After this period, and the organization of the state government, the great migration to Ohio commenced which, within a century, was destined to extend across the continent. The settler was generally poor, bringing all his earthly possessions, with wife and children, in a covered wagon, slowly traversing difficult roads to the new and only land, then open to settlement. But the land was cheap, the title clear, the soil good, and all were on the same footing, willing to help each other. The task before him was discouraging. He found his quarter-section in the unbroken forest, its boundary blazed on the trees by the surveyor, and all around him a wilderness. His first work was to erect a rough cabin of logs for a shelter; his next to clear an opening for a crop. Every new settler was a welcome neighbor, though miles away. The mail, the newspaper, the doctor and the preacher were long in coming. In this solitary contest with nature the settler had often to rely upon his gun for food, upon simple remedies for new and strange diseases, and upon the hope that his crop would be spared from destruction by wild beasts.
This was the life of the early settler in every county in Ohio, as each in its turn was organized and opened to settlement. A life so hard, was yet so attractive that many pioneers, when a few neighbors gathered around them, preferred to sell their clearings and push further into the wilderness. In the meantime the older settlements attracted newcomers. Mechanics and tradesmen came along them. Then towns sprang up, and incipient cities, with corner lots and hopeful speculators, tempted eastern capitalists to invest their money in Ohio.
Ohio, in these early days, was the only outlet of the population of the northern and middle states. Emigrants from the south, following lines of latitude, went into Kentucky and Tennessee. The great west, with its vast prairies and plains, was not then accessible. Had it been so, the forests of Ohio might have been left in solitude for many years to come. During all this period, which we may properly call the pioneer stage, the settlers had no market for their produce, except to supply the demand of incoming immigrants. Grain and fruit would not bear the expense of transportation. The only way to obtain ready money was to convert corn and grain into hogs, horses and cattle, which were driven on the hoof to Pittsburg and eastern cities. But little money circulated, and that was chiefly irredeemable bank notes. The clothing of the people was mainly of linsey-woolsey, home-made. The spinning wheel, big and little, was to be found in every household. Settlers near the banks of the Ohio River, and its tributaries, had the advantage of floating their surplus products in rough barges down the Ohio to New Orleans for a market, so that the southern part of the state advanced rapidly, while the northern part was still in the possession of the Indians.
When the Indian title was extinguished settlers came from Pennsylvania into the counties immediately west of it, which are still, in the habits of the people, in the location of houses and barns and the cultivation of the soil, the precise counterpart of the region from which the settlers came. The "Connecticut Reserve" was slowly filled by the northern route of the lakes, almost exclusively from New England, and the habits and customs of that region were transported to their new homes, so that the "Western Reserve" to- day is a striking type of old Connecticut in habits, and with the same ideas. The lakes became the highway of commerce, and the inhabitants of the interior carried their surplus grain and produce in long lines of wagons to the new towns along the lake shore, where it was exchanged for the necessaries of life and enough money to pay taxes. All trade in the interior was by barter with merchants, who became the bankers of the people.
The construction of the Erie Canal, and the introduction of steamboats on the rivers and lakes, was the beginning of a great revolution. Then followed in Ohio the era of internal improvement by the construction of two lines of canal across the state, one from Cleveland, on Lake Erie, to Portsmouth, on the Ohio River, and the other from Toledo, on Maumee Bay, to the city of Cincinnati, with the lateral canal to Pittsburg, and the improvement of the Muskingum River by locks and canals.
Salmon P. Chase, then a young attorney at Cincinnati, in his introduction to his compilation of the laws of the state, published in 1833, thus describes the effect of these improvements upon the prosperity of Ohio:
"They have afforded to the farmer of the interior an easy access to market, and have enhanced the value of his farm and his productions. They have facilitated intercourse between different sections of the state, and have thus tended to make the people more united, as well as more prosperous. They have furnished to the people a common object of generous interest and satisfaction. They have attracted a large accession of population and capital. And they have made the name and character of Ohio well-known throughout the civilized world, as a name and character of which her sons may be justly proud."
This period of prosperity continued for twenty years, when, in 1846, a still greater revolution was introduced by the building of railroads. The first object of this was to furnish cheaper transportation of the produce of the farmer to the Ohio River and Lake Erie. The first railroads were from the interior, north and south. They were little better than tramways, supported by cross- ties with longitudinal stringpieces covered with thin strips of iron. The carriages were propelled by feeble engines, and it was thought a matter of great importance when, by this new motive power, a bushel of wheat could be transported from the interior to distances of from fifty to a hundred miles for from six to ten cents. While a young attorney, I thought it a grievous injustice that my client, one of the new railroad companies, was compelled by a jury to pay $2,000 for the right-of-way over twenty miles of farm land. It was soon discovered that railroads were to be so successful that they would supersede for the transportation of persons and passengers all kinds of water transportation, and that lines running long distances east and west would have the benefit of the through travel and traffic. In rapid succession several lines of railroad were built from the eastern cities across the state to the northwest, west and southwest. Within twenty years from the first construction of railways they had almost superseded all former modes of communication, and had reduced the rates of travel and transportation to less than one-half the former rates.
After the close of the Civil War the construction of railroads rapidly increased, so that in 1890 the total miles of railway track in Ohio was 10,464, and the valuation for taxes was $102,950,642, a development in a single branch of industry far greater than in any other. This improvement led to the adoption of a system of free turnpikes in most of the counties in Ohio, constructed by local taxation, so that now Ohio is as well supplied with well- constructed turnpikes and railroads as any state in the Union, and perhaps, as well as many European states.
Another great change in the industry of the people of Ohio rapidly followed the construction of railroads. Manufacturing establishments of almost every kind were rapidly constructed, mostly since the war.