In 1818, two thousand people were regularly employed as boatmen on the Ohio, and they were proverbially ferocious and abandoned in their habits, though possibly with many exceptions.[361] The shores of the Monongahela in 1819, were lined with barges, keels, and arks or flats, waiting for the rise of the Ohio.[362] During 1821-1823 flat bottoms, keels, and barges[363] found constant employment in the carrying trade to and from New Orleans.[364] As late as 1828 or 1830, flats, arks, and barges were to be seen at New Orleans.[365] The flats seem to have continued in the greatest numbers after the introduction of the steamboat.

There were on the Ohio many other forms of craft which I shall briefly mention. The Allegheny or Mackinaw skiff was a covered boat carrying from six to ten tons.[366] "Dugouts," named from the manner of making them, and canoes hollowed from trees were to be seen in great numbers. These boats and skiffs were used to cross the rivers, and a select company of travelers often descended the river in them to New Orleans.[367] Flat boats, worked by a wheel, driven by the cattle that they were conveying to New Orleans, were to be seen; also horse boats of various construction, used for the most part as ferry boats, but sometimes as boats of ascent.[368] Boats moved rapidly up stream by wheels, after the steam construction, propelled by a man turning a crank.[369] Flint says, "in this land of freedom and invention, with a little aid perhaps, from the influence of the moon, there are monstrous anomalies, reducible to no specific class of boats, and only illustrating the whimsical archetypes of things that have previously existed in the brain of inventive men, who reject the slavery of being obliged to build in any received form. You can scarcely imagine an abstract form in which a boat can be built, that in some part of the Ohio or Mississippi, you will not see, actually in motion."[370]

As the steamboat was perfected, and increased in numbers and importance, many of these strange craft were destined to disappear, and prior even to the year 1830, many of them began to be superseded by the larger and more swiftly moved steamboats.

CHAPTER III.
ARTICLES OF TRAFFIC, AND PLACES WITH WHICH TRADE WAS CARRIED ON.

During the year 1811, merchants of New Orleans advertised for sale the following articles: Kentucky, flour,[371] horses,[372] pork, whiskey,[373] lard,[374] oats,[375], Monongahela and Kentucky flour,[376] tobacco,[377] hemp,[378] hempen yarn,[379] and packing cloth.[380] From October 5, 1810 to May 5, 1811 there passed the Falls of the Ohio the following number of boats and articles:

"and a number of articles too tedious to be calculated. A Mr. Bowman, a pilot at Jeffersonville, took 106 boats over the Falls of the Ohio, during the aforesaid period of whose cargoes no notice is taken in the above. The foregoing is a return made by the regular pilots, who all agree in stating that during the high water at least one-third as many more passed without their assistance. This estimate, therefore gives the whole probable number of boats, that passed the Falls, at nearly 1200, wafting the rich produce of the western parts of Pennsylvania, and Virginia, with those of the State of Ohio, and a part of Kentucky, to the markets on the sea board."[381]

In 1812 New Orleans received from the "upper country", cider royal of Kentucky,[382] Monongahela flour,[383] Kentucky flour,[384] tobacco,[385] hemp,[386] whiskey,[387] hempen yarn,[388] flour from Pittsburg,[389] Kentucky bagging,[390] and white rope.[391] The flour received at New Orleans for a time must not have been sufficient to supply the demand as is shown by the following article, "We are happy to state that several boats with fresh flour have arrived—that from the enormously high price of $20 per bbl. it has been offered at $16—much more is expected very soon—So that we may fairly calculate in a few days or weeks to have our loaves increasing to their usual size."[392]

Goods were occasionally sent from eastern ports by way of Pittsburg to New Orleans and from thence to Mexico, as shown by the following article, "During the week ending the last year (1812) a Mr. Wells of this town (Boston), has received at the custom house certificates of the legal importation of goods to the amount of $30,000 which have been sent to Mexico by the following route: from Baltimore to Providence in wagons, thence by water through the Sound to Amboy, thence in wagons and by water to Philadelphia, thence by wagons to Pittsburg, thence down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans, and from thence by land and in boats to Mexico. But what is most astonishing, the expense from this to New Orleans is only 4½ per cent on the cost of goods at Boston, while the insurance alone on such as are sent by the way of the ocean is 30, and not less than 25 per cent."[393]

During the year 1812, 100 loaded boats left Chilicothe for Natchez, New Orleans, and other ports. In the same year a vessel of 400 tons was built at the mouth of the Scioto (owned in Chilicothe) and sent off loaded for a foreign port.[394] The flour, whiskey, tobacco, bacon, hemp, and coarse linens that Kentucky was capable of exporting in 1814 was immense.[395] Much coarse linen and yarn was exported from Ohio at this time.[396]

