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.
The Slower Road 