ty of the greater part of the
population to the seacoast made it cheaper and more convenient to carry
on the small interstate trade that did exist by means of small sailing
vessels plying along the coast. Practically all the internal trade was
devoted to bringing the surplus agricultural produce of the interior to
the seaport towns where it was exchanged for imported wares that could
not be produced by the inhabitants of the inland region.

As is usual in a new country, the settlers who had first pushed into
the interior had founded their new homes close to the rivers, and these
natural highways had always been and still were the most important
means of transportation to and from the seacoast. At the mouths of the
larger streams flowing into the Atlantic Ocean were to be found large
and wealthy cities, where enterprising men were laying the foundations
of large fortunes in a rapidly growing trade in the agricultural and
forest products floated down from the interior.

Living close along the ocean where numerous excellent harbors and long
stretches of sheltered water gave ample facilities for the little
inter-colonial trade that existed, and where rivers afforded natural
means of transportation from the interior to towns on the coast, the
people of early colonial days had not found it necessary to give much
time to the construction of roads. The gradual inland movement of the
population had finally compelled them, however, to give some attention
to the means of land transportation and many rude earth roads were
built to replace the old Indian trails. These roads were unspeakably
poor, sloughs of mire during the thaws of winter and spring and thick
with dust in the summer, but bad as they were they carried considerable
traffic and their use was constantly growing. Inland towns were
beginning to grow up at the focusing points of the country roads, and
the owners of general stores at such places derived large profits out
of their position as middlemen between the farmers of the interior and
the merchants at the nearest seaports. Three great roads had been built
into the western country, one up the Mohawk Valley into western New
York, and two across the Alleghany Mountains, the Pennsylvania Road
from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, and the Wilderness Road over which the
early settlers of Kentucky had threaded their way up the Shenandoah
Valley and through Cumberland Gap to the southern banks of the Ohio
River.

The transporta