ordinary
travel and civilization.

As a picture of the rigors and extremities, I fear only too common, of
early New England life, among its hardy agricultural population, I
present extracts of a letter received from a venerable friend, a few
years ago, who from the depths of poverty, having emigrated in his youth
to wild lands not very far West, had risen to comparative wealth, which
he devoted to useful purposes. In fact, the son of an extremely poor
Vermont farmer became, by his own energy and integrity, the possessor of
a competent fortune, which enabled him, with views far surpassing the
immediate claims of this transitory world, to build a church and to
establish a flourishing educational institution, destined long, I trust,
to dispense infinite blessings to future generations. Thus, after some
preliminary matter, he proceeds to say, under date of March 16, 1866:--

"My father was one of the poor men of Vermont. When I was a small
boy I have pealed many a birch broom for a sixpence.[5] My Father
could get one shilling for what he made, take them on his back,
carry them four or five miles, sell them, bring home a little meal,
or a little bread, sometimes a half bushel Potatoes. My mother
would go two or three miles, and do a washing, bring home at night
a loaf of wry bread, and a small peace was all we had for supper
and a smaller Piece in the morning. Sometimes we was allowed one
Potato roasted in the ashes--no Hearth in the old log-House. My
mother has stirred butter in a tea-cup with the point of a knife,
to keep her little children from starving. My Father had about half
acre of oats--poor fence--the old cow got in the oats and died.
Then came the pinch--we as little children had to flee to the woods
to get something to sustain life--no schools, no meetings--nothing
but hunger and despair. I lived with my Father until I was
twenty-one years old. After I was sixteen my Father improved a
little in living. When I was a little over twenty-one I got me a
wife--we was both Poor--three knifes, three forks, three teacups,
three chairs, a poor bed--hardly could we keep house. But our
courage was good--my wife always standing by me, through all my
trouble and trials--shoulder to shoulder--heart & hand, from the
day of our marriage until the day of her Death. No man never had a
better wife than I had--always kind to the Poor and to all her
relations. She is now in the Grave