Wheeling, Virginia 30 hours. Columbus, Ohio 45-1/2 " Indianapolis, Indiana 65-1/2 " Vandalia, Illinois 85-1/2 " St. Louis, Missouri 94 " At the same time the ordinary mail-coaches, which also served as passenger coaches, made very much slower time: Wheeling, Virginia 2 days 11 hours. Columbus, Ohio 3 " 16 " Indianapolis, Indiana 6 " 20 " Vandalia, Illinois 9 " 10 " St. Louis, Missouri 10 " 4 " Cities off the road were reached in the following time from Washington: Cincinnati, Ohio 60 hours. Frankfort, Kentucky 72 " Louisville, Kentucky 78 " Nashville, Tennessee 100 " Huntsville, Alabama 115-1/2 " The ordinary mail to these points made the following time: Cincinnati, Ohio 4 days 18 hours. Frankfort, Kentucky 6 " 18 " Louisville, Kentucky 6 " 23 " Nashville, Tennessee 8 " 16 " Huntsville, Alabama 10 " 21 " The Post Office Department had given its mail contracts to the steamship lines in the east, when possible, from Boston to Portland and New York to Albany. One mail route to the southern states, however, passed over the Cumberland Road and down to Cincinnati, where it went on to Louisville and the Mississippi ports by packet. The following time was made by this Great Southern Mail from Louisville: Nashville, Tennessee 21 hours. Mobile, Alabama 80 " New Orleans, Louisiana 105 " The service rendered to the south and southwest by the Cumberland Road, was not rendered to the northwest, as might have been expected. Chicago and Detroit were difficult to bring into easy communication with the east. Until the railway was completed from Albany to Buffalo, the mails went very slowly to the northwest from New York. The stage line from Buffalo to Cleveland and on west over the terrible Black Swamp road to Detroit was one of the worst in the United States. When lake navigation became closed, communication with northwestern Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and northern Indiana and Illinois was almost cut off. Had the stage route followed that of the buffalo and Indian on the high ground occupied by the Mahoning Indian trail from Pittsburg to Detroit, a far more excellent service might have been at the disposal of the Post Office Department. As it was, stagehorses floundered in the Black Swamp with "mud up to the horses' bridles," where a half dozen mails were often congested, and "six horses were barely sufficient to draw a two-wheeled vehicle fifteen miles in three days."[65]