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Meanwhile the course of westward extension had been steady, though slow. Ohio still remained a desert, with only a few hamlets here and there. On the Ohio, Wheeling, west of Pittsburg, was a place of only 50 cabins, but it boasted of a stockade, and in times of trouble had a garrison of 150 troops. Below Wheeling, near the Muskingum, was Marietta, a town of 200 houses; and still farther down the river, opposite the Little Kanawha, was Belle Pré.*

Close to the mouth of the Great Kanawha stood the interesting town of Gallipolis. The New England Ohio Company had urged Congress to sell its Ohio lands, and the offer to purchase them was extended to take in another company, since famous as

For the conditions of the various settlements, see Thomas Chapman, Journal of a Journey through the United States, 1795-96, in Historical Magazine (June, 1869); Autobiography of Major Samuel Forman, in Historical Magazine (December, 1869). In general, see also Hulbert, The Ohio River (1906); Slocum, The Ohio Country, 1783-1815 (1910).

Internal taxa

the Scioto Land Company. When this company came into possession of its lands, it sent an agent (one Joel Barlow) to France to procure emigrants.* Going to Paris, Barlow, before 1791, secured 500 emigrants from Havre, Bordeaux, Nantes and Rochelle, to whom he sold title deeds to estates at four shillings per acre. When these emigrants landed at Alexandria, Va., they were detained for some time, and did not begin their journey to the Ohio country before the summer. After innumerable trials, they reached the spot described in their deeds, to find that the Scioto Company did not own a foot of the land and that the whole transaction had been a swindle.†

Nevertheless, they determined to stay where they were, and immedi

*King, Ohio, p. 217.

Hulbert, The Ohio River, pp. 263-265; McMaster, vol. ii., pp. 146-149. On the transactions by which this territory came to be known as the property of the Scioto people, see King, Ohio, p. 219 et seq.

ately set to work to make a clearing, soon completing the erection of two solid blocks of log cabins, and the laying out of several kitchens and gardens. But their condition gradually became desperate, owing to lack of food and the constant attacks of Indians; and in the spring of 1792, fearing starvation and total annihilation at the hands of the Indians, some fled to Detroit, some to Kaskaskia, while a few remained. Chapman described the place as a "small, miserable looking village of upwards of 100 little wretched log cabins," the inhabitants of which were 66 poor, starved, sickly looking Frenchmen," who had "starvation and sickness strongly pictured on their faces." To assist them, Congress granted them 24,000 acres of land on the banks of the Ohio, in Lawrence County, opposite the mouth of the Little Sandy. Three years later 1,200 acres were added, and the entire tract was named "The French Grants." This land was to be divided in equal lots among those actually remaining af Gallipolis, November 1, 1794, all widows and all males above the age of 18 participating in the allotment.|| Between Gallipolis and Cincinnati were Limestone, Newport and Colum

. King, Ohio, pp. 218-219.

Thomas Chapman, Journal of a Journey through the United States, 1795-96, in Historical Magazine (June, 1869), p. 360.

McMaster, vol. ii., p. 151.

King, Ohio, p. 222. See also Sparks, Expansion of the American People, pp. 129-131; Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio.

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bia, none of which contained more than 70 houses. Below Cincinnati the country was unbroken to the falls of the Ohio, where stood Louisville, then a small but flourishing town. North of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi, in the territory now comprising the States of Michigan and Wisconsin and the northern parts of Indiana and Illinois, lay an unbroken solitude in which Indians and buffaloes roamed at will. At Chillicothe was an Indian village, but Columbus, Cleveland, Toledo, Sandusky and Erie had not yet come into existence.*

According to the census of 1790, there were but 1,081 people and 30 towns in the western part of New York. Canandaigua was the largest town, with 18 houses and 106 inhabitants.† Pioneers came from New Jersey and Pennsylvania by way of the Susquehanna and Tioga rivers, went to Seneca Lake, and thence to Cayuga; and others from Kentucky had entered the valley of the Mohawk by way of Albany and Fort Schuyler. Small settlements sprang up at Bath, Naples, Geneva, Aurora, Seneca Falls, Palmyra, Richmond, Fort Stanwix, and Marcellus. A salt works was established on the shores of Onondaga Lake.‡ West of Seneca

*McMaster, vol. ii., pp. 151–155.

† J. H. Hotchkin, A History of the Purchase and Settlement of Western New York and of the Rise, Progress and Present State of the Presbyterian Church in that Section, p. 16 (1848).

See Hotchkin, Purchase and Settlement of Western New York, p. 17; Elkanah Watson, Journal of Travels, principally by Water, from Albany

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During the first session of the Fourth Congress, Tennessee was admitted to statehood. It will be remembered that the land ceded by North Carolina had been formed into "The Territory of the United States of America South of the River Ohio, and in 1790 William Blount was inducted into office as governor. The names of counties were changed, and the commissions given to public officials by North Carolina were revoked and new officials appointed, Sevier and Robertson taking a prominent part in these transactions. † By the exercise of great tact, Blount preserved order on the frontier, and in 1791 entered into negotiations with the Cherokees for the cession of their lands. In the summer of that year the Indians met Blount at Holston, and on July 2 the Treaty of Holston was concluded. In consideration of numerous gifts and an annuity of

to the Seneca Lake in 1791. See his History of the Rise, Progress, and Existing Conditions of the Western Canals in the State of New York, passim. See also the bibliography in Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, vol. vii., p. 533 et seq.

McMaster, vol. ii., pp. 157-158. See also W. Max Reid, The Mohawk Valley, Its Legends and Its History.

Roosevelt, Winning of the West, vol. iv., pp.

101-104.

For text, see American State Papers, Indian Affairs, vol. i., pp. 124-125.

