e bridge at Cayuga, containing
emigrants to the western country."(280) "Old America seems to be breaking
up, and moving westward.... The number of emigrants who passed this way
[St. Clairsville, Ohio], was greater last year than in any preceding; and
the present spring they are still more numerous than the last. Fourteen
waggons yesterday, and thirteen today, have gone through this town.
Myriads take their course down the Ohio. The waggons swarm with children.
I heard today of three together, which contain forty-two of these young
citizens."(281) From Hamilton, New York: "It is estimated, that there are
now in this village and its vicinity, three hundred families, besides
single travellers, amounting in all to fifteen hundred souls, waiting for
a rise of water to embark for 'the promised land.' "(282) "The numerous
companies of emigrants that flock to this country, might appear, to those
who have not witnessed them, almost incredible. But there is scarce a day,
except when the river is impeded with ice, but what there is a greater or
less number of boats to be seen floating down its gentle current, to some
place of destination. No less than five hundred families stopped at
Cincinnati at one time, and many of them having come a great distance, and
being of the poorer class of people, before they could provide for
themselves, were in a suffering condition; but to the honor of the
citizens of Cincinnati, they raised a donation and relieved their
distress."(283) Of the remote districts, Missouri and Michigan were
receiving crowds of immigrants.(284)

The changes in government and in the land question in Illinois were
typical of changes in other frontier regions, but although worthy of note
as helping to make a more attractive place for settlement, they are by no
means sufficient to account for the great migration to the westward. Why
that migration took place and how it was accomplished are interesting and
important questions.

Emigration from New England resulted largely from financial and industrial
disorganization caused by the close of the war, and a year of such
continued cold weather as to produce a famine. This movement was
interesting, dramatic, and large in volume, but its influence upon
Illinois was slight, because the tide was stayed to the eastward of that
state.(285) Migration from the South was also large, and it was from this
source that most of the immigrants to Illinois came. In 1816 there was a
severe dro