Pioneer settlement

“ It is surprising what comfort the traveller encounters among these new settlements, from which, even already, all traces have been eradicated of the difficulties that originally beset the colonist; so that at every turn one meets with evidences of the highest European civilization. Whenever, indeed, he finds himself at a settlement, he will remark that it is not merely provided with the necessaries of life, or the mere products of the soil, but that it sparkles with numerous objects of luxury and refined taste ”

“ This, together with the number of convicts, who after the expiration of their sentences remain with their respective families growing up under them, has so increased the population of free settlers, that the prosperity of the settlement, as a colony, has proportionally advanced ”

“ Of all the Imperial problems in process of evolution—for solution cannot be named in this connection, since finality in Empire-building synchronizes with an era of deterioration—none can be reckoned of greater moment than that redistribution of population within the nation to which is given the name of settlement or colonization. ”

“ The fictitious statements of the "dreadful accident-makers," who more than once caused accounts of the starvation of the settlers to appear in the public prints, and the report of those settlers who were chagrined and disappointed at not meeting with all their too sanguine expectations induced them to anticipate, have led the public to look upon the Settlement rather with an eye of pity, than with a generous satisfaction at its promising success. But, notwithstanding all this, the Colony not only exists, but it increases. ”

“ A change came over the sleepy old territory. These active, pushing emigrants, the best blood of the older states, are leveling the forests, they are delving in the mines, they are tunneling the mountains, they are toiling in the grain fields, they are building cities, towns and villages, filling the heavens with the shining towers of religion and civilization.
The old settler finds himself in the midst of a strange new age and almost uncomprehended scenes. The old order of things has passed away but your sturdy self-reliant pioneer looks not mournfully into the past. ”

“ If such an extent of territory were thrown into the world's market to-day, the rapidity with which it would be exploited and explored, and its wealth made tributary to the world's requirements, would astonish, if they were here, the men who pioneered the settlement of the new country and left so royal a heritage to their descendants. ”

“ The first founders of this Territory, those who dug their way through the mountains, cut the sage brush, killed the snakes, made the roads, built bridges and houses, opened farms, laid out and built cities where no white man ever thought that civilized people could subsist, unless they brought provisions from a distant country, can now assemble together surrounded with the comforts and many of the luxuries of this life. No white man who ever passed through this country believed that a settlement could be made in these mountains, and prosper in cultivating the earth. ”

“ But above all this, the state and circumstances of our settlements render such a measure not only proper and eligible, but absolutely necessary. The English settlements, as they are at present circumstanced, are absolutely at a stand; they are settled up to the mountains: and in the mountains there is no where together land sufficient for a settlement large enough to subsist by itself, and to defend itself, and preserve a communication with the present settlements. ”

“ Both native settler and European immigrant saw in this free and competitive movement of the frontier the chance to break the bondage of social rank, and to rise to a higher plane of existence. The pioneer was passionately desirous to secure for himself and for his family a favorable place in the midst of these large and free but vanishing opportunities. It took a century for this society to fit itself into the conditions of the whole province. ”

“ The day we trust is not far distant when through the representations of Captain James Stirling our late highly esteemed Governor, the tide of Emigration will again set in upon our shores, and will ensure to Emigrants to this Settlement equal privileges to those extended to other Colonies. ”

“ Such people are not able to make a success of farming and should be avoided. These classes of applicants are found among immigrants as well as among natives, soldiers, and civilians.
How important the selection of settlers is for the success of colonization and settlement on land is shown by the close scrutiny of prospective settlers made by the agents of modern private colonization companies and also by certain state immigration officials. ”

“ In making for himself a competence, and providing healthful surroundings for his family, the settler has a further satisfaction. He is, at the same time, building up the Empire, stimulating the circulation of Imperial blood, and forming, in the persons of himself and his children, so many fresh ties between the glorious historical past and the yet wider and more glorious future for which his brothers—English, African, Australian, Canadian; but British all—laid down their lives. ”

“ But, however admirably gifted by nature any situation may be deemed for the purpose of forming a new settlement, many weighty considerations must press upon the mind, and much privation will be endured, before any individual will determine to quit his native land, in search of ease or affluence in a distant uninhabited world. ”

“ The comity of nations, however, has recognised in the case of settlements made in a vacant territory for the purpose of colonisation, a title in the settlers to such an extent of territory as it may fairly be presumed that they intend to cultivate (Vattel, b. i., § 81,) and the possession of which is essential either to the convenience or security of the settlement, without being inconvenient to other nations. ”

“ With France expelled and the Indians deprived 89 of their white allies, the westward path lay open to the pioneers, even though the red man himself would rise again and again in vain endeavor to bar the way. So a new era begins, the era of exploration for definite purpose, the era of commonwealth building. In entering on it, we part with the earliest pioneer—the trader, who first opened the road for both the lone home seeker and the great land company. He dwindles now to the mere barterer and so—save for a few chance glimpses—slips out of sight, for his brave days as Imperial Scout are done. ”

“ The earliest colonists were chiefly composed of persons belonging to the middle and upper middle classes, whose prominent idea seemed to be that of founding a settlement of gentlemen, each of whom, it was arranged, should receive a grant of land in proportion to the number of labourers and the quantity of property that he carried out with him ”

“ It would seem that the moral effect, upon each wave of rude invaders, of the more cultured, settled tribes whom they were destined to conquer, was enormous. Settlement, increased prosperity, expansion and conquest demanded some form of administration more elaborate than that which a general, a high-priest, and a council of elders could provide. ”

