The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1885-10-23
ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

The People of the United States at the
Close fthe Revolutionary War-Striking
Contrasts With the Present.
The second volume of John Bach
McMaster's "Histo-y of the people OF
the United States from the Revolu-
tion to the Civil War;" is even more
interesting than the first volume. No
such vivid presentation of the life of
our ancestors at the beginning of this
century has ever before been made or
even attempted.
HeiS never weary of contras ting the
past and the present of American life,
and many are the striking comparisons
which is enabled to make in the pro-
gress of his work. Here is an example
which is particularly interesting: "On
the resignation of Samuel Osgood in
1791 the office of postmaster general
was bestowed on Timothy Pickering
So insignificant was the place and so
light the duties that officer was to
perform that Washington did not
think him worthy of a cabinet seat.
Yet there is now no other department
of government in which the people take
so lively an interest as in that over
which the epostmaster-gene presides.
The number of men chat care whether
the Indians get their blankets and
their rations on the frontier, whether
one company or two are stationed at
Fort Dodge, whether there is o. fleet of
gunboats in the Mediterranean sea
D,,+ 41r
sets without millions upon millions of
our citizens intrusting to the mails let
ters and postal-cards. money-orders
and packages, in the safe and speedy
delivery of which they are deeply con-
cerned. The growth OF the postoffice
in the last ninety years is indeed amaz-
ing. In 1892 there were 264 post
offices in the country, now there are
$4,000. The yearly revenue which
they yielded then was $25, 900; nowit
is far above $45, 100000. More time
was then consumed in carrying letters
ninety miles than now suffces to carry
them 1, 900. The postage required TO
send letter from New York to Sa-
vannah was precisely eighteen times as
much as will now send one far beyond
the Rocky mountains, into regions of
which our ancestors had never heard.
This passage is a very good example
of Mr.. McMaster's style. 1t will be
seen at glance that all the informa
tion might have been given with one
half the number of words. Wecan al
SO see how the contrast has been
heightened by rhetorical devices, but
the passage attracts our attention, it
,,,4o -+c,, ha-
bly, remember it, when if put in a more
would leave no impression.
Mr.. McMaster has a good deal to
say at different times about the diff
culties oftravel and communication in
the early years of the republic. This
neutrality-suspicious. with foreign govern
ments peculiarly difficult. At the
time the British treaty of 1874 was
under discussion Monroe was minister
at Paris. The proposed treaty was
most distasteful to the
French government and Monroe was
that ''the moment the treaty
was approved, that moment the di-
rectory considered the alliance with
America at an end. The next day he
the news to the secretary
of state. The letter was still upon
the sea when Washington proclaimed
the treaty the esupremelaw of the land,
and sent q copy to the house." TRAY
el at home was done by the stage
coach. This "was little better than a
huge covered box mounted on springs.
1t had neither glass windows nor doors
nor steps nor closed sides. The roof
was upheld by eight posts which rose
from the body of the vehicle, and the
body was commonly breast-high." In
this uncomfortable conveyance a man
might travel some four or five miles
an hour. With the exception of some
parts of New England, the wayside
accommodation which the tray
eler found was miserably bad.
Strangers were put together in the
same room and the same bed.
The bed clothes were changed not for
new arrivals but at stated times. All
sorts of eXtortions were practiced up
on travellers. The genealogist who
studies the history of American fami-
lies has frequent occasion to note the
compactness of those families up to
about fifty years ago. For many gen.
erations the members of a family, with
very few exceptions, will be found to
have lived and died in about the same
place, spreading somewhat in the eman-
ner of a thrifty plant which slowly in
creases it's area rather than that of an
animal which roamed freely about
Many of these families which are the
most widely scattered lived, previous
to the introduction of therailroad, to-
,ether in the sameportion of the same
state. We have given us many facts
Of interest concerning the early history
Of the steamboat. Fulton's Hudson
river success was by no means the first
upon which American waters
we're navigated by steam-propelled
The idea had been working in
5he minds of a few men for g. number
Of years. AS early as 1877 q rudeplan
Of a steamboat had been presented to
5he constitutional convention. In
1889 a boat was constructed which
mile in seven minutes and
! half A few months later steam
boat began to run regularly as a ferry
n Philadelphia.
Agriculture, at the beginning of the
century. was a. simple matter. "Agri-