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who had entered the portals of inland America
Such were the varied and contradictory stories told by the men
who had entered the portals of inland America. It is not
surprising, therefore, that theories and prophecies about the
interior were vague and conflicting nor that most of the schemes
of statesmen and financiers for the development of the West were
all parts and no whole. They all agreed as to the vast richness
of that inland realm and took for granted an immense commerce
therein that was certain to yield enormous profits. In faraway
Paris, the ingenious diplomat, Silas Deane, writing to the Secret
Committee of Congress in 1776, pictured the Old Northwest–
bounded by the Ohio, the Alleghanies, the Great Lakes, and the
Mississippi–as paying the whole expense of the Revolutionary
War.* Thomas Paine in 1780 drew specifications for a State of
from twenty to thirty millions of acres lying west of Virginia
and south of the Ohio River, the sale of which land would pay the
cost of three years of the war.** On the other hand, Pelatiah
Webster, patriotic economist that he was, decried in 1781 all
schemes to ‘pawn’ this vast westward region; he likened such
plans to ‘killing the goose that laid an egg every day, in order
to tear out at once all that was in her belly.’ He advocated the
township system of compact and regular settlement; and he argued
that any State making a cession of land would reap great benefit
‘from the produce and trade’ of the newly created settlements.

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all the three great links or sections into which the enterprise
was divided
For the most part, however, work was carried on simultaneously on
all the three great links or sections into which the enterprise
was divided. Local contractors were given preference by the
commissioners, and three-fourths of the work was done by natives
of the State. Forward up the Mohawk by Schenectady and Utica to
Rome, thence bending southward to Syracuse, and from there by way
of Clyde, Lyons, and Palmyra, the canal made its way to the giant
viaduct over the Genesee River at Rochester. Keeping close to the
summit level on the dividing ridge between Lake Ontario streams
and the Valley of the Tonawanda, the line ran to Lockport, where
a series of locks placed the canal on the Lake Erie level, 365
miles from and 564 feet above Albany. By June, 1823, the canal
was completed from Rochester to Schenectady; in October boats
passed into the tidewaters of the Hudson at Albany; and in the
autumn of 1825 the canal was formally opened by the passage of a
triumphant fleet from Lake Erie to New York Bay. Here two kegs of
lake water were emptied into the Atlantic, while the Governor of
the State of New York spoke these words:

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Forbes in 1758 and the final conquest of New France two years
later removed the French barrier and opened the way to expansion
beyond the Alleghanies
The capture of Fort Duquesne by the English army under General
Forbes in 1758 and the final conquest of New France two years
later removed the French barrier and opened the way to expansion
beyond the Alleghanies. Thereafter settlements in the Monongahela
country grew apace. Pittsburgh, Uniontown, Morgantown,
Brownsville, Ligonier, Greensburg, Connellsville–we give the
modern names–became centers of a great migration which was
halted only for a season by Pontiac”s Rebellion, the aftermath of
the French War, and was resumed immediately on the suppression of
that Indian rising. The pack-horse trade now entered its final
and most important era. The earlier period was one in which the
trade was confined chiefly to the Indians; the later phase was
concerned with supplying the needs of the white man in his
rapidly developing frontier settlements. Formerly the principal
articles of merchandise for the western trade were guns,
ammunition, knives, kettles, and tools for their repair,
blankets, tobacco, hatchets, and liquor. In the new era every
known product of the East found a market in the thriving
communities of the upper Ohio. As time went on the West began to
send to the East, in addition to skins and pelts, whiskey that
brought a dollar a gallon. Each pony could carry sixteen gallons
and every drop could be sold for real money. On the return trip
the pack-horses carried back chiefly salt and iron.

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