was never withheld. The incorrigible offender received the sentence which the majesty of moral virtue pronounces against vice and turpitude, and he was "hated from society." Courage was a virtue, and military duty was performed with alacrity. He that refused to appear in arms, fully equipped, at a moment's notice, found public censure resting upon him, and he was "hated from the place." Did a neighbor wish to erect a cabin, or to roll his logs, or to gather his harvest, each man was a willing hand, and in turn received aid from others. At such places an idler or an indifferent spectator dared not approach, or the contempt of the hardy pioneers settled upon him. Did any contract a debt, it was paid in labor or by the exchange of commodities; and the force of the moral sense, sustained by public sentiment, was a stronger guarantee than all the forms of law, which often serve as a protection against honest demands. Did a man want a bushel of salt, he received it in exchange for a cow and calf. So equal was the distribution of their scanty wealth, that no one envied that of his neighbor: if any were in want, they freely received from those who could give. Was any so base as to steal, with these advantages, "the law of Moses" was enforced, and forty stripes, save one, were freely given; but if the theft were small, in memory of the "old thirteen," as his reward, thirteen stripes disgraced his back. But such was the impression, and so firmly were the stripes applied, that they were not likely soon. to fade away. In the absence of a judge and court, and the forms of law, "Judge Lynch" was sure to mete his just deserts. to every disturber of the peace.

Lynch Law. Although the pioneers in the West were a hardy, enterprising, honest race of men, yet the frontier settlements are often a retreat for loose and unprincipled individuals from the old settlements, who, if not familiar with crime, have very blunt perceptions of virtue. The genuine pioneer, the woodsman, is independent, brave, and upright; but, as the jackal follows in the footsteps of the lion, so the sturdy hunter is followed by the miscreant destitute of noble qualities; men who are the pests of the human race, averse to labor, impatient of the wholesome restraints of law, or the courtesies of civilized life. Some, indeed, are desperadoes, flying from justice, to escape the grasp of the law in older settlements; and in the frontier settlements he bids the civil law defiance. For such

intruders the frontiers had a law of their own, a lex loci, known as Lynch law, which seldom failed to purge the community of his unwelcome presence. Its operation was often indispensable when a horse-thief, a counterfeiter, or other desperate vagabond infested a neighborhood, evading justice by cunning, or by a strong, audacious arm, or by the number of his confederates. The citizens formed themselves into a regulating party, commonly known as "regulators," a kind of holy brotherhood, whose duty required them to purge the neighborhood of such unruly members. Mounted, armed, and commanded by a leader, they proceeded to arrest the object of their mission. Night was the season for their official acts. Chief-justice "Birch" established his tribunal under a forest canopy; before him the culprit was arraigned, and with form and ceremony tried, and, as a matter of course, convicted. Sentence was pronounced, and without delay the penalty was inflicted, without stint or mercy. Tied securely to a tree, he was made to feel the rod, dealt by many sturdy hands, until justice was satisfied. If perchance he were an old offender, or had claims to the title of a "British Tory," his wounds were dressed, not with oil and wine, but with "tar and feathers." As the culprit retired from this ordeal, he was informed by Judge Lynch that the operation would be repeated in a few days unless he withdrew from the jurisdiction of the court. If there were confederates in crime, this warning served for all.

This tribunal was resorted to only in extreme cases; and, although liable to occasional abuse, it was a great protection to honest people against the most abandoned intruders, who defied the usual forms of law.*

10. Social Virtues.-Hospitality was a duty as well as a virtue; with the stranger or wayfaring man, they would readily divide their rough fare without pay or reward. In their settlements all lived together in harmony and rude simplicity. Warm and constant in their friendships, they lived and worked, feasted or suffered together in cordial harmony.

Was a man's honor or integrity impeached, the offender must prove his manhood on the spot. If he were unable to fight at fisticuff, or "rough and tumble," his friend must maintain the contest in his place. When the contest was decided, the combatants, reconciled, often shook hands, and there the *See Hall's Sketches of the West, vol. ii., p. 88-92.

VOL. II.-B

matter ended. Pitched battles between two rival heroes sometimes were seen, when fists, and feet, and teeth were used; but knives and fire-arms were deemed dishonorable and base.

In these rude settlements female virtue was safe without the protection of law. Each brother and kinsman was the prompt avenger of a sister's wrongs, and the penalty was not delayed by the slow process of law; but a want of chivalry in defense of female weakness was never known.

A marriage was the signal of a general jubilee among the friends of both parties. Days passed in anxious expectation of the appointed festival, when all hearts were to indulge in mirth and feasting.

