That the man who navigated the first flatboat that ever descended the Mississippi should have lived to see a magnificent steamboat ploughing the same watery tract, is a truth which affords a subject of admiration. No, he thought of the wily savage, whose cover was a wide and untrodden wilderness. He proceeded on his precarious voyage. He lived to see the country change masters, the wilderness blossom as the rose, and human energy achieve a conquest over a thousand obstacles. This is the greatest triumph that man has yet achieved.
History records no parallel.
To the future generations of America, it will be what the fabulous age of the Titans was to the ancient Greeks. Jacob Yoder is a direct descendant of this family in Oley and, in many traits of his daring adventures and general character, bears a striking resemblance to the elder Yoders. Hanse Yoder was the builder and owner of Griesemer's Mill property as well as the homestead of the Yoders, and had trouble with his neighbor Lesher. He was intemperate and, as might be expected, had a good many domestic squabbles. One day, after he was absent from home, he returned in the evening to find his house deserted by his wife, with everything that could be carried off except his three children, leaving them in a most deplorable condition, not even the means with which to feed them.