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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41030 ***
+
+HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF AMERICA
+
+VOLUME 12
+
+
+
+
+  HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF AMERICA
+  VOLUME 12
+
+  Pioneer Roads and
+  Experiences of Travelers
+  (Volume II)
+
+  BY
+  ARCHER BUTLER HULBERT
+
+  _With Maps_
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+  THE ARTHUR H. CLARK COMPANY
+  CLEVELAND, OHIO
+  1904
+
+
+
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1904
+  BY
+  THE ARTHUR H. CLARK COMPANY
+
+  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                            PAGE
+  PREFACE                                      9
+    I. THE OLD NORTHWESTERN TURNPIKE          13
+   II. A JOURNEY IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA         43
+  III. A PILGRIM ON BRADDOCK'S ROAD           64
+   IV. THE GENESEE ROAD                       95
+    V. A TRAVELER ON THE GENESEE ROAD        117
+   VI. THE CATSKILL TURNPIKE                 143
+  VII. WITH DICKENS ALONG PIONEER ROADS      164
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+    I. PART OF A "MAP OF THE ROUTE BETWEEN ALBANY AND OSWEGO"
+        (drawn about 1756; from original in British Museum)         97
+
+   II. PART OF A "MAP OF THE GRAND PASS FROM NEW YORK TO
+        MONTREAL ... BY THOMAS POWNALL" (drawn about 1756;
+        from original in the British Museum)                       113
+
+  III. WESTERN NEW YORK IN 1809                                    123
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+This volume is devoted to two great lines of pioneer movement, one
+through northern Virginia and the other through central New York. In the
+former case the Old Northwestern Turnpike is the key to the situation,
+and in the latter the famous Genesee Road, running westward from Utica,
+was of momentous importance.
+
+A chapter is given to the Northwestern Turnpike, showing the movement
+which demanded a highway, and the legislative history which created it.
+Then follow two chapters of travelers' experiences in the region
+covered. One of these is given to the _Journal of Thomas Wallcutt_
+(1790) through northern Virginia and central Pennsylvania. Another
+chapter presents no less vivid descriptions from quite unknown travelers
+on the Virginian roads.
+
+The Genesee Road is presented in chapter four as a legislative
+creation; the whole history of this famous avenue would be practically a
+history of central New York. To give the more vivid impression of
+personal experience a chapter is devoted to a portion of Thomas
+Bigelow's _Tour to Niagara Falls 1805_ over the Genesee Road in its
+earliest years, when the beautiful cities which now lie like a string of
+precious gems across this route were just springing into existence. For
+a chapter on the important "Catskill Turnpike," which gives much
+information of road-building in central New York, we are indebted to
+Francis Whiting Halsey's _The Old New York Frontier_.
+
+The final chapter of the volume includes a number of selections from the
+spicy, brilliant descriptions of pioneer traveling in America which
+Dickens left in his _American Notes_, and a few pages describing an
+early journey on Indian trails in Missouri from Charles Augustus
+Murray's _Travels in North America_.
+
+                                                              A. B. H.
+
+MARIETTA, OHIO, January 26, 1904.
+
+
+
+
+Pioneer Roads and Experiences of Travelers
+
+(Volume II)
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE OLD NORTHWESTERN TURNPIKE
+
+
+We have treated of three historic highways in this series of monographs
+which found a way through the Appalachian uplift into the Mississippi
+Basin--Braddock's, Forbes's, and Boone's roads and their successors.
+There were other means of access into that region. One, of which
+particular mention is to be made in this volume, dodged the mountains
+and ran around to the lakes by way of the Mohawk River and the Genesee
+country. Various minor routes passed westward from the heads of the
+Susquehanna--one of them becoming famous as a railway route, but none
+becoming celebrated as roadways. From central and southern Virginia,
+routes, likewise to be followed by trunk railway lines, led onward
+toward the Mississippi Basin, but none, save only Boone's track, became
+of prime importance.
+
+But while scanning carefully this mountain barrier, which for so long a
+period held back civilization on the Atlantic seaboard, there is found
+another route that was historic and deserves mention as influencing the
+westward movement of America. It was that roadway so well known
+three-fourths of a century ago as the Old Northwestern Turnpike, leading
+from Winchester, Virginia, to the Ohio River at Parkersburg, Virginia,
+now West Virginia, at the mouth of the Little Kanawha.
+
+The earliest history of this route is of far more interest than
+importance, for the subject takes us back once more to Washington's
+early exploits and we feel again the fever of his wide dreams of
+internal communications which should make the Virginia waterways the
+inlet and outlet of all the trade of the rising West. It has been
+elsewhere outlined how the Cumberland Road was the actual resultant of
+Washington's hopes and plans. But it is in place in a sketch of the Old
+Northwestern Turnpike to state that Washington's actual plan of making
+the Potomac River all that the Erie Canal and the Cumberland Road
+became was never even faintly realized. His great object was
+attained--but not by means of his partisan plans.
+
+It is very difficult to catch the exact old-time spirit of rivalry which
+existed among the American colonies and which always meant jealousy and
+sometimes bloodshed. In the fight between Virginia officers in Forbes's
+army in 1758 over the building of a new road through Pennsylvania to
+Fort Duquesne, instead of following Braddock's old road, is an historic
+example of this intense rivalry. A noted example, more easily explained,
+was the conflict and perennial quarrel between the Connecticut and
+Pennsylvania pioneers within the western extremity of the former
+colony's technical boundaries. That Washington was a Virginian is made
+very plain in a thousand instances in his life; and many times it is
+emphasized in such a way as must seem odd to all modern Americans. At a
+stroke of a pen he shows himself to be the broadest of Americans in his
+classic Letter to Benjamin Harrison, 1784; in the next sentence he is
+urging Virginia to look well to her laurels lest New York, through the
+Hudson and Mohawk, and Pennsylvania, through the Susquehanna and
+Juniata, do what Virginia ought to do through her Potomac.
+
+The powerful appeal made in this letter was the result of a journey of
+Washington's in the West which has not received all the attention from
+historians it perhaps deserves. This was a tour made in 1784 in the
+tangled mountainous region between the heads of the branches of the
+Potomac and those of the Monongahela.[1] Starting on his journey
+September 1, Washington intended visiting his western lands and
+returning home by way of the Great Kanawha and New Rivers, in order to
+view the connection which could be made there between the James and
+Great Kanawha Valleys. Indian hostilities, however, made it unwise for
+him to proceed even to the Great Kanawha, and the month was spent in
+northwestern Virginia.
+
+On the second, Washington reached Leesburg, and on the third, Berkeley;
+here, at his brother's (Colonel Charles Washington's) he met a number
+of persons including General Morgan. "... one object of my journey
+being," his _Journal_ reads, "to obtain information of the nearest and
+best communication between the Eastern & Western Waters; & to facilitate
+as much as in me lay the Inland Navigation of the Potomack; I conversed
+a good deal with Gen^l. Morgan on this subject, who said, a plan was in
+contemplation to extend a Road from Winchester to the Western Waters, to
+avoid if possible an interference with any other State." It is to be
+observed that this was a polite way of saying that the road in
+contemplation must be wholly in Virginia, which was the only state to be
+"interfered" with or be benefited. "But I could not discover,"
+Washington adds, "that Either himself, or others, were able to point it
+out with precision. He [Morgan] seemed to have no doubt but that the
+Counties of Freder^k., Berkeley & Hampshire would contribute freely
+towards the extension of the Navigation of Potomack; as well as towards
+opening a Road from East to West."
+
+It should be observed that the only route across the mountains from
+northwestern Virginia to the Ohio River was Braddock's Road; for this
+road Washington was a champion in 1758, as against the central route
+Forbes built straight west from Bedford to Fort Duquesne.[2] Then,
+however, Braddock's Road, and even Fort Duquesne, was supposed to lie in
+Virginia. But when the Pennsylvania boundaries were fully outlined it
+was found that Braddock's Road lay in Pennsylvania. Washington now was
+seeking a new route to the West which would lie wholly in Virginia. The
+problem, historically, presents several interesting points which cannot
+be expanded here. Suffice it to say that Washington was the valiant
+champion of Braddock's Road until he found it lay wholly in Maryland and
+Pennsylvania.
+
+Gaining no satisfaction from his friends at Berkeley, Washington pushed
+on to one Captain Stroad's, out fourteen odd miles on the road to Bath.
+"I held much conversation with him," the traveler records of his visit
+at Stroad's, "the result ... was,--that there are two Glades which go
+under the denomination of the Great glades--one, on the Waters of
+Yohiogany, the other on those of Cheat River; & distinguished by the
+name of the Sandy Creek Glades.--that the Road to the first goes by the
+head of Patterson's Creek[3]--that from the acc^{ts}. he has had of it,
+it is rough; the distance he knows not.--that there is a way to the
+Sandy Creek Glades from the great crossing of Yohiogany (or Braddocks
+Road) [Smithfield, Pennsylvania] & a very good one; ..." At the town of
+Bath Washington met one Colonel Bruce who had traversed the country
+between the North Branch (as that tributary of the Potomac was widely
+known) and the Monongahela. "From Col^o. Bruce ... I was informed that
+he had travelled from the North Branch of Potomack to the Waters of
+Yaughiogany, and Monongahela--that the Potom^k. where it may be made
+Navigable--for instance where McCulloughs path crosses it, 40 Miles
+above the old fort [Cumberland], is but about 6 Miles to a pretty large
+branch of the Yohiogany ...--that the Waters of Sandy Creek which is a
+branch of cheat River, which is a branch of Monongahela, interlocks with
+these; and the Country between, flat--that he thinks (in order to ev^d.
+[evade] passing through the State of Pennsylvania) this would be an
+eligible Road using the ten Miles C^k. with a portage to the Navigable
+Waters of the little Kanhawa; ..."
+
+This was the basis of Washington's plan of internal communication from
+Potomac; he now pressed forward to find if it were possible to connect
+the Youghiogheny and North Branch of the Potomac, the Youghiogheny and
+Monongahela, and the Monongahela and Little Kanawha. Of course the plan
+was impossible, but the patient man floundered on through the foothills
+and mountains over what was approximately the course mentioned, the
+"McCullough's Path" and Sandy Creek route from the Potomac to the
+Monongahela. In his explorations he found and traversed one of the
+earliest routes westward through this broken country immediately south
+of the well known resorts, Oakland and Deer Park, on the Baltimore and
+Ohio Railway. This was the "McCullough's" Path already mentioned. Having
+ascended the Monongahela River from near Brownsville, Pennsylvania,
+Washington, on September 24, arrived at a surveyor's office (the home of
+one Pierpoint) eight miles southward along the dividing ridge between
+the Monongahela and Cheat Rivers.[4] On the twenty-fifth--after a
+meeting with various inhabitants of the vicinity--he went plunging
+eastward toward the North Branch of the Potomac "along the New Road
+[which intersected Braddock's Road east of Winding Ridge] to Sandy
+Creek; & thence by McCullochs path to Logstons [on the North Branch of
+the Potomac] and accordingly set of [off] before Sunrise. Within 3 Miles
+I came to the river Cheat ab^t. 7 Miles from its Mouth--.... The Road
+from Morgan Town or Monongahela C^t. House, is said to be good to this
+ferry [Ice's]--distance ab^{t}. 6 Miles[5] ... from the ferry the
+Laurel Hill[6] is assended ... along the top of it the Road
+continues.... After crossing this hill the road is very good to the ford
+of Sandy Creek at one James Spurgeons,[7] ... ab^t. 15 Miles from Ice's
+ferry. At the crossing of this Creek McCullocks path, which owes its
+origen to Buffaloes, being no other than their tracks from one lick to
+another & consequently crooked & not well chosen, strikes off from the
+New Road.... From Spurgeon's to one Lemons, which is a little to the
+right of McCullochs path, is reckoned 9 Miles, and the way not bad; but
+from Lemons to the entrance of the Yohiogany glades[8] which is
+estimated 9 Miles more thro' a deep rich Soil ... and what is called the
+briery Mountain.[9] ... At the entrance of the above glades I lodged
+this night, with no other shelter or cover than my cloak. & was unlucky
+enough to have a heavy shower of Rain.... 26^{th}.... passing along a
+small path ... loaded with Water ... we had an uncomfortable travel to
+one Charles friends[10] about 10 Miles.... A Mile before I came to
+Friends, I crossed the great Branch of Yohiogany.... Friend ... is a
+great Hunter.... From Friends I passed by a spring (distant 3 Miles)
+called Archy's from a Man of that name--crossed the backbone[11] &
+descended into Ryans glade.[12]--Thence by Tho^s. Logston's ... to the
+foot of the backbone, about 5 Miles ... across the Ridge to Ryans glade
+one mile and half ...--to Joseph Logstons 1-1/2 Miles ...--to the N^o.
+Branch at McCullochs path 2 Miles[13]--infamous road--and to Tho^s.
+Logstons 4 more.... 27th. I left M^r. Logston's ...--at ten Miles I
+had ... gained the summit of the Alligany Mountain[14] and began to
+desend it where it is very steep and bad to the Waters of Pattersons
+Creek ... along the heads of these [tributaries], & crossing the Main
+[Patterson's] Creek & Mountain bearing the same name[15] (on the top of
+which at one Snails I dined) I came to Col^o. Abrah^m. Hites at Fort
+pleasant on the South Branch[16] about 35 Miles from Logstons a little
+before the Suns setting. My intention, when I set out from Logstons, was
+to take the Road to Rumney [Romney] by one Parkers but learning from my
+guide (Joseph Logston) when I came to the parting paths at the foot of
+the Alligany[17] (ab^t. 12 Miles) that it was very little further to go
+by Fort pleasant, I resolved to take that Rout ... to get
+information...."
+
+This extract from Washington's journal gives us the most complete
+information obtainable of a region of country concerning which it is
+difficult to secure even present-day information. The drift of the
+pioneer tide had been on north and south lines here; the first-comers
+into these mountains wandered up the Monongahela and Youghiogheny Rivers
+and their tributaries. Even as early as the Old French War a few bold
+companies of men had sifted into the dark valleys of the Cheat and
+Youghiogheny.[18] That it was a difficult country to reach is proved by
+the fact that certain early adventurers in this region were deserters
+from Fort Pitt. They were safe here! A similar movement up the two
+branches of the Potomac had created a number of settlements there--far
+up where the waters ran clear and swift amid the mountain fogs. But
+there had been less communication on east and west lines. It is easy to
+assume that McCulloch's path was the most important route across the
+ragged ridges, from one glade and valley to another. It is entirely
+probable that the New Road, to which Washington refers, was built for
+some distance on the buffalo trace which (though the earlier route)
+branched from the New Road. An old path ran eastward from Dunkard's
+Bottom of which Washington says: "... being ... discouraged ... from
+attempting to return [to the Potomac] by the way of Dunkars Bottom, as
+the path it is said is very blind & exceedingly grown up with briers, I
+resolved to try the other Rout, along the New Road ..." as quoted on
+page 21. The growth of such towns as Cumberland and Morgantown had made
+a demand for more northerly routes. The whole road-building idea in
+these parts in the last quarter of the eighteenth century was to connect
+the towns that were then springing into existence, especially Morgantown
+and Clarksburg with Cumberland. Washington's dream of a connected
+waterway was, of course, hopelessly chimerical, and after him no one
+pushed the subject of a highway of any kind between the East and the
+West through Virginia. Washington's own plans materialized in the
+Potomac Navigation Company, and his highway, that should be a strong
+link in the chain of Federal Union between the improved Potomac and the
+Ohio, became the Cumberland Road; and it ran just where he did not care
+to see it--through Maryland and Pennsylvania. Yet it accomplished his
+first high purpose of welding the Union together, and was a fruit of
+that patriotic letter to Governor Harrison written a few days after
+Washington pushed his way through the wet paths of the Cheat and
+Youghiogheny Valleys in 1784.
+
+These first routes across the mountains south of the Cumberland Road--in
+Virginia--were, as noted, largely those of wild beasts. "It has been
+observed before," wrote Washington in recapitulation, "to what
+fortuitous circumstances the paths of this Country owe their being, &
+how much the ways may be better chosen by a proper investigation of
+it; ..." In many instances the new roads built hereabouts in later days
+were shorter than the earlier courses; however it remains true here, as
+elsewhere, that the strategic geographical positions were found by the
+buffalo and Indian, and white men have followed them there unwaveringly
+with turnpike and railway.
+
+When Washington crossed the North Branch of the Potomac on the 26th of
+October, 1784 at "McCullochs crossing," he was on the track of what
+should be, a generation later, the Virginian highway across the
+Appalachian system into the Ohio Basin. Oddly enough Virginia had done
+everything, it may truthfully be said, toward building Braddock's Road
+to the Ohio in 1755, and, in 1758, had done as much as any colony toward
+building Forbes's Road. All told, Virginia had accomplished more in the
+way of road-building into the old Central West by 1760 than all other
+colonies put together. Yet, as it turned out, not one inch of either of
+these great thoroughfares lay in Virginia territory when independence
+was secured and the individual states began their struggle for existence
+in those "critical" after-hours. These buffalo paths through her western
+mountains were her only routes; they coursed through what was largely
+an uninhabited region, and which remains such today. Yet it was
+inevitable that a way should be hewn here through Virginia to the Ohio;
+the call from the West, the hosts of pioneers, the need of a state way
+of communication, all these and more, made it sure that a Virginia
+Turnpike should cross the mountains.
+
+Before that day arrived the Cumberland Road was proposed, built, and
+completed, not only to the Ohio River, but almost to the western
+boundary of the state of Ohio; its famous successor of another
+generation, the Baltimore and Ohio Railway, was undertaken in 1825.
+These movements stirred northern Virginians to action and on the
+twenty-seventh of February, 1827, the General Assembly passed an act "to
+incorporate the North-western Road Company."
+
+Sections 1, 3, 4, and 5 of this Act are as follows:
+
+"1. _Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia_, That books
+shall be opened at the town of Winchester, in Frederick county, under
+the direction of Josiah Lockhart, William Wood, George S. Lane, Abraham
+Miller, and Charles Brent, or any two of them; at Romney, in Hampshire
+county, under the direction of William Naylor, William Donaldson, John
+M'Dowell, Robert Sherrard, and Thomas Slane, or any two of them; at
+Moorfield, in Hardy county, under the direction of Isaac Van Meter,
+Daniel M'Neil, Benjamin Fawcett, Samuel M'Machen, and John G. Harness,
+or any two of them; at Beverly, in Randolph county, under the direction
+of Eli Butcher, Squire Bosworth, Jonas Crane, Andrew Crawford, and
+William Cooper, or any two of them; at Kingwood, in Preston county,
+under the direction of William Sigler, William Johnson, William Price,
+Charles Byrne, and Thomas Brown, or any two of them; at Pruntytown, in
+Harrison county, under the direction of Abraham Smith, Frederick
+Burdett, Thomas Gethrop, Cornelius Reynolds, and Stephen Neill, or any
+two of them; at Clarksburg, in Harrison county, under the direction of
+John L. Sehon, John Sommerville, John Webster, Jacob Stealy, and Phineas
+Chapin, or any two of them; and at Parkersburg, in Wood county, under
+the direction of Jonas Beason, Joseph Tomlinson, Tillinghast Cook,
+James H. Neal, and Abraham Samuels, or any two of them, for purpose of
+receiving subscriptions to a capital stock of seventy-five thousand
+dollars, in shares of twenty dollars, to be appropriated to the making
+of a road from Winchester to some proper place on the Ohio river,
+between the mouths of Muskingum, and Little Kanawha rivers, according to
+the provisions of this act....
+
+"3. The proceedings of the first general meeting of the stockholders,
+shall be preserved with subsequent proceedings of the company, all of
+which shall be entered of record in well bound books to be kept for that
+purpose: And from and after the first appointment of directors, the said
+responsible subscribers, their heirs and assigns, shall be, and they are
+hereby declared to be, a body politic and corporate, by the name of 'The
+North western Road Company;' ...
+
+"4. It shall be the duty of the Principal Engineer of the State, as soon
+as existing engagements will permit, to prescribe such plans or schemes
+for making the whole road, or the several parts or sections thereof, as
+he shall think best calculated to further its most proper and speedy
+completion, and to locate and graduate the same, or part or parts
+thereof, from time to time, make estimates of the probable cost of
+making each five miles, (or any shorter sections,) so located and
+graduated, and to make report thereof to the Board of Public Works at
+such time or times as shall be convenient.
+
+"5. The said president and directors shall, from time to time, make all
+contracts necessary for the completion of the said road, and shall
+require from subscribers equal advances and payments on their shares,
+and they shall have power to compel payments by the sale of delinquent
+shares, in such a manner as shall be prescribed by their by-laws, and
+transfer the same to purchasers: _Provided_, That if any subscriber
+shall at any time be a contractor for making any part of the said road,
+or in any other manner become a creditor of the company, he shall be
+entitled to a proper set-off in the payment of his stock, or any
+requisition made thereon...."[19]
+
+A mistake which doomed these plans to failure was in arbitrarily
+outlining a road by way of the important towns without due consideration
+of the nature of the country between them. The mountains were not to be
+thus mocked; even the buffalo had not found an east and west path here
+easily. As noted, the towns where subscriptions were opened were
+Winchester, Romney, Moorefield, Beverly, Kingwood, Pruntytown,
+Clarksburg, and Parkersburg. When the engineers got through Hampshire
+County by way of Mill Creek Gap in Mill Creek Mountain and on into
+Preston County, insurmountable obstacles were encountered and it was
+reported that the road would never reach Kingwood. From that moment the
+North-western Road Company stock began to languish; only the
+intervention of the state saved the enterprise. However, in 1831, a new
+and very remarkable act was passed by the Virginia Assembly organizing a
+road company that stands unique in a road-building age. This was "An act
+to provide for the construction of a turnpike road from Winchester to
+some point on the Ohio river." The governor was made president of the
+company and he with the treasurer, attorney-general, and second auditor
+constituted the board of directors. The 1st, 2d, and 4th sections of
+this interesting law are as follows:
+
+"1. _Be it enacted by the general assembly_, That the governor,
+treasurer, attorney general, and second auditor of the commonwealth for
+the time being, and their successors, are hereby constituted a body
+politic and corporate, under the denomination of 'The President and
+Directors of the North-Western Turnpike Road,' with power to sue and be
+sued, plead and be impleaded, and to hold lands and tenements, goods and
+chattels, and the same to sell, dispose of, or improve, in trust for the
+commonwealth, for the purposes hereinafter mentioned. And three of the
+said commissioners shall constitute a board for the transaction of
+such business as is hereby entrusted to them; of which board, when
+present, the governor shall be president: And they shall have power to
+appoint a clerk from without their own body, and make such distribution
+of their duties among themselves respectively, and such rules and
+regulations ... as to them may seem necessary....
+
+"2. _Be it further enacted_, That the said president and directors of
+the North-Western turnpike road be, and they are hereby empowered as
+soon as may be necessary for the purposes herein declared, to borrow on
+the credit of the state, a sum or sums of money not exceeding one
+hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, and at a rate of interest not
+exceeding six per centum per annum....
+
+"4. _Be it further enacted_, That the said president and directors, out
+of the money hereby authorized to be borrowed, shall cause to be
+constructed a road from the town of Winchester, in the county of
+Frederick, to some point on the Ohio river, to be selected by the
+principal engineer. And for the purpose aforesaid, the principal
+engineer, as soon as may be after the passage of this act, shall proceed
+to lay out and locate the said road from the points above designated. He
+shall graduate the said road in such manner that the acclivity or
+declivity thereof shall in no case exceed five degrees. The width of the
+said road may be varied, so that it shall not exceed eighteen feet, nor
+be less than twelve feet. Through level ground it shall be raised in the
+middle one-twenty-fourth part of its breadth, but in passing along
+declivities it may be flat. Bridges, side ditches, gutters, and an
+artificial bed of stone or gravel, shall be dispensed with, except in
+such instances as the said principal engineer may deem them
+necessary...."[20]
+
+Other sections stipulated that the state had the right to survey any and
+all routes the engineers desired to examine, and that persons suffering
+by loss of land or otherwise could, if proper application was made
+within one year, secure justice in the superior or county courts; that
+the company appoint a superintendent who should have in charge the
+letting of contracts after such were approved by the company; that, as
+each stretch of twenty miles was completed, toll gates could be erected
+thereon, where usual tolls could be collected by the company's agents,
+the total sum collected to be paid into the state treasury; that the
+company had the right to erect bridges, or in case a ferry was in
+operation, to make the ferryman keep his banks and boats in good
+condition; that the company make annual reports to the State Board of
+Public Works; and that the road be forever a public highway.
+
+The roadway was now soon built. Not dependent upon the stock that might
+be taken in the larger towns, the road made peace with the mountains and
+was built through the southern part of Preston County in 1832, leaving
+Kingwood some miles to the north. Evansville was located in 1833, and
+owes its rise to the great road. The route of the road is through
+Hampshire, Mineral, Grant, Garrett, Preston, Taylor, Harrison,
+Doddridge, Ritchie, and Wood Counties, all West Virginia save Garrett
+which is in Maryland. Important as the route became to the rough,
+beautiful country which it crossed, it never became of national
+importance. Being started so late in the century, the Baltimore and Ohio
+Railway, which was completed to Cumberland in 1845, stopped in large
+part the busy scenes of the Old Northwestern Turnpike.
+
+Yet to the historic inquirer the old turnpike, so long forgotten by the
+outside world, lies where it was built; and can fairly be said to be a
+monument of the last of those stirring days when Virginia planned to
+hold the West in fee. Hundreds of residents along this road recall the
+old days with intense delight. True, the vast amount of money spent on
+the Cumberland Road was not spent on its less renowned rival to the
+south, but the Cumberland Road was given over to the states through
+which it ran; and, in many instances, was so neglected that it was as
+poor a road as some of its less pretentious rivals. A great deal of
+business of a national character was done on the Northwestern Turnpike.
+Parkersburg became one of the important entrepôts in the Ohio Valley; as
+early as 1796, we shall soon see, a pioneer traversing the country
+through which the Northwestern Turnpike's predecessor coursed, speaks of
+an awakening in the Monongahela Valley that cannot be considered less
+than marvelous. Taking it through the years, few roads have remained of
+such constant benefit to the territory into which they ran, and today
+you will be told that no railway has benefited that mountainous district
+so much as this great thoroughfare.
+
+But in a larger sense than any merely local one, Virginia counted on the
+Northwestern Turnpike to bind the state and connect its eastern
+metropolis with the great Ohio Valley. Virginia had given up, on demand,
+her great county of Kentucky when the wisdom of that movement was plain;
+at the call of the Nation, she had surrendered the title her soldiers
+had given her to Illinois and the beautifully fertile Scioto Valley in
+Ohio. But after these great cessions she did not lose the rich
+Monongahela country. It had been explored by her adventurers, settled by
+her pioneers--and Virginia held dear to her heart her possessions along
+the upper Ohio. In the days when the Northwestern Turnpike was created
+by legislative act, canals were not an assured success, and railways
+were only being dreamed of. And the promoters of canals and railways
+were considered insane when they hinted that the mountains could be
+conquered by these means of transportation. With all the vast need for
+improvements, the genius of mankind had never created anything better
+than the road and the cart; what hope was there that now suddenly
+America should surprise the world by overthrowing the axioms of the
+centuries past?
+
+And so, in the correct historical analysis, the Northwestern Turnpike
+must be considered Virginia's attempt to compete successfully with
+Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York, in securing for herself a
+commanding portion of the trade of the West. In all the legislative
+history of the origin of the Northwestern Turnpike, it is continually
+clear that its origin was of more than local character. It was actually
+the last roadway built from the seaboard to the West in the hope of
+securing commercial superiority; and its decline and decay marks the end
+of pioneer road-building across the first great American "divide." In a
+moment the completion of the Erie Canal assured the nation that freight
+could be transported for long distances at one-tenth the cost that had
+prevailed on the old land highways. Soon after, the completion of the
+Pennsylvania Canal proved that the canal could successfully mount great
+heights--and Virginia forgot her roads in her interest in canals.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A JOURNEY IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA
+
+
+Thomas Wallcutt of Massachusetts served through the Revolutionary War as
+hospital steward and received in payment therefor one share in the Ohio
+Company.[21] He went out to Marietta in 1790, and returned eastward by
+the half-known Virginia route. His _Journal_[22] forms an interesting
+chapter of travel on American pioneer roads:
+
+"Monday, 8 March, 1790.[23] Pleasant, clear, cold, and high winds. We
+were up before sunrise, and got some hot breakfast, coffee and toast;
+and Captain Prince, Mr. Moody, Mr. Skinner, Captain Mills and brother,
+Mr. Bent, &c., accompanied us over the river[24] to Sargent's or
+Williams's, and took leave of us about nine o'clock, and we proceeded on
+our journey. We had gone but a little way when we found the path[25] so
+blind that we could not proceed with certainty, and I was obliged to go
+back and get a young man to come and show us the way. When we had got
+back to our companions again, they had found the road, and we walked
+twenty miles this day. Weather raw, chilly, and a little snow. The
+country after about five or six miles from the Ohio is very broken and
+uneven, with high and sharp hills.
+
+"Tuesday, 9 March, 1790. The weather for the most part of the day
+pleasant, but cold winds, northerly. The country very rough, the hills
+high and sharp.[26] One third of the road must go over and on the
+ridges, and another third through the valleys. We walked this day about
+twenty-three or twenty-four miles, and slept near the forty-fourth or
+forty-fifth mile tree.
+
+"Wednesday, 10 March, 1790. Weather raw and moist. To-day we crossed
+several of the large creeks and waters that fall into the Ohio. This
+occasioned a loss of much time, waiting for the horse to come over for
+each one, which he did as regularly as a man would. The country much the
+same, but rather better to-day, except that a great deal of the road
+runs along through the streams, and down the streams such a length with
+the many bridges that will be wanted, that it will be a vast expense,
+besides the risk and damage of being carried away every year by the
+floods. We had so much trouble in crossing these streams that at last we
+forded on foot. One of the largest in particular, after we had rode it
+several times, we waded it four or five times almost knee-deep, and
+after that a number of times on logs, or otherwise, without going in
+water. Two of the streams, I doubt not, we crossed as often as twenty
+times each. We walked this day about fifteen miles.
+
+"Thursday, 11 March, 1790. With much fatigue and pain in my left leg, we
+walked about fifteen miles to-day. They all walked better than I, and
+had got to Carpenter's and had done their dinner about two o'clock when
+I arrived. They appear to be good farmers and good livers, have a good
+house, and seem very clever people. Mr. C. is gone down the country.
+They have been a frontier here for fifteen years, and have several times
+been obliged to move away. I got a dish of coffee and meat for dinner,
+and paid ninepence each, for the doctor and me. We set off, and crossed
+the west branch of the Monongahela over to Clarksburgh. The doctor paid
+his own ferriage. We went to Major Robinson's, and had tea and meat,
+&c., for supper. I paid ninepence each, for the doctor and me. Weather
+dull and unpleasant, as yesterday.
+
+"Friday, 12 March, 1790. Weather good and pleasant to-day. We set off
+before sunrise and got a little out of our road into the Morgantown
+road, but soon got right again. We breakfasted at Webb's mill, a good
+house and clever folks. Had coffee, meat, &c.; paid sixpence each, for
+me and the doctor. Lodged at Wickware's, who says he is a Yankee, but
+is a very disagreeable man for any country, rough and ugly, and he is
+very dear. I paid one shilling apiece for the doctor's and my supper,
+upon some tea made of mountain birch, perhaps black birch, stewed
+pumpkin, and sodden meat. Appetite supplies all deficiencies.
+
+"Saturday, 13 March, 1790. Beautiful weather all day. Set off not so
+early this morning as yesterday. The doctor paid his ferriage himself.
+Mr. Moore, a traveller toward his home in Dunker's Bottom, Fayette
+County, Pennsylvania, [?] set out with us. He seems a very mild,
+good-natured, obliging old gentleman, and lent me his horse to ride
+about two miles, while he drove his pair of steers on foot. The doctor
+and I being both excessively fatigued, he with a pain in his knee, and
+mine in my left leg, but shifting about, were unable to keep up with our
+company, and fell much behind them. Met Mr. Carpenter on his return
+home. He appears to be a very clever man. When we had come to Field's, I
+found Mr. Dodge had left his horse for us to ride, and to help us along,
+which we could not have done without. We got a dish of tea without
+milk, some dried smoked meat and hominy for dinner; and from about three
+o'clock to nine at night, got to Ramsay's. Seven miles of our way were
+through a new blazed path where they propose to cut a new road. We got
+out of this in good season, at sundown or before dark, into the wagon
+road, and forded Cheat River on our horses. Tea, meat, &c., for supper.
+Old Simpson and Horton, a constable, had a terrible scuffle here this
+evening.
+
+"Lord's Day, 14 March, 1790. Mr. Dodge is hurrying to go away again. I
+tell him I must rest to-day. I have not written anything worth mention
+in my journal since I set out, until to-day, and so must do it from
+memory. I want to shave a beard seven days old, and change a shirt about
+a fortnight dirty; and my fatigue makes rest absolutely necessary. So
+take my rest this day, whether he has a mind to go or stay with us. Eat
+very hearty of hominy or boiled corn with milk for breakfast, and boiled
+smoked beef and pork for dinner, with turnips. After dinner shaved and
+shirted me, which took till near night, it being a dark house, without a
+bit of window, as indeed there is scarce a house on this road that has
+any.
+
+"Monday, 15 March, 1790. Waited and got some tea for breakfast, before
+we set out. Settled with Ramsay, and paid him 9_d._ per meal, for five
+meals, and half-pint whiskey 6_d._ The whole came to eight shillings.
+Weather very pleasant most of the day. We walked to Brien's about
+half-past six o'clock, which they call twenty-four miles. We eat a
+little fried salt pork and bit of venison at Friends',[27] and then
+crossed the great Youghiogeny. About two miles further on, we crossed
+the little _ditto_ at Boyles's.... We walked about or near an hour after
+dark, and were very agreeably surprised to find ourselves at Brien's
+instead of Stackpole's, which is four miles further than we expected.
+Eat a bit of Indian bread, and the woman gave us each about half a pint
+of milk to drink, which was all our supper.
+
+"Tuesday, 16 March, 1790. We were up this morning, and away about or
+before sunrise, and ascended the backbone of the Alleghany, and got
+breakfast at Williams's. I cannot keep up with my company. It took me
+till dark to get to Davis's. Messers. Dodge and Proctor had gone on
+before us about three miles to Dawson's. We got some bread and butter
+and milk for supper, and drank a quart of cider. Mr. Davis was
+originally from Ashford, county of Windham, Connecticut; has been many
+years settled in this country; has married twice, and got many children.
+His cider in a brown mug seemed more like home than any thing I have met
+with.
+
+"Wednesday, 17 March. We were up this morning before day, and were set
+off before it was cleverly light. Got to Dawson's, three miles, where
+Messers. D. & P. lodged, and got some tea for breakfast, and set off in
+good season, the doctor and I falling behind. As it is very miry,
+fatiguing walking, and rainy, which makes extremely painful walking in
+the clay and mud, we could not keep up with D. We stopped about a mile
+and a half from the Methodist meeting near the cross roads at Cressops,
+and four from Cumberland, and got some fried meat and eggs, milk,
+butter, &c., for dinner, which was a half pistareen each. After dinner
+the doctor and I walked into Cumberland village about three o'clock, and
+put up at Herman Stitcher's or Stidger's. We called for two mugs of
+cider, and got tea, bread and butter, and a boiled leg of fresh young
+pork for supper. The upper part of the county of Washington has lately
+been made a separate county, and called Alleghany, as it extends over
+part of that mountain, and reaches to the extreme boundary of Maryland.
+The courts, it is expected, will be fixed and held at this place,
+Cumberland, which will probably increase its growth, as it thrives
+pretty fast already. We supped and breakfasted here; paid 2_s._ for
+each, the doctor and me. Pleasant fine weather this day. My feet
+exceedingly sore, aching, throbbing, and beating. I cannot walk up with
+my company.
+
+"Thursday, 18 March. Paid Mr. Dodge 6_s._ advance. A very fine day. We
+stayed and got breakfast at Stitcher's, and walked from about eight
+o'clock to twelve, to Old Town, and dined at Jacob's, and then walked to
+Dakins's to lodge, where we got a dish of Indian or some other home
+coffee, with a fry of chicken and other meat for supper. This is the
+first meal I have paid a shilling L. M. for. The country very much
+broken and hilly, sharp high ridges, and a great deal of pine. About ...
+miles from Old Town, the north and south branches of the Potomac join.
+We walked twenty-five miles to-day.
+
+"Friday, 19 March, 1790. Very fine weather again to-day. We walked
+twenty-four miles to McFarren's in Hancock, and arrived there, sun about
+half an hour high. McFarren says this town has been settled about ten or
+twelve years, and is called for the man who laid it out or owned it, and
+not after Governor Hancock. It is a small but growing place of about
+twenty or thirty houses, near the bank of the Potomac, thirty-five miles
+below Old Town, and five below Fort Cumberland; twenty-four above
+Williamsport, and ninety-five above Georgetown. We slept at McFarren's,
+a so-so house. He insisted on our sleeping in beds, and would not
+permit sleeping on the floors. We all put our feet in soak in warm water
+this evening. It was recommended to us by somebody on the road, and I
+think they feel the better for it.
+
+"Saturday, 20 March. A very fine day again. We have had remarkably fine
+weather on this journey hitherto. But two days we had any rain, and then
+but little. We stayed and got breakfast at McFarren's, and set out about
+eight o'clock, and walked about twenty-one miles this day to Thompson's,
+about half a mile from Buchanan's in the Cove Gap in the North Mountain.
+My feet do not feel quite so bad this day, as they have some days. I
+expect they are growing stronger and fitter for walking every day,
+though it has cost me a great deal of pain, throbbing, beating, and
+aching to bring them to it. It seems the warm water last night did me
+some good.
+
+"Lord's Day, 21 March, 1790. Up and away before sunrise, and walked to
+breakfast to McCracken's. He has been an officer in the continental
+army. I find it will not do for me to try any longer to keep up with my
+company, and as they propose going through Reading, and we through
+Philadelphia, we must part to-night or to-morrow. I conclude to try
+another seven miles, and if I cannot keep up, we part at Semple's, the
+next stage. They got to Semple's before me, and waited for me. I
+conclude to stay and dine here, and part with Messrs. Proctor and Dodge.
+I am so dirty; my beard the ninth day old, and my shirt the time worn,
+that I cannot with any decency or comfort put off the cleaning any
+longer. I again overhauled the letters, as I had for security and care
+taken all into my saddle-bags. I sorted them and gave Mr. Dodge his,
+with what lay more direct in his way to deliver, and took some from him
+for Boston and my route.
+
+"I paid Mr. Dodge three shillings more in addition to six shillings I
+had paid him before at the Widow Carrel's, according to our agreement at
+twelve shillings to Philadelphia; and as we had gone together and he had
+carried our packs three hundred miles (wanting two), it was near the
+matter. He supposed I should do right to give him a shilling more. I
+told him as I had agreed with him at the rate of fifty pounds, when
+they did not weigh above thirty-five, and at the rate of going up to
+Pitt instead of returning, which is but half price, I thought it was a
+generous price, and paid him accordingly as by agreement. We wished each
+other a good journey, and Mr. Proctor, the doctor, and I drank a cup of
+cider together. When we had got cleaned, a wagoner came along very
+luckily, and dined with us, and going our way, we put our packs in his
+wagon, and rode some to help. We gave him a quarter of a dollar for this
+half day and tomorrow. We got to Carlisle in the evening and put up with
+Adam at Lutz's.
+
+"This Carlisle is said to be extremely bad in wet weather. It probably
+is nearly & quite as bad as Pittsburg, Marietta, Albany. I went to
+Lutz's because Adam puts up there, he being of his nation, but it is a
+miserable house, and Adam says he is sorry he carried us there. The
+victuals are good, but they are dirty, rough, impolite. We supped on
+bread and milk, and Lutz would insist on our sleeping in a bed and not
+on the floor; so we did so.
+
+"Tuesday, 23 March, 1790. A pleasant day and the roads very much dried,
+so that the travelling is now comfortable. We dined at Callender's in
+more fashion than since I left home. Adam stopped at Simpson's so long
+that it was dark when we got over the river to Chambers's, where we
+stopped another half hour. Set off about seven o'clock, and got to
+Foot's about eleven. All abed, but Adam got us a bit of bread and
+butter, and made us a fire in the stove, and we lay on the floor.
+
+"Wednesday, 24 March, 1790. Old Foot is a crabbed.... He has been
+scolding and swearing at Adam all this morning about something that I
+cannot understand. It has rained last night, and the roads are again
+intolerable. Adam says he cannot go again until his father says the
+word, and that may not be this two or three days. But we cannot go and
+carry our packs on our backs now, the roads are so bad, and we should
+gain nothing to walk, but spend our strength to little or no purpose. We
+must wait for a wagon to go along our way, and join it, or wait for the
+roads to grow better.
+
+"Carried our dirty things to wash; two shirts, two pairs stockings, and
+one handkerchief for me; two shirts, two pair stockings, and one pair
+trowsers for the doctor. Went to several places to look for shoes for
+the doctor. He could not fit himself at the shoemakers, and bought a
+pair in a store for 8_s._ 4_d._ Pennsylvania, or 6_s._ 8_d._ our
+currency. He went to Henry Moore's, the sign of the two Highlanders. I
+drank a quart of beer and dined. Old Foot is a supervisor, and is gone
+to Harrisburg to-day, to settle some of his business.
+
+"Thursday, 25 March, 1790. The sun rises and shines out so bright to-day
+that I am in hopes the roads will be better, at least, when we go. Old
+Foot could not finish his business yesterday, and is gone again to-day.
+He is uncertain when he shall send Adam forward to Philadelphia, perhaps
+not until Monday. It will not do for us to stay, if we can somehow get
+along sooner. Time hangs heavy on our hands, but we do what we can to
+kill it. The doctor and I went down to Moore's and dined together, which
+was a shilling L. M. apiece. We then came back to Foot's and drank a
+pint of cider-royal together. The house is for the most part of the day
+filled with Germans, who talk much, but we cannot understand them. We
+have coffee and toast, or meat for breakfast, and mush and milk for
+supper. Our time is spent in the most irksome manner possible; eating
+and drinking, and sleeping and yawning, and attending to the
+conversation of these Dutch. In the evening the house is crowded with
+the neighbors, &c., and for the ... Old Foot says, and Adam too, that he
+will not go till Monday. This is very discouraging.
+
+"Friday, 26 March, 1790. A very dull prospect to-day. It rained very
+hard in the night, and continues to rain this morning. No wagons are
+passing, and none coming that we can hear of. We have no prospect now
+but to stay and go with Adam on Monday. We stay at home to-day and
+murder our time. We read McFingal, or Ballads, or whatever we can pick
+up. We had coffee and toast and fresh fried veal for breakfast, and ate
+heartily, and so we eat no dinner. The doctor goes out and buys us 8_d._
+worth of cakes, and we get a half-pint of whiskey, which makes us a
+little less sad. In comes a man to inquire news, &c., of two men from
+Muskingum. He had heard Thompson's report, which had made so much noise
+and disquiet all through the country. He had three Harrisburg papers
+with him, which give us a little relief in our dull and unwelcome
+situation. At dark there come in two men with a wagon and want lodging,
+&c. They stay this night, and with them we find an opportunity of going
+forward as far as Lancaster, which we are determined to embrace.
