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diff --git a/41030-0.txt b/41030-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2e81406 --- /dev/null +++ b/41030-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3464 @@ +*** 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 *** |