system so little advantageous, and take to grazing cattle, breeding hogs, and rearing horses, for distant markets and foreign use, where money was to be obtained, and profit equal to the extent and importance of the business. He had always reaped the benefit of this plan, having sent his son in the spring of the year with a boat carrying two hundred live hogs to New Orleans, where they sold all round at the rate of twelve dollars per cwt. though they cost him nothing but the expense of the voyage and some small attendance in the woods, where they breed and maintain themselves all the year round. V. PUBLIC LANDS A. Democratic Land Holding, 17951 One of the striking effects of the westward movement was the growth of democracy, both political and economic. In the West there was essential equality of fortunes and of education. This was a direct result of the equality of opportunity offered to every settler by the cheap and almost free lands, which were divided for the most part into small holdings. The cultivated lands in this country [Shenandoah Valley] are mostly parcelled out in small portions; there are no persons here, as on the other side of the mountains, possessing large farms; nor are there any eminently distinguished by their education or knowledge from the rest of their fellow citizens. Poverty also is as much unknown in this country as great wealth. Each man owns the house he lives in and the land which he cultivates, and everyone appears to be in a happy state of mediocrity, and unambitious of a more elevated situation than what he himself enjoys. B. Speculation in Public Lands, 1806 2 In 1800 Congress adopted the credit system of selling land at the fixed price of $2 an acre. Under this law only one-fourth of the purchase money had to be paid down, the balance being paid in three annual installments. This led to considerable speculation and the purchase by venturesome individuals of larger amounts of land than they could pay for. But, as Ashe points out, the factors were so numerous which favored the rise in the value of land that speculation of this character was very tempting. By virtue of the treaty with the aboriginal confederacy and subsequent purchases, Congress has become the proprietor of nearly 1 Travels through the States of North America, and the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, during the Years 1795, 1796, and 1797. By Isaac Weld, Junior (4th edition, London, 1800), 170. 2 Travels in America, performed in 1806. By Thomas Ashe (London, 1808), all the fine lands in the state [Ohio]. I have mentioned where such lands most abound, and should have stated that nearly one third of the country is mountainous and ridgy, bog and morass, to such a degree as not to be worth one cent per acre. The principal part of the state of this character lies to the north-east, and east of the river Scioto. The best land is to the west of that river, and continues with few exceptions to the boundary westward of the Great Miami. It is very necessary that purchasers at a distance should be aware of this, as I have known several who bought in a distant market at a good price come several thousand miles to take possession of a sterile mountain or an unreclaimable swamp. The truth is, that no person should buy who is not on the spot, or who has not a confidential agent. The mode of sale adopted by Congress is highly commendable. The entire country is surveyed and divided into sections of six hundred and forty acres each. A certain number of these sections lying contiguous compose a township, and a certain number of townships form a range. The sections are all numbered, and each number sixteen in every township is reserved for the purpose of education and the support of its professors. There are also reservations which cannot be sold under eight dollars an acre; but every other acre of Congress land is sold at two dollars an acre forever: and, to encourage settlers, the period of four years is allowed for the entire payment, which commences one-fourth at the bargain, and the remainder at three yearly instalments. This indulgence on the part of government was most productive to a few sordid monopolizers, called land jobbers or land speculators, who made large contracts for twenty thousand to five hundred thousand acres of the best land and in the best situations, and have already sold the greatest part at from three to five dollars per acre. A meadow called the Rick-a-way plains, containing ten thousand acres free of wood, is advanced by one of these gentlemen, from the two dollars an acre to be paid by his contract, to thirty dollars per acre, and a considerable part of it is already sold. The portion under cultivation has yielded one hundred and ten bushels of corn, and fifty bushels wheat per acre. The land the most sought after is on the Scioto, the Ohio, and the Miamis: on which situations the title of Congress is for the most part bought up, and the present owners demand for it from six to twelve dollars per But if the land should be on a mill seat, or place eligible for the site of a village or town, the price might profitably be raised to one hundred dollars per acre. Many local circumstances sometimes also unite to raise the price of certain lands. Such as their vicinity to improving towns; their abundance of ship timber, the facility of conveying it to builders' yards, and their possession of the sugar-maple, cherry tree, sassafras, cotton, and other plants. On the whole, I know of no speculation so promising, as that of buying the remaining good lands, reservations, and all (except schools, reservations which are never to be sold) from Congress at two dollars per acre, and of holding them for the space of ten years; after that period no moderate land will be sold under ten dollars per acre, and land of the first qualities and situation will fetch fifty in general, and much more in particular, per acre. The reasons for this are obvious; the lands of the Atlantic States are not to be compared to these in point of fertility and every excellence; the climate here is not worse, and the State tolerates no slavery. C. Sale of Public Lands, 1796-18161 The sales of the public lands of the United States are given in the following table for the period 1796 to 1806. SALES OF PUBLIC LANDS Since the opening of the several land offices for the sale of lands belonging to the United States, the following sums have been received into the Treasury, each year from the proceeds of the sales of public lands, viz.: The whole number of acres sold at the different land offices, north-west of the river Ohio, from the commencement of the sales, to October 1st, 1816, was seven millions fifty-four thousand six hundred and eighty-nine; the whole purchase money, was $14,960,784.48, and the balance due, at the latter period, was $4,511,202.85. . . . 