han the
demand for the creation of "districts" and their respective ports, for
by no other means could merchandise and produce be shipped legally to
Spanish territory beyond or down the Mississippi or to English territory
on the northern shores of the Great Lakes.

Louisville is as old a port of the United States as New York or
Philadelphia, having been so created when our government was established
in 1789, but oddly enough the first returns to the National Treasury
(1798) are credited to the port of Palmyra, Tennessee, far inland on the
Cumberland River. In 1799 the following Western towns were made ports
of entry: Erie, Sandusky, Detroit, Mackinaw Island, and Columbia
(Cincinnati). The first port on the Ohio to make returns was Fort
Massac, Illinois, and it is from the collector at this point that we get
our first hint as to the character and volume of Western river traffic.
In the spring months of March, April, and May, 1800, cargoes to the
value of 28,581 pounds, Pennsylvania currency, went down the Ohio. This
included 22,714 barrels of flour, 1017 barrels of whiskey, 12,500 pounds
of pork, 18,710 pounds of bacon, 75,814 pounds of cordage, 3650 yards
of country linen, 700 bottles, and 700 barrels of potatoes. In the three
autumn months of 1800, for instance, twenty-one boats ascended the Ohio
by Fort Massac, with cargoes amounting to 36 hundredweight of lead and
a few hides. Descending the river at the same time, flatboats and barges
carried 245 hundredweight of drygoods valued at $32,550. When we compare
these spring and fall records of commerce downstream we reach the
natural conclusion that the bulk of the drygoods which went down in the
fall of the year had been brought over the mountains during the summer.
The fact that the Alleghany pack-horses and Conestogas were transporting
freight to supply the Spanish towns on the Mississippi River in the
first year of the nineteenth century seems proved beyond a doubt by
these reports from Fort Massac.

The most interesting phase of this era is the connection between western
trade and the politics of the Mississippi Valley which led up to the
Louisiana Purchase. By the Treaty of San Lorenzo in 1795 Spain made New
Orleans an open port, and in the next seven years the young West made
the most of its opportunity. But before the new century was two years
old the difficulties encountered were found to be serious. The lack of
commission merchants, of methods of credit, of in