A New Guide For Emigrants To The West Part 3

Clair,--the victorious one of Wayne,--or the reminiscences and events of the war of 1812, and its termination in 1815. Some historical notices of each state may be found in their proper place.

_Prospective increase of Population._ For a long period, in the states of the west, the increase of population was slow, and r.e.t.a.r.ded by several causes. Difficulties of a formidable character had to be surmounted. The footsteps of the American emigrants were everywhere drenched in blood, shed by infuriated savage foes, and before 1790 more than 5,000 persons had been murdered, or taken captive and lost to the settlements. "It has been estimated, that in the short s.p.a.ce of seven years, from 1783 to 1790, more than fifteen hundred of the inhabitants of Kentucky were either ma.s.sacred or carried away into a captivity worse than death, by the Indians; and an equal number from Western Pennsylvania and Virginia, in the same period, met with a similar fate.

The settlers on the frontiers were almost constantly, for a period of forty years, hara.s.sed either by actual attacks of the savages, or the daily expectation of them. The tomahawk and the scalping knife, were the objects of their fears by day and by night."[4]

Hence, in suggesting reasons showing why the population of this Valley must increase in future in a far greater ratio than in the past, it will appear:

1. That the most perfect security is now enjoyed by all emigrants, both for their families and property.

By the wise and beneficent arrangement of government, the Indian tribes have nearly all removed to the Territory specially allotted for their occupancy west of Missouri and Arkansas. The grand error committed in past times in relation to the Indians, and which has been the source of incalculable evils to both races, has been the want of definite, fixed and permanent lines of demarcation betwixt them. It will be seen under the proper head, that a system of measures is now in operation that will not only preserve peace between the frontier settlements and the Indian tribes, but that to a great extent, they are becoming initiated into the habits of civilized life. There is now no more danger to the population of these states and territories from _Indian_ depredations, than to the people of the Atlantic states.

2. The increased facilities of emigration, and the advantage of sure and certain markets for every species of production, furnishes a second reason why population will increase in the western Valley beyond any former period.

Before the purchase of Louisiana, the western people had no outlet for their produce, and the chief mode of obtaining every description of merchandize,--even salt and iron,--was by the slow and expensive method of transportation by wagons and pack-horses, across almost impa.s.sible mountains and extremely difficult roads. Now, every convenience and luxury of life is carried with comparative ease, to every town and settlement throughout the Valley, and every species of produce is sent off in various directions, to every port on earth if necessary. And these facilities are multiplying and increasing every hour: Turnpike roads, rail roads, ca.n.a.ls, and steamboat navigation have already provided such facilities for removing from the Atlantic to the Western States, that no family desirous of removing, need hesitate or make a single inquiry as to facilities of getting to this country.

3. The facilities of trade and intercourse between the different sections of the Valley, are now superior to most countries on earth, and are increasing every year. And no country on earth admits of such indefinite improvement either by land or water. More than twenty thousand miles of actual steamboat navigation, with several hundred miles of ca.n.a.l navigation, constructed or commenced, attest the truth of this statement. The first steamboat on the western waters was built at Pittsburg in 1811, and not more than seven or eight had been built, when the writer emigrated to this country in 1817. At this period, (January 1836,) there are several hundred boats on the western waters, and some of the largest size. In 1817, about twenty barges, averaging about one hundred tons each, performed the whole commercial business of transporting merchandize from New Orleans to Louisville and Cincinnati.

Each performed one trip, going and returning within the year. About 150 keel boats performed the business on the Upper Ohio to Pittsburg. These averaged about 30 tons each, and were employed one month in making the voyage from Louisville to Pittsburg. Three days, or three days and a half is now the usual time occupied by the steam packets between the two places, and from seven to twelve days between Louisville and New Orleans. Four days is the time of pa.s.sing from the former place to St.

Louis.

4. A fourth reason why population will increase in future in a greater ratio than the past is derived from the increase of population in the Atlantic states, and the greater desire for removal to the west. At the close of the revolutionary war the population of the whole Union but little exceeded two millions. Vast tracts of wilderness then existed in the old states, which have since been subdued, and from whence thousands of enterprising citizens are pressing their way into the Great Valley.

Two thirds of the territory of New York, large portions of New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine, an extensive district in middle Pennsylvania, to say nothing of wide regions in the southern states, were comprised in this wilderness. These extensive regions have become populous, and are sending out vast numbers of emigrants to the west.

Europe is in commotion, and the emigration to North America, in 1832, reached 200,000, a due proportion of which settle in the Western Valley.

5. A fifth reason will be founded upon the immense amount of land for the occupancy of an indefinite number of emigrants, much of which will not cost the purchaser over _one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre_.

Without giving the extravagant estimates that have been made by many writers of the wide and uninhabitable desert between the Indian Territory west of Missouri and Arkansas, and the Rocky mountains, nor swampy and frozen regions at the heads of the Mississippi river, and around lake Superior, I will merely exhibit the amount of lands admitting of _immediate_ settlement and cultivation, within the boundaries of the new States and organized Territories.

