cretary-and as judges, Samuel Holden November, 1791, General St. Clair, at Parsons, James Mitchell Varnum, and the head of an army of nearly 3,000 men, John Cleves Symmes, who organized approaching the Indian towns, was atthe territorial government, and made and adopted suitable laws. tacked near what is now the line of Darke and Mercer counties, by the In 1787, John Cleves Symmes, a combined forces of nearly all the northmember of the Old Congress from New- west tribes, and experienced a total and Jersey, and formerly chief justice of that most disastrous defeat. The Indian difstate, with associates, contracted with ficulties were, in consequence, multiCongress for the purchase of one million plied, and for a time emigration ceased acres of land, lying between the two entirely. Washington, as President, Miamis, and extending back north- urged the prosecution of this protective wardly from the Ohio river. The second war; but it was not until 1794 that an settlement in Ohio was made in this army was assembled at Greenville, untract, at Columbia, a point five miles der Gen. Anthony Wayne. In August above Cincinnati, October, 1788. Soon of that year he obtained a decisive vicafterwards, Symmes sold to Mathias tory over a force of two thousand Indians, Denman, of New-Jersey, about eight at the Rapids of the Maumee. When their hundred acres of his purchase, opposite the mouth of the Licking. Five hundred and fifty dollars was the sum paid for these eight hundred acres of land, on which now stands the principal business portion of the city of Cincinnati. The first cabin upon this site was erected in December, 1788. The settlements that followed were, Manchester, on the Ohio river, the first effected in the country, lying between the Scioto and Little Miami rivers, by General Massie and others, in the winter of 1790; Gallipolis, by immigrants from France, in the same year; Hamilton, laid off by Israel Ludlow, late in 1794; Dayton, by the same, in 1795; Cleveland, surveyed and laid out in the fall of 1795; Chillicothe, laid out by General Massie, in 1796; and Portsmouth, settled since 1805. The tract reserved by Connecticut, in her cession to the general government, situated east of the Cuyahoga, found purchasers in her own and other states, and by the year 1800 numbered one thousand settlers. country was laid waste, and they saw the American forts springing up around them, they at length submitted and sued for peace. When we consider the fierce and unrelenting warfare waged by the Indian tribes upon the white settlements of the West, during the thirty-seven years of almost uninterrupted conflict, from 1757, when the first white man was killed in Kentucky, down to the period of Wayne's victory, we may form some faint idea of the toil, and perils, and suffering of the bold and hardy race of pioneers who effected the colonization of the vast western world. An Indian chief, at the conclusion of a treaty, yielding up the right of soil in Kentucky, said to Boone, "Brother, we have given you a fine land, but I think you will have trouble to settle it." And his prediction was fully verified, there and elsewhere, of lands purchased of the Indians. Hostilities being at an end, population rapidly increased in the rich farming district between the Miamis-settlers Though the Indian treaties had been spread outward from Marietta. Connecrenewed and confirmed, they were con- ticut sent many to her reserved tract, tinually violated by hostile portions of bordering on Lake Erie; and in 1798 the the different tribes, and in 1789, nine inhabitants of the territory were 5,000 persons were killed in Symmes' pur- in number, with eight organized counchase. Block-houses were built by the ties. The territory was then entitled, by alarmed settlers, and Major Doughty, the ordinance of 1787, to representatives with one hundred and forty men from in a territorial legislature, the first meetFort Harmar, Marietta, in June, 1789, ing of which took place in Sept., 1799. commenced Fort Washington, the site of the present city of Cincinnati. The Indian aggressions still continuing to intimidate them, General Harmar with 1,300 men marched against their towns, and attacked them, but was unsuccessful, and retreated back to Cincinnati. In Wm. Henry Harrison, then secretary of the territory, and since President of the United States, was at that time elected to Congress. In 1802 Congress authorized a convention to form a state constitution; it assembled at Chillicothe, and on the Indian Wars-State Constitution-Nature of the Soil. 309 ing power to prevent its exhaustion under the most constant culture. When thoroughly tested, seven-eighths of the soil of Ohio will be found well adapted to the permanent production of wheat. 