St. Clair and Wayne 337 



ern Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina. 

 The first settlement in Ohio, the settlement which 

 had most effect upon the history of the Northwest, 

 and which largely gave it its peculiar trend, was 

 the work of New Englanders. There was already 

 a considerable population in New England; but the 

 rugged farmers with their swarming families had 

 to fill up large waste spaces in Maine and in North 

 ern New Hampshire and Vermont, and there was a 

 very marked movement among them toward New 

 York, and especially into the Mohawk valley, all 

 west of which was yet a wilderness. In conse 

 quence, during the years immediately succeeding the 

 close of the Revolutionary War, the New England 

 emigrants made their homes in those stretches of 

 wilderness which were nearby, and did not appear 

 on the western border. But there had always been 

 enterprising individuals among them desirous of 

 seeking a more fertile soil in the far West or South, 

 and even before the Revolution some of these men 

 ventured to Louisiana itself, to pick out a good 

 country in which to form a colony. After the close 

 of the war the fame of the lands along the Ohio was 

 spread abroad; and the men who wished to form 

 companies for the purposes of adventurous settle 

 ment began to turn their eyes thither. 



The first question to decide was the ownership 

 of the wished-for country. This decision had to 

 be made in Congress by agreement among the repre 

 sentatives of the different States. Seven States 

 Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Virginia, 

 VOL. VII. 15 



