Short History of the United States — Chapters 22-23

Home Reading.

--Coffin's _Building the Nation;_ Drake's _Making the Ohio Valley States;_ Hale's _Man Without a Country_ and _Philip Nolan's Friends.

_ CHAPTER 22 THE UNITED STATES IN 1800

[Sidenote: Area.

] [Sidenote: Population.

] 228. Area and Population, 1800. --The area of the United States in 1800 was the same as at the close of the Revolutionary War.

But the population had begun to increase rapidly.

In 1791 there were nearly four million people in the United States.

By 1800 this number had risen to five and one-quarter millions.

Two-thirds of the people still lived on or near tide-water.

But already nearly four hundred thousand people lived west of the Alleghanies.

In 1791 the centre of population had been east of Baltimore.

It was now eighteen miles west of that city (p. 157).

[Sidenote: Philadelphia.

] [Sidenote: New York.

] [Sidenote: The new capital.

] 229. Cities and Towns in 1800. --Philadelphia was the largest city in the United States.

It had a population of seventy thousand.

But New York was not far behind Philadelphia in population.

Except these two, no city in the whole United States had more than thirty thousand inhabitants.

The seat of government had been removed from Philadelphia to Washington.

But the new capital was a city only in name.

One broad long street, Pennsylvania Avenue, led from the unfinished Capitol to the unfinished White House.

Congress held its sessions in a temporary wooden building.

The White House could be lived in.

But Mrs. Adams found the unfinished reception room very convenient for drying clothes on rainy Mondays.

A few cheaply built and very uncomfortable boarding-houses completed the city.

[Sidenote: Roads, coaches, and inns.

] [Sidenote: Traveling by water.

] 230. Traveling in 1800. --The traveler in those days had a very hard time.

On the best roads of the north, in the best coach, and with the best weather one might cover as many as forty miles a day.

But the traveler had to start very early in the morning to do this.

Generally he thought himself fortunate if he made twenty-five miles in the twenty-four hours.

South of the Potomac there were no public coaches, and the traveler generally rode on horseback.

A few rich men like Washington rode in their own coaches.

Everywhere, north and south, the inns were uncomfortable and the food was poor.

Whenever it was possible the traveler went by water.

But that was dangerous work.

Lighthouses were far apart, there were no public buoys to guide the mariner, and almost nothing had been done to improve navigation.

[Illustration: THE "CLERMONT," 1807. ] [Sidenote: The first steamboat] [Sidenote: Fulton's steamboat, 1807. _Higginson_, 241-242. ] 231. The Steamboat.

--The steamboat came to change all this.

While Washington was still President, a queer-looking boat sailed up and down the Delaware.

She was propelled by oars or paddles which were worked by steam.

This boat must have been very uncomfortable, and few persons wished to go on her.

Robert Fulton made the first successful steamboat.

She was named the _Clermont_ and was launched in 1807. She had paddle wheels and steamed against the wind and tide of the Hudson River.

At first some people thought that she was bewitched.

But when it was found that she ran safely and regularly, people began to travel on her.

Before a great while steamboats appeared in all parts of the country.

[Sidenote: Western pioneers.

] [Sidenote: Settlements on the Ohio.

_Eggleston_, 232-234; _Higginson_, 243. ] 232. Making of the West.

--Even before the Revolutionary War explorers and settlers had crossed the Alleghany Mountains.

In Washington's time pioneers, leaving Pittsburg, floated down the Ohio River in flatboats.

Some of these settled Cincinnati.

Others went farther down the river to Louisville, in Kentucky, and still others founded Wheeling and Marietta.

In 1811 the first steamboat appeared on the Western rivers.

The whole problem of living in the West rapidly changed.

For the steamboat could go up stream as well as down stream.

Communication between the new settlements, and New Orleans and Pittsburg, was now much safer and very much easier.

[Sidenote: Cotton growing.

] [Sidenote: Beginning of exportation, 1784. ] 233. Cotton Growing in the South.

--Cotton had been grown in the South for many years.

It had been made on the plantations into a rough cloth.

Very little had been sent away.

The reason for this was that it took a very long time to separate the cotton fiber from the seed.

One slave working for a whole day could hardly clean more than a pound of cotton.

Still as time went on more cotton was grown.

In 1784 a few bags of cotton were sent to England.

The Englishmen promptly seized it because they did not believe that so much cotton could be grown in America.

In 1791 nearly two hundred thousand pounds of cotton were exported from the South.

Then came Whitney's great invention, which entirely changed the whole history of the country.

[Illustration: THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA.

As designed by Thomas Jefferson.

] [Sidenote: Eli Whitney.

]