It's All Trew: For your vocabulary pleasure

Historians continually write of nesters, settlers, settlements and free-range cattlemen. Exactly what were the origins of these terms? # The term "nester" was first applied to families who chose a plot of land clearing the brush for farming. They cut the large trees to build shelters, then piled the brush from this, plus the brush cleared from the land around the edges of their property, to act as a fence of sorts for protection for their crops. Others, like the cowboys, thought the new farms looked like huge bird nests, hence the title of nesters. # The first white people in America were the explorers, trappers, Mountain Men and soldiers all leading mostly a nomadic life. When families began to arrive, the nomadic way of life ceased as people began to "settle down," thus the term "settler" was born. When settlers gathered in close proximity, it became a "settlement." # A "free-range rancher" was a product of a short period of time beginning when the Indians were placed on reservations. There were no fences, except natural terrain barriers; land titles were scarce and hard to recognize. They considered all the range free to graze their cattle. This all came to an end when barbed wire was invented. This product provided landowners an economical way to delineate their boundaries and protect their crops, thus ending the free-range concept...read more