MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 283- 



met with at this time, although they are fast giving way to more com- 

 fortable frame houses. The French built their cabins in an entirely 

 different manner from the American settlers ; they had also, one- 

 roomed houses, built of logs, but these were placed vertically, instead 

 of horizontally, the upright ends fastened together by cross-pieces, 

 upon which the roof was placed, and with frequently a broad porch 

 both in front and behind, the whole being whitewashed without and 

 within, and this, with the little garden which, with its fruit trees, always 

 accompanied the French cabin, gave the home quite an air of neatness 

 and comfort. 



There seems to be some instinctive law governing the tide of emi- 

 gration which has caused a tendency in the seekers of new homes to 

 wander, mainly, on their original parallels of latitude — a fact that is a 

 striking one in the hisiory of our whole country, and which brings into 

 the study of human progress a comparative element of much signifi- 

 cance to him who seeks after the origin of many things besides manners 

 and customs. The New Englanders settled, successively, Northern New 

 York, Ohio, Michigan, Northern Indiana and Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin 

 and the Dakotas, taking with them all the habits of body and mind that 

 had been acquired in their first homes ; the Virginians and Carolinians 

 emigrated, successively, to Kentucky, Tenneesee and Missouri, where 

 they have left the indelible impress of those earlier inhabited states ; 

 and in a similar way we may trace, in Missouri, the progress, from east 

 to west, of the roving class of hunters so graphically described by 

 Schoolcraft — the hardy and daring people who opened the way for 

 and to a degree facilitated the settlement of the country by the true 

 pioneers, who first made their appearance in the region of the Ozirks 

 in about 1820, penetrating this country by way of the Osage and White 

 rivers and their tributaries, and who brought with them elements of 

 progress and development for which they have heretofore received 

 little credit. 



Once located in a region that was likely to prove a permanent 

 abiding place for themselves and their children, with a country that 

 early demonstrated its capacity for abundantly supplying all their 

 physical wants, and stimulated by the new strength that every addi- 

 tion from the older settlements brought to them, signs of growth 

 along the higher lines of progress soon began to appear. The school- 

 house, also used for religious services, early found a place among these' 

 people, and a desire for bette.r things began to beautify their lives. 

 The new thought grew, just as the plant, once rooted in the heart of 

 mother earth, smiled on by sunshine and refreshed by shower, unfolds, 

 with certain progress, but no sign of haste, and fills the world with 



