CALVIN COOLIDGE
habitants scattered about the valleys and on the sides of the hills, which the mountains divided into a considerable number of different neighborhoods, each with a well-developed local community spirit.
As time went on, much land was cleared of forest, very substantial buildings of wood construction were erected, saw mills and grist mills were located along the streams, and the sale of lumber and lime, farm products and domestic animals, brought considerable money into the town, which was laid out for improvements or found its way into the country store. It was a hard but wholesome life, under which the people suffered many privations and enjoyed many advantages, without any clear realization of the existence of either one of them.
They were a hardy self-contained people. Most of them are gone now and their old homesteads are reverting to the wilderness. They went forth to conquer where the trees were thicker, the fields larger, and the problems more difficult. I have seen their descendants scattered all over the country, especially in the middle west, and as far south as the Gulf of Mexico and westward to the Pacific slope.
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