The Winning of the West, Volume 3: The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790Roosevelt, Theodore
History
The Winning of the West, Volume 3: The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790
Roosevelt, Theodore
Northwest, Old -- History; United States -- Territorial expansion; West (U.S.) -- History
bushels of oats. There was no meat unless game was shot. Occasionally
several travellers clubbed together and carried a tent; otherwise they
slept in the open. The trail was very bad, especially at first, where it
climbed between the gloomy and forbidding cliffs that walled in
Cumberland Gap. Even when undisturbed by Indians, the trip was
accompanied by much fatigue and exposure; and, as always in frontier
travelling, one of the perpetual annoyances was the necessity for
hunting up strayed horses. [Footnote: Durrett MSS. Journal of Rev. James
Smith, 1785.]
The Travel down the Ohio.
The chief highway was the Ohio River; for to drift down stream in a scow
was easier and quicker, and no more dangerous, than to plod through
thick mountain forests. Moreover, it was much easier for the settler who
went by water to carry with him his household goods and implements of
husbandry; and even such cumbrous articles as wagons, or, if he was rich
and ambitious, the lumber wherewith to build a frame house. All kinds of
craft were used, even bark canoes and pirogues, or dugouts; but the
keel-boat, and especially the flat-bottomed scow with square ends, were
the ordinary means of conveyance. They were of all sizes. The passengers
and their live stock were of course huddled together so as to take up as
little room as possible. Sometimes the immigrants built or bought their
own boat, navigated it themselves, and sold it or broke it up on
reaching their destination. At other times they merely hired a passage.
A few of the more enterprising boat owners speedily introduced a regular
emigrant service, making trips at stated times from Pittsburg or perhaps
Limestone, and advertising the carriage capacity of their boats and the
times of starting. The trip from Pittsburg to Louisville took a week or
ten days; but in low water it might last a month.
Numbers of the Immigrants.
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