It would take several years to just get ready to farm. First a warm home was needed for the family. Then land needed to be cleared for farming. Besides these necessities, people were occupied with other thoughts such as building roads, grist and sawmills, stores, schools, churches, towns, post offices, the care of orchards and maple-sugar groves and organizing to preserve law and order.

People found wealth in children. They needed a large family to help with the work and to feel safe in the wilderness. Children learned at an early age to hunt, fish, cook, work in the fields, carry wood into the woodshed for winter, carry water for cooking and bathing and many other chores. Many never traveled further than a few miles from where they lived.

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Pioneer Families of Penns & Brush Valleys - Page 2

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Families had great hardships as described by a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter who visited the Tylersville area in 1890 and reported on the exceptional hardships of one family.

The story begins in Brush Valley in 1817 when a son is born to a prominent family. He grew up on a farm and by the age of 20 had his eye on a neighbor girl. She saw his strange behavior and turned her interest to another young man. William's broken heart added stress and he became a dangerous lunatic, according to the article. He was placed in confinement after he had been hopelessly insane and prowling the mountains for 16 years. Meanwhile the family moved from Brush Valley to Sugar Valley. In a lower room of the house, William was confined. Strong bars were stretched ocross the windows. Four heavy posts were nailed to the floor and a crude bed of rough boards covered with straw was where he spent his time. No one attempted to approach him. His food was pushed through a window. His enormous appetite caused his strength to increase and it was necessary for him to be chained. It required several strong men to hold him while the pen was cleaned. By the time William was in his 50's, his father died and the farm was left to a brother with the condition that he care for William as long as he lived. In 1875 a hut was built about 10 yards from the house. It was here that the reporter from the Philadelphia Inquirer got to see William. He sits motionless wearing an old soiled shirt and partly covering his naked limbs was a blanket that was once white. A neighbor tells the reporter that he is 73 years old and has been in chains for 35 years. "He is so weak that he cannot move his lower limbs. The chain was removed August 1889. He never lies down but sits the way you see him. Now that he can't move, we have a stove in the room to keep him warm in the winter. I keep his pen as clean as I can. He has never been abused here although we had to handle him pretty rough to manage him. We take him three meals a day as if he was eating at our table." William would live three more years following the reporter's visit.

Families would come as a group into the wilderness -- each having their own expertise. Families would work together to build their new home near a water source. Furniture was crude and homemade. Your home was what you could make or grow. The village cobbler would make shoes from calfskin. Homes didn't have calendars. Children could tell it was Sunday when coffee was served on the breakfast table. Families might have sugar at Christmas time.