [ARTICLE]

THE PIONEER.

Peculiarities of the Early Settlers in the West. Theodore Roosevelt emphasizes the* fact that the movement of imputation to the West from New Eugland did not begin to be appreciable until after tlie War of 1812. A famous settlement, like that of Marietta, only proves the rule, lu the earlier period the settlers were from the Southern States—not from, the prosperous class of lowland planters, hut from the hardy men of the hills and mountains who hud renlly been pioneers all their lives ns thels fathers had been before them. lu blood and in beliefs these people were more nearly allied to the Northerners than they were to tlie Southern planters. The people of the Northern and Eastern Stnies who went West in those days were ns likely to settle in Keiitueky ns In Ohio, and they migrated as readily "to Tennessee and Mississippi iih to Indiana." Thus It came about that “In Kentucky and Tennessee, In Indiana aud Mississippi, tlie settlers were of the same quality. They possessed of (lie same virtues and the same shortcomings, tlie same ideals and tlie same practices.” The Investigator who desires to know what the average was in pioneer life—Mr. Roosevelt does not say tills, lint It Is true—need only make a tour among the mountains from tlie Potomac to the southernmost foothills of the AUeghanies and the Blue Ridge. He will find there the words and phrases still In use which mude tlie speech of early Kentucky and Ohio luteresting, before ilie West, ns well as tin* East, fell to the dead level of the school-hook dialect. There are places where these peculiarities linger even yet, Just ns there are bils of oak and beech forest more than usually expansive where a few years ago, even lu Central Ohio, a cabin could be found newly built, the ends of tlie logs shining witli the* polish glvcu them by n sharp axe, and tlie earth floor within, more primitive than tlie puncheon, beaten down to the consistency of pressed brick. It is the fashion with politicians aud novel writers of the present dny to depredate these mountaineers. They settle their feuds with the rifle, they make Illicit whiskey, aud lu spite of their Hcotch-Irish Presbyterian origin they lire addicted to a very picturesque profanity. But they are to this day aud they always will he—subject to the rivalry of the Rocky* Mountains in centuries to come—the source of the healthiest humanity in North America. It will take a generation, sometimes two generations, to tame them down to ordinary life, but they will always be found where the peril is greatest, Just us Longstreet’s veterans, mostly these very mountaineers, ure said to have kept on charging even when their feet were shot off und they had to crawl on their hands aud knees.—Now York Tribune.