In an earlier chapter we have read of one of the first winters spent in Denison, how the young men clubbed together, worked and played and how in spite of cold and snow they were comparatively content, for were they not young, strong and hopeful with life before them and the future an unopened book but peopled with roseate dreams? But the snows of time are harder to defy than the snows of winter. The years moved on space and with the opening of the Twentieth Century we find that the pioneers are growing old. they have fallen as the leaves of autumn until, today, there remain but a few of those who have the brunt of early settlement.

The death roll of the pioneers since 1900 is long and sad and the names recall the faces of many loved ones, of many others who played humbler, but just as important parts in happy homes. We give the list of the fallen pioneers, those who have died since 1900 as nearly as possible. It has been the effort to give them all, if some have been omitted it is unintentional and greatly regretted.

Where possible the date of their coming to Crawford county is given in parenthesis, following the name.

This brings the list of our dead among those who had lived long in the county or who had been prominently identified with its history, down to August 20th 1911 and it speaks more eloquently and more pathetically of the work of the grim reaper is doing than the most impassioned phrases. Long before another such a volume of Crawford county history is written the first pioneers will have passed away.

Three hundred and forty-seven names are in the lists above, who among us will be the three hundred and forty-eighth will have answered before this book reaches the hands of its readers, but whoever it shall be, let us hope that the verdict may be "Well done, thou good and faithful servant," just as we know that it has been with the vast majority of the pioneers who have gone before.