TUE HOME-BUILDING INSTINCT 



traus-Alleghany country was but vaguely known as a 

 whole. Daniel Boone had, indeed, built his cabin in the 

 wilds of Kentucky, and adventurous spirits had begun 

 to follow him from Virginia and the Carolinas. James 

 Eobertson and John Sevier, leading the hardy back- 

 woodsmen of the Scotch Presbyterian faith, had begun 

 the making of Tennessee. The French Creoles had 

 lived for three generations in the slumberous repose of 

 widely scattered villages in the Ohio Valley, and had 

 gathered in some numbers at New Orleans. But the 

 hour for the real movement of population to the west- 

 ward of the mountains had not struck. When it did 

 strike, it found the home-building instinct of the Amer- 

 ican people instantly and passionately responsive to its 

 summons. It was the returning veterans from the War 

 of Independence who lent the first great impulse to the 

 new emigration. Hardened by years of out-door life, 

 thoroughly weaned from the atmosphere of the town and 

 the shop, finding their places on the farms largely filled 

 by boys who, during their absence, had grown to self- 

 reliance, if not to manhood, these war-worn veterans 

 were not unwilling to transfer their battle-ground from 

 the sea-coast to the wilderness, and to fight for homes 

 as ardently as they had struggled for political indepen- 

 dence. 



During the next thirty years the population of Ken- 

 tucky leaped from about seventy thousand to over half a 

 million, and that of Tennessee from thirty thousand to 

 over four hundred thousand. Ohio, Indiana and Illi- 

 nois, which had no place in the census of 1790, were 

 credited, respectively, with nearly six hundred thousand, 

 one hundred and forty-seven thousand, and fifty-five 



15 



