Ohio History Journal

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THE PURITANIC INFLUENCE IN THE

THE PURITANIC INFLUENCE IN THE

NORTHWEST TERRITORY

1788-1803

 

 

BY WINFRED B. LANGHORST

 

After the close of the Revolutionary War the rapid

movement of settlers over the Appalachian range

brought the frontier to eastern Tennessee and Kentucky,

and to the Monongahela and the Ohio Rivers. East of

this ever-shifting frontier, land values were rising, and

land speculators and emigrants were searching the West

for cheap and fertile lands.1 The reports of the Indian

traders had acted as a stimulating influence among the

people along the coast, and every bit of fresh informa-

tion served not only to bring the West nearer, but also

to arouse a feeling of restlessness in the East.

As yet the opening of the region that was roughly

bounded by the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and the

Great Lakes had not taken place. This great triangle

of exceedingly fertile soil, covered by enormous forests

of pine, oak, and walnut, and inhabited by numerous

tribes of Indians, was the Old Northwest of 1788. With

the interest in the West increasing yearly, the thousands

of acres of untouched soil in the Old Northwest natur-

ally attracted attention. By 1788 definite plans were

under way for the settlement and exploitation of this

region.

1 L. K. Mathews, The Expansion of New England, (New York, 1909)

p. 259.

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