arried by one vote only. Edward Tiffin was
chosen governor, and the new state entered upon a career of peace and
comfort if not of great prosperity or rapid progress. The Indians if
not crushed were quelled, and the settlers at last lived without fear
of them, until Tecumseh began his intrigues. In the mean time there was
plenty to eat, and enough to wear for all; there was the shelter of the
log cabin, and the fire of its generous hearth. The towns grew, if
they did not grow very rapidly; new towns were founded, and the country
gradually filled up with settlers, or at least the land was claimed.
Immense crops were raised on the fertile soil, and these were mainly fed
to hogs and cattle, which more rapidly found a way to market than the
grain: they could be driven over the bad roads, and the grain had to be
carried. The very richness of the soil when turned to mud forbade good
roads in the new country; and the most thriving settlements were on the
rivers, which, as in the days of the Mound Builders, formed the natural
highways. Many streams were navigable then, which the clearing of the
woods from their banks has since turned to shallow pools in the time of
drouth and to raging torrents in the time of rain; and one of the most
hopeful industries was ship building. The trees turned to masts where
they grew, and many a stately vessel slid into the waters that had
washed its living fibers and glided down the Ohio into the Mississippi
to the sea.
The Ohio people toiled and waited for the inventions of the future to
open ways out into the world for them with the great riches to which
they were shut up in their own borders; but it must have been with a
growing uneasiness. Great Britain, as we know, had long held the forts
in the West which she had agreed to give up to the United States, and
after she surrendered them, her agents and subjects in Canada abetted
the Indians in their rising against the Americans under Tecumseh and
the Prophet. The trouble with the Indians would probably have ended at
Tippecanoe, if it had not been for the outbreak of war between the two
countries; yet this outbreak must have been a kind of relief to the Ohio
people. The English insisted upon the right of searching our vessels
on the high seas, and pressing into their navy any sailors whom they
decided to be British subjects, and though the Ohio people could not
feel the injury of this, as it was felt in the seaboard states whose
citizens were fo
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