+
+"Saturday, 27 March, 1790. We stay and get a good breakfast before we
+set out, and agree to give Mr. Bailey 2_s._ L. M. for carrying our
+baggage. This is higher than anything it has cost us on the road in
+proportion, but we cannot help it. It is better than to waste so much
+time in a tavern. It rains steadily, and the road is all mush and water.
+Before I get on a hundred rods I am half-leg deep in mire. Set off about
+eight o'clock, and overtook the wagon about two miles ahead. However, it
+clears off before night, and the sun shines warm, and the roads mend
+fast. We made a stay in Elizabethtown about two hours to feed and rest.
+The doctor and I had two quarts of beer and some gingerbread and
+buckwheat cakes for dinner. We got to Colonel Pedens to lodge, which is
+eighteen miles through an intolerable bad road, to-day. (Elizabethtown,
+about fifty houses; Middletown, about an hundred houses.) We paid our
+landlady this evening, as we are to start so early in the morning it
+would not do to wait till the usual time of getting up to pay then, and
+we have got nine miles to go to reach Lancaster.
+
+"Lord's Day, 28 March, 1790. We started this morning at day dawn, and
+got to ---- at the Black Horse, four and a half miles to breakfast. The
+wagon went by us, and fed at Shoop's. I left the doctor with them and to
+take care of the things, and walked into the town before them. Stopped
+at Gross's, the Spread Eagle, and left word for the doctor, which they
+never told him. I heard the bell ring for church just as I got here,
+which made me go into town after waiting some time for them. Took leave
+of Mr. Bailey, &c. I went to the English Episcopal Church, and then
+went back to look for the doctor, and he looking for me; we were some
+time in chase, and missed each other. Found we could not get served at
+the Angel, so took our baggage and walked down to Doersh's, who keeps
+the stage. Got dinner here. Shaved, shirted, put on my boots, and went
+out into town. Stopped at the court-house and heard a Methodist. Walked
+further about; stopped and looked into the Catholic chapel, and talked
+with the priest. Looked into the churches, such as I could, and returned
+to tea at sundown. Spent the remainder of the time till bed reading
+newspapers. Washed my feet and went to bed just before ten.
+
+"Monday, 29 March, 1790. After breakfast the doctor and I took a ramble
+about the town, to look at it and to inquire if we could find any wagon
+going to Philadelphia, that we can get our baggage carried. The most
+likely place we can hear of is to go to the Creek, about a mile from
+town. Immediately after our walk we settled and paid, and set out at
+just eleven o'clock. Paid toll over Conestoga bridge, and stopped at
+Locher's, at the Indian King, two miles from Lancaster, and drank a
+quart of beer. It was not good. Dined at Blesser's, on a cold meal,
+which was 8_d._ L. M. apiece. Got to Hamilton's at Salsbury, a very good
+house; nineteen miles. This is more than I expected when I set out at
+eleven o'clock. A very good supper; rye mush and milk, cold corn beef,
+and apple pie on the table. But 8_d._ L. M. for supper and lodging
+apiece. We have had very good weather for travelling, and the roads are
+drying fast. In hopes that we shall find some wagon going on the
+Philadelphia road, that we may get our packs carried part of the way.
+
+"Tuesday, 30 March, 1790. We walked twenty-four miles this day, that is,
+from Hamilton's to Fahnstock's. Very pleasant weather, suitable for
+travelling; not too warm nor too cold. My feet very tender and sore, but
+we keep along steady. Got to Fahnstock's, Admiral Warren, about eight
+o'clock. Got some bread and milk for supper. The doctor had nothing but
+a pint of cider for his supper. We slept well, considering my being
+excessively fatigued. The post overtook us.
+
+"Wednesday, 31 March. Stayed to breakfast this morning, which was very
+good, but I do not like the practice, at least I do not seem to need
+eating meat with breakfast every morning. I sometimes eat it two or
+three times a day because it is set before me, and it is the fashion to
+have meat always on the table. We dined about seven miles from
+Philadelphia; crossed the Schuylkill about sunset, and walked into town
+about dark. Crossed the Schuylkill over the floating bridge, and paid
+our toll, 1_d._ Pennsylvania each."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A PILGRIM ON BRADDOCK'S ROAD
+
+
+A yellow letter, almost in tatters, lies before me written by one Samuel
+Allen to his father, Mr. Jason Allen of Montville, New London County,
+Connecticut, from Bellville, Virginia,[28] November 15, 1796. Bellville
+is in Wood County, West Virginia, eighteen miles by the Ohio River from
+Parkersburg.
+
+This letter, describing a journey from Alexandria and Cumberland to the
+Ohio by way of "broadaggs [Braddock's] old road," gives a picture of
+certain of the more pathetic phases of the typical emigrant's experience
+unequaled by any account we have met in print. Incidentally, there is
+included a mention of the condition of the road and, what is of more
+interest, a clear glimpse into the Ohio Valley when the great rush of
+pioneers had begun after the signing of the Treaty of Greenville, the
+year before, which ended the Indian War.
+
+                           "Bellville W. Va November the 15^{th} 1796.
+
+"Honoured Parents
+
+Six months is allmost gone since I left N. London [New London,
+Connecticut] & not a word have I heard from you or any of the family I
+have not heard wheather you are dead or alive, sick or well. When I
+heard that Mr. Backus had got home I was in hopes of recieving a letter
+by him. but his brother was here the other day and sayes that he left
+his trunk and left the letters that he had in the trunk, so I am still
+in hopes of having one yet. There is an opertunity of sending letters
+once every week only lodge a letter in the post-offis in N. London & in
+a short time it will be at Belleville. The people that came with me has
+most all had letters from their friends in New England Mr Avory has had
+two or three letters from his Brother one in fiften dayes after date all
+of whitch came by the waye of the male.
+
+"General Putnam of Muskingdom [Marietta on the Muskingum] takes the New
+London papers constantly every week
+
+"When we arrived to Allexandria [Alexandria, Virginia] Mr Avory found
+that taking land cariag from there to the Monongehaly would be less
+expence then it would be to go any farther up the Potomac & less danger
+so he hired wagoners to carry the goods across the mountains to
+Morgantown on the Monongahaly about one hundred miles above Pittsburg Mr
+Avorys expence in comeing was from N London to Allexndria six dollars
+each for the passengers and two shillings & six pence for each hundred
+weight. from Allexandria to Morgantown was thirty two shillings and six
+pence for each hundred weight of women & goods the men all walked the
+hole of the way. I walked the hole distance it being allmost three
+hundred miles and we found the rode to be pritty good untill we came to
+the Mountaing. crossing the blue Mountain the Monongehaly & the Lorral
+Mountains we found the roads to be verry bad.
+
+"You doubtless remember I rote in my last letter that Prentice was
+taken ill a day or two before he continued verry much so untill the
+10^{th} of July when he began to gro wors the waggoner was hired by the
+hundred weight & could not stop unless I paid him for the time that he
+stoped & for the Keeping of the horses that I could not affoard to do So
+we were obliged to keep on We were now on the Allegany Mountain & a most
+horrid rode the waggon golted so that I dare not let him ride So I took
+him in my arms and carried him all the while except once in a while Mr
+Davis would take him in his armes & carry him a spell to rest me. a
+young man that Mr Avory hired at Allexandria a joiner whose kindness I
+shall not forgit he kep all the while with us & spared no panes to
+assist us in anything & often he would offer himself. our child at this
+time was verry sick & no medecal assistance could be had on this
+mountain on the morning of the 13^{th} as we was at breackfast at the
+house of one Mr Tumblestone [Tomlinson?] the child was taken in a fit
+our company had gone to the next house to take breakfast which was one
+mile on our way we were alone in the room & went & asked Mrs
+Tumblestone to come into the room she said she did not love to see a
+person in a fitt but she came into the room Polly ask her if she new
+what was good for a child in a fitt she said no & immediately left the
+room & shut the door after her & came no more into the room when that
+fitt left him there came on another no person in the room but Mr
+Tumblestone who took but little notis of the child tho it was in great
+distress Polly said she was afraid the child would die in one of them
+fitts Mr Tumblestone spoke in a verry lite manner and sayes with a smile
+it will save you the trouble of carrying it any farther if it does die
+We then bundled up the child and walked to the next house ware we come
+up with our company I had just seated myself down when the child was
+taken in a fitt again when that had left it it was immediately taken in
+another & as that went off we saw another coming on the Man of the house
+gave it some drops that stoped the fitt he handed me a vial of the
+dropps--gave directions how to use them the child had no more fitts but
+seemed to be stuped all day he cried none at all but he kept a whining
+& scouling all the while with his eyes stared wide open his face and his
+eyes appeared not to come in shape as before When we took dinner it was
+six mile to the next house the waggoners said they could not git through
+thro that night we did not love to stay out for fear our child would die
+in the woods so we set off & left the waggons I took the child in my
+arms and we traveled on Mr Davis set off with us & carried the child
+above half of the time here we traveled up & down the most tedious hills
+as I ever saw & by nine oclock in the evening we came to the house the
+child continued stayed all the night the next morning at break of day I
+heard it make a strange noise I percieved it grew worse I got up and
+called up the women [who] ware with us the woman of the house got up &
+in two hours the child dyed Polly was obliged to go rite off as soon as
+his eyes was closed for the waggoners would not stop I stayed to see the
+child burried I then went on two of the men that was with me were
+joiners & had their tools with them they stayed with me & made the
+coffin Mr Simkins [Simpkins] the man of the house sent his Negroes out &
+dug the grave whare he had burried several strangers that dyed a
+crossing the mountain his family all followed the corps to the grave
+black & white & appeared much affected.
+
+"When we returned to the house I asked Mr Simkins to give me his name &
+the name of the place he asked me the name of the child I told him he
+took his pen & ink & rote the following lines Alligany County Marriland
+July the 14^{th} 1796 died John P Allen at the house of John Simkins at
+atherwayes bear camplain broadaggs old road half way between fort
+Cumberland & Uniontown.[29] I thanked him for the kindness I had
+received from him he said I was verry welcome & he was verry sorry for
+my loss
+
+"We then proceeded on our journey & we soon overtook the waggons & that
+nite we got to the foot of the mountain We came to this mountain on the
+11^{th} of the month and got over it the 19^{th} at night We left the
+city of Allexandria on the Potomac the 30^{th} day of June & arrived at
+Morgantown on the Monongahely the 18^{th} day of July
+
+"Thus my dear pearents you see we are deprived of the child we brought
+with us & we no not whather the one we left is dead or alive. I beg you
+to rite & let me no Polly cant bear her name mentioned without shedding
+tears if she is alive I hope you will spare no panes to give her
+learning.
+
+"When we arrived at Morgantown the river was so lo that boats could not
+go down but it began to rain the same day that I got ther I was about
+one mile from there when it began to rain & from the 22^d at night to
+the 23^d in the morning it raised 16 feet the logs came down the river
+so that it was dangerous for boats to go & on Sunday the 22^d in the
+evening the boats set off three waggons had not arrived but the river
+was loreing so fast that we dare not wate the goods was left with a
+Merchant in that town to be sent when the river rises they have not come
+on yet one of my barrels & the brass Cittle is yet behind
+
+"Mr Avory said while he was at Morgantown that Cattle were verry high
+down the river & them that wanted to by he thought had better by then he
+purchased some & I bought two cows and three calvs for myself & three
+cows for Mrs Hemsted & calves & a yoke of three year old stears. The
+next morning after the Boats sailed I set off by land with the cattle &
+horses with John Turner & Jonathan Prentice & arrived at Bellvill the
+9^{th} of August & found it to be a verry rich & pleasant country We
+came to the Ohio at Wheeling crick one hundred miles belo Pittsburg &
+about the same from Morgantown We found the country settled the hole of
+the way from Morgantown to Wheeling & a verry pleasant road we saw some
+verry large & beautiful plantations here I saw richer land than I ever
+saw before large fields of corn & grane of a stout groath From Wheeling
+to Bellville it is a wilderness for the most of the way except the banks
+of the river this side----which is one hundred miles we found it verry
+difficult to get victules to eat. I drove fifty miles with one meal of
+victules through the wilderness & only a foot path & that was so blind
+that we was pestered to keep it we could drive but a little wayes in a
+day whenever night overtook us we would take our blankets & wrap around
+us & ly down on the ground We found some inhabitance along the river but
+they came on last spring & had no provisions only what they brought with
+them
+
+"The country is as good as it was represented to be & is seteling verry
+fast families are continually moveing from other parts into this
+beautiful country if you would give me all your intrest to go back there
+to live again it would be no temtation if you should sell your intrest
+there & lay your money out here in a short time I think you would be
+worth three or four times so much as you now are. it is incredible to
+tell the number of boats that goes down this river with familys a man
+that lives at Redstone Old fort on the Monongehaly says that he saw last
+spring seventy Boats go past in one day with familys moveing down the
+Ohio. There is now at this place a number of familys that came since we
+did from Sesquehanah There is now at this place eighty inhabitance. Corn
+is going at 2.^s pr bushel by the quantity 2.^s 6-^d by the single
+bushel. There has been between two & three thousand bushels raised in
+Bellville this season & all the settlements along the river as raised
+corn in proportion but the vast number of people that are moveing into
+this country & depending upon bying makes it scerce & much higher than
+it would be
+
+"There is three double the people that passes by here then there is by
+your house there is Packets that passes from Pittsburg to Kentucky one
+from Pittsburg to Wheeling 90 miles one from that to Muskingdom 90 miles
+One from that to Gallipolees 90 miles the french settlement opisite the
+big Canawa [Kanawha] & from that there is another to Kentucky----of
+which goes & returns every week &----loaded with passengers & they carry
+the male Mammy offered me some cloath for a Jacket & if you would send
+it by Mr Woodward it would be very exceptible for cloaths is verry high
+here Common flanel is 6^s per yard & tow cloth is 3^s 9^d the woolves
+are so thick that sheep cannot be kept without a shephard they often
+catch our calvs they have got one of mine & one of Mrs Hemstid the
+latter they caught in the field near the houses I have often ben awoak
+out of my sleep by the howling of the wolves.
+
+"This is a fine place for Eunice they ask 1^s per yard for weaving tow
+cloth give my respects to Betsey & Eunice & tell them that I hope one of
+them will come with Mr Woodward when he comes on Horses are very high in
+this country & if you have not sold mine I should be [glad] if you would
+try to send him on by Mr. Woodward. I dont think Mr Avory will be there
+this year or two & anything you would wish to send you nead not be
+affraid to trust to Mr. Woodwards hands for he is a verry careful & a
+verry honest man & what he says you may depend upon.
+
+"Land is rising verry fast Mr Avory is selling his lots at 36 dollars
+apeace he has sold three since we came here at that price we was so long
+a comeing & provisions so verry high that I had not any money left when
+I got here except what I paid for the cattle I bought I have worked for
+Mr Avory since I came here to the amount of sixteen dollars I paid him
+80 dollars before we left N London I am not in debt to him at preasent
+or any one else I have sot me up a small house and have lived in it
+upwards of a fortnight we can sell all our milk and butter milk at 2^d
+per quart Mr Avory will give me three shillings per day for work all
+winter & find [furnish] me with victules or 4^s & find myself I need not
+want for business I think I am worth more then I was when I came We have
+ben in verry good health ever since we left home.
+
+"General St Clair who is now govener of the western teritoryes & General
+Wilkinson with their Adicongs [Aid-de-camps] attended by a band of
+soldiers in uniform lodged at Bellvill a few nights ago on their way
+from headquarters to Philadelphia with Amaracan coulours a flying
+
+"Please to give my respects to George & James & tell them that if they
+want an interest this is the country for them to go to make it Please to
+except of my kind love to yourselves & respects to all friends who may
+enquire do give my love to Mr Rogers & family & all my brothers and
+sisters & our only child Lydia Polly sends her love to you & all her old
+friends & neighbors
+
+                                          Your affectionate son
+                                                         Samuel Allen"
+
+
+The following is a translation of a letter written twelve years after
+Washington's journey of 1784, by Eric Bollman, a traveler through
+Dunkard's Bottom, to his brother Lewis Bollman, father of H. L. Bollman
+of Pittsburg:
+
+"From Cumberland we have journeyed over the Alleghany Mountains in
+company with General Irwin, of Baltimore, who owns some 50,000 acres in
+this vicinity. The mountains are not so high and not so unproductive as
+I had imagined them to be. Several points are rocky and barren, such as
+the Laurel Ridge, but even this with proper attention and ... European
+cultivation could be made productive. There are proportionately few such
+ranges as this, and for the greater part, the mountains are covered with
+fine timber.
+
+"We spent the first night at West Port. Up to this point, at the proper
+seasons, the Potomac is navigable and could be made so quite a distance
+further. But even in the present state the land journey to the
+Monongahela, which is navigable and flows into the Ohio, is but a
+distance of 60 miles....
+
+"The road is not in a bad condition and could be made most excellent.
+This will, without doubt, be accomplished just as soon as the country is
+sufficiently inhabited, since there is no nearer way to reach the
+Western waters.
+
+"The next day we dined with Mr. M. McCartin, still higher up in the
+mountains. There are many settlements in this vicinity. We were
+entertained in a beautiful, cool, roomy house, surrounded by oat fields
+and rich meadows, where the sound of the bells told that cattle were
+pasturing near by. We dined from delicate china, had good knives, good
+forks, spoons, and other utensils. Our hostess, a bright, handsome,
+healthy woman, waited upon us. After dinner, a charming feminine guest
+arrived on horseback; a young girl from the neighboring farm, of perhaps
+15 years of age, with such bashful eyes and such rosy cheeks, so lovely
+and attractive in manner that even Coopley, our good mathematician,
+could not restrain his admiration.
+
+"This is the 'backwoods' of America, which the Philadelphian is pleased
+to describe as a rough wilderness--while in many parts of Europe, in
+Westphalia, in the whole of Hungary and Poland, nowhere, is there a
+cottage to be found, which, taking all things together in consideration
+of the inhabitant, can be compared with the one of which I have just
+written.
+
+"Four miles from this we reached the Glades, one of the most remarkable
+features of these mountains and this land. These are broad stretches of
+land of many thousand acres, covered with dense forests; beyond this
+there is not a tree to be found, but the ground is covered knee-deep
+with grass and herbs, where both the botanist and the cattle find
+delicious food. Many hundred head of cattle are driven yearly, from the
+South Branch and other surrounding places, and entrusted to the care of
+the people who live here. What can be the cause of this strange
+phenomenon! One can only suppose that at one time these glades were
+covered with timber, which, overthrown by a mighty hurricane, gradually
+dried and fell into decay. But it would take too long to give the many
+reasons and arguments both for and against this supposition.
+
+"Only lately have the Indians ceased roving in this vicinity; which has
+done much to delay its cultivation, but now it is being cleared quite
+rapidly, and in a short time will, without doubt, become a fine place
+for pasturage. We spent the second night with one named Boyle, an old
+Hollander. Early the next morning we could hear the howling of a wolf in
+the forest.
+
+"We breakfasted with Tim Friend, a hunter, who lived six miles further
+on. If ever Adam existed he must have looked as this Tim Friend. I
+never saw such an illustration of perfect manhood. Large, strong and
+brawny; every limb in magnificent proportion, energy in every movement
+and strength in every muscle, his appearance was the expression of manly
+independence, contentment and intelligence. His conversation satisfied
+the expectations which it awakened. With gray head, 60 years old, 40 of
+which he had lived in the mountains, and of an observing mind, he could
+not find it difficult to agreeably entertain people who wished for
+information. He is a hunter by profession. We had choice venison for
+breakfast, and there were around the house and near by a great number of
+deers, bears, panthers, etc. I cannot abstain from believing that the
+manly effort which must be put forth in the hunt, the boldness which it
+requires, the keen observation which it encourages, the dexterity and
+activity which are necessary to its success, act together more forcibly
+for the development of the physical and mental strength than any other
+occupation.
+
+"Agriculture and cattle-raising, in their beginning produce careless
+customs and indolence; the mental faculties remain weak, the ideas
+limited, and the imagination, without counterpoise, extravagant.
+Therefore we admire the wisdom and penetration of the North American
+Indian, his sublime eloquence and heroic spirit in contrast to the
+Asiatic shepherd, from whom we receive only simple Arabic fables. The
+man, of whatever color he may be, is always that which the irresistible
+influence of his surroundings has formed him. We left our noble hunter
+and his large, attractive family unwillingly and followed a roadway to
+Duncard's Bottom, on Cheat river.
+
+"We had ridden along uneventfully for about two hours. I was in advance,
+when Joseph, who rode behind me, cried: 'Take care, sir. Take care.
+There is a rattlesnake.' It lay upon the road and my horse had almost
+stepped upon it, which would have proved a disastrous thing. Joseph, a
+good active fellow, sprang instantly from his horse in order to kill it.
+The snake disappeared in the bushes and rattled. It sounded so exactly
+like the noise of a grasshopper that I did not think it could be
+anything else. Joseph armed himself with a stout stick and heavy stone,
+followed the snake, found it, and killed it, but then jumped quickly
+back, for he saw close by another rattlesnake, which had coiled itself
+and was ready to spring at him. He hurried back again and killed the
+second. They were 3-1/2 feet long and nine inches in circumference, in
+the thickest part of the body; one had nine rattles and the other five.
+We examined the poisonous fangs, took the rattles with us and hung the
+bodies on a tree. I had thought until now that the principle of life was
+as stubborn in a snake as in an eel, but found to my astonishment that a
+slight blow was sufficient to destroy it in this dangerous specimen.
+Other observations touching upon natural history I must keep for future
+discussion.
