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The
people in the early history of Monroe county took no
care to preserve history -they were too busily engaged
in making it. Historically speaking, those were the
most important years of the county, for it was then
the foundation and corner stones of all the county's
history and prosperity were laid. Yet this history was
not remarkable for stirring events. It was, however, a
time of self-reliance and brave, persevering toil; of
privations cheerfully endured through faith in a good
time coming. The experience of one settler was just
about the same as that of others. Nearly all of the
settlers were poor; they faced the same hardships and
stood generally on an equal footing. All the
experience of the early pioneers of this county goes
far to confirm the theory that, after all, happiness
is pretty evenly balanced in this world. They had
their privations and hardships, but they had also
their own peculiar joys. If they were poor, they were
free from the burden of pride and vanity; free also
from the anxiety and care that always attends the
possession of wealth. Other people's eyes cost them
nothing. If they had few neighbors, they were on the
best of terms with those they had. Envy, jealousy and
strife had not crept in. A common interest and a
common sympathy bound them together with the strongest
ties. They were a little world to themselves, and the
good feeling that prevailed was all the stronger
because they were so far removed from the great world
of the East. Among these pioneers there was realized
such a community of interest that there existed a
community of feeling. There were no castes, except an
aristocracy of benevolence, and no nobility, except a
nobility of generosity. They were bound together with
such a strong bond of sympathy, inspired by the
consciousness of common hardship,
that they were practically communists.
Neighbors
did not even wait for an invitation or request to help
one another. Was a settler's cabin burned or blown
down? No sooner was the fact known throughout the
neighborhood than the settlers assembled to assist the
unfortunate one to rebuild his home. They came with as
little hesitation, and with as much alacrity, as
though they were all members of the same family and
bound together by ties of blood. One man's interest
was every other man's interest. Now, this general
state of feeling among the pioneers was by no means
peculiar to these counties, although it was strongly
illustrated here. It prevailed generally throughout
the West during the time of the early settlement. The
very nature of things taught the settlers the
necessity of dwelling together in this spirit. It was
their only protection. They had come far away from the
well established reign of law, and entered a new
country, where civil authority was still feeble and
totally unable to afford protection and redress
grievances. Here the settlers lived some little time
before there was an officer of the law in the county.
Each man's protection was in the good will and
friendship of those about him, and the thing that any
man might well dread was the ill will of the
community. It was more terrible than the law. It was
no uncommon thing in the early times for hardened men,
who had no fears of jails or penitentiaries, to stand
in great fear of the indignation of a pioneer
community. Such were some of the characteristics of
Monroe county. |