“ Whatever may be the real value of the community type of settlement, its establishment in New England was intimately connected both with the Congregational religious organization and with the land system of the colonies of that section, under which the colonial governments made grants—not in tracts to individuals, but in townships to groups of proprietors who in turn assigned lands to the inhabitants without cost. ”

“ When the territory taken possession of was thinly occupied by wandering tribes, as in North America, or by mere savages, as in Australia, we have been able to gain an easy settlement without the sacrifice of many lives. Some countries have come to us as the fruit of conquest, examples of which we have in India, Canada, and Cape Colony. And certain territories we have acquired by purchase or by friendly arrangement with the native chiefs, as in the case of New Zealand and the Straits Settlements. ”

“ However necessary it might have been for the first settlers to take out with them every article which they might require on their arrival or location, the emigrant must remember that an ample supply of goods has been brought into the Colony, and consequently he will find it answer his purpose better to keep far the greater part of his money in his pocket, and on his arrival at the Settlement, he can purchase what he wants, and as he wants them. ”

“ This was especially the case with the colonists of Plymouth and Massachusetts. Many of them were educated men, and all possessed their full share, according to their social condition, of the knowledge and attainments of that age. The distinctive characteristic of their settlement is the introduction of the civilization of Europe into a wilderness, without bringing with it the political institutions of Europe. The arts, sciences, and literature of England came over with the settlers. ”

“ The colonists were quite a curious mixture—two or three carpenters, four blacksmiths, three watchmakers, a brewer, an engraver, a shoemaker, a poet, a miller, a bookbinder, two or three merchants, a hatter and a musician; but being mostly of sturdy, industrious German stock, they soon formed such a prosperous and important little community that, by 1876, the settlement had grown to nearly two thousand people. ”

“ While the various peoples named took part in the settlement of the colonies, the bulk of the settlers were of English birth, and Anglo-Saxon thrift and energy became the foundation stones upon which our nation has been built. Of the others, nearly the whole of them were of Teutonic origin, while the Huguenots, whom oppression drove from France, were of the very bone and sinew of that despot-ridden land. ”

“ In order that we may appreciate, somewhat, the broader political conditions under which the first settlers took up their abode here, which largely engrossed their thoughts and vitally affected them and their children for two generations, it is necessary, before taking up the narrative of their actual settlement here, to advert briefly to the state of affairs at that time in England, and on the continent of Europe, and in the English, French and Spanish Colonies of North America. ”

“ But we do feel that those efforts after improvement labour under this disadvantage—that they are, in great measure, efforts to overtake an evil which has been for some time in occupation of the ground, and are necessarily deficient in method and in comprehensiveness. Our present object is, therefore, to set an example of a colonial settlement, in which, from the first, all the elements, including the very highest, of a good and right state of society, shall find their proper place, and their active operation. ”

“ Our lack of information is most probably due to the simple reason that the settlement, like all settlements of a new country, was a very gradual one, a few men coming over in the first instance for the purpose of trade either with Britons or Romans, or coming from the over-populated North to settle in a country which the paucity of archæological remains shows to have been thinly occupied. ”

“ The memory of the sufferers in this war as well as that of their descendants still looks back upon them with regret, and abhorrence, and the page of history will consign their names to posterity, with the full weight of infamy they deserve. . . .
. . . our early land laws . . . allowed four hundred acres, and no more, to a settlement right. Many of our first settlers seemed to regard this amount of the surface of the earth, as the allotment of divine providence for one family, and believed that any attempt to get more would be sinful. ”

“ Plantation life and proprietary ownership were not conducive to the growth of cities. As the old settlers died out the houses were abandoned, and the post office was removed to a corner of the Hall plantation, then known as Kingston Corner. A new settlement grew up there, and since emancipation has changed the conditions of life it has grown and thriven. ”

“ In its Moot, the common meeting of its villagers for justice and government, a slave had no place or voice, while the last was originally represented by the lord whose land he tilled. The life, the sovereignty of the settlement resided solely in the body of the freemen whose holdings lay round the moot-hill or the sacred tree where the community met from time to time to deal out its own justice and to make its own laws. Here new settlers were admitted to the freedom of the township, and bye-laws framed and headman and tithing-man chosen for its governance. ”

“ How shall we reveal to this immigrant what this great varied American life means and thus assimilate him into the body politic? Seeking an answer to this problem, the settlement houses have found one of their most effective means in the drama. The southern or southeastern European, filled with emotion, loves to act. In the settlement house, through carefully selected plays, he learns our language and gains the ideals of the land in which he is to live. ”

“ If a base line were run at the extreme edge of our present settlements, and the territory beyond withdrawn from location and settlement, we could then, by a liberal policy which would give an alternate quarter section of land to every actual settler who would reside upon and cultivate the same for two years, draw to our frontier a host of hardy pioneers, who would not only be able to resist the encroachments of the Indians, but soon acquire strength sufficient to intimidate them. ”

“ The settlers, who came up into the high grounds from the shores of the Sound, did not leave, for the most part, on account of disagreement with their neighbors in matters civil or ecclesiastical, nor with a special sense of divine calling or mission. They were rather led by the Anglo-Saxon spirit of colonization to settle on new soil, to extend former industries or to undertake new ones, and to organize new units of life in the body politic. ”