The pioneer days, with their fierce and squalid struggle for bare life, were over.

If men were willing to work, and escaped the Indians, they were sure to succeed in earning a comfortable livelihood in a country so rich.

"The neighbors are doing well in every sense of the word," wrote one Kentuckian to another, "they get children and raise crops." [Footnote: Draper MSS., Jonathan Clark Papers.

O'Fallen to Clark, Isles of Ohio, May 30, 1791.] Like all other successful and masterful people the Kentuckians fought well and bred well, and they showed by their actions their practical knowledge of the truth that no race can ever hold its own unless its members are able and willing to work hard with their hands.
Standard of Living.
The general prosperity meant rude comfort everywhere; and it meant a good deal more than rude comfort for the men of greatest ability.

By the time the river commerce had become really considerable, the rich merchants, planters, and lawyers had begun to build two-story houses of brick or stone, like those in which they had lived in Virginia.