Monette, John W. History of the Discovery and Settlement of the Valley of the Mississippi, by the Three Great European Powers, Spain, France and Great Britain, and the Subsequent Occupation, Settlement, and Extension of Civil Government by the United States, Until the Year 1846, in two volumes, Volume II . New York: Harper and Brothers, Publishers, 1846. [format: book], [genre: history]. Permission: Schingoethe Center for Native American Cultures, Aurora University
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at 779,828 souls, including 182,258 slaves. ²¹¹ The state contained hundreds of large towns and villages. Louisville, the chief commercial city, contained a population of more than twenty-one thousand inhabitants, and Lexington, an inland city, contained nearly seven thousand.

Argument. — Jurisdiction of Pennsylvania extended to the Ohio. — "Westmoreland County" organized. — "Washington County" organized. — Emigration to the Monongahela and Youghiogeny. — Town of Pittsburgh laid out. — Brownsville laid out; becomes an important Point. — First Newspaper in the West. — Pittsburgh becomes a Market Town in 1788. — Trade and Manufactures spring up. — It derives great Importance as a military Dépôt in 1790. — Prosperous Condition of Settlements on the Monongahela. — Pittsburgh becomes an important manufacturing and trading Town. — Agricultural Prosperity of Monongahela Settlements. — Effects of Spanish Restrictions on the Mississippi. — "Excise Law" odious. — Disaffection toward Federal Government. — French Influence in the West. — Resistance to Excise on Whisky. — Difficulties encountered by excise Officers. — General Neville appointed Superintendent of excise Customs. — His moral Worth and Popularity insufficient to sustain him. — His House burned by a Mob. — Other Outrages perpetrated by the Mob. — Character of the Insurgents. — A Meeting of the Militia. — A Convention proposed. — Measures adopted by the President of the United States. — Proposed Amnesty. — Convention at Parkinson's Ferry. — Alarm of the insurgent Leaders. — Effects of General Wayne's Victory on the Maumee. — Commissioners appointed by the President. — Troops levied to suppress the Insurrection. — Fourteen thousand Troops advance to Pittsburgh. — The Insurrection is suppressed. — Insurgents dispersed. — Inquisitorial Court established. — Three hundred Insurgents arrested. — The Troops discharged. — Pittsburgh incorporated in 1794. — Quietude of Frontiers, and Advance of Population. — Uninhabited Region west of Alleghany River. — Emigration encouraged. — "Population Company." — Their Grant. — State Grants to actual Settlers. — Conflict of State Grants with the Company's Privileges. — First Paper Mill on the Monongahela. — Manufactures increase.

[A.D. 1783.] WE have already remarked, that in the early settlement of the country west of the mountains, before the close of the Revolutionary war, the northern and southern limits of Virginia were not clearly defined and known. Virginia, however, was prompt in asserting her right to all the territory which was supposed to lie within her chartered limits on the west. It was not until the year 1780 that her southern boundary, separating her from North Carolina, had been surveyed from the mountains westward to the Mississippi.