As an actor and interested witness of the marvelous changes which have occurred in the settlement and civilization of the “North-west Territory,” the author places before the reader this book, entitled, “The Squirrel Hunters of Ohio; or, Glimpses of Pioneer Life.”

Others have faithfully recorded the wars, bloodshed, victories, defeats, dangers and deaths it cost to subjugate the savage and establish the civilized. And it is as the gleaner follows the reapers and gathers in the wayward straws, that the author hopes to interest and entertain, by picking up some of the fragments, that nothing may be lost which contributed to the elevation, pleasure, subsistence and safety of the pioneer, or added attractiveness to his home during the rise of the first state in the great empire of the North-west.

It is often the little things that become the most important—things the immigrant in old age delights to recall—things that bring up associations and pleasures of former days—“the good old times,” when with dog and gun the pioneer walked the unbroken forest and made himself familiar with the alphabet of beasts, birds and trees.

At the close of the Revolution, the Eastern States were old and prematurely gray, and poverty, bankruptcy and starvation induced the patriotic soldiers to accept pay for their services in unsurveyed wild land in the “North-west Territory.” The new acquisition was lauded as a country flowing with equivalents to “milk and honey,” and would sustain a large population, make delightful homes, and furnish an easily-acquired subsistence.

As soon as the Indian dangers were no longer detrimental, the homeless poor, with guns, ammunition and land certificates, flocked in from all quarters of the world, took possession of the country, and became the progenitors of a great and pre-eminent people—“The Squirrel Hunters of Ohio.”