The rural life of the pioneers in Linn county was much the same as it was in any of the adjoining counties in eastern Iowa. The settlers were intelligent, young, active, and enthusiastic, believing in the future of the new State. The men were able to do nearly all kinds of mechanical work without any help or assistance, while the women were equally dextrous in spinning, weaving, and doing all kinds of house work. They were all clad in homespun and no false standards were maintained by the so-called well-to-do.

Wheat was the product for many years until the pest took it, and Indian corn was grown. It was soon found that wheat was expensive to raise, as seed was high, the cost of harvesting expensive, and frequently a shower or a storm when the wheat was ripe destroyed a great deal of it, so the farmer's summer work at times would be entirely gone. It cost less to raise corn, and in course of time a market was found for it, although it scarcely ever sold for more than 30 cents a bushel.

"In ye olden times" master and servant had no trouble. They ate at the same table, worked side by side during the day, and it was a sort of partnership affair throughout the season from the early spring until the crops were gathered in the fall. During the entire season the hired man had handled scarcely a dollar and he had taken up at the village store on credit in the master's name goods that would not exceed in value ten or fifteen dollars. While it has been often stated that in the pioneer days the men were overworked and underpaid, which might be true in part, still during these formative years, when everything was new, and there were no classes, all settlers were on the same level—socially and financially. It was not long until the hired man had worked long enough to get sufficient money to make a first payment on a farm, and in a few years the renter became a land owner and well fixed.

The scattered settlers during the early years of their residence in Linn county relied on their own ingenuity for everything they needed; thus, they were their own blacksmiths, cabinet makers, carpenters, tanners, stone masons, and shoe makers. They would tan their own leather, shoe their own horses and oxen, make their own crude harness, and get along and be satisfied. While they would depend on the village blacksmith and on the wagon maker, roads were impassable in the spring of the year and a yoke of oxen was not the swiftest means of getting to and from a town twenty-five or thirty miles away. Hence a farmer who had any ingenuity at all, would rather do his own work in a crude way, than have to go to town to get anything repaired which was broken.

Much amusement was also had in the early days in the various communities where men and women enjoyed meeting together at social functions. There were quilting bees, spelling schools, barn raisings, log rolling, debating schools, singing schools, and many other gatherings which frequently ended with a barn dance or a house warming supper, provided by the host and hostess.

The winter season in "ye olden times" was not an easy time of it by any means, for the pioneers went to the timber early in the morning and would stay all day and until late at night, cutting wood, making rails and getting big logs to the saw mills. It mattered not what was the kind of weather, the young man would start off to the timber with the thermometer frequently at from twenty-five to thirty below zero. Sometimes it would be pleasant in the morning when they started out, but frequently a severe blizzard would come up before night, and many were the frozen hands and ears they would bring home to thaw out late at night, having been out all day in the most severe weather. But as soon as it was over it was forgotten, and the next day or the next week the young man would again repeat the same performance.

While the men were strong, active, and hardworking, the women were equally active, persevering and industrious. The girls always took care of the milk and butter; the straining of the milk was done by the slough well or in a dark mud cellar, with no stone in it, and which always kept caving in until the entire house had to be put on pillars. The wife frequently had the family washing out by sunrise and the hired girl, if the family could afford one, would work side by side with her mistress and would do both inside and outside work if needed. No one was afraid to work: in fact they were all proud of what they had accomplished.

There were not many varieties of dishes on the table in pioneer days, and still the settlers had plenty of good, wholesome food, and were always hungry. Salt pork, johnny cake, honey, and game were the customary foods of the farmer in ye olden times. They scarcely ever tasted fresh meat from spring until fall, unless some of the boys shot a little game now and then. The settlers were companionable, good natured, and contented. They traded cattle, horses, mules, and at times farms, only now and then would trouble arise as one would accuse another of smart dealings, and a lawsuit would ensue. It is related of an itinerant preacher who purchased a yoke of oxen from one of the deacons in the church, that while he was testing the oxen on a hot Sunday driving to church with his family, the yoke squatted down in a mud hole and remained there and it was impossible to move them at all. The preacher spied the deacon coming to church and was not slow in telling him what he thought of him as well as the oxen he had sold him. The deacon was not at all worried but replied, "parson, you must not forget to swear at 'em, that is the only thing they know," and drove on as though not at all offended by the remarks of the preacher.

In the early days the farmers had no cisterns, no wind mills, no deep wells. Rain water was gathered in barrels which dried up in summer and froze solid in winter, so the house wife had scarcely any rain water either summer or winter. The well was generally a ten foot shallow well dug down by the slough, poorly planked, and frequently it caved in; another well was dug much in the same manner as the old one, the new well soon meeting with the same ending as the former one.

There were few, if any, barns in the olden times and straw thatched sheds and stables were universally used. These stables were moved frequently for the reason that the farmers failed to haul out the manure which accumulated, finding that it was easier and cheaper to move the stable than to haul away the manure. Nearly all of the hay was stacked out doors and had to be cut and hauled away in order to be fed to the cattle.

The farmers were slow and backward in many things. They possessed no spirit of restlessness and took things coolly, relying, it seems, on the old adage which says that "he who drives with oxen also gets there." While they early built fairly good houses, they were slow in erecting buildings and comfortable places for their horses and cattle, and it was many years before they began to erect sheds and buildings for their machinery. Wagons without spring seats sold at from $100.00 to $125.00; reapers and mowing machines were very expensive and they were generally only a few of these in each neighborhood. The household furniture was cheap and simple; there were no such things as furnaces or hard coal burners. Mostly old stoves were in use for the burning of wood, and these perhaps were second hand, or at least had seen better days.

The young man in pioneer days generally started out in life with an ox team, a breaking plow, and a wagon. The wages for breaking were from $1.00 to $2.00 an acre, and when he was not breaking he would often be running a threshing machine or working in the saw mill or in the timber getting out logs. When ox teams were used for breaking, it took one to drive and one to hold the plow in the ground. A person generally broke more land than he could fence, and it was no use to sow wheat and not fence, for in those days the law permitted cattle and horses to run at large.

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: