After taking in a supply of wood, we departed on the morning of the 13th, and the same day arrived at Franklin. This town, at present, increasing more rapidly than any other on the Missouri, had been commenced but two years and an half before the time of our journey. It then contained about one hundred and twenty log houses of one story, several framed dwellings of two stories, and two of brick, thirteen shops for the sale of merchandize, four taverns, two smiths' shops, two large team-mills, two billiard-rooms, a court-house, a log prison of two stories, a post-office, and a printing-press issuing a weekly paper. At this time bricks were sold at ten dollars per thousand, corn at twenty-five cents per bushel, wheat one dollar, bacon at twelve and a half cents per pound, uncleared lands from two to ten or fifteen dollars per acre. The price of labour was seventy-five cents per day. In 1816 thirty families only of whites, were settled on the left side of the Missouri, above Cote Sans Dessein. In three years, their numbers had increased to more than eight hundred families. The Missouri bottoms about Franklin are wide, and have the same prolific and inexhaustible soil as those below. The labour of one slave is here reckoned sufficient for the culture of twenty acres of Indian corn, and produces ordinarily about sixty bushels per acre, at a single crop. In the most fertile parts of Kentucky, fifteen acres of corn are thought to require the labour of one slave, and the crop being less abundant, we may reckon the products of agriculture there, at about one third part less than in the best lands on the Missouri. Franklin is the seat of {83} justice for Howard county. It stands on a low and recent alluvial plain, and has behind it a small stagnant creek. The bed of the river, near the shore, has been heretofore obstructed by sand-bars, which prevented large boats from approaching the town; whether this evil will increase or diminish, it is not possible to determine; such is the want of stability in every thing belonging to the channel of the Missouri. It is even doubtful whether the present site of Franklin will not, at some future day, be occupied by the river, which appears to be at this time encroaching on its bank. Similar changes have happened in the short period since the establishments of the first settlements on the Missouri. The site of St. Anthony, a town which existed about thirteen years since, near Bon Homme, is now occupied by the channel of the river. Opposite Franklin is Boonsville, containing, at the time of our visit, eight houses, but having, in some respects, a more advantageous situation, and probably destined to rival, if not surpass, its neighbour.[116]