The Pioche weekly record. [volume] (Pioche, Nev.) 1877-1900, 1894-07-12
OUR EARLY HISTORY.
Americas Slow Growth for The First
Three Centuries.
CumbnuS Methods Of Travel Before Railroads Were H.
tndlCed-Bg Cities Of Years Ago.

August, 1892, Columbus set sail from PalOs
with three diminutive vessels, manned by
l2O 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
100000 to 100000 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 it's 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 seabodrds 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 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
100000 and 100000 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 back
to the CuyahOga river and 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 5000
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, Cumberland
and Ohio rivers to the western limit of the
union. With the exception that half a
million of DpODlp had crossed the lla-
ghanies and were struggling with diff
culties that appeared almost insurmount-
! able, America, so far as concerned physical
, problems had charged little in fifty
years. The same bad roads and difficult
rivers connecting the same small towns
| stretched into the same forests in 1900 us
when the armies Of Braddock pierced the
western and northern Alleghanies, except
| that these roads extended few miles
farther from the seslcoast.
Even by water along the seaboard COM
| munication was as slow and almost as ir-
! regular as in colonial times. At the open
ing Oh the Nineteenth century no regular
| packet pied between New York and AL
bany. Passengers waited till sloop was
advertised to sail; they provided their own
bedding and supplies, and IA week on the
ence not at all unknown to travellers. The
| settler who, alter buying wagons and
horses hauled his family across the noun.
talns might buy or build flat bOttomed
ark to float with him his belongings down
the ONO river in constant danger of being
attacked or being sunk. If he carried his
tobacco and wheat down the Mississippi tC
the Spanish port of New Orleans and sold
1t he might return on horseback through
the Indian country from Natchez to Nash
vile, or he might take ship to Philadel
phia, if ship were about to SAIL and agar
cross the Alleghanies. 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 these
streams made the main paths of traffic.
In the year 1900 one general mail rout,
extended from Portland, Me-, to Louis
vile, the time required for the trip being
twenty days. From Philadelphia a brancl
line went to Lexington in sixteen days anC
into Nashville in twenty-five days.
The gross receipts for postage in the yeal
ending Oct |, 1901, were only $4,000 fol
the whole United States. For the yea
1871 the postoffiCe receipts of Omaha alon,
were S26l, 5SS. 80 exclusive of money orde,
transfers, which aggregated 81, S36, 1881
In lSO0 the census of the city of Bostoi
showed %, 900 inhabitants. In annearonc,