At this period all the means of travel between Mobile and New Orleans,
across the Lake, consisted of one or two schooners, as regular weekly
packets, plying between the two cities. It was about this time that
the tide of emigration which had peopled the West, and the rapid
increase of production, was stimulating the commerce of New Orleans.
It was obeying the impulse, and increasing in equal ratio its
population. This commerce was chiefly conducted by Americans, and most
of these were of recent establishment in the city. That portion of the
city above Canal Street, and then known as the Faubourg St. Mary, was
little better than a marsh in its greater portion. Along the river and
Canal Street, there was something of a city appearance, in the
improvements and business, where there were buildings. In every other
part there were shanties, and these were filled with a most miserable
population.
About this time, too, steamboats were accumulating upon the Western
waters--a new necessity induced by the increase of travel and
commerce--affording facilities to the growing population and
increasing production of the vast regions developing under the energy
of enterprise upon the Mississippi and her numerous great tributaries.
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