Page:The Rise of American Civilization (Volume 1).djvu/98

 heavy but the migrations were already mixing many strains, making a new amalgam, known as American.

When once a foothold was secured on the coast line, the American colonists with tireless activity carried their enterprise in every direction as they were beckoned by fertile valleys, gaps in somber mountains, and the broad ways of the open sea. Having few mechanical contrivances, their course was largely shaped by the geographical environment in which they found themselves. They followed the roads which nature had laid out. From the seaboard they swept westward into the interior with incredible swiftness in spite of hostile Indian tribes and the vanguard of French imperialism. Fur traders and hunters were on the outer fringe of the combers that rolled onward toward the setting sun; not far behind were men of practical interest lured by curiosity and love of adventure. Then came the land-hungry farmers. On every part of the long line the push continued day and night.

To the north, Puritan pioneers pressed steadily inland until, within less than a century after the founding of Boston, they had their outposts in the Housatonic Valley, on the very edge of Massachusetts and Connecticut. In the neighboring colony of New York the advance on the hinterland was directed mainly up the Hudson River to Albany, the old Dutch center, from which spreading farms soon radiated toward every point of the compass. New Jersey, lying between two prosperous commercial settlements, was quickly filled by migrations from both directions as well as from the Old World; the beginnings of New Brunswick were made in 1681 and of Trenton four years later. For the northward thrust into Pennsylvania the Susquehanna River opened a highway; by 1726 farms were laid out on the present site of Harrisburg; while along the southern frontier a thin line of settlements steadily crept toward