The Minute Man on the Frontier. William George Puddefoot
and the United States since 1848 was but £32,294,596. And what has been produced by the immigrant and exported amounts to many hundred millions of dollars. It has been computed that the country has been pushed forward a quarter of a century by this vast mass of immigrants, nearly all of whom labor for a living.
The frontiers of America will yet change the world. When in the not distant future hundreds of millions cover the great continent, dotted with schools and churches, and an intelligent population speaking one language, and with other millions in Africa, Australia, and the islands of the sea, using the same language, the time will come when they will arbitrate for the world, and war shall be no more. Long before the Atlantic cable was stretched across the ocean, millions of heartstrings were vibrating from this land to all parts of Europe; and to-day the letters fly homeward from the frontier immigrants in their sod houses, bearing good cheer in words and money.
The freedom of the frontier is contagious, and the poor European strives harder than ever to reach his kin across the sea. And when we consider that only 300,000 square miles out of 1,500,000 miles of arable land is under cultivation, and that already the farmers of England and most parts of Europe are being pushed to the wall, we begin to realize that the growth of the frontiers of the United States not only influences our own land, but changes materially the course of events in the whole world. The above figures are by Mr. Edward Atkinson, as quoted in substance from "Recent Economic Changes."
To show the growth of one State during the past fifty years, let us take Michigan. In 1840 Michigan had a population of 212,267; in 1890, 2,093,889. In 1840 there were three small railroads, with a total mileage of 59 miles. In 1890 there were over 7,000 miles. "In 1840 [I quote from Hon. B. W. Cutcheon, in "Fifty Years' Growth in Michigan"] mining had not begun. In 1890 over 7,000,000 tons of iron were shipped from her mines; while the output of copper had reached over a 100,000,000 lbs., and valued at $15,845,427.28. The salt industry, a late one, rose from 4,000 bbls. in 1860 to 3,838,937 bbls. in 1890; while the value of her lumber products for 1890 was over $55,000,000. In 1840 there were neither graded nor high schools, normal schools nor colleges. In 1890, 654,502 children were of school age, with an enrolment of 427,032, with 33,975 additional attending private schools. These children were taught by 15,990 teachers, who received in salaries $3,326,287."
In 1840 Michigan had 30,144 horses and mules, 185,190 neat cattle, 99,618 sheep. In 1890 there were 579,896 horses, 3,779 mules, of milch cows 459,475, oxen and other cattle 508,938, of sheep 2,353,779, of swine 893,037. The total value came to $74,892,618. Over 1,700 men are engaged in the fisheries, with nearly a million dollars invested, with a total yield of all fish of 34,490,184 lbs., valued at over a million and a half of dollars. The value of her apples and peaches in 1890 was $944,332; of cherries, pears, and plums, $65,217; of strawberries, $166,033; of other berries, $267,398; and of grapes, $122,394. The wheat crop for 1891 was valued at $27,486,910; the oats at $9,689,441; besides 811,977 bushels of buckwheat, and 2,522,376 bushels of barley. The capital invested in lumber alone was $111,302,797. "While her great University, which saw its first student in 1841, and which had but three teachers, one of them acting as president, has grown to be one of the largest in the nation, with eighty professors and instructors and 2,700 students registered on her rolls, conferring 623 degrees upon examination." And all this but the partial record of fifty years in one State.
Since Michigan was entered as a State fourteen new States have been formed (not counting Texas) and three Territories, with an aggregate of over 17,000,000 square miles of land, and a population of nearly 15,000,000, nearly all of which fifty years ago was wilderness, the home of the Indian and the wild beasts. With such stupendous changes in so short a time, we see that the American frontiers have a direct and powerful influence in changing the histories and destinies of the nations of the whole world.
II.
EARLY REMINISCENCES.
It was in the spring of 1859 that I first saw the frontier. Our way was over the New York Central, very little of which had two tracks. I have a very vivid recollection of the worm fences, the log houses, and the great forests that we passed on our way to Upper Canada. I remember the hunters coming towards the train with their moccasons on and the bucks slung over their shoulders. I have since that time seen many men who were the first to cut a tree in this county or that town. There were about forty thousand miles of railway in the whole land at that date, against nearly two hundred thousand miles to-day. Cities which are now the capitals of States were the feeding-ground of buffalo; wolves and black bears had their dens where to-day we can see a greater miracle in stone than Cheops; i.e., a stone State House built inside the appropriation! Then six miles of travel on the new roads smashed more china than three thousand miles by sea and rail. The little towns were but openings in a forest that extended for hundreds of miles. The best house in the village without a cellar; roots were kept in pits. Houses could be rented for two dollars per month, where to-day they are twelve dollars. Pork was two dollars a hundred; beef by the quarter, two and one-half cents a pound; potatoes, fifteen cents a bushel. Men received seventy-five cents a day for working on the railroad. Cord-wood was two dollars a cord; and you could get it cut, split, and piled for fifty cents a cord. Men wore stogy boots, generally with one leg of the trousers outside and one in. Blue denham was the prevailing suit for workingmen. The shoemaker cut his shoes, and they were sent out to be bound by women. The women wore spring-heeled shoes, print dresses, and huge sunbonnets; and in the summer-time the settlers went barefooted. The roads were simply indescribable. When a tree fell, it was cut off within an inch of the ruts; the wagon would sink to the hubs, and need prying out with poles; harnesses were never cleaned, and boot-blacking had no sale. But the schoolhouse was in every township. In the older settlements could be seen the log hut in which the young couple started housekeeping, then a log house of more pretentious size; the frame-house which followed, and a fine brick house where the family now lived, showing the rapid progress made.
This was in western Canada. Toronto was separated from Yorkville, but was a busy, substantial city. I remember the stores being closed when Lincoln was buried, and black bunting hung along the principal streets. I remember, too, the men who were loudest in their curses at the government and against Lincoln, how the tears came to their eyes, and how that event brought them to their senses. Most of them were shoemakers from New England.
In 1873 I crossed into Michigan with my family. Even as late as that the greater part of northern Michigan, and especially the upper peninsula, was terra incognita to most of the people of that State. The railroads stopped at a long distance this side the Straits of Mackinaw. The lumbermen had but skimmed the best of the trees; and, with the exception of a few isolated settlements on the lakes and up the larger rivers, it was an unbroken wilderness, abounding in fish, deer, bears, wolves, and wild-cats; in fact, a hunter's paradise, as it is even to this day.
But with the extension of the railways to the Straits of Mackinaw, and the opening of new lines to the north into the iron mines of Menominee to the Gogebic range, the great copper mines of the Keweenaw peninsula, and the ever-increasing traffic of the lakes, the changes were simply marvellous. Some things I shall say will seem paradoxical, but they are nevertheless true to life.
The greater parts of southern Michigan and southern Wisconsin were settled by people from New York State; and long before the northern parts of Michigan and Wisconsin were opened up, new States had risen in the West, and the tide of immigration swept past towards new frontiers, leaving vast frontiers behind them. Sometimes a few stray men with money at their command would pierce the country and form a settlement, as in the case of Traverse City. Here for years the mail was brought by the Indians on dog-sledges in the winter. It took eight days to reach Grand Rapids on snow-shoes. It is four hundred miles by water to Chicago. Sometimes the winters were so long that the provisions had to be dealt out very sparingly; but all the time the little colony was growing, and when at last the railroads reached it, the traveller, after riding for miles through virgin forests, would