In consequence of the improvements mentioned and the great prosperity of our country, we also became spectators of their results in our manner of living, and although we have comparatively with others remained in humble walks of life, yet we have made great strides from our early habits, which, in the days of our youth, were governed by destitution and want of means to expand and gratify our desires. The greatest complaint, however, in those anterior times, was the burden of labor which all had to endure with greater or less perseverance, much of which has now been done away with by means of machinery. Some years after the war ended the inhabitants of this town began to make money, and were enabled to live in a different style from that of their former habits, and articles of fancy were introduced. The acquisition of these progressed slow at first but increased as people advanced in property and became enabled to procure the objects of their desires, and the different luxuries thus introduced among us have continued to become more numerous until the present time. By contrasting the manner of living of our parents with that of the present time, we behold the vast change made in a term of about half a century. When our manner of living became changed diseases began to afflict us, and these, as well as our habits of life, have continued to increase, which, together with the great addition of our population, now generates diseases which give employment to the physicians who reside among us. * * * * * SCARCITY OF PHYSICIANS IN FORMER TIMES. The services of men of their profession rarely reached this valley in former times. At Goshen was one or more regular physicians in the time of the war, and in the State of New Jersey, about 20 miles distant from this neighborhood, was another. The latter sometimes attended Peter Gumaer, my grandfather, who was stricken with palsy near the time the war commenced, and he and Doctor Sweezy, from Goshen, attended to heal the wounds which Cornelius Swartwout received when the Indians invaded this neighborhood.