[Footnote: Draper MSS., _Massachusetts Gazette_, March 13,
1786; letter from Kentucky, December 22, 1785.] As time went on the
number of immigrants who adopted this method of travel increased; larger
boats were used, and the immigrants took more property with them. In the
last half of the year 1787 there passed by Fort Harmar 146 boats, with
3196 souls, 1371 horses, 165 wagons, 191 cattle, 245 sheep, and 24 hogs.
[Footnote: Harmar Papers, December 9, 1787.] In the year ending in
November, 1788, 967 boats, carrying 18,370 souls, with 7986 horses, 2372
cows, 1110 sheep, and 646 wagons, [Footnote: _Columbian Magazine_,
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.
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