PIONEER SETTLERS IN SENECA COUNTY 25 



the light top-buggy came in, the girls ceased to 

 work in the fields. Some of these people bore 

 what seemed to us American boys very odd names : 

 Libarger, Poffenbarger, Laudenslaker and Kooney. 

 This last was a strange tribe, nicknamed in the 

 countryside as Black Jake, Slivery Jake, Drunken 

 Jake, Jake's Jake and Bully Jake. 



As the picture of that lush pioneer life comes 

 back to me I am irresistibly led to philosophize 

 and to compare the earlier with the present time. 

 Then every one was interested in everything that 

 was transpiring and everyone lent a helping hand 

 in all activities. If there were many boys in the 

 family they learned to knit and even to sew, to cook 

 and wash dishes and even to wash soiled clothes. 

 If there were many girls they did the milking, car- 

 ried in the wood and water, picked the small fruits 

 and gathered the vegetables. It was a co-opera- 

 tive, whole-hearted life, each for all and all for 

 each. In the reading and study hours at night 

 there was the same good-natured comradeship 

 whether in cracking nuts or jokes, in extracting 

 cube root or reading what Horace Greeley knew 

 about farming. 



All that they had the members of the family 

 divided and shared. There were no really poor 



