[Footnote:  Shelby MSS., letter of Toulmin, January 7, 1794; Blount MSS., January 6, 1792, etc.] Where possible the leading families sent their sons to some Eastern college, Princeton being naturally the favorite institution of learning with people who dwelt in communities where the Presbyterians took the lead in social standing and cultivation. [Footnote:  Clay MSS., passim; letter to Thomas Hart, October 19, 1794; October 13, 1797, etc.  In the last letter, by the way, written by one John Umstead, occurs the following sentence:  “I have lately heard a piece of news, if true, must be a valuable acquisition to the Western World, viz. a boat of a considerable burden making four miles and a half an hour against the strongest current in the Mississippi river, and worked by horses.”]

  Currency. 
  Prices of Goods.

All through the West there was much difficulty in getting money.  In Tennessee particularly money was so scarce that the only way to get cash in hand was by selling provisions to the few Federal garrisons. [Footnote:  Do., Blount to Hart, Knoxville, March 13, 1799.] Credits were long, and payment made largely in kind; and the price at which an article could be sold under such conditions was twice as large as that which it would command for cash down.  In the accounts kept by the landowners with the merchants who sold them goods, and the artizans who worked for them, there usually appear credit accounts in which the amounts due on account of produce of various kinds are deducted from the debt, leaving a balance to be settled by cash and by orders.  Owing to the fluctuating currency, and to the wide difference in charges when immediate cash payments were received as compared with charges when the payments were made on credit and in kind, it is difficult to know exactly what the prices represent.  In Kentucky currency mutton and beef were fourpence a pound, in the summer of 1796, while four beef tongues cost three shillings, and a quarter of lamb three and a sixpence.  In 1798, on the same account, beef was down to threepence a pound. [Footnote:  Do., Account of James Morrison and Melchia Myer, October 12, 17098.] Linen cost two and fourpence, or three shillings a yard; flannel, four to six shillings; calico and chintz about the same; baize, three shillings and ninepence.  A dozen knives and forks were eighteen shillings, and ten pocket handkerchiefs two pounds.  Worsted shoes were eight shillings a pair, and buttons were a shilling a dozen.  A pair of gloves were three and ninepence; a pair of kid slippers, thirteen and sixpence; ribbons were one and sixpence. [Footnote:  Do., Account of Mrs. Marion Nicholas with Tillford, 1802.  On this bill appears also a charge for Hyson tea, for straw bonnets, at eighteen shillings; for black silk gloves, and for one “Aesop’s Fables,” at a cost of three shillings and ninepence.] The blacksmith charged six shillings and ninepence for a new pair of shoes, and a shilling and sixpence for taking off an old pair; and he did all the iron work for the farm and the house alike, from repairing bridle bits and sharpening coulters to mounting “wafil irons” [Footnote:  Do., Account of Morrison and Hickey, 1798.]—­for the housewives excelled in preparing delicious waffles and hot cakes.