Has a meeting-house and mill.
Nothing else in all Grandville.
Dogtown is finely and advantageously situated. It stands on Eel River, a stream of water which runs into another stream, and that into a third, which runs into Connecticut River, which running into Long Island Sound, finally reaches the Atlantic. Who does not see, therefore, that Dogtown may become a great sea-port?
The territory in the neighbourhood of Dogtown is remarkable for its fertility, bating that part of it which is covered with rocks, the salt meadow, the pine woods, the clay-ponds, and the swamps. It is past a doubt, therefore, that the territory, if well cleared, drained, peopled, and cultivated, would become a perfect garden, abounding with the richest productions of nature, and affording a mine of wealth to the country. As to the facilities of communication with the great Atlantic cities and commercial marts, they are admirable.
Dogtown has Boston on one side, and New York on the other: Montreal and Quebec are in the north, while in the east is the rich and thriving State of Maine, with Bangor and Owl’s Head to boot. Rail-roads can be made to connect Dogtown with all these places, and they will certainly form such a connection, when they are built. That the place will be a great focus of trade, when this is done, nobody, I think, will deny.
The neighbourhood of Dogtown has all the advantages that can be desired in a young country. There will be as many large towns within thirty miles of the place, as people choose to build. The population cannot fail to increase rapidly for a man can get married for seventy-five cents, town clerk’s fees included. The attraction for settlers must, therefore, be considered very great.
The Dogtowners are remarkably industrious, for they get a living, although constantly grumbling of hard times. They are moreover ingenious, for they manufacture axe-handles, wooden bowls, birch brooms, and white oak cheese, and invent mousetraps and washing machines. Last of all, the inhabitants of Dogtown are literary and intellectual; for they talk a great deal of the march of improvement, and the minister and the lawyer take the “Penny Magazine” between them.
All these attractions together, form a combination truly wonderful; but the reader will be astonished when I inform him, that the inhabitants of this favoured spot lived a great many years without the smallest suspicion of what I have been describing. They thought very little of themselves, or of the town they lived in, and continued to vegetate from year to year without imagining they were better off than other folks. In fact, the world might have continued to this day in utter ignorance that Dogtown was such a wonderful place, but for an accident—an accident I call it—for the Dogtowners having lived for so many years without opening their eyes, the fact that they did open them of a sudden, on a certain day, in the year of grace 1834, must be considered purely accidental. Some people are inclined to ascribe it to the approach of the comet, which had a powerful influence in opening people’s eyes, to say nothing of its effect in driving them stark mad. But that is neither here nor there. The people of Dogtown opened their eyes, and saw; that was enough: they saw in an instant their immense advantages, and were astonished that they never had seen them before. They saw their advantages, I say, and were determined to turn them to account.
Straightway Dogtown was all alive: everybody was confident that Dogtown must become a great place; and as everybody told everybody else so, there was no doubt about the matter. Every man went to buying land who could pay for it; and those who could not pay, bought upon credit, sure of selling it at ten times the cost within the year. Nothing was talked of but the immense advantages of the place. The riches of Dogtown were indeed immense; and how they could have been overlooked so long, was a mystery that no one could understand. The land within the limits of the town was computed at seven hundred and twenty million square feet, which, at only one cent per square foot, which is cheap enough in all conscience, would amount to seven million two hundred thousand dollars. What a sum! But this was not all. Half of this land was covered with trees, at the rate of one tree to every five feet square, or quadrangle of twenty-five feet: this gave a computation of ten million four hundred thousand trees; and as each tree, on an average, contained seventy-five cubic feet of timber, it followed that there was actually within the town seven hundred and eighty million feet of timber, worth, on the lowest calculation, five cents per foot, which would amount to thirty-nine million dollars. This, added to the value of the land, as above, made a grand total of forty-six millions two hundred thousand dollars!
The mention of these sums almost drove the good people of Dogtown distracted with joy; they could hardly believe their eyes or ears, but there it was in black and white; figures could not lie. They were amazed to think of their own stupidity and that of their ancestors in letting forty-six millions two hundred thousand dollars lie totally idle and unproductive; but they were determined not to allow their wealth to be neglected any longer. A grand scheme of speculation and improvement was started, and all rushed headlong into it. Every man in Dogtown was now rich, or, what was the same thing, was sure of being so before long. Immense tracts were laid out in building lots, and speculators flocked in from all quarters; from Catsville and Weazletown and Buzzardsborough, and Ganderfield and Crow Corner and Upper Bugbury and East Punkinton, and Black Swamp and the Bottomless Bogs. Such a busy time as the Dogtowners had of it! Nothing was talked of but buying land, building houses, laying out roads, streets, squares, avenues, railroads, canals, &c. &c. &c. People left off ploughing and hoeing, because agriculture was too slow a method of making money; for who would think of raising turnips to sell, at twenty cents a bushel, when he could make a hundred times the profit by speculating in land?