According to the report of the Secretary of the Treasury up to the 30th day of September, 1831, the estimated amount of unsold lands, on which the foreign and Indian t.i.tles had been extinguished, within the limits of the new States and Territories, was 227,293,884 acres;--and that the Indian t.i.tle remained on 113,577,869 acres within the same limits.[5]

The Commissioner of the General Land Office in December, 1827, estimated the public domain, beyond the boundaries of the new States and Territories, to be 750 millions of acres. Much of this however, is uninhabitable.

According to the Report of 1831, there had been granted to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Alabama for internal Improvements, 2,187,665 acres;--for Colleges, Academies and Universities in the new States and Territories, 508,009;--for education, being the thirty-sixth part of the public lands appropriated to common schools, 7,952,538 acres;--and for seats of government to some of the new States and Territories, 21,589 acres. Up to January, 1826, there had been sold, from the commencement of the land system, only 19,239,412 acres. Since that period to the close of 1835, there have been sold, about 33 millions of acres, making in all sold, a little more than 52 millions. This statement includes Alabama and Florida, which we have not considered as strictly within the Valley. After a hasty and somewhat imperfect estimate of the public lands that are now in market, or will be brought into market within a few years, within the limits of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Michigan, and the Territory of Wisconsin, the amount may be put at 130 millions of acres. This amount admits of immediate settlement and cultivation, and much of it may be put under cultivation without the immense labor of clearing and subduing forest lands.

The comparison between the amount of sales of public lands within the last ten years, and the preceding forty years, shows that emigration to the West is increasing at a ratio beyond what is ordinarily supposed, and that the next ten years will find a majority of the population of the United States within this Great Valley.

Sales of land from 1786 to 1826, (40 years) 19,239,412 acres.

" " from 1826 to 1835, (10 years) 33,000,000 acres.

Three millions of families may find farms in the West.

The extensive prairie lands of Illinois and Missouri present no obstacle to the settlement of the country. Already, prairies for many miles in extent have been turned into farms.

6. A sixth reason why the increase of the future population of the Valley will greatly exceed the past, is derived from the increased confidence of the community in the general health of the country. The most unreasonable notions have prevailed abroad relative to the health of the western states. All new settlements are more or less unfavorable to health, which, when cultivated and settled become healthy. As a separate chapter will be devoted to this subject, I only advert to the fact now of the increased confidence of the people in the Atlantic States, in the salubrity of our western climate, which already has tended to increase emigration; but which, from facts becoming more generally known, will operate to a much greater extent in future.

7. I will only add that there is already a great amount of intelligence, and of excellent society in all the settled portions of the Western Valley.

"The idea is no longer entertained by Eastern people, that going to the West, or the 'Backwoods,' as it was formerly called, is to remove to a heathen land, to a land of ignorance and barbarism, where the people do nothing but rob, and fight, and gouge! Some parts of the West have obtained this character, but most undeservedly, from the _Fearons_, the [Basil] _Halls_, the _Trollopes_, and other ignorant and insolent travellers from England, who, because they were not allowed to insult and outrage as they pleased, with Parthian spirit, hurled back upon us their poisoned javelins and darts as they left us. There is indeed much dest.i.tution of moral influence and means of instruction in many, very many, neighborhoods of the West. But there is in all the princ.i.p.al towns a state of society, with which the most refined, I was going to say the most fastidious, of the eastern cities need not be ashamed to mingle."--_Baird._

The eastern emigrant will find, that wholesome legislation, and much of the influence of religion are enjoyed in the Valley of the Mississippi, extending to him all he can ask in the enjoyment of his rights, and the protection of his property.

Common School systems have been commenced in some of the states,--others are following their example, and the subject of general education is receiving increasing attention every year. Colleges and other literary inst.i.tutions are planted, and religious inst.i.tutions and means of religious instruction are rapidly increasing. n.o.ble and successful efforts are making by the Bible, Missionary, Tract, Sabbath School, Temperance, and other Societies in the West. Great and rapid changes are taking place, if not to the extent we desire, yet corresponding in a degree with the gigantic march of emigration and population. Many other reasons might be urged to show that its prospective increase of population will vastly exceed the ratio of its retrospective increase, but these are sufficient.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] La Salle appears to have discovered the Bay of St. Bernard, and formed a settlement on the western side of the Colorado, in 1685.--_See J. Q. Adams's Correspondence with Don Onis. Pub. Doc. first session 15th Congress, 1818._

[4] Baird.

[5] See Mr. Clay's Report on the Public Lands, April 26, 1832, U. S.

Papers.

CHAPTER III.

CLIMATE.

Comparative view of the Climate with the Atlantic States.

Diseases.--Means of preserving health.

_Climate, &c._ In a country of such vast extent, through 15 of lat.i.tude, the climate must necessarily be various. Louisiana, Mississippi and the lower half of Arkansas, lie between the lat.i.tudes of 30 and 35, and correspond with Georgia and South Carolina. Their difference of climate is not material. The northern half of Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky, lie west from North Carolina and the southern portion of Virginia. The climate varies from those states only as they are less elevated than the mountainous parts of Virginia and Carolina.