29th November adopted and signed a and sandstone that lie above and below constitution of state government, by them, constitute a soil of great excelwhich act Ohio took her place amongst lence, that has within itself the renovat the states of the Union. The first General Assembly under the state constitution was held at Chillicothe in 1803. In 1805 the United States acquired, by another Indian treaty, the portion of the reserve of Connecticut lying west of the Cuya- On the south-east and south, Ohio has hoga river, and in subsequent treaties a river-shore four hundred and fifty miles the Maumee and Sandusky regions were in length, which is visited by steamers ceded by the Indians, thus extinguishing from four to eight months of every year. all their claims in Ohio. In 1811 the Its interior streams, though worthless for Indians, after a series of outbreaks, were navigation, are invaluable as feeders for defeated by General Harrison, then canals, and for the water-power which governor of the Indiana territory, at the they almost everywhere afford. By far famous battle of Tippecanoe. During the greatest concentration of capital is this same year the first steamer ever in the south-western portion of the state, launched upon the western waters made in and around Cincinnati. Cleveland the voyage from Pittsburgh to New-Orleans. In 1816 the seat of government was removed from Chillicothe to its present location at Columbus, situated in the centre of the state, upon the Scioto river. It would seem almost superfluous to speak of the fertile character of the soil of Ohio, but there are some varieties, owing to geological formation, which may be properly noticed. That part which has transition lime-rock for its upper stratum is of course possessed of a soil remarkably durable, and well adapted to wheat and grass. This portion embraces nearly half of the state, the eastern line of it commencing at the lake, near the mouth of the Huron river, and passing in a southerly direction, leaves Columbus a few miles east, and touches the Ohio river in Adams county. All lying west of this line is emphatically a limestone country. A great part of the ten counties constituting the Connecticut Reserve is based on shale and sandstone, and although good land, and capable of producing, with careful culture, all kinds of grain and fruit suitable to the climate, yet, lacking calcareous matter in the soil, it is less fertile than the rest of the state. The middle and south-eastern section of Ohio is much more uneven than the western and northern, the streams having carried away the earth to a greater extent, because it .was from its nature less able to resist the action of flood and frost. This great section has the debris of the lime strata, that lie in the coal series, scattered on all its hill sides and valleys; and mingling with the debris of the beds of shale and the country around it may be ranked the second in the state for wealth and business; Zanesville forms the third focus of wealth, and on account of the fine beds of coal and iron in the surrounding country, bids fair to become extensively engaged in manufacturing, Trumbull, Ashtabula, Geauga, and Portage, are rich in fine cattle and the productions of the dairy. The southeastern and central counties constitute at present the most productive wheat region in the United States. The Scioto valley is distinguished for its corn, cattle, and hogs, which it produces in great abundance. The north-western quarter of the state is too new to have acquired much wealth of any kind; but when well settled it will be second to none but the south-west, and it may even overtake that rich and beautiful section. Its position for commerce and manufactures is remarkably good, and its soil will yield abundantly all the productions grown in other parts of the state. Ohio has twenty-five millions of acres, nearly every acre of which may be cheaply brought into tillage, and its average fertility exceeds that of the best interval lands or primitive countries. If it were all under culture in wheat, it might produce five hundred millions of bushels, being nearly five times as much as is grown in the United States. It is fully able to sustain in comfort and happiness ten millions of people; and with that number it would average but 250 to the square mile, or one person to every 2 acres. In climate we believe no other state equals it for mildness and uniformity. Its winter cold and its summer heat are greatly tempered on the north by the extensive body of water which bounds it in that direction, and its southern part has the advantage of the soft breezes from the Gulf. Taken as a whole, it is probably not excelled, if it is equaled, in the healthfulness of its climate by any sister state. Its position among the states would seem to give it a better title to be called the Keystone State than Pennsylvania; for it holds a middle ground between the north-east and north-west; and should Canada become an integral part of this country, Ohio will be more central than any other state. Before that time arrives, she bids fair to have more natural and artificial ways of intercourse, connecting her with the north and south, the east and west, to the farthest bounds of the nation, than any other of the confederacy. The Ohio river gives her southern border cheap intercourse with all the states of the Mississippi basin, extending westward to the foot of the Rocky Mountains, southward to the Gulf, and north to the Falls of St. Anthony. Lake Erie furnishes to her northern counties still superior facilities for intercourse with the north-west to the 49th degree of latitude, and towards the north-east to the ocean, and by means of the Erie canal to the eastern states. Her artificial ways to connect these natural highroads, and to give all portions of her people easy access to them, are honorable to her industry and enterprise. The Ohio canal, begun in 1825 and completed in 