During the last century the chief business of Hartford was the trade with the West Indies. There was also some trafficking with Ireland and with Lisbon, timber being exported to the first named, and fish to the latter. From 1750 to 1830, Hartford not only imported goods from the West Indies, but was also a distributing centre for the surrounding country, and for the region that stretches northward to the sources of the Connecticut. During the first thirty years of this century the wharves on the river bank were bustling with traffic and lined with vessels, often three or four rows deep. Large warehouses extended along the banks of the river, where beef and pork were packed for the export trade, great quantities being brought down the river in brine, and inspected and repacked here. The numerous scows and flat-boats in which the up-river trade was carried on, were loaded on their return voyage with sugar, rum, molasses, coffee, salt and other West Indian commodities. S. G. Goodrich, in his _Recollections of a Lifetime_, describes the city as a centre of the West India trade, and as smelling of rum and molasses. The inland transportation of goods was carried on by lines of freight-wagons running to Westfield, Granby, Monson, Brimfield, Norfolk, Canaan, and the towns in Berkshire County. There were also packet lines running to Boston, New York, Albany, Nantucket, Baltimore, Norfolk, and Richmond. But the building of the Boston and Albany, and of the New York and New Haven railroads cut off gradually all the inland and up-river commerce from Hartford, and diverted trade into other directions. This obliged the merchants of Hartford to turn their energies to other lines of business.