January, 1789. Letter from Fort Harmar, November 26, 1788. By what is
evidently a clerical error the time is put down as one month instead of
one year.] went down the Ohio. For many years this great river was the
main artery through which the fresh blood of the pioneers was pumped
into the west.

There are no means of procuring similar figures for the number of
immigrants who went over the Wilderness Road; but probably there were
not half as many as went down the Ohio. Perhaps from ten to twenty
thousand people a year came into Kentucky during the period immediately
succeeding the close of the Revolution; but the net gain to the
population was much less, because there was always a smaller, but almost
equally steady, counter-flow of men who, having failed as pioneers, were
struggling wearily back toward their deserted eastern homes.

Kentucky's Growth.

The inrush being so great Kentucky grew apace. In 1785 the population
was estimated at from twenty [Footnote: "Journey in the West in 1785,"
by Lewis Brantz.] to thirty thousand; and the leading towns, Louisville,
Lexington, Harrodsburg, Booneboro, St. Asaph's, were thriving little
hamlets, with stores and horse grist-mills, and no longer mere clusters
of stockaded cabins. At Louisville, for instance, there were already a
number of two-story frame houses, neatly painted, with verandahs running
the full length of each house, and fenced vegetable gardens alongside
[Footnote: "Lettres d'un cultivateur américan," St. John de Crêve Coeur.
Summer of 1784.]; while at the same time Nashville was a town of logs,
with but two houses that deserved the name, the others being mere huts.
[Footnote: Brantz.] The population of Louisville amounted to about 300
souls, of whom 116 were fighting men [Footnote: State Department MSS.