debt, and he died soon after the expiration of his term as governor.

In the distressed days of the Confederation, business was dull, the good money went abroad, and financial disaster did not seem far from any one. With the adoption of the constitution came immediate prosperity. Thus the exports of flour from Philadelphia were, in 1786, one hundred and fifty thousand barrels; in 1787, two hundred and two thousand barrels; in 1788, two hundred and twenty thousand barrels, and in 1789, three hundred and sixty-nine thousand barrels. As usual, agricultural prosperity stimulated all others, and manufactories and money-making schemes of all kinds, many of them speculative, grew in number and consequence. Lotteries flourished apace. There was one to improve the City Hall of Philadelphia, another to aid Dickinson College, another, of large proportions, to develop the city of Washington. The idea extended to private affairs. To make the most out of a decedent's effects, people would be asked to put in small equal sums, and the tickets thus purchased would draw articles of more or less value.

In 1791 the country was full of prosperity. The State debts were cleared away, and, to a certain extent, State taxation. Hamilton's measures were showing that the national debt was manageable. The old revolutionary promises were being paid off, and many people who had considered them as valueless found themselves in possession of ready money, or interest-bearing notes, and this money largely went into lotteries for all manner of improvements in State, church, and school. Some wise men pointed to the inevitably disappointed hopes, the withdrawal of people from useful industries, and that the burdens would fall on the poor. In time they were heard, and the States began to circumscribe the traffic, but now it bloomed in every hamlet.

There were also legitimate enterprises. One of these was the Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike. A number of gentlemen organized the company, and in 1792 the books were opened to the public. As over two thousand subscribers appeared, where only six hundred were permitted, the suc

cessful ones were chosen by lot. The land was condemned, and the road-bed prepared, but the Americans did not know how to make stone roads. They hauled in great rocks and undertook to fill the interstices. But this settled unevenly, and the road became almost impassable. An Englishman, who had known of Macadam's road, advised the general breaking of the rocks, and the Lancaster Pike became under his management the finest road in America, and the pride of the State.

Taverns lined it a few miles apart. Soon the great, white, covered Conestoga wagons began to travel to and fro, bringing in the farm produce of the west, and returning, though largely empty, with supplies for the farmers. It was a busy highway in the days before the railway.

The Schuylkill Canal also dates back to this plethoric epoch. It was over-subscribed six times when the books were opened. Other canals were projected in every direction.

These were the days also of the early serious attempts to apply steam to boats. John Fitch, a precursor of Fulton, a native of Connecticut, who had made Pennsylvania his home, began experimenting with the problem, and in 1786 he exhibited on the Delaware the first boat ever propelled by steam. He went on improving his machinery, and the assembly granted him exclusive rights to navigate the waters of the State. In 1790 the boat ran from Philadelphia to Burlington against the wind in three and one-fourth hours, and made regular trips through the summer, making sometimes seven miles an hour, but discouraged by a variety of failures, he sealed up his papers and gave them to the Philadelphia Library, with instructions not to open them for thirty years, went to Kentucky, and killed himself. His boat went to wreck on Petty's Island, and rotted away.

To the same date belongs the first attempt to mine anthracite coal. It is said that a hunter falling down a steep bank, above what is now Mauch Chunk, found a great black stone, which was sent to Philadelphia, and pronounced excellent coal. A company was formed, which bought up Summit

Hill and its neighborhood, and went to work. It was not at first successful, for other fuel was plentiful.

Nor was all the energy directed into these material channels. Periodicals started into existence in numbers hitherto unknown. Daily, weekly, and monthly papers and magazines, mostly short-lived, were used for political and other purposes, and sprung up in every town of consequence. In 1790 the Methodists and Universalists originated Sundayschool organizations in Pennsylvania, and a year later Dr. Benjamin Rush formed a society in which ten dollars gave life membership to develop a system of non-sectarian Sunday-schools, in which hundreds of children were taught to read and write. The association still exists under the title of the First Day or Sunday-school Association. An attempt was also made at this time to establish week-day schools throughout the State supported by taxes, but it was premature. The old College of Philadelphia and the new university were joined in 1791, and became the University of Pennsylvania. Franklin College in Lancaster, chartered in 1787, was beginning to be used by the Germans, as Dickinson was by the Presbyterians. The academies which grew into Washington and Jefferson Colleges, in the southwestern part of the State, date to the same period. Academies endowed

with State grants were started at Philadelphia, Germantown, Pittsburg, Reading, and elsewhere. A little later the Friends established their boarding-school at Westtown, in Chester County.

Population was increasing, families were large, and the migratory habits of the people were developing. The elements of the population were mixing. Quakers settled among the Presbyterians of the west, and the German districts became penetrable by others. Thus the State was growing in homogeneity and friendly feelings. In 1790 the census of Pennsylvania showed four hundred and thirtyfour thousand three hundred and seventy-three people; in 1800, six hundred and two thousand three hundred and sixty-five, second only to Virginia.

But in Philadelphia a dark event was to cloud this pros