At that time almost everyone in the United States lived on a farm, and a great many of those farms were in the valleys along the rivers and streams that flowed to the sea. In those days there were only a few roads in the entire country, and those roads were so narrow, so Tough and so full of tree stumps and deep mud-holes that (people would not use them if they could possibly travel by water. Everyone tried to live near a river or stream, Ion which boats could be used to carry the corn, wheat, flax, and wool down to the market towns on the coast, where they could be traded for the salt, iron, tea, tools, and other things that were needed.

Great-grandfather McCormick had lived on a farm in Pennsylvania. On this farm he plowed and harvested the grain with the farm tools he had brought with him from his home in Europe. In those early days there were no machines such as we have today to help with the farm work; in fact, farmers were just beginning to discover new ways of making hand tools which could do more work than the old tools their forefathers had used.