SHELTER. 
43 
beautiful nor useful. Before we can adorn our houses 
with beautiful objects the walls must be stripped, and our 
lives must be stripped, and beautiful housekeeping and 
beautiful living be laid for a foundation: now, a taste 
for the beautiful is most cultivated out of doors, where 
there is no house and no housekeeper. 
Old Johnson, in his “ Wonder-Working Providence,” 
speaking of the first settlers of this town, with whom he 
was contemporary, tells us that “ they burrow themselves 
in the earth for their first shelter under some hillside, and, 
casting the soil aloft upon timber, they make a smoky 
fire against the earth, at the highest side.” They did 
not “ provide them houses,” says he, “ till the earth, by 
the Lord’s blessing, brought forth bread to feed them,” 
and the first year’s crop was so light that 66 they were 
forced to cut their bread very thin for a long season.” 
The secretary of the Province of New Netherland, 
writing in Dutch, in 165.0, for the information of those 
who wished to take up land there, states more particu¬ 
larly, that “ those in New Netherland, and especially in 
New England, who have no means to build farm houses 
at first according to their wishes, dig a square pit in the 
ground, cellar fashion, six or seven feet deep, as long and 
as broad as they think proper, case the earth inside with 
wood all round the wall, and line the wood with the bark 
of trees or something else to prevent the caving in of the 
earth; floor this cellar with plank, and wainscot it 
overhead for a ceiling, raise a roof of spars clear up, 
and cover the spars with bark or green sods, so that 
they can live dry and warm in these houses with their 
entire families for two, three, and four years, it being 
understood that partitions are run through those cellars 
which are adapted to the size of the family. The 
