There came also into Indiana and Illinois, from the border States and from as far south as North Carolina and Tennessee, a body of "poor whites." These semi-nomadic people, descendants of the colonial bond-servants, formed, in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, the lowest rank of Hoosiers.

But as early as 1845 there was a considerable exodus of these to Missouri.

From Pike County, in that State, they wended their way to California, to appear in Mr.Bret Harte's stories as "Pikes." The movement of this class out of Indiana went on with augmented volume in the fifties.

The emigrants of this period mostly sought the States lying just west of the Mississippi, and the poorer sort made the trip in little one-horse wagons of the sorriest description, laden mainly with white-headed children and followed by the yellow curs that are the one luxury indispensable to a family of this class.

To this migration and to a liberal provision for popular education Indiana owes a great improvement in the average intelligence of her people.