1832, is 309 miles long, 40 feet wide at the water surface, and 4 feet deep. Its branches, beginning at the south, are: 1st, the Columbus feeder, 9 miles long; 2nd, the Hocking canal, 56 miles; 3rd, the Muskingum improvement, 91 miles; 4th, the Walhonding canal, 25 miles; 5th, the Canton side-cut, 19 miles; and the Mahoning canal, 87 miles-making in all 596 miles of artificial navigation in eastern Ohio, terminating in Cleveland, and touching the Ohio river at Portsmouth and Marietta. The Mahoning canal is connected with the Pennsylvania improvements, and with them makes a continuous line of artificial highway to Philadelphia. The Wabash and Erie canal, from its eastern termination to its junction with the Miami, 68 miles, is more than double the size of the Ohio; and thence to the state line, 20 miles, it is fifty feet wide and five feet deep, where it is met by the Indiana portion of the same size to Fort Wayne. The Wabash and Erie canal in Ohio, with its side-cuts, is 91 miles long. The Miami canal, which joins it 8 miles above Defiance, is 170 miles in length, and has navigable feeders: 1st, the Sidney feeder, 13 miles; 2nd, the Warren county canal, 22 miles; and the Whitewater canal, 25 miles,-in all, 321 miles of navigable canal within the western part of the state, and terminating at the western extremity of Lake Erie. From the above it appears that Ohio has within her borders, including the three-mile Milan canal, 920 miles of navigable canals, built at an expense of seventeen millions of dollars." Tolls-Rail-roads-Coal-Agricultural Productions, &c. 311 Names of Rail-roads. The following tables are from the cen 82 sus report of 1850: AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIONS OF OHIO. Springfield, Mt. Vernon, & Pittsburgh 110 Acres of land improved 9,730,650 Dayton and Michigan. Hudson and Akron branch.. Cincinnati and Dayton. 52 Value of live stock.. .$43,276,187 Carrollton branch Tuscarawas branch 20. Indian corn. 59,788,750 COAL.-"Rich as Ohio is in her arable lands and in their vast product of grain, she is not more so in that than in her mineral resources. It is almost impossible to estimate the amount of coal in the state. It is nearly incredible when we come to estimate it in a single county. Take, for example, the county of Tuscarawas, on the Ohio canal. This county has 550 square miles, and coal may be obtained on every mile of it. In Professor Mather's valuable Report on Geology, it is estimated that this county has imbedded in it more than eighty thousand millions of bushels of coal!-enough to supply the state, should its population be quadrupled for centuries to come. So the county of Muskingum can furnish ten thousand millions of bushels. These are interior counties, which at present supply almost nothing compared with the counties of Meigs, Athens, and Summit. Coal may be found in twenty counties-comprising a belt, commencing on the Ohio river, from the Scioto to the Hockhocking, and stretching a little east of north to the Lake. The principal mines are those of Pomeroy in Meigs county, Nelsonville, in Athens, and Tallmadge, in Summit; but coal is mined in small quantities in various other places in the coal region." The following tabular view of the increased product of coal, compiled from statistical documents, is very nearly correct: Pounds of tobacco.. Pounds of wool. Hay (tons). Wine (gallons). Value of home-made manufactures.. In the above-mentioned number of Capital invested.. counties: CASTINGS. .... Tons of pig iron... Value of raw material, fuel, &c. 66 .28 By the year 1860, the coal production of Ohio will probably exceed twenty millions of bushels per annum. 46 $578,423 $1,111,027 1,374,087 65,000 $1,503,000 140,610 21,730 5,428,800 $630,037 2,415 $24 48 52,658 $1,255,850 .$2,063,650 37,555 1,843 2,000 30,006. 355,120 $1,199,790 2,758 $27 32 37,399 $208,700 .$3,069,350 $620,800 13,675 2,900 22,755 ART. II.-FLORIDA-ITS POSITION, RESOURCES, AND DESTINY. THERE is not perhaps any state of the confederacy that can be more benefited by the construction of judicious works of internal improvement, and by the improvement of its harbors, than Florida.— Thirty-one years have elapsed, since the provinces of East and West Florida were taken possession of by the United States under the treaty of cession concluded in 1819. No works of internal improvement, except the "King's road" in East Florida, and a short and small canal, (never completed,) near Lake Okechoke; and De Brahme's surveys in 1765, &c., were commenced by the British or Spanish governments, whilst the provinces were under the control of either of those powers; and since their transfer to the United States, various circumstances have combined to retard the development of their valuable commercial, agricultural, and other resources. The fortifications then near Pensacola, that at St. Mark's, the fort at St. Augustine, and an old defence called Fort George, near the mouth of the river St. John's, were all the military defences worth mentioning existing in the provinces at the cession. The United States have since established a navy yard, and works for the repair of vessels of war, and erected other forts, and built a naval and marine hospital near Pensacola; are building fortifications at the Tortugas and at Key West; and near the mouth of the St.Mary's River; and have |