At Louisville, for instance, there were already a number of two-story frame houses, neatly painted, with verandahs running the full length of each house, and fenced vegetable gardens alongside [Footnote: "Lettres d'un cultivateur american," St.John de Creve Coeur.
Summer of 1784.]; while at the same time Nashville was a town of logs, with but two houses that deserved the name, the others being mere huts.
[Footnote: Brantz.] The population of Louisville amounted to about 300 souls, of whom 116 were fighting men [Footnote: State Department MSS.
Papers Continental Congress, No.

150, vol.ii., p.21.Letter from Major W.North, August 23, 1786.]; between it and Lexington the whole country was well settled; but fear of the Indians kept settlers back from the Ohio.
The new-comers were mainly Americans from all the States of the Union; but there were also a few people from nearly every country in Europe, and even from Asia.

[Footnote: Letter in _Massachusetts Gazette_, above quoted.] The industrious and the adventurous, the homestead winners and the land speculators, the criminal fleeing from justice, and the honest man seeking a livelihood or a fortune, all alike prized the wild freedom and absence of restraint so essentially characteristic of their new life; a life in many ways very pleasant, but one which on the border of the Indian country sank into mere savagery.
Kentucky was "a good poor man's country" [Footnote: State Department MSS.

Madison Papers.

Caleb Wallace to Madison, July 12, 1785.] provided the poor man was hardy and vigorous.