{"product_id":"2940013691681","title":"THE PATHS OF INLAND COMMERCE, A CHRONICLE OF TRAIL, ROAD, AND WATERWAY","description":"CONTENTS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     I.    THE MAN WHO CAUGHT THE VISION\u003cbr\u003e     II.   THE RED MAN'S TRAIL\u003cbr\u003e     III.  THE MASTERY OF THE RIVERS\u003cbr\u003e     IV.   A NATION ON WHEELS\u003cbr\u003e     V.    THE FLATBOAT AGE\u003cbr\u003e     VI.   THE PASSING SHOW OF 1800\u003cbr\u003e     VII.  THE BIRTH OF THE STEAMBOAT\u003cbr\u003e     VIII. THE CONQUEST OF THE ALLEGHANIES\u003cbr\u003e     IX.   THE DAWN OF THE IRON AGE\u003cbr\u003e     X.    THE PATHWAY OF THE LAKES\u003cbr\u003e     XI.   THE STEAMBOAT AND THE WEST\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE PATHS OF INLAND COMMERCE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCHAPTER I. The Man Who Caught The Vision\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInland America, at the birth of the Republic, was as great a mystery to\u003cbr\u003ethe average dweller on the Atlantic seaboard as the elephant was to the\u003cbr\u003eblind men of Hindustan. The reports of those who had penetrated this\u003cbr\u003ewilderness--of those who had seen the barren ranges of the Alleghanies,\u003cbr\u003ethe fertile uplands of the Unakas, the luxuriant blue-grass regions, the\u003cbr\u003erich bottom lands of the Ohio and Mississippi, the wide shores of the\u003cbr\u003einland seas, or the stretches of prairie increasing in width beyond\u003cbr\u003ethe Wabash--seemed strangely contradictory, and no one had been able to\u003cbr\u003epatch these reports together and grasp the real proportions of the giant\u003cbr\u003einland empire that had become a part of the United States. It was a\u003cbr\u003epathless desert; it was a maze of trails, trodden out by deer, buffalo,\u003cbr\u003eand Indian. Its great riverways were broad avenues for voyagers and\u003cbr\u003eexplorers; they were treacherous gorges filled with the plunder of a\u003cbr\u003emillion floods. It was a rich soil, a land of plenty; the natives\u003cbr\u003ewere seldom more than a day removed from starvation. Within its broad\u003cbr\u003econfines could dwell a great people; but it was as inaccessible as the\u003cbr\u003einterior of China. It had a great commercial future; yet its\u003cbr\u003egigantic distances and natural obstructions defied all known means of\u003cbr\u003etransportation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSuch were the varied and contradictory stories told by the men who had\u003cbr\u003eentered the portals of inland America. It is not surprising, therefore,\u003cbr\u003ethat theories and prophecies about the interior were vague and\u003cbr\u003econflicting nor that most of the schemes of statesmen and financiers for\u003cbr\u003ethe development of the West were all parts and no whole. They all agreed\u003cbr\u003eas to the vast richness of that inland realm and took for granted an\u003cbr\u003eimmense commerce therein that was certain to yield enormous profits.\u003cbr\u003eIn faraway Paris, the ingenious diplomat, Silas Deane, writing to\u003cbr\u003ethe Secret Committee of Congress in 1776, pictured the Old\u003cbr\u003eNorthwest--bounded by the Ohio, the Alleghanies, the Great Lakes, and\u003cbr\u003ethe Mississippi--as paying the whole expense of the Revolutionary War.\u003cbr\u003e* Thomas Paine in 1780 drew specifications for a State of from twenty\u003cbr\u003eto thirty millions of acres lying west of Virginia and south of the Ohio\u003cbr\u003eRiver, the sale of which land would pay the cost of three years of the\u003cbr\u003ewar. ** On the other hand, Pelatiah Webster, patriotic economist that he\u003cbr\u003ewas, decried in 1781 all schemes to \"pawn\" this vast westward region; he\u003cbr\u003elikened such plans to \"killing the goose that laid an egg every day, in\u003cbr\u003eorder to tear out at once all that was in her belly.\" He advocated the\u003cbr\u003etownship system of compact and regular settlement; and he argued that\u003cbr\u003eany State making a cession of land would reap great benefit \"from the\u003cbr\u003eproduce and trade\" of the newly created settlements.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     * Deane's plan was to grant a tract two hundred miles square at\u003cbr\u003ethe junction of the Ohio and the Mississippi to a company on the\u003cbr\u003econdition that a thousand families should be settled on it within\u003cbr\u003eseven years. He added that, as this company would be in a great degree\u003cbr\u003ecommercial, the establishing of commerce at the junction of those large\u003cbr\u003erivers would immediately give a value to all the lands situated on or\u003cbr\u003enear them.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47083148017904,"sku":"2940013691681","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013691681_p0.jpg?v=1763597249","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013691681","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}