Pictured is a 1792* Mississippi steamboat. Steamboats were used during the 1790s to transport immigrants into the West. The forests fell before the axe and all routes were crowded with Western immigrants. “The forests fell before the ax like grain before the sickle. Clearings scattered through the woods spread out into a great mosaic of farms stretching from the Southern Appalachians to Lake Michigan. The national census of 1830 gave 937,000 inhabitants to Ohio; 343,000 to Indiana; 157,000 to Illinois; 687,000 to Kentucky; and 681,000 to Tennessee.” Source: *History of the United States Author: Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard.
I have never seen a passenger list for private sloops, steamboats or wagon companies. This leaves us to our imagination of the of immigrants crossing the vast unsettled western countryside. Suffice it to say that religious groups as well as Scots, Irish, Germans, Scandinavians, and all persons having a common interest eked out their own communities.
New Addition to North Carolina Pioneers - Old Wills (images) 1873-1913; 1912=1936