+
+"We dined at Duncard's Bottom, crossed the Cheat river in the afternoon,
+reached the Monongahela Valley, spent the night in a very comfortable
+blockhouse with Mr. Zinn, and arrived the next day at Morgantown, on
+the Monongahela. We spent a day and a half here and were pleasantly
+entertained by Mr. Reeder and William M. Clary, and received much
+information, especially concerning sugar, maple trees and sugar making.
+From Morgantown we went to the mouth of George creek, Fayette county,
+Pennsylvania. As it was afternoon when we reached here we were overtaken
+by night and compelled to spend the night in a small blockhouse with Mr.
+McFarlain. We found Mr. McFarlain a respectable, intelligent farmer,
+surrounded as usual, by a large and happy family.
+
+"Directly after our arrival the table was set, around which the entire
+family assembled. This appears to be the usual custom in the United
+States with all people who are in some measure in good circumstances.
+One of the women, usually the prettiest, has the honor of presiding at
+table. There were good table appointments, fine china, and the simple
+feast was served with the same ceremony as in the most fashionable
+society of Philadelphia. Never, I believe, was there in any place more
+equality than in this. Strangers who come at this time of day at once
+enter the family circle. This was the case with us. Mr. McFarlain told
+us much about his farm and the misfortunes with which he struggled when
+he first cultivated the place upon which he now lives. He has lived here
+30 years, a circumstance which is here very unusual, because the
+adventure loving nature, together with the wish to better their
+condition and the opportunity, has led many people to wander from place
+to place.
+
+"'But,' said Mr. McFarlain, when we made this observation, 'I have
+always believed there was truth in the saying, "A rolling stone gathers
+no moss." With labor and industry I have at last succeeded, and can
+still work as well as my sons.'
+
+"'Oh,' said his wife, a jolly woman, 'he does not do much. The most he
+does is to go around and look at the work.'
+
+"'Let him, let him,' interrupted the daughter, an energetic, pretty girl
+of perhaps 17 years, who was serving the coffee. 'He worked hard when he
+was young.' And no girl of finer education could have said it with more
+charming naivete or with the appearance of more unaffected love.
+
+"After the evening meal the eldest son showed us to our bed-room. 'Shall
+I close the window?' said he. 'I usually sleep here and always leave it
+open; it does not harm me, and Dr. Franklin advises it.'
+
+"The next morning when we came down we found the old farmer sitting on
+the porch reading a paper. Upon the table lay 'Morse's Geography,' 'The
+Beauty of the Stars,' 'The Vicar of Wakefield,' and other good books. I
+have entered into particulars in my description of this family, because
+we were then only five miles from the home of Gallatin, where the people
+are too often represented as rough, uncultured, good-for-nothings. It is
+not necessary to mention that all families here are not as this, yet it
+is something to find a family such as this, living on this side of the
+mountains, 300 miles from the sea coast. We called upon Mr. Gallatin,
+but did not find him at home. Geneva is a little place, but lately
+settled, at the junction of George creek and the Monongahela.
+
+"From here we went to Uniontown, the capital of Fayette county, where we
+saw excellent land and Redstone creek. We dined the following day in
+Redstone or Brownsville; journeyed to Washington, the capital of the
+county of the same name, and arrived the following day in Pittsburg.
+
+"Of this city and its magnificent situation between two mighty rivers,
+the Monongahela and the Allegheny, I shall write you another time. From
+the window where I now sit, I have a view of the first named river, a
+half mile long. It is as broad as the Thames in London. The bank on this
+side is high, but horizontal and level, covered with short grass, such
+as the sheep love, which reminds me of the rock at Brighthelmstein. It
+is bordered with a row of locust trees. The bank on the other side is a
+chain of hills, thickly shaded with oak and walnut trees. The river
+flows quietly and evenly. Boats are going back and forth; even now one
+is coming, laden with hides from Illinois. The people on board are
+wearing clothes made of woolen bed blankets. They are laughing and
+singing after the manner of the French, yet as red as Indians, and
+almost the antipodes of their fatherland.
+
+"From here to the mouth of the Ohio it is 1,200 miles and 3,000 to the
+mouth of the Mississippi. How enormous! How beautiful it is to see the
+dominion of freedom and common sense established. To see in these grand
+surroundings the development of good principle and the struggle toward a
+more perfect life; to admire the spirit of enterprise as it works toward
+a great plan, which seems to be in relation to the great plan which
+nature itself has followed, and at last to anticipate by a secret
+feeling, the future greatness and prosperity which lies before this
+growing country."
+
+
+Two years later Felix Renick passed this way and includes in his account
+a vivid picture of the earliest sort of taverns in the West:
+
+"Some of our neighbors who had served in Dunmore's campaign in 1774,
+gave accounts of the great beauty and fertility of the western country,
+and particularly the Scioto valley, which inspired me with a desire to
+explore it as early as I could make it convenient. I accordingly set out
+from the south branch of Potomac for that purpose, I think about the
+first of October, 1798, in company with two friends, Joseph Harness and
+Leonard Stump, both of whom have long since gone hence. We took with us
+what provisions we could conveniently carry, and a good rifle to procure
+more when necessary, and further prepared ourselves to camp wherever
+night overtook us. Having a long journey before us, we traveled slow,
+and reached Clarksburgh the third night, which was then near the verge
+of the western settlements in Virginia, except along the Ohio river.
+Among our first inquiries of our apparently good, honest, illiterate
+landlord, was whether he could tell us how far it was to Marietta
+[Ohio], and what kind of trace we should have? His reply was, 'O yes, I
+can do that very thing exactly, as I have been recently appointed one of
+the viewers to lay out and mark a road from here to Marietta, and have
+just returned from the performance of that duty. The distance on a
+_straight line_ which we first run was seventy-five miles, but on our
+return we found and marked another line that was much _nearer_.' This
+theory to Mr. Harness and myself, each of us having spent several years
+in the study and practice of surveying, was entirely new: we however let
+it pass without comment, and our old host, to his great delight,
+entertained us till late in the evening, with a detailed account of the
+fine sport he and his associates had in their bear chases, deer chases,
+&c., while locating the road. We pursued our journey next morning,
+taking what our host called the nearest, and which he also said was much
+the best route. The marks on both routes being fresh and plain, the
+crooked and nearest route, as our host called it, frequently crossing
+the other, we took particular notice of the ground the straight line had
+to pass over, and after getting through we were disposed to believe that
+our worthy host was not so far wrong as might be supposed. The straight
+line crossing such high peaks of mountains, some of which were so much
+in the sugar-loaf form, that it would be quite as near to go round as
+over them.
+
+"The first night after leaving the settlement at Clarksburgh, we camped
+in the woods; the next morning while our horses were grazing, we drew
+on our wallets and saddlebags for a snack, that we intended should pass
+for our breakfast, and set out. We had not traveled far before we
+unexpectedly came to a new improvement. A man had gone there in the
+spring, cleared a small field and raised a patch of corn, &c., staying
+in a camp through the summer to watch it to prevent its being destroyed
+by the wild animals. He had, a few days before we came along, called on
+some of his near neighbors on the Ohio, not much more perhaps than
+thirty miles off, who had kindly came forth and assisted him in putting
+up a cabin of pretty ample size, into which he had moved bag and
+baggage. He had also fixed up a rock and trough, and exposed a clapboard
+to view, with some black marks on it made with a coal, indicating that
+he was ready and willing to accommodate those who pleased to favor him
+with a call. Seeing these things, and although we did not in reality
+need any thing in his way, Mr. Harness insisted on our giving him a
+call, observing that any man that would settle down in such a wilderness
+to accommodate travelers ought to be encouraged. We accordingly rode up
+and called for breakfast, horse feed, &c. Then let me say that as our
+host had just 'put the ball in motion,' was destitute of any helpmate
+whatever, (except a dog or two,) he had of course to officiate in all
+the various departments appertaining to a hotel, from the landlord down
+to the shoe-black on the one side, and from the landlady down to the
+dishwash on the other. The first department in which he had to officiate
+was that of the hostler, next that of the bar keeper, as it was then
+customary, whether called for or not, to set out a half pint of
+something to drink. The next, which he fell at with much alacrity, was
+that of the cook, by commencing with rolled up sleeves and unwashed
+hands and arms, that looked about as black and dirty as the bears' paws
+which lay at the cabin door, part of whose flesh was the most
+considerable item in our breakfast fare. The first operation was the
+mixing up some pounded corn meal dough in a little black dirty trough,
+to which the cleaner, and perhaps as he appeared to think him, the
+better half of himself, his dog, had free access before he was fairly
+done with it, and that I presume was the only kind of cleaning it ever
+got. While the dodgers were baking, the bear meat was frying, and what
+he called coffee was also making, which was composed of an article that
+grew some hundred or one thousand miles north of where the coffee tree
+ever did grow. You now have the bill of fare that we sat down to, and
+the manner in which it was prepared; but you must guess how much of it
+we ate, and how long we were at it. As soon as we were done we called
+for our bill, and here follows the items: breakfast fifty cents each,
+horses twenty-five each, half pint of whisky fifty cents. Mr. Harness,
+who had prevailed on us to stop, often heard of the wilderness hotel,
+and whenever mentioned, he always had some term of reproach ready to
+apply to the host and the dirty breakfast, though we often afterwards
+met with fare somewhat similar in all respects.
+
+"We camped two nights in the woods, and next day got to Marietta where
+the land office was then kept by general Putnam, and from his office we
+obtained maps of the different sections of country we wished to
+explore."[30]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE GENESEE ROAD
+
+
+The military importance of the Mohawk Valley and strategic portage at
+Rome, New York, was emphasized in our study of Portage Paths.[31]
+Throughout the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary struggle the
+water route to the Hudson from Lake Ontario, by way of the Onondaga,
+Lake Oneida, Wood Creek, and the Mohawk, was of great moment. But only
+because it was a route--a thoroughfare; not because the territory
+through which it coursed was largely occupied or of tremendous value.
+The French held the lakes and the English were constantly striving for
+foothold there. When Fort Oswego was built on the present site of
+Oswego, the first step by the English was taken; the route had been the
+river route with a portage at Fort Williams (Rome). When Fort Niagara
+was captured in 1759 by Sir William Johnson, the French were driven from
+the Lakes; Johnson's route to Niagara was by Lake Ontario from Oswego.
+It has been suggested that a volume of this series of monographs should
+be given to the campaigns of the English against Fort Niagara. These
+campaigns were made largely on waterways; they left no roads which
+became of any real importance in our national development. Certain
+campaigns of the Old French War left highways which have become of
+utmost significance; only of these routes and their story should this
+series be expected to treat. Despite the two wars which had created busy
+scenes in the Mohawk Valley, no landward route connected it with Niagara
+River and Lake Erie except the Iroquois Trail.[32] No military road was
+built through the "Long House of the Iroquois." To gain the key of the
+western situation--Niagara--the common route was to Oswego. There were
+local roads along the lake shore, and these were used more or less by
+the troops. In the Revolution no American general could get beyond Fort
+Stanwix by land. Leger himself came up the Oswego River to join
+Burgoyne.
+
+[Illustration: PART OF A "MAP OF THE ROUTE BETWEEN ALBANY AND OSWEGO"
+(_Parts AA' and BB' belong opposite_)
+
+[_Drawn about 1756; from original in British Museum_]]
+
+As a consequence, the interior of New York was an almost unexplored
+wilderness at the end of the Revolution in 1783. With the opening of the
+Genesee country by the various companies which operated there, a tide of
+immigration began to surge westward from the upper Mohawk along the
+general alignment of the old-time Iroquois Trail. Utica sprang up on the
+site of old Fort Schuyler, and marked the point of divergence of the new
+land route of civilization from the water route.[33] This was about
+1786. In 1789 Asa Danworth erected his salt works at Bogardus Corners,
+now the city of Syracuse. Geneva, Batavia, and Buffalo mark the general
+line of the great overland route from Utica and Syracuse across New
+York. It followed very closely the forty-third meridian, dropping
+somewhat to reach Buffalo.
+
+The Great Genesee Road, as it was early known, began at old Fort
+Schuyler, as a western extremity of the Mohawk Valley road and later
+turnpike, and was built to the Genesee River by a law passed March 22,
+1794. In 1798 a law was passed extending it to the western boundary of
+the state. It was legally known as the Great Genesee Road and the Main
+Genesee Road until 1800. In that year the road passed into the hands of
+a turnpike company the legal name of which was "The President and
+Directors of the Seneca Road Company." The old name clung to the road
+however, and on the map here reproduced we find it called the "Ontario
+and Genesee Turnpike Road." It forms the main street of both the large
+cities through which it passes, Syracuse and Utica, and in both it is
+called "Genesee Street."
+
+The first act of legislation which created a Genesee Road from an Indian
+trail read as follows:
+
+"_Be it enacted by the People of the State of New York, represented in
+Senate and Assembly_ That Israel Chapin, Michael Myer, and Othniel
+Taylor shall be and hereby are appointed commissioners for the purpose
+of laying out and improving a public road or highway to begin at Old
+Fort Schuyler on the Mohawk river and to run from thence in a line as
+nearly straight as the situation of the country will admit to the Cayuga
+Ferry in the county of Onondaga or to the outlet of the Cayuga lake at
+the discretion of the said commissioners and from the said outlet of the
+Cayuga lake or from the said Cayuga Ferry as the same may be determined
+on by the said commissioners in a line as nearly straight as the
+situation of the country will admit to the town of Canadaquai and from
+thence in a line as nearly straight as possible to the settlement of
+Canawagas on the Genesee river.
+
+"_And be it further enacted_ That the said road shall be laid out six
+rods wide, but it shall not be necessary for the said commissioners to
+open and improve the same above four rods wide in any place thereof. And
+the whole of the said road when laid out, shall be considered as a
+public highway and shall not be altered by the commissioners of any town
+or country [county?] through which the same shall run.
+
+"_And be it further enacted_ That the treasurer of this State shall pay
+to the said commissioners or any two of them a sum or sums of money not
+exceeding in the whole the sum of six hundred pounds out of the monies
+in the treasury which have arisen or may arise from the sale of military
+lotts to be laid out and expended towards the opening and improving that
+part of the said road passing through the military lands.
+
+"_And be it further enacted_ That for the purpose of laying out opening
+and improving the remainder of the said road, the said treasurer shall
+pay unto the said commissioners or any two of them out of any monies in
+the treasury not otherwise appropriated at the end of the present
+session of the legislature a sum not exceeding fifteen hundred pounds
+which said sum shall be by them laid out and expended in making or
+improving the remainder of the said road as aforesaid. _Provided_ that
+no larger proportion of the said sum of fifteen hundred pounds shall be
+appropriated towards the opening and improving of the said road in the
+county of Ontario then in the county of Herkemer.
+
+"_And be it further enacted_ That it shall and may be lawful to and for
+the said commissioners or any two of them to improve the said road by
+contract or otherwise as to them may appear the most proper.
+
+"_And be it further enacted_ That where any part of the said road shall
+be laid out through any inclosed or improved lands the owner or owners
+thereof shall be paid the value of the said lands so laid out into an
+highway with such damages as he, she or they may sustain by reason
+thereof which value and damages shall be settled and agreed upon by the
+said commissioners or any two of them and the parties interested
+therein, and if they cannot agree, then the value of the lands and
+damages shall be appraised by two justices of the peace, on the oaths of
+twelve freeholders not interested in paying or receiving any part of
+such appraisement, otherwise than in paying their proportion of the
+taxes for the contingent charges of the county which freeholders shall
+be summoned by any constable not otherwise interested than as aforesaid,
+by virtue of a warrant to be issued by the said two justices of the
+peace for that purpose, and the whole value of the said lands so laid
+out into an highway, and damages together with the costs of ascertaining
+the value of the said damages of the county in which the said lands
+shall be situated are levied collected and paid.
+
+"_And be it further enacted_ That each of the said commissioners shall
+be entitled to receive for their services the sum of sixteen shillings
+for every day they shall be respectively employed in the said business
+to be paid by the respective counties in which they shall so be employed
+which sums shall be raised levied and paid together with and in the same
+manner as the necessary and contingent charges of such county are raised
+levied and paid and that the said commissioners shall account with the
+auditor of this State for the monies they shall respectively receive
+from the treasurer of this State by virtue of this act on or before the
+first day of January one thousand seven hundred and ninety six."[34]
+
+A law entitled "An act appropriating monies for roads in the county of
+Onondaga and for other purposes therein mentioned," passed April 11,
+1796, contained the following concerning the Genesee Road:
+
+"_And be it further enacted_ That the said commissioners shall and they
+are hereby strictly enjoined to expend two thousand dollars of the said
+monies in repairing the highway and bridges thereon heretofore directed
+to be laid out by law and now commonly called the Great Genesee road
+from the eastern to the western bounds of the said county of Onondaga
+and the residue of the money aforesaid to expend in the repair of such
+highways and the bridges thereon in the said county as will tend most
+extensively to benefit and accommodate the inhabitants thereof.
+
+"_And be it further enacted_ That it shall be the duty of the said
+commissioners and they are hereby strictly enjoined to cause all and
+every bridge which shall be constructed under their direction over any
+stream to be raised at least three feet above the water at its usual
+greatest height in the wettest season of the year and to construct every
+such bridge of the most durable and largest timber which can be
+obtained in its vicinity, and that wherever it can conveniently be done
+the road shall be raised in the middle so as to enable the water falling
+thereon freely to discharge therefrom and shall pursue every other
+measure which in their opinion will best benefit the public in the
+expenditure of the money committed to them."[35]
+
+In an act, passed April 1, 1796, supplementary to an "Act for the better
+support of Oneida, Onondaga and Cuyuga Indians ...", it was ordered that
+from the proceeds of all sales of lands bought of the Indians the
+surveyor-general should pay £500 to the treasurer of Herkimer County and
+a like amount to the treasurer of Onondaga County; this money was
+ordered to be applied to "mending the highway commonly called the Great
+Genesee Road and the bridges thereon."[36]
+
+A law of the year following, 1797, affords one of the interesting uses
+of the lottery in the development of American highways. It reads:
+
+"Whereas it is highly necessary, that direct communications be opened
+and improved between the western, northern and southern parts of this
+State. Therefore
+
+"_Be it enacted by the People of the State of New York, represented in
+Senate and Assembly_, That for the purpose of opening and improving the
+said communications, the managers herein after named shall cause to be
+raised by three successive lotteries of equal value, the sum of
+forty-five thousand dollars. That out of the neat [net?] proceeds of the
+first lottery the sum of eleven thousand seven hundred dollars, and out
+of the neat proceeds of the third lottery, the further sum of two
+thousand two hundred dollars shall be and hereby is appropriated for
+opening and improving the road commonly called the Great Genesee road,
+in all its extent from Old Fort Schuyler in the county of Herkimer to
+Geneva in the county of Ontario...."[37]
+
+The western movement to Lake Erie became pronounced at this time; the
+founders of Connecticut's Western Reserve under General Moses Cleaveland
+emigrated in 1796. The promoters of the Genesee country were
+advertising their holdings widely. The general feeling that there was a
+further West which was fertile, if not better than even the Mohawk and
+Hudson Valleys, is suggested in a law passed March 2, 1798, which
+contained a clause concerning the extension of the Genesee Road:
+
+"_And be it further enacted_ That the commissioner appointed in
+pursuance of the act aforesaid, to open and improve the main Genessee
+road, shall and he is hereby authorized and empowered to lay out and
+continue the main Genessee road, from the Genessee river westward to the
+extremity of the State. _Provided nevertheless_, that none of the monies
+appropriated by the said act shall be laid out on the part of the road
+so to be continued; _and provided also_ that the said road shall be made
+at the expense of those who may make donations therefor."[38]
+
+The mania which swept over the United States between 1790 and 1840 of
+investing money in turnpike and canal companies was felt early in New
+York. The success of the Lancaster Turnpike in Pennsylvania was the
+means of foisting hundreds of turnpike-road companies on public
+attention and private pocket-books. By 1811, New York State had at least
+one hundred and thirty-seven chartered roads, with a total mileage of
+four thousand five hundred miles, and capitalized at seven and a half
+millions.
+
+It is nothing less than remarkable that this thoroughfare from the
+Mohawk to Lake Erie should have been incorporated as a turnpike earlier
+in point of time than any of the routes leading to it (by way either of
+the Mohawk Valley or Cherry Valley) from Albany and the East. The Seneca
+Road Company was incorporated April 1, 1800. The Mohawk Turnpike and
+Bridge Company was incorporated three days later. The Cherry Valley
+routes came in much later.
+
+The Genesee Road was incorporated by the following act, April 1, 1800:
+
+"An act to establish a turnpike road company for improving the State
+road from the house of John House in the village of Utica, in the county
+of Oneida, to the village of Cayuga in the county of Cayuga, and from
+thence to Canadarque in the county of Ontario.
+
+"_Be it enacted by the People of the State of New York represented in
+Senate and Assembly_ That Benjamin Walker, Charles Williamson, Jedediah
+Sanger and Israel Chapin and all such persons as shall associate for the
+purpose of making a good and sufficient road in the form and manner
+herein after described from the house of John House ... observing as
+nearly the line of the present State [Genesee] road as the nature of the
+ground will allow, shall be and are hereby made a corporation and body
+politic in fact and in name, by the name of 'The President and Directors
+of the Seneca Road Company'...."[39]
+
+The road was to be under the management of nine directors and the
+capital stock was to be two thousand two hundred shares worth fifty
+dollars each. The directors were empowered to enter upon any lands
+necessary in building the road, specifications being made for appraisal
+of damages. The road was to "be six rods in width ... cleared of all
+timber excepting trees of ornament, and to be improved in the manner
+following, to wit, in the middle of the said road there shall be formed
+a space not less than twenty four feet in breadth, the center of which
+shall be raised fifteen inches above the sides, rising towards the
+middle by gradual arch, twenty feet of which shall be covered with
+gravel or broken stone fifteen inches deep in the center and nine inches
+deep on the sides so as to form a firm and even surface."
