The greater number of immigrants came by water, but a family too poor to travel thus, or whose starting-point was not near a navigable stream, could come overland. Illinois was favored by having a number of large rivers leading toward it; the Ohio, Kentucky, Cumberland, Tennessee, and their tributaries were much used by emigrants. The chief route by land was the Wilderness Road, over which thousands of the inhabitants of Kentucky had come. Its existence helps to explain the wonderful growth of Kentucky--in 1774 the first cabin, in 1790 a population of 73,000. It crossed the mountains at Cumberland Gap, wound its way by the most convenient course to Crab Orchard, and was early extended to the Falls of the Ohio and later to Vincennes and St. Louis. The legislature of Kentucky provided, in 1795, that the road from Cumberland Gap to Crab Orchard should be made perfectly commodious and passable for wagons carrying a weight of one ton, and appropriated two thousand pounds for the work. Two years later five hundred dollars were appropriated for the repair of the road, and the highway was made a turnpike with prescribed toll, although it did not become such a road as the word turnpike suggests.(211)
A traveler of 1807 described the river craft of the period. The smallest kind in use was a simple log canoe. This was followed by the pirogue, which was a larger kind of canoe and sufficiently strong and capacious to carry from twelve to fifteen barrels of salt. Skiffs were built of all sizes, from five hundred to twenty thousand pounds burden, and batteaux were the same as the larger skiffs, being indifferently known by either name. Kentucky boats were strong frames of an oblong form, varying in size from twenty to fifty feet in length and from ten to fourteen in breadth, were sided and roofed, and guided by huge oars. New Orleans boats resembled Kentucky boats, but were larger and stronger and had arched roofs. The largest could carry four hundred and fifty barrels of flour. Keel boats were generally built from forty to eighty feet in length and from seven to nine feet in width. The largest required one man to steer and two to row in descending the Ohio, and would carry about one hundred barrels of salt; but to ascend the stream, at least six or eight men were required to make any considerable progress. A barge would carry from four thousand to sixty thousand pounds, and required four men, besides the helmsman, to descend the river, while to return with a load from eight to twelve men were required.(212)