Creative Books

The backwoodsman of this type represented the outer edge of the
advance of civilization. Where settlement was closer, co-operative
activity possible, and little villages, with the mill and retail
stores, existed, conditions of life were ameliorated, and a better
type of pioneer was found. Into such regions circuit-riders and
wandering preachers carried the beginnings of church organization,
and schools were started. But the frontiersmen proper constituted a
moving class, ever ready to sell out their clearings in [Footnote:
Babcock, Forty Years of Pioneer Life ("Journals and Correspondence
of J.M. Peck"), 101.] order to press on to a new frontier, where
game more abounded, soil was reported to be better, and where the
forest furnished a welcome retreat from the uncongenial
encroachments of civilization. If, however, he was thrifty and
forehanded, the backwoodsman remained on his clearing, improving his
farm and sharing in the change from wilderness life.
Behind the type of the backwoodsman came the type of the pioneer
farmer.


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