If we think that the men of a hundred years ago were people with few wants, who were willing to let others do the trading and make the fortunes, we are quite in the wrong. They were as eager in business as are the driving Americans of to-day. So long ago as 1683 Thomas Dongan, a well-born Irishman, came to New York to be its governor. In his letters to the government in London he said a great deal about the fur trade and the danger of its going to other cities. Once he reported that two hundred packs of beaver skins had gone down the Susquehanna river and across to Philadelphia instead of being brought by the Mohawk to New York, and he thought that if this traffic continued New York would be ruined. As time went on the rivalry grew stronger and stronger. All the cities on the coast were bidding for the western trade. The “West” was then the Genesee country, the plains along the Lakes, and the rich lands of the Ohio valley. Some of the trade from the Lakes and the Genesee went down the St. Lawrence. Heavy articles especially were sent to Quebec, while lighter freight was taken overland down the Mohawk. When De Witt Clinton was stirring up the legislature and the people of New York, he told them he was very sorry to learn that merchandise from Montreal was sold in the state for less than New York prices. This was because there was transportation by water from Montreal, and the St. Lawrence merchants could afford to undersell those of New York. Many people thought that the wheat and flour and other products of western New York would all go down the Susquehanna to Baltimore and Philadelphia. Rough boats known as “arks” were built and floated down the river in the high water caused by the melting of the snows in the Allegheny highlands. From two to five hundred barrels of flour were carried in one of these craft. As the boats could not be sailed up the river, they were taken to pieces at the end of the voyage and sold for lumber. We have already seen that Colonel Rochester followed this valley in migrating to the Genesee river, and one writer calls attention to the fact that in seven days several elderly people had come quite comfortably by this route from Baltimore to Bath in the southwestern part of New York. One could now travel from San Francisco to New York and almost halfway across the Atlantic ocean in that time.