[Footnote: Crevecoeur, "Voyage dans la Haute Pennsylvanie," etc., p.

265.] They pushed independence to an extreme; they did not wish to work for others or to rent land from others.

Each was himself a small landed proprietor, who cleared only the ground that he could himself cultivate.

Workmen were scarce and labor dear.

It was almost impossible to get men fit to work as mill hands, or to do high-class labor in forges even by importing them from Pennsylvania or Maryland.