The Slower Road

Later that same year (October 28, 1818, to be exact), Mr. Flint had a bit more to say about the costs of traveling westward, and about the factors involved in deciding whether to travel by land or by waterway.

.

Settlers continue to be much retarded in getting down the river. Head winds oblige them to put ashore sometimes for a whole day. Families for the eastern parts of Ohio State, are proceeding by the road. The father may be seen driving the waggon; and the women and children bringing up two or three cows in the rear. They carry their provisions along with them, and wrap themselves in blankets, and sleep on the floors of taverns. The hostess here does not charge any thing for this sort of entertainment.

Traveling by land at this season is, for various reasons, economical. Families by this means avoid delay and expense at Pittsburg; they are not obliged to sell their waggons and horses at an under value there; but take them along, as a necessary stock for their farms; and they are not put to the expense of a boat, which would be ultimately sold for a mere trifle, or left to rot by the waterside. Besides, their rate of traveling is now more speedy than by water. Those who go below Wheeling will have a farther advantage, as the distance from Pittsburg to that place is 38 miles shorter than by the river. The waggons and horses must also be of immediate use to those, who settle at a distance from navigable waters. It is impossible to state the distance to which horses and waggons should be carried from Pittsburg; this wholly depends on the state of the river, the quantity of goods to be transported, the price of freight (if paying passage instead of purchasing a boat is contemplated), the price of a boat, and the certain loss on selling horses and waggons at Pittsburg. Strangers will do well to make strict inquiries, and the most careful calculations, of the expense of both modes of traveling, previous to the adoption of either of them.

While outside Macconnel’s Town, Pennsylvania, in September 1818, James Flint wrote:

Sidelong-hill is a steep ascent. The waggon path is worn into a deep rut or ravine, so that carriages cannot pass one another in some parts of it. The first waggoner that gets into the track, blows a horn, to warn others against meeting him in the narrow pass. The waggoners are understood to be as friendly toward one another as seamen are, and that cases are not wanting, where one has waited several days, assisting another to refit his carriage.

On Sidelong-hill we came up with a singular party of travelers—a man with his wife and ten children. The eldest of the progeny had the youngest tied on his back; and the father pushed a wheelbarrow, containing the moveables of the family. They were removing from New Jersey to the State of Ohio, a land journey of 340 miles to Pittsburg. Abrupt edges of rocks, higher than the wheel, occasionally interrupt the passage. Their humble carriage must be lifted over these. A little farther onward we passed a young woman, carrying a suckling child in her arms, and leading a very little one by the hand. It is impossible to take particular notice of all the travelers on the way. We could scarcely look before or behind, without seeing some of them. The Canterbury pilgrims were not so diversified nor so interesting as these.

When we left Mr. Flint, he was making his way westward through Pennyslvania.

In today’s installment, he’s trying to get both himself and his luggage to Pittsburgh:

On September 22, 1818, “We found a waggoner who agreed to carry our traveling necessaries to Pittsburg. For my portmanteau, weighing about fourteen pounds, he charged three dollars, alleging the trouble that attends putting small articles within doors every night. This is an instance of one man measuring his demand by the urgent situation of another. The jolting that wagons undergo in this rugged country, render it indispensable that baggage be packed with the utmost care.”

Tomorrow: waggons and fellow travelers on the road.