<<One must remember that each small community formed a local economy, there were grain mills where corn and wheat could be sold and turned into meal and flour, sawmills where logs were made into lumber, blacksmith shops which used locally produced "pig iron", wagon and stagecoach factories, shoemakers, spinners and weavers..all of them turning raw materials into finished products for local people..>> But I have always been told that the early frontier was a barter economy or used a commodity currency, e.g. tobacco or corn. Or salt. I know furs brought a good price and were light enough to transport to the major markets. Iron, etc. could not. I don't see corn being shipped cost effectively. Wheat maybe. There would be foreign markets for it. I'm guessing because like I said I have never seen anything in writing. Thanks, eddie "Toto, I don't think we are in NH any more."