Corn was not cultivated on the new ground to any extent, except that each one raised enough corn for his own use but no more. The corn was generally put in by hand, plowed only once or twice with a single shovel plow pulled by one old nag.
In the early days all the cooking was done by the open fireplace; such an article as a stove was not much known. Corn bread and pork, with rye coffee, formed the average bill of fare at the wayside inn and at the farm house. The boarders actually preferred pork to venison; they got tired of game—it was so plentiful. Many a pioneer farmer could shoot from five to ten deer near his door before breakfast.
In ye olden times nearly everyone would attend church, especially in summer. While many did not belong to any church, yet they were all interested in it. They supported the churches to the best of their ability. The influence of the country church did much in making this a county which still shows the effect of the early training and of the efforts of itinerant preachers and laymen who went from place to place visiting the scattered congregations. Such preachers as Troup, Searles, Ingham, J. Hodges, Hayden, Twing, Maxin, Dudley, Rankin, Boal, Cunningham, Keeler, Phelps, Roberts, Jones, Elias Skinner, Father Emmons and many of the early itinerant ministers did much to build up churches in this county. Then there were a number of laymen in various denominations who maintained in part some of the associations themselves, such as Tom Lewis, Levi Lewis, Chandler Jordan, Henry Rogers, and the Kurtzes, Runkles, Shueys, and many of the early settlers in and around Lisbon. The community around Mt. Vernon was also much influenced by the college atmosphere and by the itinerant preachers who visited the scattered members in Franklin township. These are only a few of many such communities where an interest was kept up in the small country churches where large congregations gathered weekly for meditation and for prayer. Many old pioneer families did much to help the church.
One can converse with the old pioneer now, and he still loves to recall the old times, the old haunts and the wayside places. It was by some rail fence that a rural maiden had whispered to him as a young man, that the pain in her heart no human touch but his own could heal. It was here loved ones had spoken as they chattered away in childish whispers, when he came home from ended labors, and it was here that he took his family on Sunday to the little church where they all bowed silently in prayer, full of the faith and the hope which made his heart strong and his footsteps light. The simple mode of living in Linn county in an early date made strong men and courageous women. They were brought up to withstand the temptations of life and to despise the false veneer of a later generation. They lived up to the ideals of their way of thinking, and left sturdy families who grew up in the simple ways of the pioneer, themselves dutiful sons and daughters of the old settlers who came here in any early day to make homes for themselves and their descendants.
Truly, the pioneers should be remembered for what they accomplished, for well might they sing with the poet:
"Fading away like the stars of the morning,
Losing our light in the rising sun;
Thus would we pass from the earth and its toiling
Only remembered by what we have done."
BRIDGE AT THE PALISADES