Woman on the American Frontier / A Valuable and Authentic History of the Heroism, Adventures, Privations, Captivities, Trials, and Noble Lives and Deaths of the "Pioneer Mothers of the Republic"

by William Worthington Fowler

In such situations as these, not merely from their isolation, but from the sterility of the soil and the inhospitable air of the region, the struggle for existence is often a severe one. Perseverance and self-denial, however, triumphed over all difficulties. Year after year the trees bowed themselves before the axe, and the soil surrendered its reluctant treasures in the furrow of the ploughshare.

Plenty smiled around the cabin. The light glowed on the hearth, and the benighted traveler hailed its welcome rays as he fared towards the hospitable door.

Apart from the self-interest and happiness of its inmates, it was no small benefit to others that such a home was made in that rugged country. Such homes are the outposts of the army of pioneers: here they can pause and rest, gathering courage and confidence when they regard them as establishments in the same wilderness where they are seeking to plant themselves.

Five years after their arrival their house and barns were destroyed by fire. Their cattle, farming utensils, and household furniture were all fortunately saved, and before long the buildings were replaced, and in two years all the ravages of the devouring element had been repaired. Again a happy and plenteous abode rewarded the labors of the pair. Three years rolled away in the faithful discharge of every duty incumbent upon them, each toiling in their respective sphere to increase their store and rear their large family of children.

A series of severe rains had kept them within doors for nearly ten days. One afternoon as they were sitting before their fire they experienced a peculiar sensation as though the ground on which the house stood was moving. Running out doors, they saw that the rains had loosened the hill-side soil from the rock on which it lay, and that it was slowly moving into the ravine below. Hastily collecting their children, they had barely time to escape to a rock a short distance from their house, when the landslide carried the house and barns, with the ground on which they stood, into the ravine, burying them and their entire contents beneath twenty feet of earth.

Almost worn out with his unremitting toils continued through ten years, and seeing the fruits of that toil swept away in an instant, looking around him in vain for any shelter, and far away from any helping hand, it was not surprising that the man should have given way to despair. He wept, groaned, and tore his hair, declaring that he would struggle no longer with fates which proved so adverse. "Go," said he, "Mary, to the nearest house with the children. I will die here."

His wife was one of those fragile figures which it seemed that a breath could blow away. Hers, however, was an organization which belied its apparent weakness. A brave and loving spirit animated that frail tenement. Long she strove to soothe her husband's grief, but without avail.

Gathering a thick bed of leaves and sheltering her children as well as she could from the chilly air, she returned ever and anon to the spot where her husband sat in the stupor of despair, and uttered words of comfort and timely suggestions of possible means of relief.

"We began with nothing, John, and we can begin with nothing again. You are strong, and so am I. Bethink yourself of those who pass by on their way to the great river every year at this time. These folk are good and neighborly, and will lend us willing hands to dig out of the earth the gear that we have lost by the landslip." Thus through the night, with these and like expressions, she comforted and encouraged the heart-broken man, and having at length kindled hope, succeeded in rousing him to exertion.

For two days the whole family suffered greatly while awaiting help, but that hope which the words of the wife had awakened, did not again depart. A party of passing emigrants, ascertaining the condition of the family, all turned to, and having the necessary tools, soon dug down to the house and barn, and succeeded in recovering most of the buried furniture, stores, and utensils. The unlucky couple succeeded finally in retrieving themselves, and years after, when the father was passing a prosperous old age in the valley of the Mohawk, to which section the family eventually moved, he was wont to tell how his wife had lifted him out of the depths of despair by those kind and thoughtful words, and put new life and hope into his heart during those dark days among the mountains of Massachusetts.