388 Percy Wells Bidwell 



Narrowing the scope of our inquiry to the towns, we find the same situation. 

 Wherever there was a chance for some additional employment for the inhabi- 

 tants besides agriculture, there the loss from emigration was much less than in 

 purely agricultural towns. Contrast, for instance, the towns of Farmington and 

 Danbury in Connecticut. The former, situated in a rich river valley, ^ contained 

 in 1790 2,700 people, who got their living entirely from agriculture. In 1810, 

 twenty years later, the population was 2,750; the increase had been less than 2 

 per cent. In Danbury there was in 1790 a population of 3,031. In 1810 there 

 were 3,606 persons on the same area. The increase in twenty years was almost 

 20 per cent. As far as the productivity of the agricultural industry was con- 

 cerned, both towns were on an equal footing.^ In area Farmington had clearly 

 the advantage, containing 70 square miles while Danbury had only 58.' The 

 reason why a large part of the surplus of population stayed at home in Danburj' 

 while almost all the growing generation emigrated from Farmington is to be 

 found in the presence in the former of a manufacturing enterprise, the hatters' 

 shops.* 



Population Changes in Commercial and Inland Towns. 



The same sort of contrast is found between commercial and inland towns. Such 

 towns as New Haven, Providence, Salem and Boston gained rapidly in popula- 

 tion and do not seem to have been in any appreciable degree affected by the emi- 

 gration which was draining the backcountry districts.* Here we find the grow- 

 ing prosperity of commerce as a force retaining the natural increase of population. 

 But even the small towns along the coast, where, as we have seen, there was not 

 enough commercial business to employ any considerable proportion of the popu- 

 lation, grew steadily during this period. Consider, for example, the contrast 

 between the towns of Lebanon and Greenwich, in Connecticut. Both of these 

 towns included about the same area, 50 square miles. The inhabitants of both 

 were mainly farmers; those in Lebanon entirely so, and in Greenwich with the 

 exception of the owners of twelve or fifteen small sloops trading to New York. 

 In the years 1790-1810 the population of Lebanon decreased from 4,156 to 3,414, 

 a loss of over 20 per cent; in the same years Greenwich had increased from 3,175 

 to 3,553, a gain of nearly 12 per cent. The decUne of the former town cannot 

 be explained on the ground that its soil was less fertile than that of the latter.® 

 The explanation of this difference is to be found in the fact that the farmers of 



1 For a description of Farmington see Pease and Niles, Gazetteer, p. 71. 

 ^ Pease and Niles, Gazetteer, pp. 176-178. 

 ' Op. cit., loc. cit. 



* See supra pp. 269-270. Another inland town which increased steadily in this 

 period was Berlin, the center of the tinware manufacture. Its population in 

 1790 was 2,465; in 1810 it was 2,900. 



* The increase in population of New Haven 1790-1810 amounted to 55 per 

 cent; in Providence the gain was 57 per cent. Boston gained 86 per cent and 

 Salem 59 per cent. 



*0f agricultural conditions in Lebanon we read: "The soil is generally a rich 

 deep, unctuous mould, nearly of a chocolate colour; it is very fertile and peculiarly 

 adapted to grass." Pease and Niles, art. Lebanon. 



