In the fall of 1803, Henry Berry, a Welshman, came to this country to establish a home, and leaving his wife and smaller children in Philadelphia, Pa., took his two boys, one nine and the other eleven years old, and put up a small cabin in the interior of Delaware county, fifteen miles from the nearest one of the three families that constituted the white inhabitants. At this time the country was full of Indians and wild animals, and was distant from sources of supplies seventy-five to one hundred miles. The father was so infatuated with the country, he hurriedly erected a small cabin of such timber as he and his boys could handle; and when covered, but without floor, chimney, or fire-place, and without daubing or chinking, he fixed the children a place to sleep, started back for Philadelphia, hoping to get the rest of his family West before the cold weather set in. When he reached Philadelphia he found his wife dangerously sick with a protracted fever, and before she was able to travel Mr. Berry became sick, and winter came on, and he was unable to return until the June following. The boys had not been heard from; the winter had been unusually severe, and they had been left with but a short amount of provisions, without a gun, surrounded by Indians and wild beasts, and were compelled to live upon such animals as they could capture; and with no fireplace or chimney they passed a cold winter in that open cabin. And when the father returned with the family, he found the boys had cleared enough ground for a large garden and had vegetables growing from the seeds they had brought with them from Wales. Of course the boys suffered much, but like the one on the burning deck, they heroically stood their ground regardless of consequence. But the man who would refuse cornbread and carry a bushel of wheat seventy-five miles on his shoulder, to get it ground, is not properly a subject of pity or sympathy. Before the state had reached its fortieth anniversary, almost all parental heads establishing homes in this country, prior to the opening of the Erie Canal (1825), could, at the sound of a dinner horn, call in a large family of well-grown children, numbering a “baker’s dozen,” more or less; and oftener than otherwise, without the loss of a single addition. The ratio of natural increase of population was satisfactory, and death rate was small. The climate was healthful; living simple and easy; house-keeping uncomplicated and destitute of style. Rural homes were all alike unostentatious, and early marriages were seldom, if ever, deferred on account of immaturity or financial circumstances; and large families became fashionable. Seldom less than ten, and only occasionally more than twenty children, were added to the household.