Steamboats had been plying on western waters in increasing numbers since 1811. By 1823, one had gone as far north on the Mississippi as Fort Snelling, while by 1832 the Missouri had been ascended to Fort Union. In the thirties an extensive packet service gathered its passengers and freight at Pittsburg and other points on the Ohio, carrying them by a devious voyage of 1400 miles to Keokuk, near the southeast corner of the new Black Hawk lands. Wagons and cattle, children and furniture, crowded the decks of the boats. The aristocrats of emigration rode in the cabins provided for them, but the great majority of home seekers lived on deck and braved the elements upon the voyage. Explosions, groundings, and collisions enlivened the reckless river traffic. But in 1836 Governor Dodge found more than 22,000 inhabitants in his new territory of Wisconsin, most of whom had reached the promised land by way of the river. For those whom the long river journey did not please, or who lived inland in Ohio or Indiana, the national road was a help. In 1825 the continuation of the Cumberland Road through Ohio had been begun. By 1836 enough of it was done to direct the overland course of migration through Indianapolis towards central Illinois. The Conestoga wagon, which had already done its share in crossing the Alleghanies, now carried a second generation to the Mississippi. At Dubuque and Buffalo and Burlington ferries were established before 1836 to take the immigrants across the Mississippi into the new West. By the terms of its treaty, the Black Hawk purchase was to be vacated by the Indians in the summer of 1833. Before that year closed, its settlement had begun, despite the fact that the government surveys had not yet been made. Here, as elsewhere, the frontier farmer paid little regard to the legal basis of his life. He settled upon unoccupied lands as he needed them, trusting to the public opinion of the future to secure his title.