The pioneer hardships decreased
and the homely comforts grew with every passing year of thrift. But the
orchard yield of stuff for the still, and the cotton field's furnishing
the wherewithal to buy more slaves, brought temptations. Distilleries and
slaves, a contemporary said, were blessings or curses according as they
were used or abused; for drunkenness and idleness were the gates of the
road to retrogression.[7]
[Footnote 7: David Ramsay _History of South Carolina_, II, pp. 246 ff.]
The pathetic hardships which some of the poorer migrants underwent in their
labors to reach the western opportunity are exemplified in a local item
from an Augusta newspaper in 1819: "Passed through this place from
Greenville District [South Carolina] bound for Chatahouchie, a man and his
wife, his son and his wife, with a cart but no horse. The man had a belt
over his shoulders and he drew in the shafts; the son worked by traces tied
to the end of the shafts and assisted his father to draw the cart; the
son's wife rode in the cart, and the old woman was walking, carrying
a rifle, and driving a cow."[8] This example, while extreme, was not
unique.[9]
[Footnote 8: Augusta, Ga.
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