From Pennsylvania the sect spread chiefly westward, and, after various vicissitudes, caused by defections and divisions due to doctrinal differences, in 1908 were most numerous in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas and North Dakota.
It flows first east-north-east and then nearly east until it passes into North Dakota.
The greater part of the James River Valley lies in the bed of the extinct Lake Dakota, which was once a very narrow body of water extending northward from about the latitude of the present town of Mitchell for a short distance into what is now North Dakota.
To the west of this stream and almost parallel with it is the James or Dakota river, which rises in North Dakota and follows a general course southward until it joins the Missouri river near Yankton.
The railway mileage of Dakota in 1870 (before the present states of South and North Dakota were erected) was only 75 m., and in 1880, 1225 m.
