30

A more conservative estimate, made for 1837 and including the New England element, places the New Englanders and New Yorkers at about two-thirds of the total population. 28 As early as 1822 the Gazette mentions Vermont, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Ohio (in this order) along with New York as chief sources. 29 Virginia also should be mentioned especially for the southwest, and men from that State were conspicuous leaders in shaping the earliest laws of Michigan. If New York may be called the second New England, Michigan may justly claim to rank as the third. Owing to the great foreign immigrations to New England in later times, Michigan represents today more truly the blood and the ideals of the Puritans than does any one of the New England states.31 The foreign immigrants who came after 1848, finding Michigan already largely occupied, moved farther west to Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa. As a result of the early immigration from New York and New England, Michigan probably has a larger percent of original New England stock than has any other State in the Union.32

The qualities, habits and ideals of Michigan settlers in this period were therefore essentially those of New York and New England. A new society 28. Channing and Lansing, Story of the Great Lakes, 267. See also Farmer, Hist. Detroit, I, 335.

29. Detroit Gazette, June 7, 1822.

30. Mich. Hist. Colls., I, 344; XIV, 285, Michigan Biographies, 77, 715. Southwestern Michigan drew also largely from the Carolinas, Kentucky, Tennessee and Indiana. Mich. Hist. Colls., XXXVIII, 360.

31.

32. McLaughlin, History of Higher Education in Michigan, 12; see also O. C. Thompson's opinion in Mich. Hist. Colls., I, 400; and United States Census, 1870, under Popula

was to be formed in the wilderness by a group of hardy middle-class farmers, farmers, young, hopeful, ambitious, and inbued with the traditions of individualism in church, state and society, cut loose from conservative forces, and set down in the midst of almost boundless natural resources.33 The settlers had those qualities which are most significant for ability to endure the severe and continued hardships of pioneer life. The great majority of them were young and had been schooled by the stress of hard times to suffer privations; they had a firm faith in the future grounded in a supreme self-confidence; they had that vivid imagination born of the presence of great resources that buoyed them up in many times of distress. Many of them had large families. The supreme desire to leave their families a competence is the burden of many a pioneer reminisence and was a powerful stimulus, and the leaders among them had thoughts for remoter posterity.

The selective process of economic pressure in the East together with the Government's regulation of land sales, especially the repeal of the credit system, insured comparative economic equality. This meant comparative equality of opportunity, for in a society where every man could own a farm there was little chance for any marked separation into economic or social classes. This comparatively even chance and practical social equality tended to induce comparative 33. Lanman, History of Michigan, 295-300; American Historical Review, XI, 304-327; Magazine of Western History, IV, 389-393; Atlantic Monthly, LXXVIII, 291-293; LXLI,

contentedness and satisfaction with life, even under the most trying ills-a bulwark of strength for a new commonwealth.

Along with self-confidence there was a healthful self-assertiveness, the sum of those fighting qualities. which sharp competition and the struggle with wild nature tended to enhance. The absence of the accustomed aids fostered initiative and originality. The demands of primitive conditions encouraged versatility in both the individual and the community. In almost any community of these pioneer farmers there were men from various walks of life, men who were ready to turn the hand to the old occupations, but whom the comparative ease of supporting a family by farming in Michigan had induced to abandon, at least temporarily, the old pursuits.34

Being mainly young people, naturally they lacked the conservative elements which usually characterize the older settled sections. They had the characteristic venturesomeness of youth and radicalism, well illustrated in the public improvement schemes of the early days.35 Their private enterprise is illustrated in the building of the Erie and Kalamazoo Railroad not a half dozen years after the first successful road in England.36 On the other hand, their impetuosity and impatience of restraint were a fertile source of danger, as seen in the results of land speculation and the early banking laws. Filled with the traditions of the Declaration of Independence, removed from conservative 34. Hoffman, A Winter in the West, I, 191.

35. Campbell, Outlines of the Political History of Michigan 487-500.

36. Mich. Hist. Colls., I, 231.