At the appointed time, the rustic guests began to arrive from every quarter, males and females on horseback and on foot. No broad-cloth or beaver adorned their persons. Men were clad in their western dress, shoe-packs, or moccasins, leather breeches, leggins, and hunting-shirts. The women were dressed in their best, in linsey petticoats or gowns, coarse shoes, home-made stockings, handkerchiefs on their necks, and, if the weather was very cold, with leather gloves or woolen mittens on their hands. Few were able to adorn themselves with buckles, rings, or ruffles. Their horse caparisons were of the same rude stamp. The company, thus arrayed, began to arrive in single file about noon, when the rustic mirth began: with the swains, the bottle was an indispensable companion, and each made frequent draughts upon its inspiration.

The marriage ceremony over, all sat down to a wholesome dinner of backwoods fare. Beef, pork, fowls, baked or roasted, and sometimes venison or bear's meat, loaded the rustic board, together with vegetables of all kinds in great profusion; rude pies, pastry, and fruits served for dessert. The dinner past, a rustic dance engaged the joyous friends until the dawn of the following day, when they began to separate for their respective homes.

In sketching these traits of pioneer life, we have left much untold, which may be found in the excellent Notes of Dr. Doddridge. But such traits of pioneer life have long since vanished from Western Virginia, and are scarcely to be found, at this time, even in the remote West; yet, as they did exist, they constitute an important portion of early pioneer history, and as such demand a passing notice, without which the history of the pioneers would be incomplete.

The sports were characteristic of the frontier mode of life. Running, jumping, and wrestling were the pastimes of the boys as well as of the men. Throwing the tomahawk was common, and gave skill in the arts of war. When the stock of ammunition would permit, the men preferred the more warlike exercise of the rifle, with which the diameter of a cent upon a target was pierced at the distance of fifty steps at every shot by half the men present, and some could lodge two successive balls in the same place. The best marksman always took the prize, for which all were zealous competitors.

After the settlements had become more dense on the Monongahela and on the Ohio, a new class of men sprung up, whose life was unique in the West. This was the class of

11. Boatmen.-These were a hardy, fearless set of men, who always kept just in advance of civilization and luxury. They were athletic, persevering, and patient of privations. They traversed in their pirogues, barges, or keels, the longest rivers, penetrated the most remote wilderness upon their watery routes, and kept up a trade and intercourse between the most distant points. Accustomed to every species of exposure and privation, they despised ease and luxury. Clothed in the costume of the wilderness, and armed in western style, they were always ready to exchange the labors of the oar for offensive or defensive war. Exposed to the double force of the direct and reflected rays of the sun upon the water, their complexion was swarthy, and often but little fairer than the Indians. Often, from an exposure of their bodies without shirts, their complexion, from the head to the waist, was the same.

Steam had not exerted its magic influence on the western waters, and the rich cargoes which ascended the Mississippi in keel-boats and barges were propelled by human labor for nearly two thousand miles, slowly advancing against the strong current of these rivers. The boatmen, with their bodies naked to the waist, spent the long and tedious days traversing the "running board," and pushing with their whole force against their strong setting-poles firmly fixed against the shoulder. Thus, with their heads suspended nearly to the track on the running-board, they propelled their freighted barge up the long and tedious route of the river. After a hard day's toil, at night they took their "fillee," or ration of whisky, swallowed their homely supper of meat half burned and bread half

baked, and retiring to sleep, they stretched themselves upon the deck, without covering, under the open canopy of heaven, or probably enveloped in a blanket, until the steersman's horn called them to their morning "fillee" and their toil.

Hard and fatiguing was the life of a boatman; yet it was rare that any of them ever changed his vocation. There was a charm in the excesses, in the frolicks, and in the fightings which they anticipated at the end of the voyage, which cheered them on. Of weariness none would complain; but rising from his hard bed by the first dawn of day, and reanimated by his morning draught, he was prepared to hear and obey the wonted order," Stand to your poles and set off!" The boatmen were masters of the winding-horn and the fiddle, and as the boat moved off from her moorings, some, to cheer their labors, or to "scare off the devil and secure good luck," would wind the animating blast of the horn, which, mingling with the sweet music of the fiddle, and reverberating along the sounding shores, greeted the solitary dwellers on the banks with news from New Orleans.

Their athletic labors gave strength incredible to their muscles, which they were vain to exhibit, and fist-fighting was their pastime. He who could boast that he had never been whipped was bound to fight whoever disputed his manhood. Keel-boatmen and barge-men looked upon rafts-men and flatboatmen as their natural enemies, and a meeting was the prelude to a "battle-royal." They were great sticklers for "fair play," and whoever was worsted in battle must abide the issue without assistance.

Their arrival in port was a general jubilee, where hundreds often met together for diversion and frolick. Their assemblages were often riotous and lawless to extremes, when the civil authorities were defied for days together. Had their numbers increased with the population of the West, they would have endangered the peace of the country; but the first steam-boat that ascended the Ohio sounded their death-knell, and they have been buried in the tide, never more to rise.

12. National Character.-Here we design to sketch in the western people the perceptible, but slight peculiarities which are the results of the peculiar circumstances and conditions of western pioneer life, and the influx of eastern and foreign immigration.