1819.

FIRST STEAMBOAT OX TIIE LAKES.

927

The second session commenced about the 1st of February, 1819, and continued until the 20th. During this period they revised and re-enacted the territorial laws, so far as applicable to the State, with such additional laws as the public exigencies seemed to require.

As has been said before, a very redundant currency had obtained Bince the war with Great Britain, and the Western country more especially was flooded with this worthless paper, issued mostly by banks, ostensibly solvent at first, and often by individuals, most of whom, especially the former, failed to redeem their issues.

In 1818, a reaction commenced; the notes of such banks as the Treasury Department had selected as depositories of the government funds, were current in the land offices. The rapid influx of immigration, and the demands for land, absorbed a large proportion of this class of notes, while the other floating paper depreciated, until it was no longer current.

All the territory north of the new State of Illinois, was attached to Michigan.

Great emigration took place to Michigan, in consequence of the sale of large quantities of public lands.

By various treaties, the Indian title in Indiana, Illinois, and the North-West, was still further extinguished.

The Walk-in-the-Water, the first steamboat in the upper lakes, 1819.] (Erie, Huron, and Michigan,) began her trips, going once as far as Mackinac.

The Independence, from Louisville, Kentucky, was the pioneer boat in the navigation of the more difficult channel of the Missouri river. This was in the month of May, 1819. She left St. Louis on the 13th, was at St. Charles on the 15th, aud reached the town of Franklin, opposite Booneville, on the 26th of that month. The banks of the river were visited by crowds of people, as the boat came in sight of the towns.

It was the first boat that ever attempted to overcome the strong current of the Missouri, and find its way amidst the shifting sandbars. Besides a large number of passengers, this boat carried up a cargo of flour, whisky, sugar, coffee, iron, castings, and other goods. The question, long agitated and much doubted, " can the Missouri be navigated by steamboats?" was fully solved.

A new era in Missouri annals had opened. Boats now ascend this river daily, and to the remotest settlements; and repeatedly have boats gone up to the mouth of the Yellow Stone, about