The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-06-14
OUR EARLY. HISTORY.
AMERICAS SLOW GROWTH FOR THE
FIRST THREE CENTURIES.

Cunb Methods of Travel Before Rail
Roads We're Introduced-Some East
ern Cities in tho Early Part of the
Present Century-RaiIroad Influence.
Just before sunrise On Friday, the Sd oil
August, 1892 Columbus set sail from Paios
with three diminutive vessels, manned be
100 sailors and officers, on the voyage OF
exploration which resulted in the discov-
cry of America on Friday, Oct. II, of the
same year. The chart of 1892 exhibits the
coasts of Europe and Africa from the south
of Ireland to the end of Guinea, and oppo-
site to them, on the other side of the At.
lantic, the extremes of Asia, or, as it was
then termed, India, but is now known as
the western hemisphere.
After three centuries of colonization this
larger half of the globe counted only from
10000, 600 to 1900, 900 of population, in
Guiding the native races, Africans import
ed by slave traders, Europeans and the de-
scendants of Europeans who had settled
on American soil since its discovery
In the year 1900 the United States Of
America contained 5,30s,4S3 inhabitants,
nearly one-fifth of whom were negro slaves
Even after two centuries of struggle the
land was still untamed forests, except here
and there strip of cultivated soil. The
minerals lay undisturbed in their rocky
beds, and more than two-thirds of the peo-
pie chung to the seaboards within fifty
miles of the tide water, where alone the
wants of civilized life could be supplied
The center of population rested within
eighteen miles of Baltimore, north and east
of Washington. The entire continent was
not much easier to penetrate than when
La Sale and Hennepin found their way to
the Mississippi more than a century be
fore.
Two wagon roads crossed the Allegheny
mountains in Pennsylvania, one leading
from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, one from
the Potomac to the Monongahela, while a
third passed through Virginia southeast
ward to Knoxville, Tenn, with a branch
through the Cumberland gap into Ken
lucky. By these roads and by trails less
passable from North and South Carolina,
or by waterways from the lakes, between
400, 900 and 500, 900 persons had invaded the
country beyond the Alleghanies.
Nowhere did eastern settlement touch
the western. At least 100 miles of noun.
famous country held the two regions
apart. The shore of Lake Erie, where
alone contact seemed easy. was still unset
tied. The Indians had been pushed hack
to the Cuyahoga river, and a few cabins
were built on the site of Cleveland. Even
western New York was still wilderness
Buffalo was not laid out. Rochester did
not exist. Utica contained fifty houses.
Albany was a Dutch city, with some ZOO
inhabitants.
The people of the old thirteen states
along the Atlantic seaboard thus sent
westward wedge shaped mass of nearly
half million persons from the region
penetrated by the Tennessee, Cum berland
and Ohio rivers to the western limit of the
union. With the exception that half
million of people had crossed the ALE
ghanies and were struggling with diff
culties that appeared almost insurmount
able, America, so far as concerned physical
problems, had changed little in fifty
years. The same bad roads and difficult
rivers connecting the same small towns
stretched into the same forests in 1900 as
when the armies Of Braddock pierced the
western and northern Alleghanies, except
that these roads extended few miles
farther from the seacoast.
Even by water along the seaboard COM
was as slow and almost as ir.
regular as in colonial times At the open.
ing of the Nineteenth century no regular
packet piled between New York and Al
bany. Passengers waited till sloop was
advertised to sail; they provided their own
bedding and supplies, and week on the
North river or on the sound was an expert
ence not at all unknown to travellers. The
settler who, after buying wagons and
horses, hauled his family across the noun.
tains might buy or build fiat bottomed
ark to float with him his belongings down
the Ohio river in constant danger of being
attacked or being sunk. If he carried his
tobacco and wheat down the Mississippi to
the Spanish port of New Orleans and sold
it he might return On horseback through
the Indian country from Natchez to Nash
vile, or he might take ship to Philadel-
phia, if a ship were about to sail, and again
cross the Alleghsnies. Nearly all the
rivers which penetrated the interior were
liable to be made dangerous by freshets
and both dangerous and impossible by
drought, yet such as they were thess
streams made the main paths of traffic
In the year $500 one general mail routs
extended from Portland, Me-. to Louis
vile, the time required for the trip being
twenty days. From Philadelphia branch
line went to Lexington in sixteen days and
into Nashville in twenty-five days.
The gross receipts for postage in the year
ending Oct. l, 1901, were Y 1920, 900 for
1891 the postoffice receipts OF Omaha alone
~ -
transfers, which aggre 81, S36, 1881.
In 1900 the census O, vne city of Boston
showed 2, 900 inhabitants. In appearance
Boston resembled an English market town.
The sidewalks as well as the crooked and
narrow streets were paved with round cob
BILE stones and were divided from the car
riage way only by posts and gutter. The
streets were almost unlighted at night, the
few oil lamps rendering the darkness more
visible and the rough pavements rougher
Such thing as police hardly existed.
The state of New York had population
of sd. CO., and the valuation Of all the prop
erty of the Empire State was a fraction
over 500, 000, 600, while that Of Massachu-
sets was So, COO, 900, or less than one half
of the assessed valuation of Nebraska at
this time
Nsw York city had fraction over so Uo
population. The city resembled q foreign
badly paved. undrained, and as
foul as town surrounded by the tides
could be. No day police existed The
night police consisted of two captains, two
deputies and seventy-two men. Two banks
besides the branch bank Of the United
States supplied the financial wants of the
American metropolis.
The advent of the railway revolutiouized
the entire system of travel, traffic and col
onization.-Edward Rosewater's Omaha
Address.
To Cut Glass with Shear.