From New Orleans barges were sent to Louisville with freight in the years 1812-1814, the Louisville 'Western Courier' in the latter year noticing the arrival, in three months, of twelve barges, and seven keel boats.[397] Illinois, in 1812 received her freight from New Orleans in barges.[398] In 1814, sugar and coffee were shipped to Cincinnati;[399] cotton and sugar to Louisville;[400] and sugar, cotton, and indigo to Pittsburg.[401] In September or October of the preceding year a Pittsburg merchant advertised 99,385 lbs. of New Orleans sugar for sale; and considerable quantitites were received by others, with supplies of cotton, and other articles[402] Many tons of red lead were received during the year from St. Louis. In 1813, 350 boat loads containing 3750 tons of salt petre, salt, lead, peltry, sugar and other articles, 1250 tons of hemp, and 3750 tons of hempen yarn were received at Pittsburg.[403]

New Orleans, in 1815, received shipments of Kentucky and Tennessee flour. Cincinnati also carried on quite an extensive trade with this city, having sent to New Orleans, in this year, one large barge of 170 tons carrying 1600 barrels of flour, weighing 342,400 pounds, besides sundry other articles;[404] and receiving in return, sugar, cotton, and coffee.[405] New Orleans, in 1816, exported to Cincinnati, sugar, molasses, copperas, shad, mackerel, codfish, queensware, logwood, and Swedish iron;[406] receiving flour and pork from Cincinnati.[407] Orleans cotton was selling in Pittsburg from 33 to 34 cents, and sugar at 25 cents wholesale prices.[408] A writer in the "Register" says, "I venture to say, that when the official papers shall be published, the fact will appear, that a much greater value of goods will be exported from New Orleans in the first year after the proclamation of peace, than from all the "Nation of New England...." meaning of native products. 112 vessels were at one time working up the river."[409]

The following is an estimate of the products received at New Orleans, independent of what was furnished by Louisiana. The amount given was carried in 594 flat bottomed boats and 300 barges from the Western States and Territories.

"Besides a quantity of horned cattle, castings, grind stones, indigo, muskets, merchandise, paoan nuts, peas, beans, etc.[410]"

Beer, porter, and ale were made in Cincinnati, in great quantities, as well for exportation, as for home consumption. The exports of the city consisted of flour, corn, beef, pork, butter, lard, bacon, whiskey, peach brandy, beer, porter, pot and pearl ashes, cheese, soap, candles, hats, hemp, spun yarn, saddles, rifles, cherry and black ash boards, staves and scantling, cabinet furniture and chairs.[411] Boats were, in 1817, sent from Cincinnati to Boston with cargoes.[412]

East Indian and European goods were imported from Baltimore and Philadelphia by way of Pittsburg.[413] A journey, undertaken for the purpose of purchasing goods at Philadelphia, occupied about three months.[414] A house at Pittsburg advanced money in payment of the carriage, and attended to the receipt of the goods by wagon, and their shipment by boats, receiving 5 per cent commission in payment.[415] Coal, of which vast quantities were consumed at Cincinnati, was brought down the Ohio from Pittsburg and Wheeling in flat bottomed boats. White pine boards, and shingles were brought in rafts from Hamilton on the Allegheny.[416] Lead was procured from St. Louis; and rum, sugar, molasses, and some dry goods were received from New Orleans in keels and steamboats.[417] Salt was easily obtained from the Kenhaway salt works.[418] Thus the town of Cincinnati, which was, before 1811, but a small and unimportant village, was destined to become a greater commercial center than Pittsburg.

Three fourths of the surplus produce of Kentucky found their way to New Orleans,[419] the farmers usually being able to command a ready cash sale for their produce.[420] Fearon says, "Indian corn is raised here in vast abundance, and also stock of various kinds for the New Orleans, Southern and Atlantic markets, 30,000 hogsheads of tobacco were shipped from this State last season, and 8,000 barrels of flour, the price of which latter experienced great fluctuations, varying from 4 to 8 dollars per barrel, at present it is 6 to 7. Pork ... the present price is 3 to 4 dollars per cwt. Beef is also of good quality. Whiskey ... the export of last season was one million gallons. Cordage, yarn, and bagging have been important businesses, but European competition has materially decreased their consumption.[421] The exports for one season were as follows:

1Fearon, H. B., Journey, 238.

