dewalk, door-way, window, and roof along the entire
line of march. About him on the platform after his arrival stood John
Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Baron Steuben, Generals St. Clair and Knox,
Roger Sherman, and Chancellor Livingston. Washington advanced to the
rail, placed his hand upon his breast, and, bowing low, said audibly, as
the Chancellor in his robes solemnly recited the words, "I swear, so
help me God," reverently kissing the Bible as if to add solemnity to his
oath. "It is done," cried the Chancellor; "long live George Washington,
President of the United States!" The great crowd repeated the cry. It
was echoed outside in the city, off into the country, far north, far
south, till the entire land took up that watchword, which his own
generation has passed on to ours and to all that shall come, Long live
George Washington!

Let us study for a moment the habitat of the people over which the new
Chief Magistrate was called to bear sway. By the census of 1790, the
population of the thirteen States and of the territory belonging to the
Union numbered 3,929,214. It resided almost wholly on the Atlantic coast
from Maine to Florida. Not more than five per cent of it was west of the
mountains. The line of inner settlement, now farther, now nearer, ran at
an average distance from the coast of two hundred and fifty-five miles.
The coast land of Massachusetts, southern New England, and New York was
the most densely covered. The Hudson Valley was well peopled as far as
Albany. Farms and hamlets were to be met all the way from New York
across New Jersey to the Delaware, and far up the Delaware Valley
westward from that river. Maine, still belonging to Massachusetts, had
few settlements except upon her coast and a little way inland along her
great rivers. Vermont, not yet a State and claimed by both New Hampshire
and New York, was well filled up, as was all New Hampshire but the
extreme north.

The westward movement of population took mainly four routes, the Mohawk
and Ontario, the Upper Potomac, the Southwestern Virginia, and the
Western Georgia. The Mohawk Valley was settled, and pioneers had taken
up much land on Lake Ontario and near the rivers and lakes tributary to
it. Elmira and Binghamton had been begun. Pennsylvania settlers had
pressed westward more or less thickly to the lower elevations of the
Alleghanies, while beyond, in the Pittsburgh regions, they were even
more numerous. What is now West Virginia had squatt