[132] _Centennial Volume of the First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh, Pa._, 1784–1884, Pittsburgh, 1884, p. 28. [133] REV. WILLIAM M. PAXTON. _Two Discourses upon the Life and Character of the Rev. Francis Herron, D.D._, Pittsburgh, 1861, p. 28. [134] RICHARD MCNEMAR. _The Kentucky Revival_, Albany, 1808, pp. 9–72. [135] DAVID ELLIOTT. _The Life of the Rev. Elisha Macurdy_, Allegheny, 1848, pp. 55–78. [136] _Centennial Volume of the First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh, Pa._, 1784–1884, Pittsburgh, 1884, p. 32. CHAPTER V THE SEAT OF POWER The year 1800 ushered in more than a new century in Pittsburgh. It heralded the beginning of another era. The decade beginning with that year will ever be memorable in the annals of the city. During those ten years the foundation was laid on which the great industrial city was subsequently built. In 1800 the population of Pittsburgh was 1565, and in 1810 it had risen to 4768, an increase of 204 per centum, which was the greatest percentage of increase that has ever taken place in its history. This decade marked the dividing line between that which was obsolete and that which was newly-born. In 1803, Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of France, ceded to the United States the vast Louisiana Territory, whereby the area of this country was more than doubled, and commerce between Louisiana and Pittsburgh increased tremendously. As far back as 1791, Alexander Hamilton, the Secretary of the Treasury, had communicated to the House of Representatives his famous report of manufactures. In this far-away community, with coal at its doors, and iron in the near-by mountains, Hamilton’s new doctrine found willing disciples and industry had more than a beginning. Soon after the close of the Revolutionary War, iron ore was mined in the Juniata Valley, and furnaces and forges established, and bar iron and castings made. The iron was carried to Pittsburgh, partly on horseback, and partly by water, down the Conemaugh and Allegheny Rivers. Small shops for the manufacture of articles of iron were opened. Shortly afterward iron ore was also mined in the counties of Fayette and Westmoreland and furnaces and forges built and iron produced. The distance being shorter from Fayette and Westmoreland Counties than from the Juniata Valley, iron was thereafter brought to Pittsburgh only from the former districts. The iron shops increased in number. Coal was the pole star which lighted the way to their establishment. A writer who saw the advantages of Pittsburgh with the eyes of a Münchhausen, writing of the value of its coal, declared, that the blaze afforded “so strong a light, that in winter, ... neither tailors, or other mechanics burn candles.”[137]