In 1817-1818 the wealthy farmers of Ohio raised live stock for the home, and Atlantic city markets, and sent beef, pork, cheese, lard, and butter to New Orleans.[422] Pork was exported from Illinois.[423]

Fearon says, "there is a class of men throughout the western country called 'merchants', who, in the summer and autumn months, collect flour, butter, cheese, pork, beef, whiskey, and every species of farming produce which they send in flats and keel boats to the New Orleans market. The demand created by this trade, added to a large domestic consumption, insures the most remote farmer a certain market. Some of these speculators have made large fortunes."[424]

It may be interesting to note the estimates, on the prices of freight, given by Fearon and Fordham who traveled through the West in the years 1817-1818. Fearon says, "The price of boating goods from New Orleans to Louisville (1412 miles) is from 18 s. to 22 s. 6 d. per hundred. The freight to New Orleans from hence is 3 s. 4½ d. to 4 s. 6 d. per hundred. The average period of time which boats take to go to New Orleans is about 28 days; that from New Orleans 90 days. Steam vessels effect the same route in an average of 12 days down, and 36 days up." "Freight from this place (Illinois) to Louisville (307 miles) is 5 s. per cwt.; from Louisville is 1 s. 8 d.; from hence to New Orleans (1130 miles) 4 s. 6 d.; from New Orleans, 20 s. 3 d.; hence to Pittsburg (1013 miles) 15 s. 9 d.; from Pittsburg, 4 s. 6 d. This vast disproportion in the charge of freight is produced by the difference in time in navigating up and down the streams of the Ohio and Mississippi."[425]

Fordham's figures are as follows: "From Shawnee, Illinois, to New Orleans, $1 per hundred pounds, back $4½; to Pittsburg #3.50, from Pittsburg, $1; from Louisville 37½ cents; from Shawnee, or the mouth of the Wabash to Carmi, on the Little Wabash, 20 miles below us, 37½ cents ... to the nearest point of the Wabash to our settlement, 50 cents; down the stream to Shawnee, 5 cents per hundred pounds."[426] "Freighting down to New Orleans will pay the expense of going, and leave one or two hundred dollars surplus. But if, besides $700, the price of a new boat completely rigged, the owner has a capital of $1500 or $2000, he may make the voyage pay him from $500 to $1500. The whole trip is completed in two or three months."[427] "Trade from the general want of capital, and other causes with which I am unacquainted, is exceedingly profitable. 75 to 100 per cent is reckoned a good profit; 50 per cent is a living profit; 25 per cent will not keep a man to his business, he will look out for something else. I had the following account from a River Trader"

A boat of 30 tons burden from Orleans to Louisville.

1Fordham, E. P., Travels, 121.

Groceries for Illinois had been received from Philadelphia or Baltimore, but in 1818 they came from New Orleans: coffee at 40 cents a pound; sugar from 22 to 50 cents; and tea at $2.50.[428] The steamboats coming up stream carried dry goods, pottery, cotton, sugar, wines, liquors, salted fish, and other articles; downwards their loading consisted of grain, flour, tobacco, bacon, etc.[429] At Harmony, Indiana, in 1818, a boat was being built, as a regular trader, to carry off the surplus produce, and bring back coffee, sugar, and groceries, as well as European manufactures.[430] Lead was received from Louisiana, and copper from South America.[431]

Horses, hogs, and cattle were raised, in Illinois, for exportation.[432] Flour, and fish were exported from Cincinnati to New Orleans, in the year 1818.[433] Birckbeck, in 1818, writes as follows, "The demand for grain will probably equal the produce for some years, owing to the influx of new settlers; and the Southern States, down the Mississippi to New Orleans, will be an increasing and sure market for our surplus of every kind; vast quantities of pork, and beef are shipped for New Orleans from Kentucky and Indiana."[434] "500 persons every summer pass down the Ohio from Cincinnati to New Orleans as traders or boatmen, and return on foot. By water, the distance is 1700 miles, and the walk back 1000. Many go down to New Orleans from Pittsburg, which adds 500 miles to the distance by water, and 300 by land. The storekeepers of these western towns, visit the eastern ports of Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York, once a year, to lay in their stock of goods. The great variety of articles, and the risk attending their carriage to so great a distance, by land and water, renders it necessary that the storekeepers should attend both to their purchase and conveyance. I think the time is at hand when these periodical transmontane journeys are to give place to expeditions down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans. The vast and increasing produce of these states, in grain, flour, cotton, sugar, tobacco, peltry, timber, etc., which finds a ready vent at New Orleans, will be returned through the same channel in the manufactures of Europe, and the luxuries of the East to supply the growing demands of this western world."[435]

