Hints to Emigrants, Or, a Comparative Estimate of the Advantages of Pennsylvania, and of the Western Territory, &C - Softcover

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1819 Excerpt: ... CHAP. II. Notwithstanding Mr. Birkbeck had resided but a very short time in Illinois, previously to writing his Letters, it clearly appears, that he had lived long enough there, to become very intimately acquainted with the sickliness of the country. It however requires but little sagacity to discover this distressing fact wherever it exists. It is clearly exhibited by the pale, sickly, meagre countenance of almost every man you meet, in the fall of the year, unless the season has happened to be more healthy than they very often are. A farmer who had been living in this settlement for some years previously to my removing to it, had and still has, some children residing in the state of Ohio. The repeated accounts received from them, of the fertility of the soil, created a desire in the old gentleman to settle there. It was however wisely considered, that it would be most prudent to explore the country before he removed his family. On his return home he informed me, that where the soil was good in Ohio, he. found it quite equal to what had been said of it; but he had seen enough of that country to determine him not to remove to it. The lands were generally too level, and in many places so flat, that much water stagnated. Good springs were very scarce, and the water generally so bad, that he could scarcely drink it. At the public meetings, such as preachings, courts, &c. numbers had their heads tied up; and others exhibited evidently the effects produced by disease, in their pale, meagre, emaciated countenances. In this, and in other very sickly countries, whole families are sometimes so affected by fall complaints, that there is scarcely one among them well enough to hand another a drink of water. These considerations induced him not to remove to Ohio; still ...