Hence, the emigrant from the southern Atlantic states, unless he comes from a mountainous region, will experience no great change of climate, by emigrating to the Lower Mississippi Valley. Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, lie parallel with the northern half of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and so much of New York and New England as lies south of the 42 of north lat.i.tude. But several circ.u.mstances combine to produce variations in the climate.

1. Much of those Atlantic states are hilly, and in many parts mountainous, some of which are 2 and 3000 feet above the level of the ocean. The parallel western states have no mountains, and are not proportionably hilly.

2. The Atlantic states border on the ocean on the east, and feel the influence of the cold, damp winds from the northeast and east. Their rains are more copious and their snows deeper. The northern portions of the West, equally with New York and Vermont, are affected with the influence of the lakes, though not to the same extent.

5. "The courses of rivers, by changing in some degree the direction of the winds, exert an influence on the climate. In the Atlantic states, from New England to North Carolina, the rivers run more or less to the southeast, and increase the winds which blow from the northwest, while the great bed of the Mississippi exerts an equal influence in augmenting the number and steadiness of the winds which blow over it from the southwest; and there is another cause of difference in climate, chiefly perceptible, first, in the temperature, which, if no counteracting cause existed, they would raise in the west considerably above that of corresponding lat.i.tudes in the east; and, secondly, in the moisture of the two regions, which is generally greater west than east of the mountains, when the southwest wind prevails; as, much of the water with which it comes charged from the Gulf of Mexico, is deposited before it reaches the country east of the Alleghanies."--_Dr. Drake._

It is an error that our climate is more variable, or the summers materially hotter, than in a correspondent lat.i.tude in the Atlantic states. "The New Englander and New Yorker north of the mountains of West Point, should bear in mind that his migration is not to the _West_ but _South West_; and as necessarily brings him into a warmer climate, as when he seeks the sh.o.r.es of the Delaware, Potomac, or James' River."

The settlers from Virginia to Kentucky, or those from Maryland and Pennsylvania to Ohio, or further west, have never complained of hotter summers than they had found in the land from whence they came.

To inst.i.tute a comparative estimate of temperature between the east and the west, we must observe: first, the thermometer; and, secondly, the flowering of trees, the putting forth of vegetation, and the ripening of fruits and grain in _correspondent lat.i.tudes_. This has not usually been done. Philadelphia and Cincinnati approach nearer to the same parallel, than any other places where such observations have been made.

Cincinnati, however, is about 50' south of Philadelphia. The following remarks are from Dr. Daniel Drake of Cincinnati, to whose pen the west is much indebted.

"From a series of daily observations in Cincinnati or its vicinity, for eight consecutive years, the mean annual temperature has been ascertained to be 54 degrees and a quarter. Dr. Rush states the mean temperature of Philadelphia at 52 degrees and a half; Dr. c.o.xe, from six years' observations, at 54 and a sixth; and Mr. Legaux, from seventeen years' observations, at Spring Mill, a few miles out of the city, at 53 and a third; the mean term of which results, 53 and a third, is but the fraction of a degree lower than the mean heat of Cincinnati, and actually less than should be afforded by the difference of lat.i.tude.

"A reference to the temperatures of summer and winter, will give nearly the same results. From nine years' observations, (three at Spring Mill, by Mr. Legaux, and six in Philadelphia, by Dr. c.o.xe,) the mean summer heat of that part of Pennsylvania, appears to be 76 degrees and six-tenths. The mean summer heat at Cincinnati, for an equal number of years, was 74 degrees and four-tenths. The average number of days in which the thermometer rose to 90 degrees or upwards, during the same period, was fourteen each summer; and the greatest elevation observed was 98 degrees: all of which would bear an almost exact comparison with similar observations in Pennsylvania. Mr. Legaux states the most intense cold, at Spring Mill, from 1787 to 1806, to have been 17 and five-tenths degrees below cipher,--while within the same period it was 18 at Cincinnati. The average of extreme cold for several years, as observed by Mr. Legaux, was one and eight-tenths of a degree below cipher:--the same average at Cincinnati, was two degrees below. From all which we may conclude, that the banks of the Delaware and Ohio, in the same lat.i.tudes, have nearly the same temperature."

The state of Illinois, extending as it does through five and a half degrees of lat.i.tude, has considerable variation in its climate. It has no mountains, and though undulating, it cannot be called hilly. Its extensive prairies, and level surface, give greater scope to the winds, especially in winter. In the southern part of the State, during the three winter months, snow frequently falls, but seldom lies long. In the northern part, the winters are as cold, but not so much snow falls, as in the same lat.i.tudes in the Atlantic States.

The Mississippi at St. Louis is frequently frozen over, and is crossed on the ice, and occasionally for several weeks. The hot season is longer, though not more intense, than occasionally for a day or two in New England.

During the years 1817-18-19, the Rev. Mr. Giddings, at St. Louis, made a series of observations upon Fahrenheit's thermometer.

Deg. Hund.

Mean temperature for 1817 55 52 Do. do. from the beginning of May, 1818, to the end of April, 1819 56 98 Mean temperature for 1820 56 18

The mean of these results is about fifty-six degrees and a quarter.