CHAPTER XXIII

THE INDUSTRIAL DEVElopment of the nortHWEST

In the development of the West, too much emphasis cannot be placed upon the transportation problem and its solution. No matter how rich the farm lands might be or how valuable the forests, if the products could not be carried to market there could be no commercial growth. The fields might yield abundant harvests, but if there was no one to feed but the farmer and his household, there would be no inducement for him to extend his labors beyond what would satisfy the needs of his own family. The development of the West depended upon transportation facilities. Washington understood this and therefore made various efforts to open up easy communication between the East and West by means of roads and canals. The early movements for internal improvements, the appropriation of money and lands to be sold for this purpose were only an evidence of the same feeling. The control of the Mississippi, and the trouble with the Spaniards over the right of deposit at New Orleans, the Purchase of Louisiana itself, all centre around the transportation question.

The political development has been closely connected with the transportation problem. People are held together more by commercial interests than by ties of race or by sentiment. This is shown by the tendency of the settlers in the Mississippi valley to unite with the nation controlling the mouth of the river, and the necessity that was generally

appreciated of getting this into the power of the United States, if the Union were to remain intact.

We have noticed the gradual nature of the westward movement in the South where the frontiersmen had to push their way over the mountains and into Kentucky and Tennessee by following the Indian trails or making paths for themselves. In these early journeys the difficulties were very great. At first there could be only the pack-horse with the few absolutely necessary household utensils. In some places the routes were traversable enough by oxwagons. Even then the journey was long, laborious, and dangerous. While pack-beast and ox-wagon remained the only means of communication, there could be no extensive trade between East and West, because bulky articles, such as grain could not be exported.

If the West had been forced to depend upon its overmountain route for its contact with its markets, there would never have been any commercial development worth mentioning. Only articles which possess great value in small bulk can make that kind of commerce profitable. The South American mountains may be crossed by a profitable commerce because the merchandise is silver and gold. The camel trains on the Sahara may carry on trade for ages at a profit because they bear the light and costly wares of Central Africa. But the Mississippi States in their first years were obliged to export grain and meat and other raw materials if they were to engage in commerce, and the bulk and weight of these articles made it impossible to transport them profitably on pack animals or in wagons for a great distance. In the early period of settlement there could be no wagon roads through a sparsely settled forest country because the expense of their construction was beyond the means of the few inhabitants of the region in which they were needed.

Early travel into the interior of Michigan and other wooded sections was by horseback and the use of pack animals. When settlement began in Indiana there were

no roads in the interior of the Territory. The only semblance to one was an Indian trail from Vincennes to the Falls of the Ohio, which was used by pack-horses.

Governor Cass saw the need of suitable highways if Michigan was to grow, and so urged upon Congress the necessity of building a road around the end of Lake Erie. He succeeded in securing national aid for this purpose by impressing Congress with the value of the proposed road for military purposes. In 1820, a road was built to Chicago. and the expense was paid by the government of the Territory of Michigan.

While there was always some travel upon the landways, much more of it was by water. The rivers flowed in the right direction to take the people into the new country. Travel by them was easier, quicker, and cheaper and the emigrants could take their household goods with them. The western settlement was begun by the men who gradually crossed the mountains into eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, but these were very few compared with the hundreds who settled a little later in northern Kentucky and all along the northern bank of the Ohio, who reached their destination by means of the river. Before the building of railroads nearly all the settlements were on navigable streams. It was easy to reach such places, and what was of equal importance, if the country was to grow, it was easy to export the bulky products and much more convenient to import products by the river than to bring them overland on pack-horses or wains.

The rapid peopling of the interior was due to the vast network of inland waterways of which the Mississippi and its branches furnished fifteen thousand four hundred and ten miles of waterways navigable for good-sized craft, and in addition to this were the Great Lakes with the rivers flowing into them. By means of the water communications the people could easily pass from one point in the interior to another and select the places best suited for settlement.

In the early part of the nineteenth century, the Ohio was the great highway by which the Northwest was settled and its trade developed. Two of its navigable branches, the Monongahela and the Alleghany, brought many pioneers and their goods to the main stream at the junction, now Pittsburg, where the two streams together form the Ohio, which the early French settlers called "The Beautiful River."

In the period before the opening of steam navigation there were a number of different styles of craft used for travel on the rivers. First of all was the Indian canoe, which for its swiftness and ease of transportation from one stream to another was adopted by the whites, especially for use on the smaller streams. When only a small amount of freight, like the Indian trader's load of furs, was to be carried, the canoe was used. Some of these craft were so small that but one man could ride in them at a time, others would comfortably carry a dozen.

But the West would not be settled by the men who depended upon the canoe for transportation. It was not fitted for carrying bulky articles. It could never develop the commercial possibilities of the section. To do that there was the necessity of the larger, clumsier bateaux, barges, or broad-horns, as the flatboats were variously called. The settlement of the West began in earnest when the emigrant from the East with his wife and children and his household goods, possibly also his domestic animals, floated down the Ohio until he found a place where he desired to build his home.

These flatboats were also used for carrying produce down the Ohio and the other branches of the Mississippi to New Orleans or for trading at the plantations along the Mississippi. They often carried a cargo amounting to forty or fifty tons. The process of getting one of these boats up stream was a difficult one, especially where there were shallows or rapids. It was therefore usual to sell them at their destination.

Another form of river craft in use, on the smaller tributaries of the Ohio in particular, was the keelboat. This was roughly constructed and made long and narrow, being twelve to fifteen feet in width and fifty or more in length. These keelboats were covered and would carry from twenty to forty tons of freight. The greater portion of the craft was used for freight, but at one end there was a rude cabin for crew or passengers. The boats floated down stream with the current, but sometimes sails were used. They were usually pushed up stream by means of setting-poles. Half the crew worked on each side of the boat. They "set," that is to say, plunged their poles into the water until they rested upon the bed of the river, at the bow of the boat, then resting the end of the pole on the shoulder walked slowly aft pushing with all their strength; then they returned to the bow and repeated the process again and again until the day's work was done or a landing made. At the best, the voyage up stream was one of extreme difficulty and slowness, though less dangerous than the downward journey. Fifteen miles was considered a good day's journey. Low water, sand bars, and contrary winds sometimes made progress impossible, and the men would have to wait until circumstances were more favorable.

The narrow keelboat made it possible for those who had settled on the smaller branches of the Ohio to get their supplies from down the river and to send out their produce. But the up-river trade could be only a small one, at the best, and because of the difficulty and expense of transportation, the price of commodities procured by it remained very high. It is probable that up to 1817 the entire annual tonnage of all the boats ascending the Ohio and the Lower Mississippi did not exceed sixty-five hundred tons. The flatboat and keelboat continued to be used on the Mississippi down to the time of the Civil War.

The round trip between Pittsburg and Cincinnati was made in four weeks on the boats plying on the Ohio in 1794. Two boats were at that time going regularly over