Within my Knowledge there are in Ontario County nineteen grist-mills, and twenty-eight saw-mills, and some of them equal to any in America: an Steuben county there are only ten grist-mills and twenty saw-mills.

All the first settlers in this country were from New-England : this circumstance probably arose from access to it being from that quarter only, and the purchasers from the State being New-England people. Indeed, until after the opening of the road to Pennsylva-

WESTERN NEW- YORK. 1153

nia, over the Alleghany Mountainsj there was scarcely one instance to the contrary. But the opening of this communicationj and the means that have been taken to make the inhabitants of the adjoining States acquainted with the country, have induced a great many to immigrate from the Jerseys, Pennsylvania and Delaware, and this season a considerable riumber from Maryland. The settlers from New-England, a people remaikably enterprising, long supposed that no others would venture into a country so remote from their homes ; but since the improving of the waggon road to the southward, it is found to be considerably easier to remove from Philadelphia, Lancaster, Trenton and Baltimore, than from New-England. The number of emigrants from Pennsylvania, Maryland and New-Jersey, has been greatly on the increase, and custom has made the distance familiar. I have known several persons above sixty years of age, ride, with ease, in seven days from Baltimore to Bath. When they compare this with the difficulty of reaching the new settlements on the western waters, and the little value of produce there, the comparison is highly in favour of the Genesee.* Here they find the inhabitants enjoying more comforts and conveniences than is at this moment experienced in many settlements of twenty years standing. The most advantageous markets are courted, and recourse is had to them by such exertions, that men of respectability and property are drawn into the country, not only from the neighbouring States, but from Europe.