Southern Illinois Pioneers required endurance and strong constitution for the long journeys through wild country. Pioneers also chanced enduring the wrath of Native Americans; natives of whom were extremely disappointed that their homeland and hunting grounds were being invaded and destroyed. In addition to these challenges, there were severe climate events, and also the great New Madrid earthquake. 

The historical records herein are as told by historians in the late 1800s, and include recollections of the pioneers from the turn of the Nineteenth Century.