Grist, Grit, and Rural Society in the Early Nineteenth Century Midwest: Insight Gleaned From Grain

Grist, Grit,and Rural Society in the Early Nineteenth Century Midwest: Insight Gleaned From Grain GINETTE ALEY Perhaps, however, the surest pledge of prosperity is the general industry of the inhabitantswhich renders the situation of individuals comfortable, and gives a smiling appearance to the village. Tbe Indiana Gazetteer ( 1 826) oil the prospects of the town of Richmond' o many late eighteenth and early nineteenth century observers, the bounty and prosperity of the Old Northwest, or early Midwest, lay just beneath the earth' s surface and awaited only the itldustrious hands of European immigrants to work it, and bring it to fruition. Israel Ludlow,a land surveyor working in the Miami country along the Ohio River in 1788, for example,extolled the land' s apparent naturat fecundity and potential for profit. " The fertility of the country is such," he recorded, " as will afford an easy and wholesome sustenance to the inhabitants & the prospects of future opulence, perhaps as great as any country in the world that depends upon the cultivation of the land for its source of wealth Indeed, after an initial clearing of the land, farmers did coax an agricultural abundance fairly easily from the soil. From the New Harmony colony in Indiana, Marie Fretageot wrote to her correspondent in Apri 1829 of the material progress made by the commune' s members. After noting the improving state of local educational,printing,and mechanical enterprises,she noted how impressive and appealing she found the development of agriculture in the area. She noted Kijig' s Mill on tbe Dir River in Boyle County, Ky.Tbe Filson Historical Societi, SUMMER 2005 3 GRIST, GRIT, AND RURAL SOCIETY ... the land revealed " the agreeable appearance of industry," and that by the end of the month she expected to have forty acres of corn planted. Similarly, in 1832 and 1834,Daniel Ludewick wrote letters from Illinois to his parents back in Cabarrus County, North Carolina, itemizing the results of his labor and industry in terms of shocks, bushels,pounds,and bundles. He assured them, You would be surprised at the bountifulness of this country." 2 udlow' s optimism about the region' s " future opulence, Fretageot' s use of the term " industrious"in reference to agricultural productivity, and Ludewick' s boasts of " bounti fulness" convey a sense of the values, aspirations,and visionsnot to mention primary activitiesof early Midwestern farm people for themselves, their infant communities,and their adopted region. Having gained access to the soil as a result of the persistent, aggressive westward advance that ousted the British from their trading posts and progressively dispossessed Native Americans from their lands,EuroAmericans fanned out to settle the Old Northwest during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. They staked out farmsteads,with and without formal land titles,and began the arduous process of transforming the landscape into one that meshed with their economic and cultural visions of prosperity and industry. More than just the oftrepeated " order upon the land"envisioned by early land policymakers,immigrants by and large wanted to see productive agriculture in the European mode planted in the young Republic's western landscape. Early Midwestern town boosters appealed to these ideological connections. In 1839, Peru, Indiana, real estate developers advertised that, while the town lots were also being improved, the fertile soil of the adjacent country was being " stripped of its foliage given it by nature and successfully titled,yielding abundantly to the enterprising and industrjous farmer." Along with its economic and cultural dimensions,this transformation proved to be a visual and physical one,as farmers reordered the western spaces they now claimed into a more familiar,predominantly agricultural,and incipiently commercial place. This new region would be filled with cleared fields and fences, as well as cabins,barns,roads, mills of all kinds,and,soon,canals.3 Developing a settler society also involved a complex set of social relations some recreated from the settlers'home societies,some instituted for the first time. For example,economic development brought together farmers who produced agricultural commodities and grist millers who processed those commodities ,mostly corn and wheat,into products for household consumption. As settlements developed further,these same commodities grown by farmers came to represent surpluses available...