Milford chronicle., 1906-05-11
OLD TIME HARDsHIPS.
The Present Generation Has Little
Knowledge of Them.

AnONAeuEG OA AAGMs
Speaker Cannon, whose years and ex
perience qualify him to speak with
some degree of authority and who
spent the earlier years of his life in
that part of the country where individ-
ualism had the fullest possible scope
for development, recently stated that
the opportunities Of the present day
| far exceed those enjoyed by the grand
fathers of the present generation three
quarters of century ago and that the
! present generation is better physically,
mentally and morally than any Of its
predecessors have been. It is only be-
cause time has smOOthed away the
roughness of the past that the pessi-
mists of the present day seem to find
that those whose activities covered the
first half Of the former century were
more favored than we now are and
that "the times are out Of joint"
One must. read of the struggles Of
the men of other years in order fully
to appreciate what they experienced in
zine of History prints part of the ad-
dress of the late w. z. Ryman Of
Wilkesbarre. Pa, before the Wyoming
Historical and Geological society,
wherein he mentions some of the didi-
culties of settling the Wyoming val
ley. He stated that when he was a
small boy he heard Charles Harris,
then an old man, tell Of some of his
earlier recollections, which ran back
to about the time of the Wyoming mas
sacre; of how his father worked all
the first day of his arrival at what is
still known as the Harris Settlement
Telling trees and building a cabin.
Night came on before the cabin could
be inclOsed. With the darkness came
pack Of wolves, and to protect his
family Mr.. Harris built a fire and sat
up all night to keep 1t burning. The
wolves were afraid of'the flames and
would not come near, and when day
light came they disappeared. To pass
one night under such circumstances
required bravery, but to stay, build a
house, clear a farm and raise a family
with such terrors constantly menacing
required a courage that commands our
highest esteem.
Another settler, Mr.. Worthington,
came from Connecticut as late as 1906
and was compelled to cut a way
through the forest and build house,
his nearest neighbors miles away and
no clearing in sight anywhere. Wolves
were then numerous and bold at night,
and the only way Mr. Worthington
could protect his family from their as
saults was for all to climb the ladder
to the second floor and pull the ladder
up after them. Mr.. Worthington used
to say that his life during those early
days was most lonely and dishearten-
ing
The best Of the first stores In the
nearest town would hardly be dignifed
by that name now. Only few neces-
saries were kept in any Of them, and
''necessaries" then had much scantier
meaning than now. A few Of the COM
monest and cheapest cotton cloths were
kept in stock; the wooden goods used
for winter wear for both men. and wo-
men were all homespun. It took many
years for the storekeepers to convince
the farmers that they could buy heavy
clothes Of part wool and part cotton
that would be as durable as and cheap
er than the all wool homespun. The
time spent on the latter was counted as
nothing and the argument failed. -