+
+Tollgates were to be established when the road was in proper condition
+every ten miles; the rates of toll designated in this law will be of
+interest for comparative purposes:
+
+_Tolls in 1800 on Seneca Turnpike, New York_
+
+  Wagon, and two horses                            .12-1/2
+  Each horse additional                            .03
+  Cart, one horse                                  .06
+  Coach, or four wheeled carriage, two horses      .25
+  Each horse additional                            .03
+  Carriage, one horse                              .12-1/2
+  Each horse additional                            .06
+  Cart, two oxen                                   .08
+  Each yoke additional                             .03
+  Saddle or led horse                              .04
+  Sled, between December 15 and March 15           .12-1/2
+  Score of cattle                                  .06
+  Score of sheep or hogs                           .03
+
+The old Genesee Road passed through as romantic and beautiful a land as
+heart could wish to see or know; but the road itself was a creation of
+comparatively modern days, in which Seneca and Mohawk were eliminated
+factors in the problem. Here, near this road, a great experiment was
+made a few years after its building, when a canal was proposed and dug,
+amid fears and doubts on the part of many, from Albany to Buffalo. One
+of the first persons to advocate a water highway which would eclipse the
+land route, sent a number of articles on the subject to a local paper,
+whose editor was compelled to refuse to print more of them, because of
+the ridicule to which they exposed the paper! Poor as the old road was
+in bad weather, people could not conceive of any better substitute.
+
+[Illustration: PART OF A "MAP OF THE GRAND PASS FROM NEW YORK TO
+MONTREAL ... BY THOS. POWNALL"
+
+[_Drawn about 1756; from original in British Museum_]]
+
+When the Erie Canal was being built, so poor were the roads leading into
+the region traversed by the canal, that contractors were compelled to do
+most of their hauling in winter, when the ground was frozen and sleds
+could be used on the snow. Among the reasons given--as we shall see in a
+later monograph of this series--for delays in completing portions of
+the canal, was that of bad roads and the impossibility of sending heavy
+freight into the interior except in winter; and a lack of snow, during
+at least one winter, seriously handicapped the contractors. But when the
+Erie Canal was built, the prophecies of its advocates were fulfilled, as
+the rate per hundred-weight by canal was only one-tenth the rate charged
+by teamsters on the Genesee Road. The old "waggoners" who, for a
+generation, had successfully competed with the Inland Lock Navigation
+Company, could not compete with the Erie Canal, and it was indeed very
+significant that, when Governor Clinton and party made that first
+triumphal journey by canal-boat from Buffalo to Albany and New
+York--carrying a keg of Lake Erie water to be emptied into the Atlantic
+Ocean--they were not joyously received at certain points, such as
+Schenectady, where the old methods of transportation were the principal
+means of livelihood for a large body of citizens. How delighted were the
+old tavern-keepers in central New York with the opening of the Erie
+Canal, on whose boats immigrants ate and slept? About as happy, we may
+say, as were the canal operators when a railway was built, hurrying
+travelers on at such a rapid pace that their destinations could be
+reached, in many cases, between meals!
+
+Yet until the railway came, the fast mail-stages rolled along over the
+Genesee Road, keeping alive the old traditions and the old breed of
+horses. Local business was vastly increased by the dawning of the new
+era; society adapted itself to new and altered conditions, and the old
+days when the Genesee Road was a highway of national import became the
+heritage of those who could look backward and take hope for the future,
+because they recognized better the advances that each new year had
+made.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+A TRAVELER ON THE GENESEE ROAD
+
+
+Among the many records of travelers on the famous Genesee Road, that of
+Timothy Bigelow, as given in his _Journal of a Tour to Niagara Falls in
+the Year 1805_,[40] approaches perhaps most nearly to the character of a
+description of the old highway which should be presented here:
+
+"July 14th. We proceeded [from Albany] to Schenectady to breakfast,
+fifteen miles, Beale's tavern; a good house. A new turnpike is making
+from Albany to this place; it is constructed in a very durable manner,
+with a pavement covered with hard gravel. That part which is completed
+is now an excellent road; the remainder will soon be equally good. It
+was not disagreeable to us to be informed that this road, and indeed all
+the other turnpikes, and most other recent works which we met with,
+which required uncommon ingenuity or labor, were constructed by Yankees.
+
+"Schenectady seems not to be a word fitted to common organs of speech.
+We heard it pronounced Snacketady, Snackedy, Ksnackidy, Ksnactady,
+Snackendy, and Snackady, which last is much the most common. To
+Ballston, Bromeling's, sixteen miles; a most excellent house. We found
+here about forty guests, but understood there were upwards of two
+hundred at Aldrich's, McMasters's, and the other boarding-houses near.
+Bromeling himself has accommodations in the first style for one hundred
+and thirty persons.
+
+"We met with but few people here from Massachusetts. Mr. Henry Higginson
+and his wife, Mr. Bingham, the bookseller, and his family, were all we
+knew. The mineral water was not agreeable to us all upon the first
+experiment; but with others, and myself in particular, it was otherwise.
+It is remarkably clear and transparent; the fixed air, which is
+continually escaping from it, gives it a sparkling appearance, and a
+lively and full taste, not unlike to that of brisk porter or champagne
+wine, while one is actually drinking.... We slept at Beals's. July
+17th, we took the western stage in company with a Mr. Row, a gentleman
+from Virginia, who was about to engage in trade at Geneva, on the Seneca
+Lake. We crossed over to the north side of the Mohawk soon after setting
+out, to Schwartz's (still in Schenectady), a poor house, seven miles;
+thence to Pride's in Amsterdam, nine miles. Pride's is a handsome
+limestone house, built about fifty years since, as we were informed, by
+Sir William Johnson, for his son-in-law, Guy Johnson.... To Abel's in
+Amsterdam, situated on Trapp's Hill, opposite to the mouth of Schoharie
+River and the old Fort Hunter, to dine. The prospect to the south-west
+is extensive and romantic, exhibits an agreeable mixture of hills and
+plains, diversified with extensive forests almost in a state of nature,
+and cultivated fields scarce less extensive, now covered with a rich
+harvest of ripening wheat. The prospect was the principal thing which we
+found in this place to recommend it. The tavern is a poor one, and our
+dinner of course was miserable. Four miles to Shepard's, in
+Canajoharie, to sleep.... The Mohawk in many places was shoal, and
+interrupted with so many islands and sand-banks that we were often at a
+loss to conceive how loaded boats could pass, and yet we saw several
+going up-stream with heavy loads.... July 18th. To Carr's at Little
+Falls, to breakfast, twenty miles; a very good house. In this stage, we
+passed the East Canada Creek. Observed for the very first time the
+cypress-tree. The gloomy, melancholy air of this tree, and the deep
+shade which it casts, resulting from the downward direction of its
+branches, as well as the form and color of its leaves, have very
+properly marked it out as emblematical of mourning.
+
+"On approaching the Little Falls, we observed undoubted marks of the
+operation of the water on rocks, now far out of their reach,
+particularly the round holes worn out [by] pebbles kept in a rotatory
+motion by the current, so common at all falls. It is certain that
+heretofore the falls must have been some ways further down stream, and
+have been much greater than they now are, and that the German flats,
+and other low grounds near the river above, must have been the bed of a
+lake. The falls occupy about half a mile. In some spots, the river is so
+crowded between rocks, that one might almost pass across it; in most
+places, however, it is broken into a number of streams by irregular
+masses of limestone rock. There is here a commodious canal for the
+passage of boats cut round these falls. The whole fall is fifty-four
+feet; and there are five locks, in each of which the fall is ten feet,
+besides the guard-lock, where it is four. The locks are constructed of
+hewn stone, and are of excellent workmanship; they are almost exactly
+upon the construction of those at the head of Middlesex canal. Most of
+the buildings in the neighborhood, as well as two beautiful bridges over
+the canal here, are also of limestone. Carr and his wife are from
+Albany, and are agreeable and genteel people.
+
+"To Trowbridge's Hotel, in Utica, to dine. The house is of brick, large,
+commodious, and well attended. We found good fare here; in particular,
+excellent wine. From Little Falls to this is twenty-two miles. In this
+stage, we passed the German flats, an extensive and well-cultivated
+tract of internal land on both sides the Mohawk. The town of German
+Flats is on the south of the town of Herkimer, opposite thereto, on the
+north side of the river. Notwithstanding the celebrity of this spot for
+the excellence of its soil, we thought it not equal to that on
+Connecticut River. Having passed the West Canada Creek, the hills on
+both sides the river seem to subside, and open to the view an extensive
+and almost unbounded tract of level and fertile country, though of a
+much newer aspect than any we had seen before.
+
+[Illustration: WESTERN NEW YORK IN 1809]
+
+"At Utica, we passed over to the southern side of the Mohawk. The river
+here is about the size of the Nashua, and from this place bends off to
+the north-west. We happened to pass the bridge as a batteau was coming
+up to a store at the end of it, to discharge its cargo. The water was so
+shoal that the batteau grounded before it could be brought to its proper
+place. A pair of horses were attached to its bows, and it was not
+without the assistance of several men, added to the strength of the
+horses, that it was got up to the landing-place at last.
+
+"Morality and religion do not seem to have much hold of the minds of
+people in this region. Instances of rudeness and profanity are to be met
+with in almost every place, but the people engaged in unloading the
+batteau were much more extravagantly and unnecessarily profane than is
+common. Several persons also, whom I saw at Little Falls this morning,
+told me that they knew full well that Adam could not have been the first
+man, or that he must have lived much longer ago than the Scriptures
+declare, because they said it must be more than five thousand years for
+the Mohawk to have broken through the rocks, as it has done at those
+falls.
+
+"Utica was begun to be settled sixteen years ago, and is now a little
+city, and contains several elegant dwelling-houses, some of which are of
+brick, and a few of stone, together with a great number of stores and
+manufactories of different kinds. The Lombardy poplar-tree is cultivated
+here in great abundance. The facility of transportation by means of the
+Mohawk and Hudson Rivers on one side, and Wood Creek, Oneida, and
+Ontario Lakes on the other, together with the extraordinary fertility of
+the adjacent country, must at no great distance of time make Utica a
+place of great business and resort, and of course its population must
+rapidly increase. Moses Johnson, a broken trader, late of Keene, now of
+Manlius, a little above this place, whom we saw at Trowbridge's, spoke
+of this country as not favorable for traders, and that a very few stores
+of goods would overstock the market. It is natural, however, for people
+in his situation to ascribe their misfortunes to anything rather than
+their own imprudence or misconduct, which others would probably consider
+as the true cause of them. Mr. Charles Taylor and his father, whom we
+had overtaken at Shepard's, we left at Utica.
+
+"July 19th. To Laird's in Westmoreland, to breakfast, eleven miles; a
+very good house. Our breakfast here was garnished with a dish of
+excellent honey. Every thing in and about the house was neat, and we
+were particularly struck with the genteel and comely appearance of two
+young ladies, daughters of our landlord, one of whom, we were told, had
+attended a ball in the neighborhood, I think at Paris, the evening
+before. This stage was over a tract of very fertile country, nearly
+level, but a little ascending; the growth was mostly of rock-maple and
+lime-tree. We passed a creek in New Hartford, called Sawguet, or Sogwet,
+or Sacada [Sauquoit], and another in a corner of Paris called Kerry, or
+Riscana, say Oriskany. The whole country from Utica to this place is
+thickly settled. The houses are mostly well built, and many of them
+handsome; very few log houses to be seen. Young orchards are numerous
+and thrifty, and Lombardy poplars line the road a great part of the way;
+and yet we saw not a single field which had not the stumps of the
+original forest trees yet remaining in it. Honey is sent from hence to
+Lake Ontario, in barrels.
+
+"To Shethar's in Sullivan, eighteen miles, to dine; a good tavern. The
+face of the country is not so level here as about Utica, though it
+cannot be called hilly, even here. In addition to the forest trees which
+we had before seen, we here found the shag-bark nut tree in abundance.
+In this stage, we passed through the Oneida Indian village.... In this
+stage, we also passed the Skanandoa Creek, the first water we met with
+which discharges itself into the ocean by the St. Lawrence, as the
+Oriskany was the last which pays tribute to the Hudson.
+
+"We next passed the Oneida Creek, which unites with the Skanandoa. The
+earth in some places here is of the same color with that on Connecticut
+River, where the red freestone is found. In the Oneida village, the
+fields are free from stumps, the first to be met that are so from Utica
+to this place.... To Tyler's in Onondaga Hollow, to sleep, twenty-one
+miles. The last sixteen miles are over a very hilly country; the
+Canaseraga Mountain, in particular, is four or five miles over, and very
+steep....
+
+"The country, as we approached Onondaga Hollow, we found had been
+longer settled than nearer the Oneida village, because the last cession
+of the Oneidas on the west, and immediately contiguous to their present
+reservation, was made but six or eight years ago, whereas the country to
+the westward of that had begun to be settled some time before. The town
+of Manlius, in particular, has the appearance of a flourishing
+settlement. This town is the first in the _Military Tract_, which is the
+lands given by the State of New York as a gratuity to the officers and
+soldiers of their line in the Revolutionary Army. As we were descending
+into the Onondaga Hollow, we saw to the north-westward the Salina or
+Onondaga Lake....
+
+"The Onondaga Creek, which is of a convenient size for a mill-stream,
+runs along the Hollow from south to north, as do all the other streams
+in this country. This creek passes near the celebrated Onondaga salt
+springs, which are situated about five or six miles northward from
+Tyler's.... July 20th. Rose at half past two o'clock, and proceeded to
+Andrew's, at Skaneateles, to breakfast, sixteen miles; a good tavern.
+The country is still hilly, but very fertile. The soil is deep,--a
+mixture of loam and clay. The roads here must be very bad in wet
+weather. It rained last night for the first time since we commenced our
+journey; and the horses' feet, in consequence thereof, slipped as if
+they were travelling on snow or ice.
+
+"Rising out of Onondaga Hollow is a long and very steep hill. The road
+is constructed on the southern side of a precipice, in such a manner
+that, as you approach the top of the hill, you have a tremendous gulf on
+your left hand, at the bottom of which you hear the murmur of a brook
+fretting among the rocks, as it is passing on toward the Onondaga Creek,
+which it joins in the Hollow. There is a kind of railing or fence,
+composed of logs secured with stakes or trees, which is all that
+prevents the passenger, and even the road itself, from falling to the
+bottom of the gulf. On the hill we found the embryo of a village. A
+court-house is already built, and the frame of a hotel is raised. The
+hotel, we were told, is to be kept by one Brunson. It is an
+accommodation much needed by travellers on this road.
+
+"To Harris's in Cayuga, fifteen miles, to dine. We here had an excellent
+dinner of beefsteaks. Mr. Harris told us that they could keep beef fresh
+four or five days, in hot weather, by hanging it upon the
+trees--wrapping it in flannel--as high as was convenient. Flannel is
+better to wrap it in than linen.
+
+"The village of Cayuga is small, but pleasant and lively. It is in the
+township of Marcellus, on the eastern bank of the Cayuga Lake, within
+one or two miles of its northern extremity. This lake is about two miles
+wide in general, and almost forty miles long. Nearly north and south
+from the village, there are about fifteen miles of the lake in sight.
+The shores are mostly of hard land, except at the northern extremity,
+where there is a great deal of marsh, which is an unfavorable
+circumstance for the village, as it is not only disagreeable to the
+sight, but, I think, also to the smell. There is a wooden bridge across
+the lake, leading from Cayuga village towards Geneva, one mile long,
+wanting three roods. It suffered so much by shocks of the ice last
+winter, that in some places it is hardly safe to pass it. This forenoon
+we had passed the outlet of the Owasco Lake, but did not see the lake
+itself, which we were told was about a mile south of the road. The
+country hitherto is somewhat uneven, though by no means so much so as
+near the Onondaga Hollow. The soil, however, is excellent in many
+places, and is of a reddish color.
+
+"To Powell's Hotel in Geneva, to sleep, sixteen miles; excellent
+accommodations. At Harris's we had met with a Mr. Rees, a gentleman in
+trade at Geneva, who took passage in the stage with us for that place.
+From this gentleman, whom we found very intelligent and communicative,
+we learned many particulars concerning the salt springs, discovered
+about five years since upon the Cayuga outlet. These springs are about
+twelve miles below the Cayuga bridge, and are on both sides the outlet:
+that on the western side is in the township of Galen, and belongs to Mr.
+Rees and his partner in trade. These springs had long been known to the
+Indians, but they had always been reserved in communicating their
+knowledge of the state of the country to the white settlers. It was not
+till most or all of those who lived near this outlet had died or moved
+away, except one, that he mentioned the existence of these springs; and
+for a reward he conducted some persons to the place where they are
+situated. The persons to whom he communicated this information
+endeavored to purchase the favored spot before the owner should be
+apprised of its inestimable value; but he accidentally obtained a
+knowledge of his good fortune, and of course refused to sell....
+
+The road from Cayuga to Geneva is for a few miles along the southern or
+south-eastern side, and the rest along the northern or north-eastern
+side of the Seneca outlet. The face of the country near the road is more
+level; but the soil is more sandy and uninviting than we had lately
+seen, till we approached near to Geneva. The land there is excellent, as
+we were told it was, through all the tract which extends between the
+Cayuga and Seneca Lakes. This tract rises in a kind of regular glacis
+from each lake, so that from the middle of it one can see both. It wants
+nothing but inhabitants and cultivation to make it an elysium. The
+Seneca outlet flows into the lower end of the Cayuga Lake. Towards its
+mouth there is a considerable fall, or rather rapid, which it is
+contemplated to lock, whereby a water communication will be opened
+between the two lakes. The stream is about half the size of the
+Winnipiseogee, and has a bluish-white appearance.
+
+"We were within half a mile of Geneva before we came in sight of the
+Seneca Lake. This charming sheet of water extends southerly from this
+place to Catharine Town, forty miles, being from two to four miles wide.
+There is not a foot of swamp or marsh on its borders, from one extremity
+to the other; but it is everywhere lined by a clear, gravelly beach, and
+the land rises from it with a very gentle and graceful ascent in every
+direction....
+
+"Not far from Geneva are some of the Indian orchards, which were cut
+down by General Sullivan in his famous expedition, scarce less barbarous
+than those of the savages themselves. The trees now growing in these
+orchards sprouted from the roots of those which were cut down, and
+therefore grow in clusters, six or seven rising from one root. We saw
+Indian fields here free from stumps, the only ones which are to the
+westward of Utica, except those belonging to the Oneidas. We were told
+that, at this season of the year, the wind at Geneva blows constantly
+from the south in the forenoon, and from the north in the afternoon. We
+here quitted the stage, which runs no further than Canandaigua, and
+hired an open Dutch wagon and driver, and a single horse, to carry us to
+Niagara.... The turnpike road ends at this place [Canandaigua]. The
+whole length from Albany is two hundred and six or seven miles: it may
+properly be called two turnpikes, which join each other at Utica. A
+project is on foot for still extending the turnpike even to Niagara, a
+direct course to which would not probably exceed one hundred miles.
+
+"Mr. Rees told us yesterday that he was engaged to proceed to-morrow
+with certain commissioners to mark out the course of the road, and that
+the proprietors will begin to work upon it next year. The road may not
+be very good property at first, but will probably soon become so,
+judging from the astonishing rapidity with which this country is
+settled. It is ascertained that one thousand families migrated hither
+during the last year, two thirds of whom were from New England.
+
+"To Hall's in Bloomfield, to sleep, twelve miles; very good house. We
+had an excellent supper and clean beds. The town of Bloomfield has been
+settled about fifteen years, and is now in a flourishing state. Here is
+a handsome new meeting-house with a tasty steeple. The vane on the
+steeple is rather whimsical. It is a flying angel, blowing a trumpet
+against the wind.... To Hosmer's in Hartford, to breakfast, twelve and a
+half miles. Between Bloomfield and this, we passed through Charleston,
+which has but recently been reclaimed from the wilderness. It is
+perfectly flat, the soil is pretty good, though better, and more settled
+at some distance from the road than near it. The reason of cutting the
+road where it goes was because the country in that direction was open,
+when it was first explored, between this place and Lake Ontario, which
+is but twenty-eight miles distant, or to Gerundegut [now Toronto] Bay,
+but twenty-two miles....
+
+"Hitherto we have found better roads since we left the turnpike than
+before, except that the bridges and causeways are mostly constructed
+with poles. Hosmer, our landlord, is an intelligent man and keeps a good
+tavern. We had for breakfast good coffee, excellent tea, loaf sugar,
+mutton chop, waffles, berry pie, preserved berries, excellent bread,
+butter, and a salad of young onions. I mention the particulars, because
+some of the articles, or such a collection, were hardly to be expected
+in such a depth of wilderness.
+
+"To Gansen's in Southampton, twelve and a half miles, to dine. Within
+about a mile of Hosmer's, we passed the Genesee River. The outlet of the
+Conesus Lake joins this river about a mile above, or to the south. Where
+we crossed, there is a new bridge, apparently strong and well built; and
+yet the water last spring undermined one end of it, so that it has sunk
+considerably....
+
+"Gansen's is a miserable log house. We made out to obtain an ordinary
+dinner. Our landlord was drunk, the house was crowded with a dozen
+workmen, reeking with rain and sweat, and we were, withal, constantly
+annoyed with the plaintive and frightful cries and screams of a crazy
+woman, in the next room. We hastened our departure, therefore, even
+before the rain had ceased.
+
+"To Russell's in Batavia, twelve miles, to sleep. One mile from
+Gansen's, we crossed Allen's Creek, at Buttermilk Falls, where there are
+mills, and five miles further the Chookawoonga Creek, near the eastern
+transit line of the Holland purchase. This line extends from the bounds
+of Pennsylvania to Lake Ontario, a distance of near ninety-four miles.
