But only a small part of this territory was occupied.

Much of New York and Pennsylvania was savage wilderness.

Only the seacoast of Maine was inhabited, and the eighty-two thousand inhabitants of Georgia hugged the Savannah River.
Hardy pioneers had climbed the Alleghanies into Kentucky and Tennessee, but the Northwest Territory--comprising Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin--was not enumerated at all, so scanty were its people, perhaps not more than four thousand.
Though the First Census did not classify the population by occupation it is certain that nine-tenths of the breadwinners worked more or less upon the soil.

The remaining tenth were engaged in trade, transportation, manufacturing, fishing and included also the professional men, doctors, lawyers, clergymen, teachers, and the like.

In other words, nine out of ten of the population were engaged primarily in the production of food, an occupation which today engages less than three out of ten.