The heat of summer and the continued cold of winter were found most trying. The animals they brought with them were greatly reduced by their long voyages and then had to endure the trials of acclimatization. As there were no mills for sawing lumber, the houses were constructed of stones and logs, while the necessary boards were obtained only by tedious hand labor. The shingles were riven from straight-grained chestnut timber and the laths from easy -splitting oak.

The whole country was covered with dense forests, except the parcels cleared by the Indians, and these had become exhausted . of their fertility by continuous cropping with corn, and the settlers had no means of obtaining the necessary manure for their enrichment. After the trees had been removed from fresh fields the soil was generally very stony and difficult to cultivate.

When the settlers had become well established and lived in comfortable homes, their circumstances were rude and their occupations truly primitive. They had no roads other than the tortuous paths that led from one settlement to another, and over these nearly all their transportation was done by oxen, yoked to rude and cumbersome carts. The wheels were constructed from roughly-hewn oak with strong felloes, upon which pieces of iron were spiked to protect them from wear. They had no continuous tires. , Wagons were very rare. Oxen also performed nearly all the animal labor of the farm. There were but few horses. These were chiefly used under the saddle, the women often riding upon pillions behind the men. Until mills for grinding grain were built, the flour was made by hand-grinding in a mortar, and afterward, the mills being few in number, much of the grain was carried long distances upon • the backs of horses. Nearly everything used in the family was raised and manufactured upon the premises.