POPULATION. 349 



At the conclusion of Wayne's War, many of his soldiers set- 

 tled in the country. Before that time, from 1787 to 1791, the 

 increase in numbers was almost nothing; but that war ending 

 in 1795, the population increased rapidly, as will be seen. So, 

 immediately after the conclusion of the war with England, the 

 increase was rapid; but from 1817 up to the time of commencing 

 our works of internal improvement, in 1825, the increase was 

 comparatively at a stand. The demand for labor, its high price, 

 the low prices of food, with the prospect of being enabled to 

 purchase good farms for what could, by each, be earned in a 

 year or two, by laboring on our canals, induced thousands to 

 immigrate from the East to this country, where there was so 

 little winter to provide for in the summer, by the farmer. These 

 were inducements sufficient to draw into our State vast numbers 

 of young laboring men, who wished to see more of the world, 

 and find a home for themselves and for their posterity. Our 

 population at present, we have reason for believing, increases 

 at the rate of one hundred thousand, a year. In November 

 1836, we gave two hundred and five thousand votes for Pre- 

 sident, showing an increase in four years of forty thousand 

 votes. The excitement was not great, as it was clearly fore- 

 seen what the resultmust be, between voting for William 

 Henry Harrison and Martin Van Buren, so far as this 

 state was concerned. 



It may be supposed, that when our wild lands are all sold, 

 our population will not increase in the same ratio as it has 

 done hitherto. It may be supposed, too, that emigration to the 

 West, from Ohio, will be great; but we think that such is the 

 fertihty of our soil, such the mineral treasures found in our 

 hilly region, and the call for labor on our Roads and Canals, 

 for which we shall continue, for ages to come, to pay out mil- 

 lions of dollars annually, that vast numbers will be drawn from 

 all the eastern states, into this. In a country where industry 

 of all sorts is better rewarded than in any other; where pro- 

 visions must always be cheaper and more abundant than in 

 states which purchase their provisions of us, and then transport 

 them a distance, and there sell them, making a profit on their 