$1,000 (later increased to $1,500), the Indians abandoned their claims to the lands, the ownership of which had so long been in dispute. By this treaty, and that with the Creeks entered into at New York the previous summer, the Indian title to most of the present State of Tennessee was obliterated, though the Chickasaws still held the westernmost part and the Cherokees certain tracts in the southeast.*

On the ground where the treaty was concluded, Blount laid the foundations of the present city of Knoxville, named after Secretary of War Knox. In 1791 the first Tennessee newspaper The Knoxville Gazette was here started, which was but four or five years younger than the only other newspaper-The Kentucky Gazette

in the far West of the time. † Blount took the lead also in founding schools for higher education; and, after much difficulty, Blount College was organized and opened as a nondenominational institution, the first of its kind in the United States. I There were two other colleges in the territory, Greenville and Washington. The ordinary books were still school books, law books and sermons or works on theology. About this time the Gazette brought out the first books or pamphlets published in eastern Tennessee, among the titles being A Sermon in Psalmody by Rev. Heze

Roosevelt, p. 106.

Ibid, vol. iv., pp. 106-109.

Edward T. Sanford, Blount College and the University of Tennessee, p. 13.

kiah Balch, A Discourse by the Rev. Samuel Carrick, and a legal treatise entitled Western Justice. The poets already had their corners in the papers, their contributions ranging from An Epitaph on John Topham to The Pernicious Consequences of Smoking Cigars.

Settlers now began to flock into East Tennessee, among the more prominent being General Griffith Rutherford, and by 1794 the State contained 5,000 free male inhabitants, which number was necessary before Tennessee could legally be erected into a territory. Accordingly, Blount summoned a legislative assembly, to meet at Knoxville, August 17, 1794, to form a territorial government. One of the first acts of the Legislature was to establish institutions for higher education, and John Sevier was made a trustee of both Blount and Greenville colleges. Lotteries were started to begin the building of the Cumberland road to Nashville, and to build a jail and stocks in Nashville. A poll tax of 25 cents was laid on all taxable white polls and of 50 cents on negro polls. Land was taxed at the rate of 25 cents per hundred acres; town lots were taxed $1, and a stud horse was taxed $4. A pension act was passed for disabled soldiers, for widows and orphans."

*

Various industries were then started. Blacksmiths were already plentiful, and now a goldsmith and

* Roosevelt, Winning of the West, vol. iv., pp. 110-112.

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jeweler set up an establishment. Ferries were established at important crossings, taverns were erected in the county seats and small towns, and stores of all kinds were opened, the merchants obtaining their goods chiefly at Philadelphia and Baltimore. Most of the trade was carried on by barter, as there was but little coin money and but few bank notes. The chief articles of sale were salt, brandy, wine, whiskey, rum, groceries, pewter ware, iron mongery, corduroys, linens, ribbon, etc., while imported glass was advertised, and fresh meat could be had twice a week.* Considerable attention was paid to cattle-raising and the breeding of fine horses. On account of the frontiersmen's tendency to settle their quarrels by personal combat, there was much lawlessness, and with the establishment of courts lawyers did a thriving business.

Land speculation seized upon the settlers, Blount and Robertson among them. Soon after his settlement in this region, Blount had entered into an agreement with Robertson whereby the former was to purchase land claims amounting to 50,000 acres, from officers and soldiers, and to enter them for the Western territory; while Robertson was to survey and locate the claims, taking as his share one-quarter of the proceeds. This agreement continued during Blount's term of office as governor.

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When Tennessee became a State, Blount was taxed on 73,252 acres, the taxes, however, amounting to only $179.72.* Sevier was interested also in land speculation, and in various mercantile ventures of a more or less speculative nature. So were most prominent Americans in both public and private life, such speculation at that time arousing no comment, as public servants were paid meagre salaries and were allowed to conduct private business enterprises which which did not interfere with the performance of public duties.

The tranquillity of Blount's administration was disturbed, however, by Indian wars, the Indians this time being the aggressors. As previously stated, by the treaties of Holston and New York the whites had secured the cession of most of the Tennessee lands belonging to the Indians, but the Indians almost immediately broke these treaties. The Cumberland district had been granted several times by the Indians to Henderson, to the North Carolinians and to the United States, while the Creeks had never laid claim to this territory. Yet the Creeks and other Indians now asserted that this region had never been ceded and that those who settled in it, being outside of United States territory, were not entitled to protection under the treaty between the Indians and the United States. Blount, Robertson, Sevier and District Attor

*Roosevelt, Winning of the West, vol. iv., pp 116-118.

ney Andrew Andrew Jackson used their utmost endeavors to prevent infringements of the treaty by the whites, in which they were quite successful; but the Indians failed to appreciate these efforts and continued their work of plunder and murder.*

The Spaniards still claimed the Southwest and were untiring in their efforts to keep the Indians hostile to the United States. On May 14, 1792, they concluded a treaty with the Creeks, Creeks, Cherokees, Cherokees, Choctaws and Chickasaws, at the same time as these Indians had concluded their treaties with the Americans. The Spaniards supplied them with arms and established two forts in the Indian territory. The Creeks became divided among themselves over these treaties, some wishing to carry out in good faith the treaty of New York, while others threatened to attack any who attempted to put its provisions into effect. Carondelet endeavored to force the Creeks to abstain from warfare with the Chickasaws, by refusing to supply them with arms and ammunition for such a purpose or for any other save that of opposing the frontiersmen. At the same time the Spaniards sought to placate the Kentuckians by reducing duties on goods sent down the Mississippi, all the while keeping the government busy with idle negotiations.†

Conscious that they had not wronged the Indians and had scrupu

* Roosevelt, vol. iv., pp. 121-125.
Ibid, vol. iv., pp. 125-130.