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Title: Address to the people of Ireland regarding emigration to the U.S.A.
ID3923
CollectionIrish Emigration Database
File1821-30/13
Year1821
SenderNote to potential Irish emigrants I
Sender Genderunknown
Sender Occupationunknown
Sender Religionunknown
OriginUSA
Destinationunknown
Recipientunknown
Recipient Genderunknown
Relationshipre emigration
SourceThe Irishman, 6th July 1821
ArchiveThe Linenhall Library, N. Ireland.
Doc. No.9407290
Date06/07/1821
Partial Date
Doc. TypeEMG
LogDocument added by LT, 19:07:1994.
Word Count1473
Genre
Note
TranscriptTO THE INHABITANTS OF IRELAND
WHO MAY BE DESIROUS OF EMIGRATING TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A number of the inhabitants of Western Pennsylvania,
many of them formerly from different parts of Europe,
having taken into consideration the embarrassments and
difficulties to which emigrants are often exposed on
their arrival here, for want of advice and assistance,
have formed themselves into an association under the
name of the "Western Pennsylvania Emigrant Society".
The object of this Society is to give gratis to the new
emigrants on their arrival here, all the assistance which
it may be in the power of the Society to grant, in
procuring employment for such emigrants, locating
them to their best advantage, according to their
different situations, trades or occupations; in directing
them in a judicious choice of the lands they may wish
to purchase; in procuring these for them on the most
advantageous terms; and in rendering to such emigrants
all such services in establishing themselves as they may
stand in need of
A committee of correspondence has been established by
our society, with directions to make you acquainted
with this portion of the United States, and the advantages
it offers to new emigrants; and to point out to you a
few errors into which emigrants, arriving from Europe,
are apt to fall, on their arrival in this country.
The United States of America offer advantages to emigrants
which are not to be found in Europe or in any
other quater of the globe. Enjoying a nearly total
exemption from taxation, the whole of the revenue
of its inhabitants ensures to their own use, and
every emigrant who settles here can, by industry and
economy, not only amply provide for the wants and
comforts of his family, but render himself independent;
provided he takes care in the first instant of making
a proper choice of a place where to establish himself.
It is a too common error in which emigrants fall,
to settle in our large cities on the sea coast, or in
a thick settled country in their vicinity. By doing so,
they deprive themselves of one of the chief advantages
which America offers to Europeans, and which arises
from the vast excess of the lands to be cultivated
over the number of cultivators. Our cities and the
country adjacent posesses already a redundant
population; hence the farmer, the labourer, or the artizan,
who endeavours to establish himself there, has a powerful
competition to encounter, and the new emigrant finds
too often that the means, which his journey has left him,
became exhausted before he can procure employment;
while the high price to which property has risen there,
leaves no prospect to such emigrant of ever becioming
a proprietor, unless he can bring vast means with
him; whereas, by moving on immediately to the
western country, where an excess of lands and a
less abundant population creates a demand for labour,
he would find the certainty of obtaining employment, not
only sufficient for the support of himself and his
family, but such as in a few years, with the exertions
of industry and economy, would render him the
independent proprietor of property amply sufficient for
his and their support. In the western country, not only
the labours of the field, but those belonging to all the
mechanical trades and occupations are in great demand.
The emigrant, therefore, should, immediately on his
arrival move on to the western country; but in doing
so, he should avoid another error, in which too many
others have fallen, by moving too far to the south and
west, down the Ohio and Mississippi and their tributory
streams. Not only that but the length of
the journey tends to exhaust too much the means
of many of the new emigrants, means which are
essential to his welfare in procuring him cattle,
implements, and the means of subsistence for
his family while his improvements are
but this southern portion of the United States is subject
to other objections. It has but one market, and
that a very distant one, viz. New Orleans, which
being situated in a very hot and moist climate,
is calculated to spoil any country produce which
is stored there for any length of time, and neither
the consumption, the trade, nor the capitals of that
city are to be compared to those of the great
commercial emporiums of the middle states. -
Hence the country produce raised to the south west
will always go to a bad market, and the
cultivator will never be able to dispose of it
to the same advantage as those whose export trade
is to New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. But
the last objection to a settlement in the south
western parts of the United States is the most
formidable. The climate of that country is inimical
to men from more northern countries. These are
subject here to agues, fevers, and bilious disorders,
which, though they may not always, perhaps not
often, prove immediately fatal, yet they serve
to undermine the constitution, brings on premature
old age, and at all events, as these siege on the
emigrant during the first years of his residence,
they deprive him and his family of the powers of
excerting themselves in the very commencement of their
new settlement, when all their excertions are most
wanted to clear up their farms and provide for their
support. Hence many are plunged into a state of
want and poverty from which it takes them years
to recover.
The principal requistes which the emigrant should
look to, in determining the place of his future
residence, are - a healthy climate; good water; a
large extent of fruitful land not too thickly
settled, and a good market. Now, an experience
of more than twenty years makes us assert with
confidence, that no portion of the United States unites
all these advantages in a higher degree, than the
western parts of Pennsylvania. The counties of
Crawford, Mercer, Erie, Venango and Warren,
bounded on the north by Lake Erie and the State
of New York, on the west by the State of Ohio, and
having the beautiful Alleghany river on the east,
contain a body of interrupted good land, equalled
by few, and perhaps surpassed by no district of
equal extent in the United States. Situated
between the 41st and 42nd degree of north latitude,
the climate is delightful and perfectly healthy. It
requires no seasoning here to habituate the emigrants
to the climate; and those agues, and fevers, and other
bilious disorders to which settlers in the more
southern, and even some of the more northern new
settlements have always been subject, have been
totally unknown here since the first settlement of
ther country. This country is better watered than any
other part of the United States that we are acquainted
with. Besides the Alleghany, the French Creek, and the
Shenango and their tributary streams, the springs and
small rivulets are so numerous, that but few farms
of one hundred acres can be found that are not
provided with a spring or rivulet of the best and
most wholesome water during the whole year. The
European emigrant can cultivate here with success
all the grains, fruits, and grasses to which he has
been accustomed in his own country, while the
climate is warm enough to bring here many products
to perfection to which the climate of Ireland is
not conjenial; such as the Indian corn, the peach
in open field culture, the melons, pumkins, etc. all
of which are raised here in the greatest abundance,
and to the greatest advantage. As a grass country,
calculated for the raising of cattle, this portion of
Pennsylvania is perhaps unrivalled in the United States.
Our local advantages are also great. By means
of our communication with Lake Erie, we have an easy
water communication with the vast extent of country
on the upper lakes, and with the Montreal and New
York markets, and our communication with this
last city (the great emporium of American commerce)
will be still further immensely facilitated, when
the great Western Canal shall have been completed,
which, from the progress already made in that
stupendous work, is confidently expected to be
about the yeasr 1824 or 1825. We shall then be
enabled to carry the most bulky our country
produce to an advantageous market at a cheap
and safe rate. To the east we are connected with
the cities of Philadelphia and Baltimore by turnpike
roads, which are now constructing through this country,
and which will probably be completed in the year 1821;
and to the south we have an easy and cheap water
communication with Pittsburgh or New Orleans, and the
intermediate cities, by means of the French Creek, the
Alleghany river, the Ohio, and Mississippi.
(To be concluded in our next.)