inent articles of produce arriving at Buffalo in that year, they were There were exported from Black Rock and Buffalo, by canal, in 1847, 710,943 tons, principally the products of field and forest, of the regions bordering upon the western lakes. The total value of imports of Buffalo from the lakes, in 1846, was ascertained and estimated to amount to nearly $20,000,000. In the same year, there arrived at Buffalo, via the Erie Canal, the great bulk of which was shipped to the west, 153,761 tons of merchandise and other property, valued at $23,199,665. The monied value of the business of Buffalo and Black Rock, done on the Erie Canal, and which came from and went on to the lakes, was $40,000,000. The amount of capital invested in all descriptions of vessels upon the upper lakes in 1846, was not far from $6,000,000. The number of men employed in lake commerce, about 6,000. The number of passengers arriving and departing from Buffalo, in 1846, was not far from 250,000. SAMUEL WILKESON. The excellent portrait of Judge Wilkeson, which the artist has furnished for this work, accompanied by a brief biographical sketch, has been appropriately reserved as an appendage to a branch of our narrative, with which, it has been seen, he was closely identified. When the period arrives in which the gratitude of those who are enjoying in so eminent a degree the fruits of the labors, the indomitable enterprise and perseverance, of the early pioneers and fathers of the City of the Lakes, shall assume the active form of some enduring testimonial, conspicuous upon the tablet they erect, will be the name of Samuel Wilkeson. Judge Wilkeson was born at Carlisle, Pa. in 1781. To say that he was cradled and nurtured amid the hardships of pioneer border life, would not be merely a figure of speech. When but an infant, his father's family was one of twenty families that penetrated the forests of Western Pennsylvania, and encountered not only the usual privations of the wilderness, but the long series of Indian border wars that ensued. He became a resident upon the Holland Purchase in 1807, at Portland, Chautauque county, where he engaged in the salt trade; transporting his salt over a portage to Chautauque lake, and down the Allegany and Ohio rivers. This early enterprise probably ended in loss, as the opening of the Kanawa salt works occurred while he had upon his hands salt that had cost him §16 per barrel. He continued at Portland until towards the close of the war of 1812, when he became a citizen of Buffalo, commencing trade in a small way upon the present site of the .Kremlin Block on Main street. Becoming thus identified by residence and interest, with the locality, he was, for thirty-four years, during the progress of village and city, an active and prominent helper in all that concerned their welfare. In long seasons of severe controversy, during the rivalship of localities, he was prominently a champion of Buffalo and its interests. There were "giants in the land," even in those early days; with some of whom it was his province to contend; and with what success, many of that day will well remember. The triumphs in which he bore a conspicuous part, are prominent features in the history of a prosperous city, whose early cause he espoused with all the ardent zeal and native strength of mind which formed the distinguished characteristics of the man. The prominent early Pioneers of the Holland Purchase were, with few exceptions, all self-made men; it has been a region where strong men have wrestled with adversity from early life, been the founders of their own fortunes from humble beginnings, and signally triumphed. Distinguished even among such men, his early cotemporaries, was the subject of this sketch. The various offices he filled during a long and active life, were those of Justice of the Peace, Member of Assembly, Judge, Senator, and Mayor of the city of his residence. Retiring, in a great measure, from an active political life, with an ample fortune, he engaged early in the great scheme of benevolence embraced in the organization of the American Colonization Society. That, and the interests of a religion and a church he had zealously espoused at a late period in life, engrossed a large share of his time and his mind, during his latter years. This early Pioneer of the Holland Purchase, conspicuous among |