Creative Books

He
showed that, while in 1755, nearly a hundred and fifty years after
the foundation of Jamestown, the population of Virginia had spread
but three hundred miles into the interior of the country, during the
last forty-three years population had spread westward more than a
thousand miles. He recalled the days when more than a month was
required to furnish Kentucky with eastern goods, by way of
Pittsburgh, and when it required a voyage of over a month to pass
from Louisville to New Orleans and nearly three months for the
upward voyage. This had now been shortened by steamboat to seven
days down and sixteen days up. From these considerations and the
time from St. Louis to the mouth of the Columbia by steamboat and
wagon, he argued that Oregon was no more distant from St. Louis in
1822 than St. Louis was twenty years before from Philadelphia. The
fur-trade, the whale and seal fisheries, the trade with China, and
the opportunity for agricultural occupation afforded by Oregon were
all set forth.


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