The Columbia Democrat. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1837-1850, 1837-06-17

with his wife and infant children from tho
more populous regions of the East. and
settled in the then almost unbroken forests
OF pennsylvania. Albert was the descen.
dant OF respectable line of ancestry who
left Europe to seek in the wilds of America
dor an Asylum from persecution, on account
OF religious principles. The family had
for years enjoyed happy mediocrity that
removed them equally from the inconven-
ences of abject poverty and the temptations
incident to a life of fashionable dissipa-
ton and luxury. Albert married young
woman of his own age, after mature ac-
quaintance, and without any of the crosses
and disappointments which have been so
sorrowfully depicted by the novelist. This
young lady brought him little except warm
affection, an unsullied reputation, and
well cultivated mind. Her family were
poor, yet respectable, and she had receiv-
ed from her father an education rather above
common girls in her station in those DAYS.
Albert finding himself at the head of an
increasing family, with little prospect of ac-
curing real estate in an old settlement
where land always commands high price,
determined, notwithstanding the delicacy
of his wife's health, to try his fortune in
what was then called the "backwoods."
In pursuance of this resolution, we find him
In the year H.. in log cabin, surrounded
by unbroken forests, acknowledging no feal-
ty to man, 81 subject to the undisturbed tread
OF its fourfooted inhabitants. Remote from
the aid offellow man, remote from all the
blessings which are derived from social So
ciety, we may well suppose that it required
the exertions of Albert to provide for the
sustainance of his infant family, without
supplying any of the luxuries, or even all
the conveniencies, of life, and without be-
slowing any considerable portion of his
time on the education of his children. In
a situation such as we have described, it
will be at once perceived that public schools
were out of the question, so the education
of the family devolved upon Mrs. G.
In the midst of her domestic avocations
and multiplied duties, this amiable woman
found time to Undue the minds of her chill
dren with the love of truth, justice, mercy
and all other social virtues. She by her in
defatgable industry and acquired skill,
taught them the rudiments of an English
education, so as to qualify them for the Or
dinary business ofrural life.
1t is an established rule that ignorance is
the fore-runner of crime;' and hence it is
said that the inhabitants of newly settled
territories are usually rough and in many
cases, tumultuous and riotous people.
Without admitting the latter assertion in
the broad sense in which it is usually ap-
piled, it must be admitted, that children
reared from schools and without domestic
instruction, usually grow up the devotees of
sensuality. The human mind will not re-
main unemployed, nor the hands idle, and
consequently the mind conceives useless or
vicious designs, and the hands execute them.
To extend and direct information into the
most profitable channel is, and ought to be,
the design of every philanthropist. But
in situations like that of Albert c., who is
present to perform that office? The wife,
If she had been herself uncultivated, who
then! Alas none! The child other bosom
would grow up before her face the victim of
ignorance and its concomitant vice. She
might know and observe the evil, but could
only bemoan and not amend; because the
mental soil cannot remain vacant, and she
could not plant that which she did not pos
sess.
While many tenants Of the wilderness
have reared up families to drag out lives of
useless toll as mere machines-while others
have reared them to plant thorns in the pill
low of the mother, and blot upon the faith
er's' name, the intelligent companion of AL
bert C. reared her numerous family in the
nurture and admonition of the Lord
though tried with all the privations of pow