Historic Highways of America Volume XII Part 2

"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 c.u.mberland & 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 bra.s.s 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 quant.i.ty 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 pa.s.ses by here then there is by your house there is Packets that pa.s.ses 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 pa.s.sengers & 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 b.u.t.ter milk at 2^d per quart Mr Avory will give me three s.h.i.+llings 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 Was.h.i.+ngton'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 c.u.mberland 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 gra.s.s 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 n.o.ble 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 gra.s.shopper 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 circ.u.mference, 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 a.s.sembled. This appears to be the usual custom in the United States with all people who are in some measure in good circ.u.mstances.

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 fas.h.i.+onable 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 circ.u.mstance 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 Was.h.i.+ngton, 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 gra.s.s, 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 antic.i.p.ate by a secret feeling, the future greatness and prosperity which lies before this growing country."

Two years later Felix Renick pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.sociates 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.sisted 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 dest.i.tute 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 sh.o.r.e, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PART OF A "MAP OF THE ROUTE BETWEEN ALBANY AND OSWEGO"