Page:History of Richland County, Ohio.djvu/151

Rh body of arable land, intersected with rivers and streams and running waters, while the beautiful Ohio flows tranquilly by its side. More than three times the surface of Belgium, and one-third of the whole of Italy, it has more natural resources in proportion than either, and is capable of ultimately supporting a larger population than any equal sur- face in Europe. Looking from this great arable surface, where upon the very hills the grass and the forest trees now grow exuberant and abundant, we find that underneath this surface, and easily accessible, lie 10,000 square miles of coal, and 4,000 square miles of iron — coal and iron enough to supply the basis of manufacture for a world ! All this vast deposit of metal and fuel does not in- terrupt or take from that arable surface at all. There you may find in one place the same machine bringing up coal and salt water from below, while the wheat and the corn grow upon the surface above. The immense masses of coal, iron, salt and freestone deposited below have not in any way diminished the fertility and production of the soil.

It has been said by some writer that the char- acter of a people is shaped or modified by the character of the country in which they live. If the people of Switzerland have acquired a certain air of liberty and independence from the rugged mountains around which they live; if the people of Southern Italy, or beautiful France, have ac- quired a tone of ease and politeness from their mild and genial clime, so the people of Ohio, placed amidst such a wealth of nature, in the tem- perate zone, should show the best fruits of peace- ful industry and the best culture of Christian civilization. Have they done so? Have their own labor and arts and culture come up to the ad- vantages of their natural situation? Let us exam- ine this growth and their product.

The first settlement of Ohio was made by a colony from New England, at the mouth of the Muskingum. It was literally a remnant of the officers of the Revolution. Of this colony no praise of the historian can be as competent, or as strong, as the language of Washington. He says, in answer to inquiries addressed to him: "No col- ony in America was ever settled under such favor- able auspices as that which has just commenced at the Muskingum. Information, prosperity and strength will be its characteristics. I know many of the settlers personally, and there never were men better calculated to promote the welfare of such a community;" and he adds that if he were a young man, he knows no country in which he

��would sooner settle than in this Western region." This colony, left alone for a time, made its own government and nailed its laws to a tree in the vil- lage, an early indication of that law-abiding and peaceful spirit which has since made Ohio a just and well-ordered community. The subsequent settlements on the Miami and Scioto were made by citizens of New Jersey and Virginia, and it is cer- tainly remarkable that among all the early immi- gration, there were no ignorant people. In the language of Washington, they came with " infor- mation," ({ualified to promote the welfare of the community.

Soon after the settlement on the Muskingum and the Miami, the great wave of migration flowed on to the plains and valleys of Ohio and Ken- tucky. Kentucky had been settled earlier, but the main body of emigrants in subsequent years went into Ohio, influenced partly by the great ordinance of 1787, securing freedom and schools forever, and partly by the greater security of titles under the survey and guarantee of the United States Grovernment. Soon the new State grew up, with a rapidity which, until then, was unknown in the history of civilization. On the Muskingum, where the buffalo had roamed; on the Scioto, where the Shawanees had built theu* towns ; on the Miami, where the great chiefs of the Miamis had reigned ; on the plains of San- dusky, yet red with the blood of the white man ; on the Maumee, white Wayne, by the victory of the " Fallen Timbers," had broken the power of the Indian confederacy — the emigrants from the old States and from Europe came in to cultivate the fields, to build up towns, and to rear the insti- tutions of Christian civilization, until the single State of Ohio is greater in numbers, wealth, and education, than was the whole American I'nion when the Declaration of Independence was made.

Let us now look at the statistics of this growth and magnitude, as they are exiiibited in the cen- sus of the United States. Taking intervals of twenty years, Ohio had : In 1810, 45,365 ; in 1880, 937,903 ; in 1850, 1,980,329 ; in 1870, 2,665,260. Add to this the increase of population in the last six years, and Ohio now has, in round numbers, 3,000,000 of people — half a million more than the thirteen States in 1776 ; and her cities and towns have to-day six times the population of all the cities of America one hund- red years ago. This State is now the third in numbers and wealth, and the first in some of those institutions which mark the progress of

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