+So far, the road was the worst of any we had seen; and none can be much
+worse and be passable for wheels. Within six miles of Batavia, the road
+is much better, and the land of a good quality, heavily timbered all the
+way, but especially near the settlement. It is but three years since
+this spot was first cleared, and it is now a considerable village. Here
+is a large building, nearly finished, intended for a court-house, jail,
+and hotel, under the same roof. The street is perfectly level, and is
+already a good and smooth road. Here is also an excellent mill, on a
+large and commodious scale, situated on the Tonawanda Creek, which is
+the first water we saw which passes over Niagara Falls. Russell's is a
+poor tavern. We were told that our sheets were clean, for they had been
+slept in but a _few_ times since they were washed.
+
+"July 23d. To Luke's in Batavia, to breakfast, five miles. We intended
+to have stopped at McCracken's, one mile short of this, but we were told
+that we could not be accommodated. The exterior appearance of both
+houses was very much alike; they are log huts, about twelve feet square.
+Luke's consisted of a single room, with a small lean-to behind, which
+served for a kitchen. It contained scarce any furniture, not even
+utensils enough to serve us comfortably for breakfast....
+
+"It was but eighteen months since Luke began a settlement here, and he
+was the first who made the attempt between Batavia and Vandevener's, a
+distance of eighteen miles, though in that distance now there are
+several huts. Taverns like Luke's are not uncommon in this vicinity;
+almost every hut we saw had a sign hung out on a pole or stump,
+announcing that it was an inn. Perhaps such complete poverty did not
+exist in them all as we found at Luke's, yet, judging from external
+appearances, the difference could not be great.
+
+"We passed the Tonawanda near Batavia court-house, and then kept along
+its southern bank to this place. The woods are full of new settlers.
+Axes were resounding, and the trees literally falling about us as we
+passed. In one instance, we were obliged to pass in a field through the
+smoke and flame of the trees which had lately been felled and were just
+fired.
+
+"To Vandevener's in Willink, thirteen miles. We had intended only to
+dine here; but by reason of a thunder shower, and the temptation of
+comfortable accommodations, we concluded not to proceed till next day.
+Our last stage was through the Batavia woods, famed for their horrors,
+which were not abated by our having been informed at Russell's, that not
+far from here a white man had lately been killed by the Indians. We
+found the road much better than we had anticipated; the last four miles
+were the worst. A little labor would make the road all very good, at
+least in dry weather. There is another way to come from Batavia here;
+but it is six miles further, and probably little or no better than this.
+
+"It was but three years since Vandevener began here. He at first built a
+log house, but he has now a two-story framed house, adjoining that. His
+whole territory is five hundred acres, one hundred of which he has
+already got under improvement....
+
+"July 23d. To Ransom's in Erie, to breakfast, fourteen miles. Ransom
+came from Great Barrington in Massachusetts, and settled here last
+September.... The last three miles from Ellicott's Creek to Ransom's is
+a new road cut through a thick wood, and is as bad as any part of the
+road through the Batavia woods.
+
+"To Crow's at Buffalo Creek, eight miles. In this stage, we passed
+the Four Mile Creek. Half the distance from Ransom's was over open
+country, ... in which many young chestnut-trees are just sprouting from
+the ground. The rest of our way was through a thick wood, where the
+growth is the same kind as in the interior of Massachusetts....
+
+"From Buffalo we passed along the beach of Lake Erie, to the ferry
+across its outlet on the Niagara River, at Black Rock, so called, three
+miles...."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE CATSKILL TURNPIKE
+
+
+So few writers have paid any attention to the influence of roads in the
+development of our country that it is a great pleasure to find in
+Francis Whiting Halsey's _The Old New York Frontier_,[41] a chapter on
+the old Catskill Turnpike; through the kindness of the author it is
+possible to present here this story of that strategic highway of old New
+York:
+
+"Before the Revolutionary War something of a road had been cut through
+the woods from Otsego Lake southward along the Susquehanna, and other
+primitive roads led to and from the lake; but these highways had almost
+disappeared during the later years of the war, when Nature had done her
+effective work of reclamation. The one leading from the lake southward
+was improved in 1786 as far as Hartwick, and others were speedily taken
+in hand. Further down the river efforts were made to establish
+convenient communication with the Hudson, and out of this grew a road
+which eventually became the great highway for a large territory. It was
+called the Catskill Turnpike, and had its terminus on the Susquehanna at
+Wattles's Ferry.[41a]
+
+"This road, as a turnpike, properly dates from 1802, but the road itself
+is much older. Its eastern end had been opened long before the
+Revolution with a terminus in the Charlotte Valley. It seems then to
+have been hardly more than a narrow clearing through the forest, what
+farmers call a 'wood road,' or frontiersman a 'tote road.' It served as
+a convenient route to the Susquehanna, because much shorter than the
+older route by the Mohawk Valley. Over this road on horseback in 1769,
+came Colonel Staats Long Morris and his wife, the Duchess of Gordon.
+
+"After the war demands rose for a better road, and one was soon
+undertaken with its terminus at Wattles's Ferry. This terminus appears
+to have been chosen because the river here was deep enough to permit the
+use of 'battoes' during the low water that prevailed in summer. By the
+summer of 1788 the road was in passable condition. Alexander Harper and
+Edward Paine in February, 1789, declared that they had been to 'a very
+great expense in opening the roads from Catskill and the Hudson to the
+Susquehanna River.' In the same year a petition was filed for a road
+'from the Ouleout to Kyuga Lake.' The road to Cayuga Lake (Ithaca) made
+slow progress, and in 1791 General Jacob Morris addressed to Governor
+Clinton a letter which shows that it was then still to be undertaken.
+Early in 1790 the State had taken the road to Catskill in charge. In
+August, G. Gelston made up from surveys a map from Catskill 'running
+westerly to the junction of the Ouleout Creek with the Susquehanna
+River.' The country had been previously explored for the purpose by
+James Barker and David Laurence.[42]
+
+"In 1791 Sluman Wattles charged his cousin, Nathaniel Wattles, £4, 6_s._
+for 'carting three barrells from your house to Catskill,' £1 for 'five
+days work on the road,' and 15 shillings for 'inspecting road.' Besides
+Nathaniel Wattles, Menad Hunt was interested in the work, and in 1792
+the two men appealed to the state to be reimbursed for money paid out
+above the contract price.[43] During this year the father of the late
+Dr. Samuel H. Case, of Oneonta, emigrated to the upper Ouleout from
+Colchester, Conn., with his seven brothers. They drove cattle and sheep
+ahead of them, and consumed eight days in making the journey from the
+Hudson River. Solomon Martin went over the road in the same year, using
+Sluman Wattles's oxen, for which he was charged £1, 17_s._ He went to
+Catskill, and was gone fifteen days. This road was only twenty-five feet
+wide. In 1792 a regular weekly mail-route was established over it.
+
+"These are among the many roads which were opened in the neighborhood
+before the century closed--before the Catskill Turnpike, as a turnpike,
+came into existence. Nearly every part of the town of Unadilla, then
+embracing one-third of Otsego County, had been made accessible before
+the year 1800. The pioneers had taken up lands all through the hill
+country. But the needs of the settlers had not been fully met. All over
+the State prevailed similar conditions. The demands that poured in upon
+State and town authorities for road improvements became far in excess of
+what could be satisfied. Everywhere fertile lands had been cleared and
+sown to grain, but the crops were so enormous that they could neither be
+consumed at home nor transported to market elsewhere. Professor McMaster
+says that 'the heaviest taxes that could have been laid would not have
+sufficed to cut out half the roads or build half the bridges that
+commerce required.
+
+"Out of this condition grew the policy of granting charters to turnpike
+companies, formed by well-to-do land-owners, who undertook to build
+roads and maintain them in proper condition for the privilege of
+imposing tolls. Men owning land and possessed of ready money, were
+everywhere eager to invest in these enterprises. They not only saw the
+promise of dividends, but ready sales for their lands. At one time an
+amount of capital almost equal to the domestic debt of the nation when
+the Revolution closed was thus employed throughout the country. By the
+year 1811, no fewer than 137 roads had been chartered in New York State
+alone, with a total length of 4,500 miles and a total capital of
+$7,500,000. About one-third of this mileage was eventually completed.
+
+"Eight turnpikes went out from Albany, and five others joined Catskill,
+Kingston, and Newburg with the Susquehanna and Delaware rivers. The
+earliest of these five, and one of the earliest in the State, was the
+Catskill and Susquehanna turnpike, that supplanted the primitive State
+road to Wattles's Ferry. The old course was changed in several
+localities, the charter permitting the stockholders to choose their
+route. Among the names in the charter were John Livingston, Caleb Benton
+(a brother of Stephen Benton), John Kortright, Sluman Wattles, and
+Solomon Martin. The stock was limited to $12,000 in shares of $20 each.
+
+"The road ran through lands owned by the stockholders. Little regard was
+had for grades, as travellers well know. The main purpose was to make
+the land accessible and marketable. The road was completed in 1802, and
+soon became a famous highway to Central New York, and the navigable
+Susquehanna, and so remained for more than a quarter of a century. It
+was in operation four years earlier than the Great Western Turnpike,
+connecting Albany with Buffalo and running through Cherry Valley.
+Spafford in 1813 described it as 'the Appian Way turnpike,' in which it
+seems the pride felt in it, likened as it thus was to one of the best
+roads ever built by man--that Roman highway which still does service
+after the lapse of more than 2,000 years. In one sense this turnpike was
+like a Roman road: it followed straight lines from point to point
+regardless of hills, obstacles being squarely faced and defied by these
+modern men as by the old Romans.
+
+"Ten toll-gates were set up along the line, with the rates as follows:
+for twenty sheep and hogs, eight cents; for twenty horses and cattle,
+twenty cents; for a horse and rider, five cents; for a horse and chaise,
+twelve and one-half cents; for a coach or chariot, twenty-five cents;
+for a stage or wagon, twelve and one-half cents. In 1804, Caleb Benton,
+who lived in Catskill, was president of the corporation, and in 1805 the
+stage business of the road was granted as a monopoly to David Bostwick,
+Stephen Benton, Lemuel Hotchkiss, and Terence Donnelly. Two stages were
+to be kept regularly on the road, the fare to be five cents per mile. A
+stage that left Catskill Wednesday morning reached Unadilla Friday
+night, and one that left Unadilla Sunday reached Catskill Tuesday. The
+most prosperous period for the road was the ten years from 1820 to 1830.
+
+"Two years after the road was built, Dr. Timothy Dwight, President of
+Yale College, during one of his regular vacation journeys, passed over
+it and stopped at Unadilla. He has left a full record of the journey.
+Dr. Dwight, accustomed long to the comforts of life in New England, had
+no sooner crossed the State line from Massachusetts to New York than he
+observed a change. The houses became ordinary and ill repaired, and very
+many of them were taverns of wretched appearance.
+
+"For sixteen or eighteen miles, he saw neither church nor school-house.
+Catskill contained about 100 houses, and much of the business was done
+by barter. The turnpike to the Susquehanna he described as a 'branch of
+the Greenwood turnpike from Hartford to Albany, commencing from Canaan
+in Connecticut and passing to Wattles's Ferry on the Susquehanna. Thence
+it is proposed to extend it to the county of Trumbull on the southern
+shore of Lake Erie.' The road he thought 'well made.'
+
+"Connecticut families were found settled along the line. Now he came
+upon 'a few lonely plantations recently begun upon the road,' and then
+'occasionally passed a cottage, and heard the distant sound of an axe
+and of a human voice. All else was grandeur, gloom and solitude.' At
+last after many miles of riding he reached a settlement 'for some miles
+a thinly built village, composed of neat, tidy houses,' in which
+everything 'indicated prosperity.' This was Franklin. Coming down the
+Ouleout, the country, he said, 'wore a forbidding aspect, the houses
+being thinly scattered and many of them denoted great poverty.'
+
+"When Dr. Dwight reached Wattles's Ferry, the more serious trials of his
+journey began. All the privations of life in a new country which he had
+met on the road from Catskill at last had overtaxed his patience, and he
+poured forth his perturbed spirit upon this infant settlement. When he
+made a second visit a few years later he liked the place much better.
+His first impressions are chronicled at some length. He says:
+
+"'When we arrived at the Susquehanna we found the only inn-keeper, at
+the eastern side of the river, unable to furnish us a dinner. To obtain
+this indispensable article we were obliged therefore to cross the river.
+The ferry-boat was gone. The inhabitants had been some time employed in
+building a bridge, but it was unfinished and impassable. There was
+nothing left us, therefore, but to cross a deep and rapid ford. Happily
+the bottom was free from rocks and stones.'
+
+"Dr. Dwight appears to have found no satisfactory stopping-place in
+Unadilla, and proceeds to say:
+
+"'About four miles from the ferry we came to an inn kept by a Scotchman
+named Hanna. Within this distance we called at several others, none of
+which could furnish us a dinner. I call them inns because this name is
+given them by the laws of the State, and because each of them hangs out
+a sign challenging this title. But the law has nicknamed them, and the
+signs are liars.
+
+"'It is said, and I suppose truly, that in this State any man who will
+pay for an inn-keeper's license obtains one of course. In consequence of
+this practice the number of houses which bear the appellation is
+enormous. Too many of them are mere dramshops of no other use than to
+deceive, disappoint and vex travellers and to spread little circles of
+drunkenness throughout the State. A traveller after passing from inn to
+inn in a tedious succession finds that he can get nothing for his horse
+and nothing for himself.'
+
+"The remedy he prescribed for this was to license 'only one inn where
+there are five or six.' The evil was general. In 1810 the people of
+Meredith made a formal and vigorous protest against the growth of
+intemperance and crime as caused by public houses. There were ten hotels
+in that town alone, besides a number of distilleries. Many citizens
+banded themselves in behalf of order and decency, and their protest
+abounded in an energy of language that would have delighted the soul of
+Dr. Dwight. Of his further experience at Mr. Hanna's hotel, he says:
+
+"'We at length procured a dinner and finding no house at a proper
+distance where we could be lodged concluded to stay where we were. Our
+fare was indeed bad enough, but we were sheltered from the weather. Our
+inn-keeper besides furnishing us with such other accommodations as his
+home afforded, added to it the pleasures of his company and plainly
+considered himself as doing us no small favor. In that peculiar
+situation in which the tongue vibrates with its utmost ease and
+celerity, he repeated to us a series of anecdotes dull and vulgar in the
+extreme. Yet they all contained a seasoning which was exquisite, for
+himself was in every case the hero of the tale. To add to our amusement,
+he called for the poems of Allan Ramsay and read several of them to us
+in what he declared to be the true Scottish pronunciation, laughing
+incessantly and with great self-complacency as he proceeded.'
+
+"Dr. Dwight remarks that 'a new turnpike road is begun from the ferry
+and intended to join the Great Western road either at Cayuga bridge or
+Canandaigua. This route will furnish a nearer journey to Niagara than
+that which is used at present.' We see from this what were the plans of
+that day, as to the future central highway of New York State. Of
+Unadilla Dr. Dwight says:
+
+"'That township in which we now were is named Unadilla and lies in the
+county of Otsego. It is composed of rough hills and valleys with a
+handsome collection of intervales along the Susquehanna. On a
+remarkably ragged eminence immediately north-west of the river, we saw
+the first oaks and chestnuts after leaving the neighborhood of Catskill.
+The intervening forests were beach, maple, etc. The houses in Unadilla
+were scattered along the road which runs parallel with the river. The
+settlement is new and appears like most others of a similar date. Rafts
+containing each from twenty to twenty-five thousand feet of boards are
+from this township floated down the Susquehanna to Baltimore. Unadilla
+contained in 1800 eight hundred and twenty-three inhabitants.'[44]
+
+"On September 27, 1804, Dr. Dwight left Mr. Hanna's inn and rode through
+to Oxford. The first two miles of the way along the Susquehanna were
+'tolerably good and with a little labor capable of being excellent.' He
+continues:
+
+"'We then crossed the Unadilla, a river somewhat smaller but
+considerable longer (sic) than the Susquehanna proper, quite as deep
+and as difficult to be forded. Our course to the river was south-west.
+We then turned directly north along the banks of the Unadilla, and
+travelling over a rugged hill, passed through a noble cluster of white
+pines, some of which though not more than three feet in diameter, were,
+as I judged, not less than 200 feet in height. No object in the
+vegetable world can be compared with this.'
+
+"Eleven years later, Dr. Dwight again passed over the turnpike on his
+way to Utica. 'The road from Catskill to Oxford,' he said, 'I find
+generally bad, as having been long neglected. The first twenty miles
+were tolerable, the last twenty absolutely intolerable.' After noting
+that in Franklin 'religion had extensively prevailed,' he wrote:
+
+"'Unadilla is becoming a very pretty village. It is built on a
+delightful ground along the Susquehanna and the number of houses,
+particularly of good ones, has much increased. A part of the country
+between this and Oxford is cultivated; a considerable part of it is
+still a wilderness. The country is rough and of a high elevation.'
+
+"In some reminiscences[45] which my father wrote in 1890, he described
+the scenes along this road that were familiar to him in boyhood at
+Kortright--1825 to 1835. The road was then in its most prosperous
+period. It was not uncommon for one of the hotels, which marked every
+few miles of the route, to entertain thirty or forty guests at a time.
+The freight wagons were huge in size, drawn by six and eight horses, and
+had wheels with wide tires. Stages drawn by four and six horses were
+continually in use. Not infrequently came families bound for Ohio, where
+they expected to settle--some of these Connecticut people, who helped to
+plant the Western Reserve settlements. This vast traffic brought easy
+prosperity to the people along the turnpike and built up towns and
+villages. My father records the success of the Rev. Mr. McAuley's church
+at Kortright--a place that has now retrograded so that it is only a
+small hamlet, just capable of retaining a post office. But Mr.
+McAuley's church at one time, more than sixty years ago, had five
+hundred members, and was said to be the largest church society west of
+the Hudson valley.
+
+"A change occurred with the digging of the Erie Canal and the building
+of the Erie Railway. Morever, in 1834 was built a turnpike from North
+Kortright through the Charlotte Valley to Oneonta. The white man having
+tried a route of his own over the hills, reverted to the route which the
+red man had marked out for him ages before. Much easier was the grade by
+this river road, and this fact exercised a marked influence on the
+fortunes of the settlements along the olden line. Freight wagons were
+drawn off and sent by the easier way. Stages followed the new turnpike
+and the country between Wattles's Ferry and Kortright retrograded as
+rapidly as it had formerly improved.[46]
+
+"The building of the Catskill Turnpike really led to the founding of
+Unadilla village on its present site. It had confined to this point a
+growth which otherwise would probably have been distributed among other
+points along the valley. Here was a stopping-place, with a river to be
+crossed, horses to be changed, and new stages taken, and here had been
+established the important market for country produce of Noble & Hayes.
+Unadilla became what might be called a small but thriving inland river
+port. Here lumber was sawed and here it came from mills elsewhere for
+shipment along with farm products to Baltimore. Here grain was ground,
+and here were three prosperous distilleries.
+
+"The building of the turnpike along the Charlotte was not the only blow
+that came to the western portion of the Catskill Road. Another and
+permanent one came to the whole length of the turnpike when the Erie
+Canal was built, followed later by the Erie Railroad. Otsego County, in
+1832, had reached a population of 52,370, but with the Erie Canal in
+operation it ceased to grow. At the present time the showing is
+considerably less than it was in 1832, and yet several villages have
+made large increases, the increase in Oneonta being probably tenfold.
+
+"Contemporary with the Erie Canal was an attempt to provide the
+Susquehanna with a canal. It became a subject of vast local interest
+from Cooperstown to the interior of Pennsylvania. The scheme included a
+railway, or some other method of reaching the Erie Canal from the head
+of Otsego Lake. Colonel De Witt Clinton, Jr., son of the governor, made
+a survey as far as Milford, and found that in nine miles there was a
+fall of thirty feet, and that at Unadilla the fall from the lake was 150
+feet, while in 110 miles from the lake it was 350 feet. In 1830 a new
+survey showed that 144 miles out of 153 were already navigable, the
+remaining distance requiring a canal. Some seventy locks would be needed
+and sixty-five dams. Judge Page, while a member of Congress, introduced
+a bill to aid slack-water navigation from Cooperstown to tide-water. It
+was his opinion that the failure of the bill was due to the spread of
+railroads.
+
+"With the ushering in of the great railroad era, the Susquehanna Valley
+saw started as early as 1830 many railroad projects which could save it
+from threatened danger. Their aim was to connect the upper Susquehanna
+with the Hudson at Catskill, and the Mohawk at Canajoharie. None ever
+got beyond the charter stage. Strenuous efforts were afterward made to
+bring the Erie from the ancient Cookoze (Deposit) to the Susquehanna at
+a point above Oghwaga, but this also failed.
+
+"Indeed it was not until after the Civil War that any railroad reached
+the headwaters of the Susquehanna; but it was an agreeable sign of the
+enterprise which attended the men of 1830 and following years that at
+the period when the earliest railroad in this State, and one of the
+earliest on this continent, had just been built from Albany to
+Schenectady, serious projects existed for opening this valley to the
+outer world. Even the great Erie project languished long in consequence
+of business depression. It was not until 1845 that it was completed as
+far as Middletown, and not until 1851 that it reached Dunkirk.