Faux, while traveling in America, was told by Eastern farmers that transportation per barrel for 80 miles cost half a dollar, while the farmers of the West could send it 2000 miles for $6;[436] and that the western people could afford to sell at half price, better than the eastern could at whole price, because they grew double the quantity per acre, and because the popula tion was rapidly increasing.[437]

Great supplies of lumber from the extensive pine forests about the sources of the Allegheny, supplied the country below as far as New Orleans.[438] A yankee speculation to New Orleans sometimes consisted "of iron coffins, or nests of coffins filled with shoes, so accomodating both the living and the dead."[439]

Wheat in Ohio, in 1819-1820, even at 50 cents, found no market, as New Orleans was then supplied by countries more conveniently situated.[440] Boats carrying from 100 to 500 barrels, sold for only $16.[441] Cincinnati continued to send flour and pork to New Orleans.[442] Flint says, "On shore the utmost bustle prevails, with drays carrying imported goods, salt, iron, and timber, up to the town, and in bringing down pork, flour, etc., to be put aboard boats for New Orleans."[443]

Produce was floated down the Wabash, and the boats returned laden with goods for their market at an enormous profit.[444] Indian corn was purchased of the farmer on the Wabash at 25 cents per bushel, soon after harvest; in the spring it was sent to New Orleans under a freight of 25 cents per bushel, and sold at 75 cents to one dollar a bushel; wheat was bought at six pence or seven pence the bushel dearer than corn, and sold proportionally higher.[445] Produce from the English settlement in Illinois, (corn, etc,), was hauled to Bon Pas, which was on a tributary of the Wabash, and sent from thence to New Orleans, there to be shipped either for Europe or the eastern ports of America.[446]

For a return lading salt was purchased at half a dollar per bushel, and sold at Vincennes from $2 to $2¼ per bushel. Loaf sugar sold at 50 cents per pound; brown sugar at 37½ cents per pound; coffee at 75 cents per pound; tea from $2½ to $3½; and many other groceries, which like the above were bought for considerably less than one half their selling price.[447] Welby says, " ... of iron and drugs I could not obtain the price at New Orleans; but of the profit on the iron the reader may judge by the price I paid to a blacksmith for eight new horse shoes, steel tacs, and eight removes, the bill for which was about $10."[448] Faux, speaking of a man who had come to Princeton, says, "If he had money he could buy bacon at $4 and sell it at $16; and sugar from New Orleans would pay 50 per cent; costing 10 cents, and selling at 25 cents, 2½ cents being deducted per pound for carriage. Store goods, bought at Washington, which he is selling cheaper than his neighbors, pay 25 per cent profit."[449] Cincinnati received cotton from northern Alabama.[450]

The 'Register' of June 9, 1821, says, "The whole number of boats which passed the Falls of Ohio last year, is estimated to be 2400, wafting the rich produce of the western world to the markets on the seaboard, the principal part of which consisted of 1,804,810 pounds of bacon, 200,000 barrels of flour, 20,000 barrels of pork, 62,000 bushels of oats, 100,000 bushels of corn, 10,000 barrels of cheese, 160,000 pounds of butter, 11,207,333 fowls, and 466,412 pounds of lard."[451]

Stove coal was carried in boats down the river in 1821-1823 to supply the great number of steam mills in making flour.[452] These boats were also engaged in freighting salt to the various parts of the count ry.[453] The following is an "estimate of the amount of products which descended the Falls of Ohio at Louisville, the growth of the year 1822 ... the produce of the whole of the State of Ohio, (except the part bordering on the lake), two-thirds of Kentucky, one half of the State of Indiana, and a small part of the States of Pennsylvania and Virginia."[454]

Notice the vast increase since 1820.

"There are many articles of export not included in the above schedule, such as iron, iron castings, salt, gunpowder, white lead, and other manufactured articles, of various descriptions, the amount of which could not be correctly estimated, for want of adequate data. It is estimated, that produce and manufactured articles, to the amount of upwards of one million of dollars, have been shipped from Cincinnati and its immediate vicinity, during the year ending in April, 1823—principally the production of what is termed the "Miami Country". Among the articles from Cincinnati are "types and printing materials $10,000, paper$15,000 cabinet furniture $20,000, chairs $6,000, hats $6,500." Within the last year every store and warehouse has become reoccupied by business men—generally by those who were unconnected with the late embarrassments. All purchases are now made for cash, and at no period, within the last ten years, have we witnessed so numerous and active a population, or so great a number of new buildings in a state of progress."

