The Ohio River Trade, 1788-1830Shaw, Hazel Yearsley
History
The Ohio River Trade, 1788-1830
Shaw, Hazel Yearsley
Ohio River -- History; Ohio River Valley -- History
As early as 1813, the roads over the Alleghanies were in a very
rough condition, though the Cumberland Road was partly made, and
in the spring of this year there were considerable stretches of
it used by the wagoners. For emigrants and the transportation
of freight, there was no mode of conveyance but the large "road
wagons", as they were called, usually drawn by five or six horses,
and carrying sixty to seventy hundred weight. There were several
routes by which these wagons approached the mountains, but after
passing Cumberland they followed the one road, known as Braddock's
Trail, which struck the Monongahela River at Brownsville, or Red
Stone Fort, passing down the Laurel Hill, near Uniontown, then
called Beesonstown.[493] The wagoners usually traveled in groups for
company and to assist one another by doubling teams, on the steep
hills, and to help in case of accidents. Howells says that it is
his impression that his father paid between $3 and $4 a hundred
weight (112 pounds) for the carriage of his goods to Brownsville.[494]
A mighty population was pouring into Ohio in 1813, a great
number of the people coming from Lower Canada.[495] A "New England
Emigration Society" was established in Boston, in 1815, for the
purpose of promoting emigration to the western country. The
association was composed of a considerable number of persons of
all parties, who were determined to establish a colony of their
own.[496] The Buffalo Gazette says, that during the spring of this
year scarcely a day passed without the editor's noticing the
passage of several families from New England through that village
for the State of Ohio.[497] The monthly returns from the several land
offices in Ohio and Indiana Territory exhibited an unparalleled
sale of public land, and in some districts the sales had been
doubled in the six months prior to February, 1815. The emigration
to the State in the summer of 1814 was very great, the main road
through the State being literally covered with wagons moving out
families.[498]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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