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Oh! A wonderful stream is the river of Time,
As it runs through the realm of tears,
With a faultless rhythm, and a musical rhyme,
And a broader sweep, and a surge sublime,
As it blends in the ocean of years.
--B. F. Taylor.

         Forty-two years have passed away since white men first entered, for occupancy, upon the fertile prairies of Cedar County—erst the hunting grounds of the Sauk and Foxes, the Musquakies, and kindred tribes of native people.

         Since the time when the cabins of white men began to be reared upon the hillsides and within the valleys of the numerous streams that find their source in hillside springs and unite their waters with the mighty Mississippi, the Father of Waters, the years have been so full of change that the visitor of to-day, ignorant of the past, could scarcely be made to realize that during these years a population of 20,000 has grown up within the limits of the county whose history we are writing. From a savage wild, marked only by bloody mounds of earth, this land has become a center of civilization, net-lined with fences and checkered with the fairest fields of cultivation. Where once roamed and grazed vast herds of buffalo, deer, antelope and elk, now feed in quiet peace the fattening herds of swine and cattle. The rippling streams, where timid deer were wont to quench their thirst, now turn the wheels of industry at the will of those strong-hearted men who came from happy eastern homes to conquer the wilderness and civilize the beautiful prairie.

Pg 419

         Schools, churches, highly cultivated and remunerative farms, with their palatial-like dwellings, mark the camping places and battle grounds of the wild men who once held dominion over these prairie plains and forest-covered hills. Cities, towns and villages occupy the places once dotted over with Indian wigwams. Iron bridges span the streams where once bark canoes served as ferries for the wild men, their women and children, and railroads and telegraph lines—adjuncts and agencies of the highest type of civilization known to the world’s history—mark the course of the trails they made when traveling from one part of the country to another.

         It is not strange that among the pioneer settlers of any new country a deep-seated and sincere friendship should spring up, that would grow and strengthen with their years. The incidents peculiar to life in a new country—the trials and hardships, privations and destitutions—are well calculated to test not only the physical powers of endurance, but the moral, kindly, generous attributes of manhood and womanhood. They are times that try men’s souls and bring to the surface all that there may be in them of either good or bad. As a rule, there is an equality of conditions that recognizes no distinctions. All occupy a common level, and, as a natural consequence, a brotherly and sisterly feeling grows up that is as lasting as time, for “a fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind” with such a community, there is a hospitality, a kindness, a benevolence and a charity unknown and unpracticed among the older, richer and more densely populated commonwealths. The very nature of their surroundings teaches them to “feel each other’s woe, to share each other’s joy.” An injury or a wrong may be ignored, but a kindly, generous, charitable act is never forgotten. The memory of old associations and kindly deeds is always fresh. Raven locks may bleach and whiten; full, round cheeks wither and waste away; the fires of intelligence vanish from the organs of vision; the brow become wrinkled with care and age, and the erect form bowed with accumulating years, but the true friends of the “long ago” will be remembered as long as life and reason endure.

         The surroundings of pioneer life are well calculated to test the “true inwardness” of the human heart. As a rule, the men and women who first occupy a new country—who go in advance to spy out the land and prepare it for the coming of a future people—are bold, fearless, self-reliant and industrious. In these respects, no matter from what remote sections or countries they may come, there is a similarity of character. In birth, education, religion and language, there may be a vast difference, but, imbued with a common purpose—the founding and building of homes—these differences are soon lost by association, and, thus they become one people, united by a common interest, and no matter what changes may come in after years, the associations thus formed are never buried out of memory.