Depopulation Of Virginia

Depopulation of Virginia - A correspondent of the National Intelligencer, writing from Wilton, near Richmond, Va. says. - It often seems to me that as yet there are no people here, and I wish, therefore. to see the house of my neighbors, they are so far off, and yet so near am I to a capital of about 24,000 inhabitants that I can see its spires and steeples, and almost hear the hum of its laborers. Back of me and below me, off the river as as I have explored, I cannot find much but woods, woods, woods. I ride for miles and miles in the forest, looking for people. - And yet this he first settled and oldest settled part of Virginia! The people have gone off; they have settled in Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida: and now as if there were too many people left, a bribe is held out to the rest to go to Texas! It is a shame that this beautiful country, so blessed in climate, and so little needing only the fertilizing hand of man, should be without people. Here is a venerable river running past my door, older than the Hudson, which is now lined with towns and villages - much older than the Ohio, older in settlement and geography I mean, but where are the people? For a hundred and fifty miles from Richmond to Norfolk, the first explored river running into the Atlantic ocean, the home of Powhatan ans the scenes of the truly chivalrous John Smith, - where are the people? Gone, I say, to the South and West; the trumpet is blowing among them now to got to Texas! Virginia has here depopulated herself to make home elsewhere.