PREFACE
This book deals with just an ordinary boy, brought up, however, among people and conditions that were not ordinary. This little town of Silverton and the neighborhood around it were made up of men and women who had left the best sections of the Eastern States to go West that they might avoid the Railroads and conditions that followed them. Strange as it may seem one of the early settlers of Silverton had moved from Connecticut to Illinois to get away from the railroad, and later from Illinois to Oregon, and finally died in Silverton without ever having seen a railroad train. Such a statement might mislead some people into thinking that the man was a
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