Corn and wheat were sent to New Orleans from Illinois in 1823.[455] Albion, Illinois, exported produce, for the first time, in this year. They loaded the flat boats with corn, flour, pork, beef, sausages, and other articles, and floated them down the Wabash into the Ohio, and from thence to New Orleans.[456] Harmony was, annually, sending boats laden with produce to New Orleans.[457] Tranchepain journeyed part of the way down the Ohio in a boat loaded with horses, fowls, iron castings, apples, and whiskey for New Orleans.[458]

From St. Louis, a central point on the Mississippi, to New York by way of New Orleans, the price of transportation was about $45 per ton, for a return cargo not less than $80.[459] Beck says, "The export trade must then be divided between New Orleans and New York. She (New Orleans) commands the greatest interior; she is the key to the richest and most extensive inland region of any mercantile capital in the world. Besides the produce required for her own consumption, and that of Louisiana and Mississippi, she will be the entrepot of the produce destined for the West Indies and the provinces of South America. The capital of New Orleans is disproportionate to the quantity of produce landed there. The warmth and unhealthiness of the climate prevents the farmer from sending his produce to that place at a time when he may be most in need of the articles for which he would barter. During this time, he is at present completely deprived of a market for his produce, and is moreover obliged to pay the merchant an exorbitant price for his necessaries. It frequently happens, that in the Western States during the summer and fall, the price of those articles for which they depend upon New Orleans is raised 50 and sometimes 100%. But New Orleans is at all times a very uncertain market. It not unfrequently happens that a few boat loads of produce completely supply the demand.[460] If another cargo then arrives the owner is obliged either to sacrifice it, or leave it in store; in the latter case, if it consists of flour of bacon, it suffers much from the heat and humidity of the climate, and its value is not unfrequently diminished one half or three fourths. This is also the case with furs and several other articles which cannot be transported by New Orleans to a foreign market, without a considerable depreciation in their value. These considerations clearly prove the importance of opening a communication with New York, by which means the States bordering on the Mississippi will be enabled to find a market for their produce during those seasons when they are completely excluded from New Orleans. Even at this time merchants at St. Louis, and in different parts of Illinois and Missouri purchase their goods in the eastern cities, and transport them across the mountains in preference to sending them by New Orleans."[461] For several years all articles of life in Illinois and Missouri, were below what the planters could afford to raise them for, with any view beyond domestic consumption. Grain boats from Missouri scarcely paid the expense of their building and transport to New Orleans.[462]

In 1825 extensive arrivals of cotton came into New Orleans from the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers.[463] It was estimated that the goods sent to New Orleans from Louisville during this year weighed 27 or 28,000 tons;—42 steamboats made 140 trips during the same period.[464] The southern interior counties of Illinois began in 1824-1825 to cultivate tobacco and the castor bean, and to make these articles of considerable exportation.[465] Tobacco was raised, with great success, in Ohio, at the rate of 700 lbs. to the acre, and of a quality to bring $12 to $15 per hundred in the Baltimore market.[466] From the extensive glass works of Pittsburg about $100,000 worth was exported yearly.[467]

Niles Register, July 8, 1826, says, "152 boats descending the Wabash passed Vincennes during the late freshets.[468] They were all well laden. The following is an estimate of some of the chief items of their cargoes.

1Niles, Weekly Register, XXX., 338.

Salt from the Kenawha works was sent up the highest boatable waters of the Allegheny to regions formerly supplied from the Salines of New York.[469] Flint describes the boats stopping at New Madrid on the Mississippi, as follows. "You can name no point from the numerous rivers of the Ohio and Mississippi from which some of these boats have not come. In one place there are boats loaded with planks, from the pine forests of the Southwest of New York. In another quarter there are the Yankee nations of Ohio. From Kentucky, pork, flour, whiskey, hemp, tobacco, bagging, and bale rope. From Tennessee there are the same articles, together with great quantities of cotton. From Missouri and Illinois, cattle and horses, the same articles generally as from Ohio, together with peltry and lead from Missouri. Some boats are loaded with corn in the ear and in bulk; others with barrels of apples and potatoes. Some have loads of cider, and what they call "cider royal," or cider that has been strengthened by boiling or freezing. There are dried fruits, every kind of spirits manufactured in these regions, and in short, the products of the ingenuity and agriculture of the whole upper country of the West. The fleet unites once more at Natchez or New Orleans."[470]

