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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his improvement, while the "company," through him, would secure two hundred and fifty acres more.

Soon afterward, the Legislature passed an act giving to the individual settler, for the same improvements, four hundred acres, the same amount previously allowed to the "company." This interfered with the company's plan of aggrandizement, and was deemed by them an infringement of "vested rights." Immigrants, of course, would prefer to receive four hundred acres from the state, rather than one hundred and fifty acres from the company. The company's grants were slowly taken up; each settler made his improvement for himself, and not for the company, and some incautiously made their improvements within the district which had been appropriated exclusively to the "Population Company."

Settlements progressed in this manner for some time, when the agents of the company commenced suits of ejectment against the state settlers who had encroached upon their privilege. At length the latter harassed with suits and the expenses of litigation, and being utterly unable singly to contend with a moneyed company, voluntarily abandoned their habitations and retired westward into the "Connecticut Reserve." Here no lands were given away; but it was sold for a reasonable price, and the title was indisputable to such amounts and tracts as purchasers desired. ²²⁷ This is a specimen of the beauties of companies and vested rights, and their proneness to interfere with the general prosperity.

[A.D. 1796.] In the mean time, manufactures and arts had greatly multiplied since the treaty of Greenville. Trade began to stand upon a firm basis, and capital was freely invested. The first paper-mill west of the mountains was erected this year, within four miles of Brownsville. This was the "Redstone paper-mills," owned by Samuel Jackson and Jonathan Sharpless, two Quaker mechanics from "Gilpin's paper-mills," on Brandywine Creek. ²²⁸