Rural Economy in New England 385 



the current of emigration from this State has swelled to a torrent, and has been 

 directed principally to the westward."' This movement continued in great vol- 

 ume until checked, temporarily, by the growth of manufactures in the decades 

 after 1810. 



Volume of Emigration Shown by Early Census Figures. 



The results of this wholesale movement of people are observable in a com- 

 parison of early census figures in the states of southern New England. In Con- 

 necticut the earliest census was taken in 1756.^ It gave the total population of 

 the colony as 129,925 persons. At the next census, 1774,' this number had in- 

 creased to 197,872, showing a growth of 52 per cent in eighteen years, a decennial 

 rate of increase of 29 per cent. If we assume that population was in reality in- 

 creasing at this period at a rate very near the physiological maximum, that is, 

 doubling itself every twenty-five years, we may take the "natural "rate of increase 

 to have been about 40 per cent in each decade. This would lead us to believe 

 that even at that early date the state was losing about 11 per cent of its decen- 

 nial increase. 



The same state of afi'airs prevailed in Rhode Island. From 1708 to 1755 the 

 increase was very rapid, as we have seen, averaging about 107 per cent per de- 

 cennium. In the years 1755 to 1774 the population increased from 40,414 to 

 59,707, or at a decennial rate of 25.1 per cent.^ Emigration was evidently tak- 

 ing place from this state in even greater volume than from Connecticut. 



Massachusetts was increasing in this period more rapidly in population than 

 either of her neighbors. Although she did not retain a larger proportion of her 

 own annual increase, yet her loss from emigration was very nearly offset by her 

 gains from the states on her southern borders. In 1764 the population of this 

 state was 201,984;^ and in 1784 it was 346,653.^ The increase in these two dec- 

 ades was 71.6 per cent, or 35.8 per cent in each ten years. 



After the Revolution. 



A striking contrast is presented by an examination of the growth of popu- 

 lation in these states after the Revolution. As we have seen, it was then that 

 the emigrants from the older towns tended to push on beyond the boundaries 

 of their own states and to settle in Northern or Western states. We are not sur- 

 prised, therefore, to fimd that the population of Connecticut increased but 20.2 

 per cent in these sixteen years, at a decennial rate of 12.6 per cent, and that Rhode 

 Island gained but 15.3 per cent in the same period, 9.6 per cent per decennium. 

 In Massachusetts emigration was about as great in proportion to its population, 

 for in the six years, 1784 to 1790, it increased but 9.3 per cent, or at a decennial 



' Gazetteer, p. 11. 



2 Contained in Conn. Col. Public Records, Vol. XIV, p. 492. 



» Ibid. pp. 485-491. 



< These figures are from Snow, Census of Rhode Island, pp. xxxii. 



5 This census is reprinted in A Century of Population Growth, pp. 158-162. 



^ This figure is estimated by Dr. Chickering from the number of rateable and 

 non-rateable polls returned by an enumeration in that year. See Chickering, 

 Jesse. A Statistical View of the Population of Massachusetts from 1765 to 1840. 

 Boston. 1846, p. 10. 