+
+"Not even to the Erie was final supremacy on this frontier assured, but
+the upper Susquehanna lands, more than those through which the Erie ran,
+were doomed to a condition of isolation. Nature itself had decreed that
+the great route of transportation in New York State was to run where the
+great trail of the Iroquois for centuries had run--through the Mohawk
+Valley. Along that central trail from Albany, 'the Eastern Door,' to
+Buffalo, 'the Western door of the Long House,' the course of empire
+westward was to take its way."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+WITH DICKENS ALONG PIONEER ROADS
+
+
+Some of the most interesting descriptions of pioneer traveling are from
+the racy pages of Charles Dickens's _American Notes_, a volume well
+known to every reader. No description of early traveling in America
+would be complete, however, without including a number of these
+extremely witty, and, in some instances, extremely pathetic descriptions
+of conditions that obtained in Virginia and Ohio in Dickens's day. The
+following description of a negro driver's manipulation of reins, horses,
+and passengers may be slightly exaggerated, but undoubtedly presents a
+typical picture of southern stage driving:
+
+"Soon after nine o'clock we come to Potomac Creek, where we are to land;
+and then comes the oddest part of the journey. Seven stage-coaches are
+preparing to carry us on. Some of them are ready, some of them are not
+ready. Some of the drivers are blacks, some whites. There are four
+horses to each coach, and all the horses, harnessed or unharnessed, are
+there. The passengers are getting out of the steamboat, and into the
+coaches, the luggage is being transferred in noisy wheel-barrows; the
+horses are frightened, and impatient to start; the black drivers are
+chattering to them like so many monkeys; and the white ones whooping
+like so many drovers: for the main thing to be done in all kinds of
+hostlering here, is to make as much noise as possible. The coaches are
+something like the French coaches, but not nearly so good. In lieu of
+springs, they are hung on bands of the strongest leather. There is very
+little choice or difference between them; and they may be likened to the
+car portion of the swings at an English fair, roofed, put upon
+axle-trees and wheels, and curtained with painted canvas. They are
+covered with mud from the roof to the wheel-tire, and have never been
+cleaned since they were first built.
+
+"The tickets we have received on board the steamboat are marked No. 1,
+so we belong to coach No. 1. I throw my coat on the box, and hoist my
+wife and her maid into the inside. It has only one step, and that being
+about a yard from the ground, is usually approached by a chair: when
+there is no chair, ladies trust in Providence. The coach holds nine
+inside, having a seat across from door to door, where we in England put
+our legs: so that there is only one feat more difficult in the
+performance than getting in, and that is getting out again. There is
+only one outside passenger, and he sits upon the box. As I am that one,
+I climb up; and while they are strapping the luggage on the roof, and
+heaping it into a kind of tray behind, have a good opportunity of
+looking at the driver.
+
+"He is a negro--very black indeed. He is dressed in a coarse
+pepper-and-salt suit excessively patched and darned (particularly at the
+knees), grey stockings, enormous unblacked high-low shoes, and very
+short trousers. He has two odd gloves: one of parti-coloured worsted,
+and one of leather. He has a very short whip, broken in the middle and
+bandaged up with string. And yet he wears a low-crowned, broad-brimmed,
+block hat: faintly shadowing forth a kind of insane imitation of an
+English coachman! But somebody in authority cries 'Go ahead!' as I am
+making these observations. The mail takes the lead in a four-horse
+wagon, and all the coaches follow in procession: headed by No. 1.
+
+"By the way, whenever an Englishman would cry 'All right!' an American
+cries 'Go ahead!' which is somewhat expressive of the national character
+of the two countries.
+
+"The first half mile of the road is over bridges made of loose planks
+laid across two parallel poles, which tilt up as the wheels roll over
+them: and IN the river. The river has a clayey bottom and is full of
+holes, so that half a horse is constantly disappearing unexpectedly, and
+can't be found again for some time.
+
+"But we get past even this, and come to the road itself, which is a
+series of alternate swamps and gravel-pits. A tremendous place is close
+before us, the black driver rolls his eyes, screws his mouth up very
+round, and looks straight between the two leaders, as if he were saying
+to himself, 'We have done this often before, but _now_ I think we shall
+have a crash.' He takes a rein in each hand; jerks and pulls at both;
+and dances on the splashing board with both feet (keeping his seat, of
+course) like the late lamented Ducrow on two of his fiery coursers. We
+come to the spot, sink down in the mire nearly to the coach windows,
+tilt on one side at an angle of forty-five degrees, and stick there. The
+insides scream dismally; the coach stops; the horses flounder; all the
+other six coaches stop; and their four-and-twenty horses flounder
+likewise: but merely for company, and in sympathy with ours. Then the
+following circumstances occur.
+
+"BLACK DRIVER (to the horses). 'Hi!'
+
+Nothing happens. Insides scream again.
+
+BLACK DRIVER (to the horses). 'Ho!'
+
+Horses plunge, and splash the black driver.
+
+GENTLEMAN INSIDE (looking out). 'Why, what on airth--'
+
+Gentleman receives a variety of splashes and draws his head in again,
+without finishing his question or waiting for an answer.
+
+BLACK DRIVER (still to the horses). 'Jiddy! Jiddy!'
+
+Horses pull violently, drag the coach out of the hole, and draw it up a
+bank; so steep, that the black driver's legs fly up into the air, and he
+goes back among the luggage on the roof. But he immediately recovers
+himself, and cries (still to the horses),
+
+'Pill!'
+
+No effect. On the contrary, the coach begins to roll back upon No. 2,
+which rolls back upon No. 3, which rolls back upon No. 4, and so on,
+until No. 7 is heard to curse and swear, nearly a quarter of a mile
+behind.
+
+BLACK DRIVER (louder than before). 'Pill!'
+
+Horses make another struggle to get up the bank, and again the coach
+rolls backward.
+
+BLACK DRIVER (louder than before). 'Pe-e-e-ill!'
+
+Horses make a desperate struggle.
+
+BLACK DRIVER (recovering spirits). 'Hi! Jiddy, Jiddy, Pill!'
+
+Horses make another effort.
+
+BLACK DRIVER (with great vigour). 'Ally Loo! Hi. Jiddy, Jiddy. Pill.
+Ally Loo!'
+
+Horses almost do it.
+
+BLACK DRIVER (with his eyes starting out of his head). 'Lee, dere. Lee,
+dere. Hi. Jiddy, Jiddy. Pill. Ally Loo. Lee-e-e-e-e!'
+
+"They run up the bank, and go down again on the other side at a fearful
+pace. It is impossible to stop them, and at the bottom there is a deep
+hollow, full of water. The coach rolls frightfully. The insides scream.
+The mud and water fly about us. The black driver dances like a madman.
+Suddenly we are all right by some extraordinary means, and stop to
+breathe.
+
+"A black friend of the black driver is sitting on a fence. The black
+driver recognizes him by twirling his head round and round like a
+harlequin, rolling his eyes, shrugging his shoulders, and grinning from
+ear to ear. He stops short, turns to me, and says:
+
+"'We shall get you through sa, like a fiddle, and hope a please you when
+we get you through sa. Old 'ooman at home sir:' chuckling very much.
+'Outside gentleman sa, he often remember old 'ooman at home sa,'
+grinning again.
+
+"'Aye aye, we'll take care of the old woman. Don't be afraid.'
+
+"The black driver grins again, but there is another hole, and beyond
+that, another bank, close before us. So he stops short: cries (to the
+horses again) 'Easy. Easy den. Ease. Steady. Hi. Jiddy. Pill. Ally.
+Loo!' but never 'Lee!' until we are reduced to the very last extremity,
+and are in the midst of difficulties, extrication from which appears to
+be all but impossible.
+
+"And so we do the ten miles or thereabouts in two hours and a half;
+breaking no bones though bruising a great many; and in short getting
+through the distance, 'like a fiddle.'
+
+"This singular kind of coaching terminates at Fredericksburgh, whence
+there is a railway to Richmond...."
+
+Dickens, the student of human nature, surely found vast material for
+inspection and observation in our American coaches. The drivers
+particularly attracted his attention as we have seen; their
+philosophical indifference to those under their charge as well as their
+anxieties on certain occasions caused him to marvel. The stage-drivers
+of Dickens's day were marvels and offer character studies as unique as
+they were interesting. For the general air of conscienceless
+indifference on the part of drivers, and exasperated verbosity of
+passengers, perhaps no sketch of Dickens is more to the point than the
+following which describes, with lasting flavor, a ride from York,
+Pennsylvania, to Harrisburg:
+
+"We left Baltimore by another railway at half-past eight in the morning,
+and reached the town of York, some sixty miles off, by the early
+dinner-time of the Hotel which was the starting-place of the four-horse
+coach, wherein we were to proceed to Harrisburg.
+
+"This conveyance, the box of which I was fortunate enough to secure, had
+come down to meet us at the railroad station, and was as muddy and
+cumbersome as usual. As more passengers were waiting for us at the
+inn-door, the coachman observed under his breath, in the usual
+self-communicative voice, looking the while at his mouldy harness, as
+if it were to that he was addressing himself:
+
+"'I expect we shall want _the big_ coach.'
+
+"I could not help wondering within myself what the size of this big
+coach might be, and how many persons it might be designed to hold; for
+the vehicle which was too small for our purpose was something larger
+than two English heavy night coaches, and might have been the
+twin-brother of a French diligence. My speculations were speedily set at
+rest, however, for as soon as we had dined, there came rumbling up the
+street, shaking its sides like a corpulent giant, a kind of barge on
+wheels. After much blundering and backing, it stopped at the door:
+rolling heavily from side to side when its other motion had ceased, as
+if it had taken cold in its damp stable, and between that, and the
+having been required in its dropsical old age to move at any faster pace
+than a walk, were distressed by shortness of wind.
+
+"'If here ain't the Harrisburg mail at last, and dreadful bright and
+smart to look at too,' cried an elderly gentleman in some excitement,
+'darn my mother!'
+
+"I don't know what the sensation of being darned may be, or whether a
+man's mother has a keener relish or disrelish of the process than
+anybody else; but if the endurance of this mysterious ceremony by the
+old lady in question had depended on the accuracy of her son's vision in
+respect to the abstract brightness and smartness of the Harrisburg mail,
+she would certainly have undergone its infliction. However, they booked
+twelve people inside; and the luggage (including such trifles as a large
+rocking-chair, and a good-sized dining-table), being at length made fast
+upon the roof, we started off in great state.
+
+"At the door of another hotel, there was another passenger to be taken
+up.
+
+"'Any room, sir?' cries the new passenger to the coachman.
+
+"'Well there's room enough,' replies the coachman, without getting down,
+or even looking at him.
+
+"'There an't no room at all, sir,' bawls a gentleman inside. Which
+another gentleman (also inside) confirms, by predicting that the attempt
+to introduce any more passengers 'won't fit nohow.'
+
+"The new passenger, without any expression of anxiety, looks into the
+coach, and then looks up at the coachman: 'Now, how do you mean to fix
+it?' says he, after a pause: 'for I _must_ go.'
+
+"The coachman employs himself in twisting the lash of his whip into a
+knot, and takes no more notice of the question: clearly signifying that
+it is anybody's business but his, and that the passengers would do well
+to fix it, among themselves. In this state of things, matters seem to be
+approximating to a fix of another kind, when another inside passenger in
+a corner, who is nearly suffocated, cries faintly,
+
+"'I'll get out.'
+
+"This is no matter of relief or self-congratulation to the driver, for
+his immoveable philosophy is perfectly undisturbed by anything that
+happens in the coach. Of all things in the world, the coach would seem
+to be the very last upon his mind. The exchange is made, however, and
+then the passenger who has given up his seat makes a third upon the box,
+seating himself in what he calls the middle: that is, with half his
+person on my legs, and the other half on the driver's.
+
+"'Go a-head cap'en,' cries the colonel, who directs.
+
+"'Go-lang!' cries the cap'en to his company, the horses, and away we go.
+
+"We took up at a rural bar-room, after we had gone a few miles, an
+intoxicated gentleman who climbed upon the roof among the luggage, and
+subsequently slipping off without hurting himself, was seen in the
+distant perspective reeling back to the grog-shop where we had found
+him. We also parted with more of our freight at different times, so that
+when we came to change horses, I was again alone outside.
+
+"The coachmen always change with the horses, and are usually as dirty as
+the coach. The first was dressed like a very shabby English baker; the
+second like a Russian peasant; for he wore a loose purple camlet robe
+with a fur collar, tied round his waist with a parti-coloured worsted
+sash; grey trousers; light blue gloves; and a cap of bearskin. It had by
+this time come on to rain very heavily, and there was a cold damp mist
+besides, which penetrated to the skin. I was very glad to take advantage
+of a stoppage and get down to stretch my legs, shake the water off my
+great-coat, and swallow the usual anti-temperance recipe for keeping out
+the cold....
+
+"We crossed this river [Susquehanna] by a wooden bridge, roofed and
+covered in on all sides, and nearly a mile in length. It was profoundly
+dark; perplexed, with great beams, crossing and recrossing it at every
+possible angle; and through the broad chinks and crevices in the floor,
+the rapid river gleamed, far down below, like a legion of eyes. We had
+no lamps; and as the horses stumbled and floundered through this place,
+towards the distant speck of dying light, it seemed interminable. I
+really could not at first persuade myself as we rumbled heavily on,
+filling the bridge with hollow noises, and I held down my head to save
+it from the rafters above, but that I was in a painful dream; for I have
+often dreamed of toiling through such places, and as often argued, even
+at the time, 'this cannot be reality.'
+
+"At length, however, we emerged upon the streets of Harrisburg...."
+
+Coachmen are further described by Dickens during his stagecoach trip
+from Cincinnati to Columbus in Ohio:
+
+"We often stop to water at a roadside inn, which is always dull and
+silent. The coachman dismounts and fills his bucket, and holds it to the
+horses' heads. There is scarcely any one to help him; there are seldom
+any loungers standing round; and never any stable-company with jokes to
+crack. Sometimes, when we have changed our team, there is a difficulty
+in starting again, arising out of the prevalent mode of breaking a young
+horse; which is to catch him, harness him against his will, and put him
+in a stage-coach without further notice: but we get on somehow or other,
+after a great many kicks and a violent struggle; and jog on as before
+again.
+
+"Occasionally, when we stop to change, some two or three half-drunken
+loafers will come loitering out with their hands in their pockets, or
+will be seen kicking their heels in rocking-chairs, or lounging on the
+window sill, or sitting on a rail within the colonnade: they have not
+often anything to say though, either to us or to each other, but sit
+there idly staring at the coach and horses. The landlord of the inn is
+usually among them, and seems, of all the party, to be the least
+connected with the business of the house. Indeed he is with reference to
+the tavern, what the driver is in relation to the coach and passengers:
+whatever happens in his sphere of action, he is quite indifferent, and
+perfectly easy in his mind.
+
+"The frequent change of coachmen works no change or variety in the
+coachman's character. He is always dirty, sullen, and taciturn. If he be
+capable of smartness of any kind, moral or physical, he has a faculty of
+concealing it which is truly marvellous. He never speaks to you as you
+sit beside him on the box, and if you speak to him, he answers (if at
+all) in monosyllables. He points out nothing on the road, and seldom
+looks at anything: being, to all appearance, thoroughly weary of it, and
+of existence generally. As to doing the honours of his coach, his
+business, as I have said, is with the horses. The coach follows because
+it is attached to them and goes on wheels: not because you are in it.
+Sometimes, towards the end of a long stage, he suddenly breaks out into
+a discordant fragment of an election song, but his face never sings
+along with him: it is only his voice, and not often that.
+
+"He always chews and always spits, and never encumbers himself with a
+pocket-handkerchief. The consequences to the box passenger, especially
+when the wind blows toward him, are not agreeable."
+
+Hiring a special express coach at Columbus, Dickens and his party went
+on to Sandusky on Lake Erie alone. His description of the rough, narrow
+corduroy road is unequaled and no one but Dickens could have penned such
+a thrilling picture of the half-conquered woodland and its spectral
+inhabitants:
+
+"There being no stage-coach next day, upon the road we wished to take, I
+hired 'an extra,' at a reasonable charge, to carry us to Tiffin, a small
+town from whence there is a railroad to Sandusky. This extra was an
+ordinary four-horse stage-coach, such as I have described, changing
+horses and drivers, as the stage-coach would, but was exclusively our
+own for the journey. To ensure our having horses at the proper stations,
+and being incommoded by no strangers, the proprietors sent an agent on
+the box, who was to accompany us all the way through; and thus attended,
+and bearing with us, besides, a hamper full of savoury cold meats, and
+fruit, and wine; we started off again, in high spirits, at half-past six
+o'clock next morning, very much delighted to be by ourselves, and
+disposed to enjoy even the roughest journey.
+
+"It was well for us, that we were in this humour, for the road we went
+over that day, was certainly enough to have shaken tempers that were not
+resolutely at Set Fair, down to some inches below Stormy. At one time we
+were all flung together in a heap at the bottom of the coach, and at
+another we were crushing our heads against the roof. Now, one side was
+down deep in the mire, and we were holding on to the other. Now, the
+coach was lying on the tails of the two wheelers; and now it was rearing
+up in the air, in a frantic state, with all four horses standing on the
+top of an insurmountable eminence, looking coolly back at it, as though
+they would say 'Unharness us. It can't be done.' The drivers on these
+roads, who certainly get over the ground in a manner which is quite
+miraculous, so twist and turn the team about in forcing a passage,
+corkscrew fashion, through the bogs and swamps, that it was quite a
+common circumstance on looking out of the window, to see the coachman
+with the ends of a pair of reins in his hands, apparently driving
+nothing, or playing at horses, and the leaders staring at one
+unexpectedly from the back of the coach, as if they had some idea of
+getting up behind. A great portion of the way was over what is called a
+corduroy road, which is made by throwing trunks of trees into a marsh,
+and leaving them to settle there. The very slightest of the jolts with
+which the ponderous carriage fell from log to log, was enough, it
+seemed, to have dislocated all the bones in the human body. It would be
+impossible to experience a similar set of sensations, in any other
+circumstances, unless perhaps in attempting to go up to the top of St.
+Paul's in an omnibus. Never, never once, that day, was the coach in any
+position, attitude, or kind of motion to which we are accustomed in
+coaches. Never did it make the smallest approach to one's experience of
+the proceedings of any sort of vehicle that goes on wheels.
+
+"Still, it was a fine day, and the temperature was delicious, and though
+we had left Summer behind us in the west, and were fast leaving Spring,
+we were moving towards Niagara and home. We alighted in a pleasant wood
+towards the middle of the day, dined on a fallen tree, and leaving our
+best fragments with a cottager, and our worst with the pigs (who swarm
+in this part of the country like grains of sand on the sea-shore, to the
+great comfort of our commissariat in Canada), we went forward again,
+gaily.
+
+"As night came on, the track grew narrower and narrower, until at last
+it so lost itself among the trees, that the driver seemed to find his
+way by instinct. We had the comfort of knowing, at least, that there was
+no danger of his falling asleep, for every now and then a wheel would
+strike against an unseen stump with such a jerk, that he was fain to
+hold on pretty tight and pretty quick to keep himself upon the box. Nor
+was there any reason to dread the least danger from furious driving,
+inasmuch as over that broken ground the horses had enough to do to walk;
+as to shying, there was no room for that; and a herd of wild elephants
+could not have run away in such a wood, with such a coach at their
+heels. So we stumbled along, quite satisfied.
+
+"These stumps of trees are a curious feature in American travelling. The
+varying illusions they present to the unaccustomed eye as it grows dark,
+are quite astonishing in their number and reality. Now, there is a
+Grecian urn erected in the centre of a lonely field; now there is a
+woman weeping at a tomb; now a very comonplace old gentleman in a white
+waist-coat, with a thumb thrust into each arm-hole of his coat; now a
+student poring on a book; now a crouching negro; now, a horse, a dog, a
+cannon, an armed man; a hunch-back throwing off his cloak and stepping
+forth into the light. They were often as entertaining to me as so many
+glasses in a magic lantern, and never took their shapes at my bidding,
+but seemed to force themselves upon me, whether I would or no; and
+strange to say, I sometimes recognized in them counterparts of figures
+once familiar to me in pictures attached to childish books, forgotten
+long ago.
+
+"It soon became too dark, however, even for this amusement, and the
+trees were so close together that their dry branches rattled against the
+coach on either side, and obliged us all to keep our heads within. It
+lightened too, for three whole hours; each flash being very bright, and
+blue, and long; and as the vivid streaks came darting in among the
+crowded branches, and the thunder rolled gloomily above the tree tops,
+one could scarcely help thinking that there were better neighbourhoods
+at such a time than thick woods afforded.
+
+"At length, between ten and eleven o'clock at night, a few feeble lights
+appeared in the distance, and Upper Sandusky, an Indian village, where
+we were to stay till morning, lay before us."
+
+Dickens's description of his visit to "Looking-Glass Prairie" from St.
+Louis is full of amusement, and contains many vivid pictures of pioneer
+roads and taverns in the Mississippi Valley:
+
+"As I had a great desire to see a Prairie before turning back from the
+furthest point of my wanderings; and as some gentlemen of the town had,
+in their hospitable consideration, an equal desire to gratify me; a day
+was fixed, before my departure, for an expedition to the Looking-Glass
+Prairie, which is within thirty miles of the town. Deeming it possible
+that my readers may not object to know what kind of thing such a gipsy
+party may be at that distance from home, and among what sort of objects
+it moves, I will describe the jaunt....
+
+"I may premise that the word Prairie is variously pronounced _paraaer_,
+_parearer_, and _paroarer_. The latter mode of pronunciation is perhaps
+the most in favour. We were fourteen in all, and all young men: indeed
+it is a singular though very natural feature in the society of these
+distant settlements, that it is mainly composed of adventurous persons
+in the prime of life, and has very few grey heads among it. There were
+no ladies: the trip being a fatiguing one: and we were to start at five
+o'clock in the morning punctually....
+
+"At seven o'clock ... the party had assembled, and were gathered round
+one light carriage, with a very stout axletree; one something on wheels
+like an amateur carrier's cart; one double phaeton of great antiquity
+and unearthly construction; one gig with a great hole in its back and a
+broken head; and one rider on horseback who was to go on before. I got
+into the first coach with three companions; the rest bestowed themselves
+in the other vehicles; two large baskets were made fast to the lightest;
+two large stone jars in wicker cases, technically known as demi-johns,
+were consigned to the 'least rowdy' of the party for safe keeping; and
+the procession moved off to the ferry-boat, in which it was to cross the
+river bodily, men, horses, carriages, and all as the manner in these
+parts is.
