hat state.(536)

In 1829 emigration was great. Some forty English families from Yorkshire
came by way of Canada and settled near Jacksonville, Illinois. They
brought agricultural implements and some money.(537) The _Kentucky
Gazette_ lamented the fact that a large number of the best families of
Lexington were removing to Illinois.(538) An Illinois newspaper reported:
"The number of emigrants passing through our Town [Vandalia] this fall, is
unusually great. During the last week the waggons and teams going to the
north amounted to several hundred. At no previous period has our State
encreased so rapidly, as it is now encreasing."(539) Another editor
estimated the annual increase in population from 1826 to 1829 at not less
than 12,000(540)--a figure which was almost certainly too low. In 1830 a
meeting of gentlemen from the counties of Hampshire and Hampden
(Massachusetts) was held at Northampton to consider the expediency of
forming a colony to remove to Illinois. After a discussion it was voted to
adjourn to meet on the 10th of October at Warner's Coffee House in
Southampton. Similar meetings were held at Pawtucket and Worcester.(541)

The immigration to Illinois was but part of a general westward movement.
From Charleston, Virginia, we hear: "The tide of emigration through this
place is rapid, and we believe, unprecedented. It is believed that not
less than eight thousand individuals, since the 1st September last
[written on November 6, 1829], have passed on this route. They are
principally from the lower part of this state and South Carolina, bound
for Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan.--They jog on, careless of the varying
climate, and apparently without regret for the friends and the country
they leave behind, seeking forests to fell, and a new country to settle."
The editor attributes this movement to the fact that slavery had rendered
white labor disreputable.(542) Three thousand persons bound for the West
arrived at Buffalo in one week and six thousand per week were reported as
passing through Indianapolis, bound for the Wabash country alone.(543) The
great northern tide was chiefly bound to Ohio and Michigan,(544) northern
Illinois not being open to settlement. Five years after Detroit received
three hundred arrivals per week, Chicago had about a dozen houses, besides
Fort Dearborn. This was the Chicago of 1830.(545)

CHAPTER VII. SUCCESSFUL FRONTIERSMEN.

The character of the men who succeed in gainin