Early pioneer struggles include building their own place to live
Star Courier
NEPONSET – Why would 1830’s Ohio and Pennsylvania families leave the comfort of towns, clap-board houses, general stores, schools and churches? Not to mention the livery stables, doctors and dentists. The answer is, not all folks were living in comfort. They were on lower rung of communities as tenant farmers, lower paid employees and young people with little future. Some farmers went west from the stony fields of New England, and Southern families went west from the crowded lands of Virginia and the Carolinas. Some suffering from bad luck, bad management or bad judgement with the law. Families were large, and only one child could inherit the family home. To European immigrants the American frontier offered political freedom and economic opportunity. As a group, they saw 160 acres of land offered in the Military Tract of 1812, Illinois Territory, North boundary as a way out. This specific area was 3.5