The Forest and Man 41 



rather in the modification of the character of the 

 men who made their homes in these wilds. It 

 created a type never seen before, a type which one 

 must thoroughly understand in order to obtain 

 a true notion of American history. This type 

 was that of the backwoodsman, the product of 

 the influence of primeval forest life on civilized 

 Europeans. 



It is very difficult for people of the present 

 generation to realize what it meant, during the 

 eighteenth and far into the nineteenth century, 

 to take up one's home in the heart of the wilder- 

 ness. It meant a practically complete separation 

 from all the luxuries and most of the necessities of 

 civilized life. As the forest closed behind the 

 settler and his family, he knew that with the few 

 simple utensils he had brought with him, his axe, 

 his rifle, he must now manage to get for himself 

 all he required. His clothing, his simple furniture, 

 his food, his own hand must get from the soil of 

 his little clearing or from the forest A sturdy 

 self-reliance was the first quality that such a life 

 must foster. There was no possibility for the 

 cultivation of the graces of life. All the virtues 

 of the backwoodsman were those of a strong 

 animal nature, courage, pertinacity, resourceful- 

 ness. His vices grew out of the same qualities. 

 No doubt he was coarse, as was his life and his 

 food. Not rarely, in moments of irritation and 

 when the poisonous spirits he distilled for him- 

 self exerted their influence, he was brutal in the 



