i8io-2i] The building of the West. 359 while on his way from Nashville in Tennessee to Savannah in Georgia, found the roads thronged with " movers " on their way to the cotton lands of Alabama. Once on the frontier, the "mover," the "new-comer,'" the emigrant would take up a quarter section (160 acres) of government land on credit, cut down a few saplings, make a "half-faced camp," and begin a clearing. The "half -faced camp" was a shed, three sides of which were made of tree-trunks, the fourth being left open. The roof was of bark laid on saplings. Here the settler would live till he had cut down enough trees to build a log cabin, which, in the course of time, would give way to a comfortable two-storeyed house. The clearing was made by grubbing up the bushes and cutting down the trees under a foot in diameter, and "girdling" the large ones by cutting rings around them deep enough to stop the sap and prevent the growth of leaves. If the settler were indolent, the girdled trees stood till they fell ; if he were industrious, he cut them down as soon as he could. In the soil thus opened to the sun and rain he planted his crops. Fed by this never-ending stream of emigrants, the West was trans- formed. Towns and villages sprang up with amazing rapidity; trade increased; and every affluent of the Mississippi became a highway of commerce dotted with " broad-horns," arks, flat-boats, rafts, and steam- boats. In the East this movement of population was not visible to the eye ; but, when the fourth census was taken in 1820, it was distinctly visible in the returns. Between 1810 and 1820 the population of New York City increased by less than 3600 souls. Philadelphia added no more than 12,000 to her numbers ; Baltimore only 17,000 ; and Boston only 11,000. During the decade 1810-20 the population of Charleston increased by 80. In the State of Delaware the increase was 75 : in the previous decade it had been 8000. In the New England States, during twenty years, population had increased but 35 per cent. ; in the Middle States of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania but 92 per cent; while in the western States of Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee the increase was 321 per cent. The first result of this great exodus was the formation of five new States in the West, and the admission into the Union, within four years, of Indiana, Illinois, Alabama, Mississippi, and Missouri. Louisiana had been admitted in 1812; and these, with Ohio,- Kentucky, and Tennessee, made nine States in the Mississippi Valley, and raised the number of States in the Union to twenty-four. The West now sent to Congress eighteen Senators and twenty-eight members of the House, and at the next presidential election in 1820 would be entitled to cast forty-six electoral votes. The West, in short, had attained its majority, and henceforth would have much influence in deciding the conduct of national affairs. A second result of this "building of the West" was the establishment CH. XI.
