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The
people in the early history of Monroe county took no
care to preserve history -they
were
too busily engaged in making it. Historically
speaking, those were the most important years of the
county, for it was then the foundation and corner
stones of all the county’s history and prosperity
were laid. Yet this history was not remarkable for
stirring events. It was, however, a time of
self-reliance and brave, persevering toil; of
privations cheerfully endured through faith in a good
time coming. The experience of one settler was just
about the same as that of others. Nearly all of the
settlers were poor; they faced the same hardships and
stood generally on an equal footing. All the
experience of the early pioneers of this county goes
far to confirm the theory that, after all, happiness
is pretty evenly balanced in this world. They had
their privations and hardships, but they had also
their own peculiar joys. If they were poor, they were
free from the burden of pride and vanity; free also
from the anxiety and care that always attends the
possession of wealth. Other people’s eyes cost them
nothing. If they had few neighbors, they were on the
best of terms with those they had. Envy, jealousy and
strife had not crept in. A common interest and a
common sympathy bound them together with the strongest
ties. They were a little world to themselves, and the
good feeling that prevailed was all the stronger
because they were so far removed from the great world
of the East. Among these pioneers there was realized
such a community of interest that there existed a
community of feeling. There were no castes, except an
aristocracy of benevolence, and no nobility, except a
nobility of generosity. They were bound together with
such a strong bond of sympathy, inspired by the
consciousness of common hardship, that they were
practically communists. Neighbors did not even wait
for an invitation or request to help one another. Was
a settler’s cabin burned or blown down? No sooner
was the fact known throughout the neighborhood than
the settlers assembled to assist the unfortunate one
to rebuild his home. They came with as little
hesitation, and with as much alacrity, as though they
were all members of the same family and bound together
by ties of blood. One man’s interest was every other
man’s interest. Now, this general state of feeling
among the pioneers was by no means peculiar to these
counties, although it was strongly illustrated here.
It prevailed generally throughout the West during the
time of the early settlement. The very nature of
things taught the settlers the necessity of dwelling
together in this spirit. It was their only protection.
They had come far away from the well established reign
of law, and entered a new country, where civil
authority was still feeble and totally unable to
afford protection and redress grievances. Here the
settlers lived some little time before there was an
officer of the law in the county. Each man’s
protection was in the good will and friendship of
those about him, and the thing that any man might well
dread was the ill will of the community. It was more
terrible than the law. It was no uncommon thing in the
early times for hardened men, who had no fears of
jails or penitentiaries, to stand in great fear of the
indignation of a pioneer community. Such were some of
the characteristics of Monroe county.
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