The equitable balance between the
sexes, the ease of acquiring a home, the vigorous pioneer environment,
and the informal frontier social conditions all encouraged large
families. Early marriages were encouraged. Bachelors and unmarried
women were rare. Girls were matrons at twenty-five and grand-mothers
at forty. Three generations frequently dwelt in one homestead.
Families of five persons were the rule; families of eight or ten were
common, while families of fourteen or fifteen did not elicit
surprise. It was the father's ambition to leave a farm to every son
and, if the neighborhood was too densely settled easily to permit
this, there was the West--always the West.
This was a race of nation builders. No sooner had he made the
Declaration of Independence a reality than the eager pathfinder turned
his face towards the setting sun and, prompted by the instincts of
conquest, he plunged into the wilderness. Within a few years western
New York and Pennsylvania were settled; Kentucky achieved statehood in
1792 and Tennessee four years later, soon to be followed by
Mississippi in 1817 and Alabama in 1819. The great Northwest Territory
yielded Ohio in 1802, Indiana in 1816, Illinois in 1818, and Michigan
in 1837. Beyond the Mississippi the empire of Louisiana doubled the
original area of the Republic; Louisiana came into statehood in 1812
and Missouri in 1821.
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