The "Fame" from Pittsburg, arrived in Cincinnati, in 1827 with a cargo, part of which consisted of 102 pieces of cannon, and and about 80 tons of grape shot, for the United States Navy. Her deck was entirely filled with empty hogsheads and casks, belonging to a house in Pittsburg, sent to New Orleans to be filled with a return cargo of Molasses, as it was found to be much cheaper to have the casks made at Pittsburg and pay their freight to New Orleans, than to purchase them at the latter place.[471] In 1828, 5504 bales of Kentucky cotton bagging, 15,526 coils of bale rope, and 4,918,494 lbs. of lard, were received in New Orleans, as against 2,308 bales, 1 0,459 coils, and 2,426,299 lbs. of the preceding year.[472]

New Orleans had drawn away considerable of the trade of the western country with Philadelphia and Baltimore. Basil Hall says, "There are projects afloat, however, for restoring this lost balance to Philadelphia and Baltimore, and of regaining some portion of the profits derived from supplying the western country with goods, and of drawing off its produce.... If the mouth of the Mississippi could be damned up, or the harbor of New York demolished, there might be some chance for the resuscitation of the intermediate seaports."[473] Grain, salted meats, spirits, tobacco, hemp, skins, and the fruits of the regions bordering on the Missouri, Ohio, and Mississippi were sent to New Orleans;[474] return cargoes of manufactured goods from foreign countries, together with fish, salt, sugar, steel, iron, and other articles were sent back by steamboat.[475] Slaves were sent from Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky to the southern states bordering on the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. Basil Hall says, "During certain seasons of the year, I am informed, all the roads, steamboats, and packets are crowded with negroes on their way to the great slave markets of the South."[476]

During the year 1828, 4100 hogsheads of sugar, and 3500 barrels or bags of coffee were received at Louisville, worth together about $600,000. In 1825-1826, 2050 hogsheads of tobacco were deposited at Louisville; 4354 in 1826-1827; and 4075 in 1827-1828. Freight was so reduced by competition, that sugar, coffee, tea, and groceries in general, had only a small advance over their prices in New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Good sugar of the new crop sold in Louisville at 7¼ to 7½ cents per pound, by the single barrel.[477]

The 'Register' quotes from the 'Commercial Daily Advertiser' 1830, as follows: "The manufacture of chair and cabinet wares at Cincinnati, for articles sent out of the city, had a value last year, in the great sum of $150,000. The chief part of this value was in the labor bestowed by inhabitants of the city. There was a creation of not less than $125,000.... The canal is also doing great things for this city.[478] We see by the 'Gazette' that in the first ten days of March, there arrived 8,105 barrels of flour, 2116 of whiskey, 2,823 of pork, and 4,167 of lard, bulk pork and bacon, 100 tons, with a great variety and quantity of other articles such as corn, corn meal, butter, eggs, etc. This canal extends only 60 miles into the interior. The total received in these ten days, amounted to $2,028.22."[479]

Kentucky exported all the grains, pulses, fruits, wheat, and corn. Hemp and tobacco were the staples of the State. In addition to these articles Kentucky exported immense quantities of flour, lard, butter, cheese, pork, beef, Indian corn and meal, whiskey, cider, cider royal, fruit, fresh and dried, horses, and manufactures. Exports were chiefly to New Orleans, but a considerable amount ascended the Ohio to Pittsburg. The growers of this State often shipped from New Orleans, on their own account, to the Atlantic States, Vera Cruz, or the West Indies.[480] The exports for the greater part of the state, amounted in 1829, to $2,780,000.[481]

In western Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Missouri, and a part of Tennessee, flour, corn, small grains, pulse potatoes, and other vegetables; fruit, as apples, fresh and dried, dried peaches, and other preserved fruits, beef, pork, cheese butter, poultry, venison hams, live cattle, hogs, and horses were exported. The greater part of the flour was sent from Ohio and Kentucky; wheat was grown with more ease in Illinois and Missouri, and Ohio engaged in the culture of yellow tobacco.[482] Large quantities of flour were shipped from Wellsburg, West Virginia to New Orleans.[483] Cotton, and the Castor bean, and the oil made from it were exported from Illinois for several years prior to 1830.[484]

There were often as many as five or six thousand boatmen in New Orleans from the 'upper country' at this period.[485] The canals, the rapid influx of immigration, and the levelling tendency of the increased facilities of transport, caused western products to rapidly approximate the Atlantic value. Flint says, "The natural result of this order of things will be, that the west will soon export four times its former amount of flour and other produce."[486]

I have endeavored in this chapter to show how rapidly the resources, and the commerce of the country were developed, bringing great prosperity to the West.

