15 - The Structure of Historic Communities

Abstract

This chapter presents a model of land purchasing strategies through time. In the model, environmental variables were weighed against social variables such as kinship and marriage ties, and these in turn were weighed against other variables such as logistics and mobility. Data consisted of land purchases by the Smith siblings, the Mappins, and the McKameys, all of whom immigrated to the middle Salt River area during the 1820s. The Smith settlement, paralleling the Mt. Prairie settlement, never contained a commercial center. During the 1820s, the nearest distribution points for goods and services were New London and Palmyra, well to the east and northeast of the project area. In the 1830s, after the founding of Paris to the west and Florida to the east, it became much easier to get needed supplies. The decisions about land purchases in and around the Smith settlement involved five considerations: (1) tree density, (2) proximity to the prairie–timber boundary, (3) soil fertility, (4) distance to kin, and (5) compactness of landholdings.