verge of civilization.

[Illustration: SURVEYOR'S CERTIFICATE (SLIGHTLY REDUCED), TAKEN FROM
RECORD BOOK "B," PAGE 60, IN THE OFFICE OF JEFFERSON COUNTY,
KENTUCKY.]

The "barbarous neighborhood" and the "savage intercourse" undoubtedly
had their effect upon the manners and morals of the settlers; but we
should fall into error if we took it for granted that the pioneers
were all of one piece. The ruling motive which led most of them to the
wilds was that Anglo-Saxon lust of land which seems inseparable from
the race. The prospect of possessing a four-hundred-acre farm by
merely occupying it, and the privilege of exchanging a basketful of
almost worthless continental currency for an unlimited estate at the
nominal value of forty cents per acre, were irresistible to thousands
of land-loving Virginians and Carolinians whose ambition of
proprietorship was larger than their means. Accompanying this flood of
emigrants of good faith was the usual froth and scum of shiftless
idlers and adventurers, who were either drifting with a current they
were too worthless to withstand, or in pursuit of dishonest gains in
fresher and simpler regions. The vices and virtues of the pioneers
were such as proceeded from their environment. They were careless of
human life because life was worth comparatively little in that hard
struggle for existence; but they had a remarkably clear idea of the
value of property, and visited theft not only with condign punishment,
but also with the severest social proscription. Stealing a horse was
punished more swiftly and with more feeling than homicide. A man might
be replaced more easily than the other animal. Sloth was the worst of
weaknesses. An habitual drunkard was more welcome at "raisings" and
"logrollings" than a known faineant. The man who did not do a man's