CHAPTER IV.
EMIGRATION. GROWTH OF THE RIVER TOWNS.

During the War of 1812, the tide of immigration westward was almost completely arrested, and many of the settlements already established were broken up by the savages.[487] The war being over, and the Indians being deprived of their distinguished British ally,[488] profound peace was soon restored to all our borders, from the northeast to the southwest.[489] Immigration now set more strongly toward the West, for having been so long kept back, and the country was peopled with a rapidity unparalleled in the annals of any other nation.[490] "Shoals of immigrants were seen on all the great roads leading in that direction. Oleanne, Pittsburg, Brownsville, Nashville, Cincinnati, and St. Louis overflowed with them. Ohio and Indiana beheld thousands of new cabins spring up in their forests. The settlements which had been broken up during the war, were repeopled, and many immigrants returned again to the very cabins which they had occupied before the war. Boon's Lick, and Salt River, in Missouri, were the grand points of immigration, as were the Sangama and the upper courses of the Kaskaskia's in Illinois. In the south, Alabama filled with new habitations, and the current, not arrested by the Mississippi, set over its banks, to White River, Arkansas, and Louisiana, west of that river. The wandering propensity of the American people carried hundreds even beyond our territorial limits into the Spanish country."[491]

"This flood of immigrants of course increased the amount of transport, and gave new impulse to building,—in short, every species of speculation was carried to a ruinous excess. Mercantile importations filled the country with foreign goods. In three years from the close of the War, things had received a new face along the great water courses, and in all the favorable points of the interior. The tide began to ebb, and things to settle to their natural level. Between the general failure of the western banks, and the operation of this system, (branches of Bank of the United States, and Post-Office System—medium of sure and prompt remittance of a circulation everywhere uniform), western dealers were driven to the extremely burdensome and precarious resource of specie in their foreign transactions. Business and trade were brought to a dead pause. The evils were spread along a course of two thousand miles, and were experienced in the remote cabins, as well as the towns, and villages on the rivers. The result of a sound and uniform currency was seen in the restoration of business and credit; and commerce sprung up, like a Phoenix, from its ashes. Shapeless and meanlooking villages became towns, and the towns in neatness and beauty began to compare with those in the Atlantic country. The best evidence of the change, wrought by this order of things is, that produce and every species of vendible property rose to double and triple its value, during the season of general embarrassment."[492]

As early as 1813, the roads over the Alleghanies were in a very rough condition, though the Cumberland Road was partly made, and in the spring of this year there were considerable stretches of it used by the wagoners. For emigrants and the transportation of freight, there was no mode of conveyance but the large "road wagons", as they were called, usually drawn by five or six horses, and carrying sixty to seventy hundred weight. There were several routes by which these wagons approached the mountains, but after passing Cumberland they followed the one road, known as Braddock's Trail, which struck the Monongahela River at Brownsville, or Red Stone Fort, passing down the Laurel Hill, near Uniontown, then called Beesonstown.[493] The wagoners usually traveled in groups for company and to assist one another by doubling teams, on the steep hills, and to help in case of accidents. Howells says that it is his impression that his father paid between $3 and $4 a hundred weight (112 pounds) for the carriage of his goods to Brownsville.[494]

A mighty population was pouring into Ohio in 1813, a great number of the people coming from Lower Canada.[495] A "New England Emigration Society" was established in Boston, in 1815, for the purpose of promoting emigration to the western country. The association was composed of a considerable number of persons of all parties, who were determined to establish a colony of their own.[496] The Buffalo Gazette says, that during the spring of this year scarcely a day passed without the editor's noticing the passage of several families from New England through that village for the State of Ohio.[497] The monthly returns from the several land offices in Ohio and Indiana Territory exhibited an unparalleled sale of public land, and in some districts the sales had been doubled in the six months prior to February, 1815. The emigration to the State in the summer of 1814 was very great, the main road through the State being literally covered with wagons moving out families.[498]

The Register, of November 30, 1816, says, "Missouri and Illinois exhibit an interesting spectacle at this time. A stranger to witness the scene would imagine that Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Carolinas had made an agreement to introduce them soon as possible to the bosom of the American family. Every ferry on the river is daily occupied in passing families, carriages, wagons, negroes, carts, etc."[499] Much of the surplus produce of the State of Ohio was consumed by the numerous emigrants, who came from New York, and the eastern States, but more especially from Pennsylvania.[500] Many of these travelers followed the route through New York and down the Allegheny River, "260 wagons have passed a certain house on this route in nine days, besides many persons on horseback and on foot. The editor of the Gennessee Farmer observes, that he himself met on the road to Hamilton, a cavalcade of upwards of 20 wagons, containing one company of 116 persons on their way to Indiana, and all from one town in the district of Maine. So great is the emigration to Illinois and Missouri, also, that it is apprehended that they must suffer for want of provisions the ensuing winter."[501] Alabama was also receiving vast numbers of emigrants, one traveler having met about 3800 persons in nine days.[502]