1A Statistical View of the Commerce of the United States of America. By Timothy Pitkin (2d edition, New York, 1817), 375. VI. INTERNAL TRADE AND TRANSPORTATION A. By Stage from Boston to Savannah, 1802 1 Travel and trade were for the most part confined to the natural waterways, with which the United States was so well supplied. Indeed the very excellence of these routes retarded the building of roads in the eastern states. When land travel was necessary it was usually made on horseback. Owing to the badness of the roads travel by stage did not become important until the beginning of the nineteenth century. By 1802, however, roads had been built along the whole Atlantic coast, and a little later stages were running from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, a distance of over three hundred miles. Michaux was sent to this country by the French government to study the forests of America, but did not confine his observations to that subject. Till the year 1802, the stages that set out at Philadelphia did not go farther South than to Petersburg in Virginia, which is about three hundred miles from Philadelphia; but in the month of March of that year a new line of correspondence was formed between the latter city and Charleston. The journey is about a fortnight, the distance fifteen hundred miles, and the fare fifty piastres [dollars]. There are stages also between Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, as well as between Charleston and Savannah, in Georgia, so that from Boston to Savannah, a distance of twelve hundred miles, persons may travel by the stages. B. Traveling by Wagon, 1806 2 If one could not make use of the fairly comfortable stage, then traveling took on new terrors. The elliptical spring over the axles of wagons was not introduced until 1825. . . . The roads being bad at this season of the year, we could not procure the stage which otherwise runs upon this road. The waggon we hired is common in the States, and is used by the country people to carry their provisions to market, or to transport goods from one part of the country to the other. A great number are constantly employed on the road between Skenesborough and Troy [N. Y.]. It is a long narrow cart upon four wheels, and drawn by two horses abreast. When used as a stage for travelling, a couple of chairs are placed in it: but it is a very rough method of riding; for the waggon 1 Travels to the Westward of the Allegany Mountains. By F. A. Michaux (London, 1805), 25n. 2 Travels through Canada, and the United States of North America, in the Years 1806, 1807, & 1808. By John Lambert (2d edition, London, 1814), II, 26–7. has no springs, and a traveller ought to have excellent nerves to endure the shaking and jolting of such a vehicle over bad roads. C. Bad Roads in 18101 Practically the only good roads in the United States in 1810 were the turnpikes, built and maintained by private companies and on which tolls were charged. As soon as the traveler left these improved thoroughfares, the roads became execrable. The account given in the sprightly journal of Miss Dwight is probably not exaggerated. Sat morn October 27 [1810] We yesterday travell'd the worst road you can imagine — over mountains & thro' vallies We have not I believe, had 20 rods of level ground the whole day and the road some part of it so intolerably bad on every account, so rocky & so gullied, as to be almost impassable - 15 miles this side of Morristown, we cross'd a mountain call'd Schyler or something like it . . . After we left Mansfield, we cross'd the longest hills, and the worst road, I ever saw two or three times after riding a little distance on turnpike, we found it fenced across & were oblig'd to turn into a wood where it was almost impossible to proceed - large trees were across, not the road for there was none, but the only place we could possibly ride It appear❜d to me, we had come to an end of the habitable part of the globe but all these difficulties were at last surmounted, & we reach'd the Delaware - The river where it is cross'd, is much smaller than I suppos'd-The bridge over it is elegant I think It is covered & has 16 windows each side — As soon as we pass'd the bridge, we enter'd Easton, the first town in Pennsylvania - It is a small but pleasant town - the houses are chiefly small, & built of stone very near together - The meeting house, Bank, & I think, market, are all of the same description There are a few very handsome brick houses, & some wooden buildings - From Easton, we came to Bethlehem, which is 12 miles distant from it D. Traveling from the East to Kentucky, 17932 The routes to the west lay through the mountains, and of these that through the Cumberland Gap was the one earliest and most generally used. The easier A Journey [from Connecticut] to Ohio in 1810 as recorded in the Journal of Margaret Van Horn Dwight (New Haven, 1912), 13, 18. Printed by permission of the editor, M. Farrand, and the publisher, Yale University Press. A Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North America. By G. Imlay (New York, 1793), I, 140–5. |