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Canada, and effectually humbled the power of the savages. During all the campaigns into the northwestern territory, Kentucky had been the principal store-house for the army, and the theatre of military parade and preparation, no less than for the decisive campaign conducted by General Wayne. Many of the officers of the regular army, and hundreds of recruits, besides the militia and mounted volunteers, were citizens of Kentucky.

Kentucky continued to increase in population and wealth; organized government was gradually extended to the remote limits of the state, and new counties were laid off from the larger ones as the population multiplied and the settlements reached into the unoccupied portions of the state. Each new county formed was designated by the name of some one of the early pioneers and defenders, who were occasionally leaving the stage of action; and to this day her ninety counties are so many monuments perpetuating the memory of the most prominent founders of the state.*

The population by the census of the United States in 1790 was 73,677 souls, including 12,430 slaves. The emigration of ten years augmented the number to 220,960 souls, including 40,343 slaves. This number in ten years more had increased to 406,511 souls in 1810, including 80,560 slaves. The increase of population continued rapid for thirty years more, although in a diminished ratio. The census of 1820 gave the population at 564,317 souls; that of 1830 at 688,884 souls, of whom 165,350 were slaves. The census of 1840 gave the entire pop

* The governors of Kentucky are as follows:

1. Isaac Shelby, from 1792 to 1796, Sep- 9. Joseph Desha, from 1824 to 1828, September. tember.

2. James Garrard, from 1796 to 1804, Sep-10. Thomas Metcalfe, from 1828 to 1832, tember.

September.

3. Christopher Greenup, from 1804 to 1808, 11. John Breathitt, from 1832 to 1835, Sep

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4. Charles Scott, from 1808 to 1812, Sep-12. James T. Morehead, from 1835 to 1836, tember.

acting governor.

5. Isaac Shelby, from 1812 to 1816, Sep-13. James Clark, from 1836 to 1839: died

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--Bradford's Illustrated Atlas, p. 124 and American Almanac for 1845.

ulation at 779,828 souls, including 182,258 slaves.* The state contained hundreds of large towns and villages. Louisville, the chief commercial city, contained a population of more than twenty-one thousand inhabitants, and Lexington, an inland city, contained nearly seven thousand.

CHAPTER VII.

THE EARLY SETTLEMENT AND POLITICAL CONDITION OF WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA.-A.D. 1783 To 1796.

Argument.-Jurisdiction of Pennsylvania extended to the Ohio. .-"Westmoreland County" organized.-" Washington County" organized.-Emigration to the Monongahela and Youghiogeny.-Town of Pittsburgh laid out.-Brownsville laid out; becomes an important Point.-First Newspaper in the West.-Pittsburgh becomes a Market Town in 1788.-Trade and Manufactures spring up.-It derives great Importance as a military Dépôt in 1790.-Prosperous Condition of Settlements on the Monongahela.-Pittsburgh becomes an important manufacturing and trading Town. -Agricultural Prosperity of Monongahela Settlements.-Effects of Spanish Restrictions on the Mississippi.-"Excise Law" odious.-Disaffection toward Federal Government.-French Influence in the West.-Resistance to Excise on Whisky.-Difficulties encountered by excise Officers.-General Neville appointed Superintendent of excise Customs.-His moral Worth and Popularity insufficient to sustain him.— His House burned by a Mob.-Other Outrages perpetrated by the Mob.-Character of the Insurgents.-A Meeting of the Militia.-A Convention proposed.-Measures adopted by the President of the United States.-Proposed Amnesty.-Convention at Parkinson's Ferry.-Alarm of the insurgent Leaders.-Effects of General Wayne's Victory on the Maumee.-Commissioners appointed by the President.-Troops lev. ied to suppress the Insurrection.-Fourteen thousand Troops advance to Pittsburgh. -The Insurrection is suppressed.-Insurgents dispersed.-Inquisitorial Court established. Three hundred Insurgents arrested.-The Troops discharged.-Pittsburgh incorporated in 1794.-Quietude of Frontiers, and Advance of Population.-Uninhabited Region west of Alleghany River.-Emigration encouraged.-"Population Company."-Their Grant.-State Grants to actual Settlers. - Conflict of State Grants with the Company's Privileges.-First Paper Mill on the Monongahela.-Manufactures increase.

[A.D. 1783.] We have already remarked, that in the early settlement of the country west of the mountains, before the close of the Revolutionary war, the northern and southern limits of Virginia were not clearly defined and known. Virginia, however, was prompt in asserting her right to all the territory which was supposed to lie within her chartered limits on the west. It was not until the year 1780 that her southern boundary, separating her from North Carolina, had been surveyed from the mountains westward to the Mississippi. *See Guthrie's Geography, vol. ii., p. 451. Smith's Gazetteer of the United States, p. 320.

Her northern boundary next to Pennsylvania had not been properly ascertained and designated until several years afterward.

Previous to running this line, Virginia had claimed, and had exercised, jurisdiction over Western Pennsylvania as far north as Fort Pitt, which was claimed as a post of the Old Dominion. Emigrants from Virginia and Maryland had formed settlements, and had introduced their slave property, believing themselves within the jurisdiction of Virginia. Hundreds of the best citizens, who had settled on the Youghiogeny and Monongahela Rivers, afterward finding themselves in Pennsylvania by the line of demarkation, were compelled to retire, with their slaves, to Western Virginia and to Kentucky, where they would be protected in their property by the laws of Virginia.

