For a return lading salt was purchased at half a dollar per bushel, and sold at Vincennes from $2 to $2¼ per bushel. Loaf sugar sold at 50 cents per pound; brown sugar at 37½ cents per pound; coffee at 75 cents per pound; tea from $2½ to $3½; and many other groceries, which like the above were bought for considerably less than one half their selling price.[447] Welby says, " ... of iron and drugs I could not obtain the price at New Orleans; but of the profit on the iron the reader may judge by the price I paid to a blacksmith for eight new horse shoes, steel tacs, and eight removes, the bill for which was about $10."[448] Faux, speaking of a man who had come to Princeton, says, "If he had money he could buy bacon at $4 and sell it at $16; and sugar from New Orleans would pay 50 per cent; costing 10 cents, and selling at 25 cents, 2½ cents being deducted per pound for carriage. Store goods, bought at Washington, which he is selling cheaper than his neighbors, pay 25 per cent profit."[449] Cincinnati received cotton from northern Alabama.[450]
The 'Register' of June 9, 1821, says, "The whole number of boats which passed the Falls of Ohio last year, is estimated to be 2400, wafting the rich produce of the western world to the markets on the seaboard, the principal part of which consisted of 1,804,810 pounds of bacon, 200,000 barrels of flour, 20,000 barrels of pork, 62,000 bushels of oats, 100,000 bushels of corn, 10,000 barrels of cheese, 160,000 pounds of butter, 11,207,333 fowls, and 466,412 pounds of lard."[451]
Stove coal was carried in boats down the river in 1821-1823 to supply the great number of steam mills in making flour.[452] These boats were also engaged in freighting salt to the various parts of the count ry.[453] The following is an "estimate of the amount of products which descended the Falls of Ohio at Louisville, the growth of the year 1822 ... the produce of the whole of the State of Ohio, (except the part bordering on the lake), two-thirds of Kentucky, one half of the State of Indiana, and a small part of the States of Pennsylvania and Virginia."[454]
Notice the vast increase since 1820.
"There are many articles of export not included in the above schedule, such as iron, iron castings, salt, gunpowder, white lead, and other manufactured articles, of various descriptions, the amount of which could not be correctly estimated, for want of adequate data. It is estimated, that produce and manufactured articles, to the amount of upwards of one million of dollars, have been shipped from Cincinnati and its immediate vicinity, during the year ending in April, 1823—principally the production of what is termed the "Miami Country". Among the articles from Cincinnati are "types and printing materials $10,000, paper$15,000 cabinet furniture $20,000, chairs $6,000, hats $6,500." Within the last year every store and warehouse has become reoccupied by business men—generally by those who were unconnected with the late embarrassments. All purchases are now made for cash, and at no period, within the last ten years, have we witnessed so numerous and active a population, or so great a number of new buildings in a state of progress."
Corn and wheat were sent to New Orleans from Illinois in 1823.[455] Albion, Illinois, exported produce, for the first time, in this year. They loaded the flat boats with corn, flour, pork, beef, sausages, and other articles, and floated them down the Wabash into the Ohio, and from thence to New Orleans.[456] Harmony was, annually, sending boats laden with produce to New Orleans.[457] Tranchepain journeyed part of the way down the Ohio in a boat loaded with horses, fowls, iron castings, apples, and whiskey for New Orleans.[458]
From St. Louis, a central point on the Mississippi, to New York by way of New Orleans, the price of transportation was about $45 per ton, for a return cargo not less than $80.[459] Beck says, "The export trade must then be divided between New Orleans and New York. She (New Orleans) commands the greatest interior; she is the key to the richest and most extensive inland region of any mercantile capital in the world. Besides the produce required for her own consumption, and that of Louisiana and Mississippi, she will be the entrepot of the produce destined for the West Indies and the provinces of South America. The capital of New Orleans is disproportionate to the quantity of produce landed there. The warmth and unhealthiness of the climate prevents the farmer from sending his produce to that place at a time when he may be most in need of the articles for which he would barter. During this time, he is at present completely deprived of a market for his produce, and is moreover obliged to pay the merchant an exorbitant price for his necessaries. It frequently happens, that in the Western States during the summer and fall, the price of those articles for which they depend upon New Orleans is raised 50 and sometimes 100%. But New Orleans is at all times a very uncertain market. It not unfrequently happens that a few boat loads of produce completely supply the demand.[460] If another cargo then arrives the owner is obliged either to sacrifice it, or leave it in store; in the latter case, if it consists of flour of bacon, it suffers much from the heat and humidity of the climate, and its value is not unfrequently diminished one half or three fourths. This is also the case with furs and several other articles which cannot be transported by New Orleans to a foreign market, without a considerable depreciation in their value. These considerations clearly prove the importance of opening a communication with New York, by which means the States bordering on the Mississippi will be enabled to find a market for their produce during those seasons when they are completely excluded from New Orleans. Even at this time merchants at St. Louis, and in different parts of Illinois and Missouri purchase their goods in the eastern cities, and transport them across the mountains in preference to sending them by New Orleans."[461] For several years all articles of life in Illinois and Missouri, were below what the planters could afford to raise them for, with any view beyond domestic consumption. Grain boats from Missouri scarcely paid the expense of their building and transport to New Orleans.[462]
In 1825 extensive arrivals of cotton came into New Orleans from the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers.[463] It was estimated that the goods sent to New Orleans from Louisville during this year weighed 27 or 28,000 tons;—42 steamboats made 140 trips during the same period.[464] The southern interior counties of Illinois began in 1824-1825 to cultivate tobacco and the castor bean, and to make these articles of considerable exportation.[465] Tobacco was raised, with great success, in Ohio, at the rate of 700 lbs. to the acre, and of a quality to bring $12 to $15 per hundred in the Baltimore market.[466] From the extensive glass works of Pittsburg about $100,000 worth was exported yearly.[467]
Niles Register, July 8, 1826, says, "152 boats descending the Wabash passed Vincennes during the late freshets.[468] They were all well laden. The following is an estimate of some of the chief items of their cargoes.