Cornwall's beginnings were a story of harsh winters and brute labor. The first settlers preferred the hills because the timber was easier to clear for cultivation and pasture than the densely wooded valleys. Though Cornwall was to grow and prosper, with its share of advances in agriculture and industry, this gritty quality underlay people's lives, as it did in innumerable rural American towns, until fairly recent times. After the bitter hardship of the early years, a certain roughness continued, to one degree or another, to qualify the substantial joys and rewards of life in Cornwall.