After the southern line of Pennsylvania had been fully designated, the Legislature proceeded to organize the country thus detached from Virginia into two counties, called Westmoreland and Washington. Westmoreland county extended from the mountains westward to the Alleghany River, including the town of Pittsburgh and all the country between the Kiskeminetas and the Youghiogeny. North of this was the Indian territory, in the possession of the native tribes. Washington county comprised all south and west of Pittsburgh, including all the country east and west of the Monongahela, now comprised in the counties of Washington, Green, Alleghany, and Fayette.

[A.D. 1784.] After the close of the Revolutionary war, the tide of immigration set with double force into the region west of the mountains. Besides hundreds of families who had suf fered in their fortunes by the war, there were thousands of soldiers and officers of the Continental army, who, now disbanded, were compelled to seek homes in the West, and provide for their growing families.

As late as the year 1784, Fort Pitt was a frontier post, and the region contiguous was quite unprotected. The Indian tribes occupied the country on the north and west, and their numbers and prowess rendered them terrible to the weak settlements. The town of Pittsburgh, which had sprung up near the fort, was a frontier trading place, frequented by hundreds of friendly Indians in time of peace, eager to barter their furs, skins, and bear's grease for the rude staples of a trader's stock VOL. II.-N

of goods. The Alleghany River was the Indian boundary, and in time of peace the Indian trade brought to the town hundreds of canoes and pirogues, by means of which a regular intercourse was maintained with remote towns in the country still in possession of the natives.

After the jurisdiction of Pennsylvania was formally extended over the southwestern portion of the state in the organization of counties, population began to press forward into the most exposed points contiguous to the Indian boundary, and the village of Pittsburgh now assumed the form of a regular American town. It was in the month of May, 1784, that Colonel George Woods, agent for the proprietors and heirs of William Penn, to whom the land belonged, as a portion of one of the manors of the original grantee, first surveyed and laid out the regular plan of a town, which was called Pittsburgh.* About the same time, the settlement at "Red Stone Old Fort" had become an important point of embarkation for emigrants to Kentucky, and bid fair to be the future seat of trade for the western country. In the spring of the same year, Thomas and Basil Brown, from Maryland, having purchased the claim formerly belonging to Captain Michael Cresap, including the "Old Fort," deemed it a suitable point for a town. In May, 1785, they laid off a plot near the "Old Fort," and called it by its present name of "Brownsville." Thus began the oldest town on the Monongahela.

[A.D. 1785.] The situation of this place, as the point to which nearly the whole western emigration concentrated previous to its descent of the Ohio, soon gave to Brownsville a trade and importance unknown then to any town in the West. Before the close of the year 1786, its population had increased to five hundred souls. Many of these were engaged in the mechanic arts which contribute chiefly to boat-building, and supply the rude necessaries for barge and flat-boat navigation. Emigrants who designed taking water at Wheeling, where the voyage to Kentucky would be shortened one hundred and sixty miles, were still obliged to take Brownsville in their route, and here supply themselves for their future journey. This produced a necessity for mercantile houses, provided with the articles indispensable to the emigrants.

* Pittsburgh Navigator for 1814. Also, American Pioneer, vol. i., p. 302–308.
t Pioneer, vol. ii., p. 62.
Idem, vol. i., p. 305.

Heretofore the western settlers had been compelled to send their annual "caravans" across the mountains to Fort Cumberland, Hagerstown, Frederictown, or some other point, for all their supplies, which were transported upon pack-horses several hundred miles to the West. But this usage was now about to cease, and be superseded by regular commercial houses at Brownsville, which could supply the emigrants with implements of agriculture, provisions, salt, iron, and other articles indispensable in a new country.

[A.D. 1787.] By the following year, several mercantile houses were established, and supplied with goods hauled in wagons across the mountains from Forts Cumberland and Ligonier. These tended to give additional importance to Brownsville, as a point of embarkation for the West. Emigrants could carry money with less inconvenience than the heavy articles for which they could exchange it at the end of their journey. Of course, money would seek its way to the West, instead of being carried to the East.

A good wagon road had been opened to Brownsville from the East, and a regular line of freight-wagons from Baltimore and Frederictown had been established, each wagon making the trip to Brownsville and back, with full loads, once a month. The cost of transportation over this route was generally three dollars per hundred weight, and the great numbers of emigrants to the West soon opened a profitable commerce between these remote points. The same cause soon made Brownsville one of the most active trading and manufacturing towns in the West. The demand for mechanics and manufacturers of a certain class brought great numbers of adventurers from the East in search of profitable employment. The great demand was for carpenters and boat-builders, to supply conveyance for the hundreds of emigrants who arrived every week, seeking boats of all kinds for the voyage to Kentucky and Western Virginia, as well as to the Northwestern Territory. The boat-building and the boating business soon became an important branch of western enterprise. Hundreds of arks, keels, barges, and every variety of boats, kept up a constant intercourse between the Monongahela and the settlements on the Ohio below, and also with the city of New Orleans, and the rich settlements on the Lower Mississippi.*

See American Pioneer, vol. ii., p. 62, 63.

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