Numerous difficulties and manifold dangers beset the wanderers' path; yet, regardless of both, they pushed on with infinite courage and patience. Nor was the journey through the wilds without a tinge of romance to the younger and more adventurous spirits, who enjoyed the freedom they could not have in the towns and cities. About eighty years ago, a widow and her family--a son and a daughter--packed up all their worldly possessions in an emigrant waggon, and started for the West. Widow Ballou made her home in the State of Ohio, which at that time was only peopled by a few scattered settlers. Five years afterwards, a young man named Abram Garfield started on the same journey. It is said that he was more anxious to renew his acquaintance with the Ballou family than to make his fortune. The widow's daughter Eliza was the attraction that drew him into the Western wilds. On the third of February 1821, Abram Garfield and Eliza Ballou became man and wife, and their first home was a log cabin, which the young husband erected at Newburg, near Cleveland. It was an isolated spot, for Cleveland, the larger place, then consisted of a few log cabins, containing a population of about one hundred persons. The humble dwelling of Abram Garfield and his young wife had but one large room. The three windows were of greased paper, a substitute for glass, and the furniture was home made and of the rudest description. Wood was the chief material used. There were wooden stools, a wooden bed, and wooden plates and dishes. A frying-pan, an iron pot, and a kettle, made up the list of utensils which were absolutely necessary. Nine years passed away, during which the young couple were very happy in each other's love, and three children were added to their little family circle. Abram worked on the land, and was for a time employed in the construction of the Ohio and Pennsylvanian Canal. To provide for his growing family, the young husband then bought fifty acres of land, a few miles away from his first home. At the same time, Amos Boynton, who had married Mrs. Garfield's sister, also bought a tract of land in the same locality. The two families removed to the new scene of their labours at the same time, and lived together in one log cabin, until they had erected a second dwelling. When this was done, the Garfields and the Boyntons settled down to reclaim the wilderness. They had to depend on each other for society, as their nearest neighbour lived seven miles away.