Settlement Along the River Valleys
Davis on how civilization travels upriver while wealth flows down — a law our ancestors observed.
Dim the room and read in the nook. Tap the lamp inside for ambient music — your header playlist keeps playing separately.
The settlement of new countries is governed by a law as well-defined as that of commerce or finance. From the time the human family first went abroad to found colonies down to the present day, civilization has traveled up the valleys of rivers and their tributaries, while the wealth, developed by labor and capital, has as invariably flowed down these same valleys to the sea.
This law was observed by our ancestors. Planting themselves upon the Delaware, they pushed their settlements up its tributaries into the interior of the county.
Public domain. W.W.H. Davis, History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania (1876). Digitized by Internet Archive.