HARDSHIPS OF THE NEW COLONY.
It is no small undertaking to reduce heavily timbered lands to farms,
especially where there are few, if any, kinds of timber of any market
value, as was the case in the Oswego wilderness subdued by this
Massachusetts colony and others who settled in with and around about them.
All the land had to be cleared twice, and much of it three times, of some
tons per acre of encumbrances. First, the trees must be felled, cut up,
rolled into heaps, and burned to ashes. Then the huge stumps must take
a few years to decay, and then be torn out, piled up in heaps, and also
burned. Last, but not always least in labor and cost, a burden of stones
had to be drawn off from portions of most of the farms and piled in
heaps or wrought into walls. But our colonists were sober, diligent, and
persevering, and under their cheerful toil the wilderness was reduced to
fruitful fields. The temporary log houses and stables soon gave place to
comfortable buildings; and the "clearings" met as the woods disappeared
before the ax.
The log chapel dwelling, sacred though it was as God's house and heaven's
gate, was one of the first to disappear. A goodly frame house was just
covered and its floors laid, but no partitions set up, when it was
gloriously consecrated by a most powerful quarterly meeting.
This was in the summer of 1823. Rev. Goodwin Stoddard was the presiding
elder, a mighty man when fully aroused. Sunday evening he preached in the
new house during a fearful thunderstorm, and seemed girded like Elijah
running before the chariot of the king. While Jehovah spake in the clouds,
and for a long time the heavens seemed to be "a sheet of flame." He also
spake by his servant, and the response from the people was in tears and
sobs, groans and shouts; and at the conclusion of nearly every sweep of the
preacher's wonderful flights could be heard above the whole a shrill shout
from the hostess, followed by a tornado of amens! When the sermon closed
the storm ceased, and the "slain of the Lord were many." Memorable night!
The people found neither slumber nor weariness, and when the morning dawned
very few had not found a brighter dawn.