Manuscript document, one page, 7.5 x 12.5, dated October 31, 1788. An important document quantifying the tremendous surge of settlement into the trans-Appalachian west during the late 1780s, which compiles intelligence from a variety of eyewitnesses including Daniel Boone, General George Rogers Clark, General Samuel H. Parsons, General Josiah Harmar and Kentucky settler John Crawford. The account illustrates the dramatic surge in western settlement following the Revolution. Parsons reiterates an account of George Rogers Clark, then Commander at Kentucky who notes that in 1779, the entire population “in the District of Kentucky… Amounting to 176 only.” However, according to an account by General Harmar “as taken by the Police Boat” between October 31, 1786 and October 31, 1788 there were 896 boats conveying a total of 17,170 persons together with 7,384 horses, 2,240 cows, 881 sheep, and 611 wagons. Also attesting to vastly increased volume of river traffic, Daniel Boone counted 81 boats going down the Ohio river during his passage from Limestone to Wheeling in November, 1788. Not all settlers traveled by river however. At the bottom of the document is an anonymous report noting "a Body of People went from Virginia thro the Wilderness the fall of the Year 1788 Consisting of 1143." These were likely settlers bound for Kentucky. In very good condition, with professional repairs to separations on reverse, scattered toning and staining, a few trivial edge chips and previous storage folds. All writing remains bold and legible. The large volume of migrants continued unabated and by 1792 there were enough settlers in the region that Kentucky could form as a state. An important and early account of the trans-Appalachian migration.
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