Birkbeck, writing in 1818, says, "Old America seems to be breaking up, and moving westward. We are seldom out of sight, as we travel on this grand track; towards the Ohio, of family groups, behind and before us, some with a view to a particular spot. A small wagon with two small horses; sometime a cow or two, compromises their all; excepting a little store of hard earned cash for the land office of the district; where they may obtain a title for as many acres, as they possess half dollars, being one fourth of the purchase money. The wagon has a tilt, or cover, made of a sheet, or perhaps a blanket. The family are seen before, behind, or within the vehicle according to the road or the weather, or the spirits of the party."[503] "Such is the influx of strangers into this State (Indiana), that the industry of the Settlers is severely taxed to provide food for themselves, and a superfluity for newcomers."[504] Birkbeck advised the emigrants coming from England to the West, to land at an eastern part, proceed from thence to Pittsburg,[505] and then down the Ohio, disembarking at Shawneetown if bound to Illinois. Emigrants are advised to bring with them, clothing, bedding, household linen, simple medicines of the best quality, and sundry small articles of cuttlery, and light tools.[506] The expense of the journey from an eastern part to Birkbeck's settlement was estimated at £5 sterling per head.[507] Travelers coming overland, on horseback, were advised to go by way of Wheeling Chilicothe, and Cincinnati, from thence through Indiana to Vincennes.[508] Traveling, across the mountains to Pittsburg, was entirely disproportionate to the price of provisions, and very expensive considering the accommodations afforded; storekeepers laying on a profit of at least 50 per cent.[509] Fordham says that the passage by stage and the expense of a journey from Philadelphia to Pittsburg was $50; the journey down the Ohio 900 miles from $10 to $15; to St. Louis by steamboat $20, on horseback $8.[510]

The route to the western country, by way of New Orleans, was attended with many disadvantages, being much longer and more dangerous, in consequence of a good deal of coasting, and the difficulties of the Gulf of Florida. The voyage from the Balize to New Orleans, a distance of 100 miles, was always tedious and vessels sometimes consumed three weeks in covering this distance. The steamboats, from New Orleans,[511] did not proceed at stated periods, and travelers were sometimes obliged to take up a long and expensive residence in that city. To attempt to engage a passage in a keel boat up the stream was an almost endless undertaking. For these reasons, emigrants were advised to cone overland to Pittsburg, and to float from there down the Ohio River to their destination.[512]

Fearon during his journey from Chambersburg to Pittsburg passed 63 wagons, with families from the several places following: 20 from Massachusetts, 10 from the district of Maine, 14 from Jersey, 13 from Connecticut, 2 from Maryland, 1 from Pennsylvania, 1 from England, one from Holland, 1 from Ireland; and about 200 persons on horseback and 20 on foot.[513] Fearon says that every emigrant whom he met on the Alleghanies, told hi m that he intended to settle in Ohio.[514] The population in Illinois, at this period, was to be found chiefly on the Wabash, below Vincennes, and on the banks of the Kaskaskia, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers.[515]

In the latter part of the year 1818 Flint writes as follows: "... the current of emigration, being here (Chambersburg) united, strangers from the eastern country, and from Europe, are passing in an unceasing train. An intelligent gentleman at this place informed me, that this stream of emigration has flowed more copiously this year, than at any former period, and that the people now moving westward are ten times more numerous than they were ten years ago. His computation is founded on the comparative amount of the stage coach business and on careful observation."[516] Flint advises emigrants to go from Baltimore to Wheeling as that route is cheaper than the one from Philadelphia to Pittsburg.[517] In 1819 travelers were not so numerous as in 1818, owing to the decline in trade, and depression in the price of land. Flint says, "travelers however are still so numerous that a stranger not fully aware of the rapidity with which new settlements are forming, and of the great populace of the eastern States, might be apt to imagine that the Americans are a singularly volatile people."[518] Nuttall remarks that "A stranger who descends the Ohio at this season of emigration cannot but be struck with the jarring vortex of heterogenous population amidst which he is embarked, all searching for some better country, which ever lies to the west."[519]