+
+"We got over the river in due course, and mustered again before a little
+wooden box on wheels, hove down all aslant in a morass, with 'MERCHANT
+TAILOR' painted in very large letters over the door. Having settled the
+order of proceeding, and the road to be taken, we started off once more
+and began to make our way through an ill-favoured Black Hollow, called,
+less expressively, the American Bottom....
+
+"We had a pair of very strong horses, but travelled at the rate of
+little more than a couple of miles an hour, through one unbroken slough
+of black mud and water. It had no variety but in depth. Now it was only
+half over the wheels, now it hid the axletree, and now the coach sank
+down in it almost to the windows. The air resounded in all directions
+with the loud chirping of the frogs, who, with the pigs (a coarse, ugly
+breed, as unwholesome-looking as though they were the spontaneous growth
+of the country), had the whole scene to themselves. Here and there we
+passed a log hut; but the wretched cabins were wide apart and thinly
+scattered, for though the soil is very rich in this place, few people
+can exist in such a deadly atmosphere. On either side of the track, if
+it deserve the name, was the thick 'bush;' and everywhere was stagnant,
+slimy, rotten, filthy water.
+
+"As it is the custom in these parts to give a horse a gallon or so of
+cold water whenever he is in a foam with heat, we halted for that
+purpose, at a log inn in the wood, far removed from any other residence.
+It consisted of one room, bare-roofed and bare-walled of course, with a
+loft above. The ministering priest was a swarthy young savage, in a
+shirt of cotton print like bed-furniture, and a pair of ragged trousers.
+There were a couple of young boys, too, nearly naked, lying idly by the
+well; and they, and he, and _the_ traveller at the inn, turned out to
+look at us....
+
+"When the horses were swollen out to about twice their natural
+dimensions (there seems to be an idea here, that this kind of inflation
+improves their going), we went forward again, through mud and mire, and
+damp, and festering heat, and brake and bush, attended always by the
+music of the frogs and pigs, until nearly noon, when we halted at a
+place called Belleville.
+
+"Belleville was a small collection of wooden houses, huddled together in
+the very heart of the bush and swamp.... The criminal court was
+sitting, and was at that moment trying some criminals for
+horse-stealing; with whom it would most likely go hard: for live stock
+of all kinds being necessarily very much exposed in the woods, is held
+by the community in rather higher value than human life; and for this
+reason, juries generally make a point of finding all men indicted for
+cattle-stealing, guilty, whether or no. The horses belonging to the bar,
+the judge, and witnesses, were tied to temporary racks set up roughly in
+the road; by which is to be understood, a forest path, nearly knee-deep
+in mud and slime.
+
+"There was an hotel in this place which, like all hotels in America, had
+its large dining-room for the public table. It was an odd, shambling,
+low-roofed out-house, half cowshed and half kitchen, with a coarse brown
+canvas table-cloth, and tin sconces stuck against the walls, to hold
+candles at supper-time. The horseman had gone forward to have coffee and
+some eatables prepared, and they were by this time nearly ready. He had
+ordered 'wheat-bread and chicken fixings,' in preference to 'corn-bread
+and common doings.'[47] The latter kind of refection includes only pork
+and bacon. The former comprehends broiled ham, sausages, veal cutlets,
+steaks, and such other viands of that nature as may be supposed, by a
+tolerably wide poetical construction, 'to fix' a chicken comfortably in
+the digestive organs of any lady or gentleman....
+
+"From Belleville, we went on, through the same desolate kind of waste,
+and constantly attended, without the interval of a moment, by the same
+music; until, at three o'clock in the afternoon, we halted once more at
+a village called Lebanon to inflate the horses again, and give them some
+corn besides: of which they stood much in need. Pending this ceremony, I
+walked into the village, where I met a full sized dwelling-house coming
+down-hill at a round trot, drawn by a score or more of oxen. The
+public-house was so very clean and good a one, that the managers of the
+jaunt resolved to return to it and put up there for the night, if
+possible. This course decided on, and the horses being well refreshed,
+we again pushed forward, and came upon the Prairie at sunset.
+
+"It would be difficult to say why, or how--though it was possibly from
+having heard and read so much about it--but the effect on me was
+disappointment. Looking towards the setting sun, there lay, stretched
+out before my view, a vast expanse of level ground; unbroken, save by
+one thin line of trees, which scarcely amounted to a scratch upon the
+great blank; until it met the glowing sky, wherein it seemed to dip:
+mingling with its rich colours, and mellowing in its distant blue. There
+it lay, a tranquil sea or lake without water, if such a simile be
+admissible, with the day going down upon it; a few birds wheeling here
+and there; and solitude and silence reigning paramount around. But the
+grass was not yet high; there were bare black patches on the ground; and
+the few wild flowers that the eye could see, were poor and scanty. Great
+as the picture was, its very flatness and extent, which left nothing to
+the imagination, tamed it down and cramped its interest. I felt little
+of that sense of freedom and exhilaration which a Scottish heath
+inspires, or even our English downs awaken. It was lonely and wild, but
+oppressive in its barren monotony. I felt that in traversing the
+Prairies, I could never abandon myself to the scene, forgetful of all
+else; as I should do instinctively, were the heather underneath my feet,
+or an iron-bound coast beyond; but should often glance towards the
+distant and frequently-receding line of the horizon, and wish it gained
+and passed. It is not a scene to be forgotten, but it is scarcely one, I
+think (at all events, as I saw it), to remember with much pleasure, or
+to covet the looking-on again, in after life.
+
+"We encamped near a solitary log-house, for the sake of its water, and
+dined upon the plain. The baskets contained roast fowls, buffalo's
+tongue (an exquisite dainty, by the way), ham, bread, cheese, and
+butter; biscuits, champagne, sherry; lemons and sugar for punch; and
+abundance of rough ice. The meal was delicious, and the entertainers
+were the soul of kindness and good humour. I have often recalled that
+cheerful party to my pleasant recollection since, and shall not easily
+forget, in junketings nearer home with friends of older date, my boon
+companions on the Prairie. Returning to Lebanon that night, we lay at
+the little inn at which we had halted in the afternoon. In point of
+cleanliness and comfort it would have suffered by no comparison with any
+village ale-house, of a homely kind, in England....
+
+"After breakfast, we started to return by a different way from that
+which we had taken yesterday, and coming up at ten o'clock with an
+encampment of German emigrants carrying their goods in carts, who had
+made a rousing fire which they were just quitting, we stopped there to
+refresh. And very pleasant the fire was; for, hot though it had been
+yesterday, it was quite cold to-day, and the wind blew keenly. Looming
+in the distance, as we rode along, was another of the ancient Indian
+burial-places, called The Monks' Mound; in memory of a body of fanatics
+of the order of La Trappe, who founded a desolate convent there, many
+years ago, when there were no settlers within a thousand miles, and
+were all swept off by the pernicious climate: in which lamentable
+fatality, few rational people will suppose, perhaps, that society
+experienced any very severe deprivation.
+
+"The track of to-day had the same features as the track of yesterday.
+There was the swamp, the bush, the perpetual chorus of frogs, the rank
+unseemly growth, the unwholesome steaming earth. Here and there, and
+frequently too, we encountered a solitary broken-down waggon, full of
+some new settler's goods. It was a pitiful sight to see one of these
+vehicles deep in the mire; the axletree broken; the wheel lying idly by
+its side; the man gone miles away, to look for assistance; the woman
+seated among their wandering household gods with a baby at her breast, a
+picture of forlorn, dejected patience; the team of oxen crouching down
+mournfully in the mud, and breathing forth such clouds of vapour from
+their mouths and nostrils, that all the damp mist and fog around seemed
+to have come direct from them.
+
+"In due time we mustered once again before the merchant tailor's, and
+having done so, crossed over to the city in the ferry-boat: passing, on
+the way, a spot called Bloody Island, the duelling-ground of St. Louis,
+and so designated in honour of the last fatal combat fought there, which
+was with pistols, breast to breast. Both combatants fell dead upon the
+ground; and possibly some rational people may think of them, as of the
+gloomy madmen on the Monks' Mound, that they were no great loss to the
+community."
+
+
+For purposes of comparison, the following description of experiences in
+later times with Indian trails of the West will be of interest. Much
+that has been deduced from a study of our pioneer history and embodied
+in the preceding pages finds strong confirmation here; in earlier days,
+with forests covering the country, the trails were more like roads than
+in the open prairies of the West; but, as will be seen, many laws
+governed the earlier and the later Indian thoroughfares, alike. I quote
+from the Hon. Charles Augustus Murray's memoirs, written three-quarters
+of a century ago, of a tour in Missouri:
+
+"On the 18th we pursued our course, north by east: this was not exactly
+the direction in which I wished to travel, but two considerations
+induced me to adopt it at this part of the journey. In the first place,
+it enabled me to keep along the dividing ridge; an advantage so great,
+and so well understood by all prairie travellers, that it is worth
+making a circuit of several miles a day to keep it; and the Indian
+trails which we have crossed since our residence in the wilderness,
+convince me that the savages pay the greatest attention to this matter.
+In a wide extent of country composed of a succession of hills and
+ridges, it is evident there must be a great number of steep banks, which
+offer to an inexperienced traveller numerous obstacles, rendering his
+own progress most toilsome, and that of loaded packhorses almost
+impossible. If these ridges all ran in parallel lines, and were regular
+in their formation, nothing would be more simple than to get upon the
+summit of one, and keep it for the whole day's journey: but such is not
+the case; they constantly meet other ridges running in a transverse
+direction; and, of course, large dips and ravines are consequent upon
+that meeting. The 'dividing ridge' of a district is that which, while it
+is, as it were, the back-bone of the range of which it forms a part,
+heads at the same time all the transverse ravines, whether on the right
+or on the left hand, and thereby spares to the traveller an infinity of
+toilsome ascent and descent.
+
+"I have sometimes observed that an Indian trail wound through a country
+in a course perfectly serpentine, and appeared to me to travel three
+miles when only one was necessary. It was not till my own practical
+experience had made me attend more closely to this matter, that I learnt
+to appreciate its importance. I think that the first quality in a guide
+through an unknown range of rolling prairie, is having a good and a
+quick eye for hitting off the 'dividing ridge;' the second, perhaps, in
+a western wilderness, is a ready and almost intuitive perception (so
+often found in an Indian) of the general character of a country, so as
+to be able to bring his party to water when it is very scarce....
+
+A few miles farther we crossed an old Indian trail I think it was of a
+Pawnee party, for it bore north by west ... it had not been a war-party,
+as was evident from the character of the trail. A war-party leaves only
+the trail of the horses, or, of course, if it be a foot party, the still
+slighter tracks of their own feet; but when they are on their summer
+hunt, or migrating from one region to another, they take their squaws
+and children with them, and this trail can always be distinguished from
+the former, by two parallel tracks about three and a half feet apart,
+not unlike those of a light pair of wheels: these are made by the points
+of the long curved poles on which their lodges are stretched, the
+thickest or butt ends of which are fastened to each side of the
+pack-saddle, while the points trail behind the horse; in crossing rough
+or boggy places, this is often found the most inconvenient part of an
+Indian camp equipage.... I was fortunate enough to find an Indian trail
+bearing north by east, which was as near to our destined course as these
+odious creeks would permit us to go. We struck into it, and it brought
+us safely, though not without difficulty, through the tangled and muddy
+bottom in which we had been involved: sometimes a horse floundered, and
+more than once a pack came off; but upon the whole we had great reason
+to congratulate ourselves upon having found this trail, by which we
+escaped in two hours from a place which would, without its assistance,
+probably have detained us two days. I was by no means anxious to part
+with so good a friend, and proceeded some miles upon this same trail; it
+was very old and indistinct, especially in the high and dry parts of the
+prairie. I left my horse with the rest of the party and went on foot, in
+order that I might more easily follow the trail, which became almost
+imperceptible as we reached an elevated district of table-land, which
+had been burned so close that I very often lost the track altogether for
+fifty yards. If a fire takes place on a prairie where there is already a
+distinct trail, it is as easy to follow it, if not more so than before;
+because the short and beaten grass offering no food to the fire, partly
+escapes its fury, and remains a green line upon a sea of black; but if
+the party making the trail pass over a prairie which is already burnt,
+in the succeeding season when the new grass has grown, it can scarcely
+be traced by any eye but that of an Indian.... After we had travelled
+five hours ... I found that the trail which we had been following,
+merged in another and a larger one, which appeared to run a point to the
+west of north. This was so far out of our course that I hesitated
+whether I should not leave it altogether; but, upon reflection, I
+determined not to do so ... if I attempted to cross the country farther
+to the eastward, without any trail, I should meet with serious
+difficulties and delays.... I therefore struck into it, and ere long the
+result justified my conjecture; for we came to a wooded bottom or
+valley, which was such a complete jungle, and so extensive, that I am
+sure, if we had not been guided by the trail, we could not have made our
+way through it in a week. As it was, the task was no easy one; for the
+trail, though originally large, was not very fresh, and the weeds and
+branches had in many places so overgrown it, that I was obliged to
+dismount and trace it out on foot. It wound about with a hundred
+serpentine evolutions to avoid the heavy swamps and marshes around us;
+and I repeatedly thought that, if we lost it, we never should extricate
+our baggage: even with its assistance, we were obliged frequently to
+halt and replace the packs, which were violently forced off by the
+branches with which they constantly came in contact ... 'where on earth
+is he taking us now?--why we are going back in the same direction as we
+came!' I turned round and asked the speaker (a comrade) ... to point
+with his finger to the quarter which he would make for if he were
+guiding the party to Fort Leavenworth. He did so; and I took out my
+compass and showed him that he was pointing south-west, _i.e._ to Santa
+Fé and the Gulf of California: so completely had the poor fellow's head
+become puzzled by the winding circuit we had made in the swamp."[48]
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+
+[1] Washington's _Journal_ Sept. 2nd to Oct. 4th, 1784.
+
+[2] _Historic Highways of America_, vol. v, ch. 3.
+
+[3] This creek rises in Hardy County, Virginia, and flows northeastward
+through Hampshire County, entering the North Branch of the Potomac River
+about eight miles southeast of Cumberland, Maryland.
+
+[4] Union Township, Monongalia County, West Virginia.
+
+[5] Oliphant's Iron Furnace, Union Township?
+
+[6] The mountainous boundary line between Monongalia and Preston
+Counties.
+
+[7] Bruceton's Mills, Grant Township, Preston County, West Virginia?
+
+[8] Southwestern corner of Maryland, some twenty miles north of Oakland.
+
+[9] Briery Mountain runs northeast through the eastern edge of Preston
+County, bounding Dunkard Bottom on the east as Cheat River bounds it on
+the west.
+
+[10] The Friends were the earliest pioneers of Garrett County, John
+Friend coming in 1760 bringing six sons among whom was this Charles. The
+sons scattered about through the valley of the Youghiogheny, Charles
+settling near the mouth of Sang Run, which cuts through Winding Ridge
+Mountain and joins the Youghiogheny about fifteen miles due north from
+Oakland. Washington, moving eastward on McCulloch's Path probably passed
+through this gap in Winding Ridge. A present-day road runs parallel with
+Winding Ridge from Friendsville (named from this pioneer family)
+southward to near Altamont, which route seems to have been that pursued
+by McCulloch's Path. See Scharf's _History of Western Maryland_, vol.
+ii, p. 1518; _Atlas of Maryland_ (Baltimore, 1873), pp. 47-48; War Atlas
+1861-65, _House Miscellaneous Documents_, vol. iv, part 2, No. 261, 52d
+Cong. 1st Sess. 1891-92, Plate cxxxvi.
+
+[11] Great Back Bone Mountain, Garrett County, Maryland, on which, at
+Altamont, the Baltimore and Ohio Railway reaches its highest altitude.
+It was about here that Washington now crossed it, probably on the
+watershed between Youghiogheny and Potomac waters west of Altamont.
+
+[12] Ryan's Glade No. 10, Garrett County.
+
+[13] This point is pretty definitely determined in the Journal. We are
+told that the mouth of Stony River (now Stony Creek) was four miles
+below McCulloch's crossing. This would locate the latter near the
+present site of Fort Pendleton, Garrett County, Maryland, the point
+where the old Northwestern Turnpike crossed the North Branch.
+
+[14] Greeland Gap, Grant County, West Virginia.
+
+[15] Knobby Mountain.
+
+[16] Near Moorefield, Hardy County, West Virginia.
+
+[17] Mt. Storm, Grant County. The Old Northwestern Turnpike bears
+northeast from here to Claysville, Burlington and Romney. Washington's
+route was southwest along the line of the present road to Moorefield.
+Evidently the buffalo trace bore southwest on the watershed between
+Stony River and Abraham's Creek--White's _West Virginia Atlas_ (1873),
+p. 26. Bradley's _Map of United States_ (1804) shows a road from
+Morgantown to Romney; also a "Western Fort" at the crossing-place of the
+Youghiogheny.
+
+[18] Dunkard's Bottom, in Portland Township, Preston County, West
+Virginia, was settled about 1755 by Dr. Thomas Eckarly and brothers who
+traversed the old path to Fort Pleasant on South Branch.--Thwaites's
+edition of Withers's _Chronicles of Border Warfare_ (1895), pp. 75-76.
+
+[19] _Laws of Virginia_ (1826-1827), pp. 85-87.
+
+[20] _Laws of Virginia_ (1831), pp. 153-158; _Journal of the Senate ...
+of Virginia_ (1830-31), p. 165.
+
+[21] See _Historic Highways of America_, vol. ix, pp. 60-64.
+
+[22] _Journal of Thomas Wallcutt in 1790_, edited by George Dexter
+(_Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society_, October, 1879).
+
+[23] The Journal begins at the Ohio Company's settlement at Marietta,
+Ohio.
+
+[24] They crossed the Ohio River to the present site of Williamstown,
+West Virginia, named from the brave and good pioneer Isaac Williams.
+
+[25] The Monongahela Trail; see _Historic Highways of America_, vol. ii,
+pp. 122-124.
+
+[26] For an early (1826) map of this region that is reasonably correct,
+see Herman Böye's _Map of Virginia_ in Massachusetts Historical Society
+Library.
+
+[27] Near Friendsville, Maryland--named in honor of the old pioneer
+family; see note 10, _ante_; cf. Corey's map of Virginia in his
+_American Atlas_ (1805), 3d edition; also Samuel Lewis's _Map of
+Virginia_ (1794).
+
+[28] Bellville was the earlier Flinn's Station, Virginia.--S. P.
+Hildreth's _Pioneer History_, p. 148.
+
+[29] The author has, for several years, been looking for an explanation
+of this interesting obituary; "broadaggs" is, clearly, a corruption of
+"Braddock's." Of "atherwayes" no information is at hand; it was probably
+the name of a woodsman who settled here--for "bear camplain" undoubtedly
+means a "bare _campagne_," or clearing. The word _campagne_ was a common
+one among American pioneers. Cf. Harris's _Tour_, p. 60. A spot halfway
+between Cumberland and Uniontown would be very near the point where the
+road crossed the Pennsylvania state-line.
+
+[30] A reminiscent letter written in 1842 for the _American Pioneer_
+(vol. i, pp. 73-75).
+
+[31] _Historic Highways of America_, vol. vii, pp. 139-148.
+
+[32] _Historic Highways of America_, vol. ii, pp. 76-85.
+
+[33] The Iroquois Trail likewise left the river valley at this spot.
+
+[34] _Laws of New York_, 1794, ch. XXIX.
+
+[35] _Laws of New York_, 1796, ch. XXVI.
+
+[36] _Id._, ch. XXXIX.
+
+[37] _Laws of New York_, 1797, ch. LX.
+
+[38] _Laws of New York_, 1798, ch. XXVI.
+
+[39] _Laws of New York_, 1797-1800, ch. LXXVIII.
+
+[40] Boston, 1876, pp. 11-53.
+
+[41] Published by Charles Scribner's Sons, 1901.
+
+[41a] This name long since was abandoned. On the opposite side of the
+river, however, a new settlement grew up under the name of Unadilla, the
+beginnings of which date about 1790. See the same author's "The Pioneers
+of Unadilla Village" (Unadilla, 1902).--HALSEY.
+
+[42] State Land Papers.--HALSEY.
+
+[43] Sluman Wattles's Account Book.--HALSEY.
+
+[44] Dr. Dwight's figures are for the township, not for the village,
+which was then a mere frontier hamlet, of perhaps one hundred
+souls.--HALSEY.
+
+[45] "Reminiscences of Village Life and of Panama and California from
+1840 to 1850," by Gains Leonard Halsey, M. D. Published at
+Unadilla.--HALSEY.
+
+[46] A stage line, however, for long years afterward supplied these
+settlements with a means of communication with Unadilla, and it is
+within the memory of many persons still calling themselves young that
+for a considerable series of years, trips twice a week were regularly
+made by Henry S. Woodruff. After Mr. Woodruff's death a large and
+interesting collection of coaches, sleighs, and other stage relics
+remained upon his premises--the last survival of coaching times on the
+Catskill Turnpike, embracing a period of three-quarters of a
+century.--HALSEY.
+
+[47] See _Historic Highways of America_, vol. xi, p. 199, _note_.
+
+[48] _Travels in North America_ (London, 1839), vol. ii, pp. 29-48.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_.
+
+2. Obvious errors in spelling and punctuation have been corrected.
+
+3. Footnotes have been moved to the end of the main text body.
+
+4. Images have been moved from the middle of a paragraph to the closest
+paragraph break.
+
+5. Carat character (^) followed by a single letter or a set of letters
+in curly brackets is indicative of subscript in the original book.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Historic Highways of America (Vol. 12), by 
+Archer Butler Hulbert
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41030 ***