The farmers universally kept sheep, raised the wool to make the clothes for the members of the family, and at the same time used the large sheep to churn with upon a tread or sweep power. Up to 1850 butter and hogs were the chief products. It is less than 200 years since the first squatters settled in the limits of the three towns of which we write. The first customs to pass away were their friendly associations with the few Indians who clung to their old hunting grounds with death-like tenacity. Then the hostilities engendered by the helplessness of the Indians and the consequent overbearing attitude of the settlers passed by, leaving a trail of traditions and savage memories. Then followed the old logging, stone picking, mowing, husking and quilting bees or frolics in which whiskey was used as a general beverage. Then came the passing of the use of whiskey for the universal medicine and social welcome. Next passed the days when women carded the wool and spun and wove it, and knit everywhere, knit, knit, knit. Next passed the days when the young ladies worked samplers, and helped in the harvest and hay fields, and grew up vigorous, stout and healthy. Next passed the fishing with fikes {_sic_} and racks and the hunting for wolves and foxes. Now have arrived the days when fish and game are about extinct. Now are the days when the farmers sell their milk and buy their butter; when they sell little else than milk and have become a great generation of buyers; when social visits are about unknown; when the old time good-natured sports and merriment are frowned upon; when men no longer meet on the streets and argue politics, but bury themselves in a newspaper on the trains or in any resting place and read, read, read; when women no longer knit and spin; when the girls no longer will do outdoor work and dreadfully dislike to do indoor work; when, instead of the big boys and girls going to school a few months in the winter season, they all go away to boarding school. In noting these and other changes which have taken place in the towns as the years have fled, it is noticeable that the people generally live better, even luxuriously, compared with former years, but are their public and domestic relations happier? CHAPTER XXI. TOWN OF MONROE. By M. N. Kane. The territory comprising the present town of Monroe is part of the Chesekook Patent granted by Queen Anne, March 25, 1707. The Chesekook tract was surveyed by Charles Clinton, father of George and James Clinton, and grandfather of Dewitt Clinton. His field book, the original of which is in the possession of Hon. MacGrane Cox, of Southfield, N. Y. (Mr. Fred J. Knight, Civil Engineer, of Monroe, N. Y., having a copy), contains much information and many interesting incidents of the early history of this section.