Archer Butler Hulbert

“ The track of to-day had the same features as the track of yesterday. There was the swamp, the bush, the perpetual chorus of frogs, the rank unseemly growth, the unwholesome steaming earth. Here and there, and frequently too, we encountered a solitary broken-down waggon, full of some new settler's goods. It was a pitiful sight to see one of these vehicles deep in the mire; the axletree broken; the wheel lying idly by its side; the man gone miles away, to look for assistance; the woman seated among their wandering household gods with a baby at her breast, a picture of forlorn, dejected patience ”

“ That Washington was a Virginian is made very plain in a thousand instances in his life; and many times it is emphasized in such a way as must seem odd to all modern Americans. At a stroke of a pen he shows himself to be the broadest of Americans in his classic Letter to Benjamin Harrison, 1784; in the next sentence he is urging Virginia to look well to her laurels lest New York, through the Hudson and Mohawk, and Pennsylvania, through the Susquehanna and Juniata, do what Virginia ought to do through her Potomac. ”

“ THE GENESEE ROAD
THE military importance of the Mohawk Valley and strategic portage at Rome, New York, was emphasized in our study of Portage Paths. [1] Throughout the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary struggle the water route to the Hudson from Lake Ontario, by way of the Onondaga, Lake Oneida, Wood Creek, and the Mohawk, was of great moment. But only because it was a route—a thoroughfare; not because the territory through which it coursed was largely occupied or of tremendous value. The French held the lakes and the English were constantly striving for foothold there. ”

“ Not even to the Erie was final supremacy on this frontier assured, but the upper Susquehanna lands, more than those through which the Erie ran, were doomed to a condition of isolation. Nature itself had decreed that the great route of transportation in New York State was to run where the great trail of the Iroquois for centuries had run—through the Mohawk Valley. Along that central trail from Albany, 'the Eastern Door,' to Buffalo, 'the Western door of the Long House,' the course of empire westward was to take its way. ”

“ I was fortunate enough to find an Indian trail bearing north by east, which was as near to our destined course as these odious creeks would permit us to go. We struck into it, and it brought us safely, though not without difficulty, through the tangled and muddy bottom in which we had been involved: sometimes a horse floundered, and more than once a pack came off; but upon the whole we had great reason to congratulate ourselves upon having found this trail, by which we escaped in two hours from a place which would, without its assistance, probably have detained us two days. ”

“ The landlord of the inn is usually among them, and seems, of all the party, to be the least connected with the business of the house. Indeed he is with reference to the tavern, what the driver is in relation to the coach and passengers: whatever happens in his sphere of action, he is quite indifferent, and perfectly easy in his mind.
"The frequent change of coachmen works no change or variety in the coachman's character. He is always dirty, sullen, and taciturn. If he be capable of smartness of any kind, moral or physical, he has a faculty of concealing it which is truly marvellous. ”

“ On the 18th we pursued our course, north by east: this was not exactly the direction in which I wished to travel, but two considerations induced me to adopt it at this part of the journey. In the first place, it enabled me to keep along the dividing ridge; an advantage so great, and so well understood by all prairie travellers, that it is worth making a circuit of several miles a day to keep it; and the Indian trails which we have crossed since our residence in the wilderness, convince me that the savages pay the greatest attention to this matter. ”

“ Washington's dream of a connected waterway was, of course, hopelessly chimerical, and after him no one pushed the subject of a highway of any kind between the East and the West through Virginia. Washington's own plans materialized in the Potomac Navigation Company, and his highway, that should be a strong link in the chain of Federal Union between the improved Potomac and the Ohio, became the Cumberland Road; and it ran just where he did not care to see it—through Maryland and Pennsylvania. ”

“ It has been elsewhere outlined how the Cumberland Road was the actual resultant of Washington's hopes and plans. But it is in place in a sketch of the Old Northwestern Turnpike to state that Washington's actual plan of making the Potomac River all that the Erie Canal and the Cumberland Road became was never even faintly realized. His great object was attained—but not by means of his partisan plans.
It is very difficult to catch the exact old-time spirit of rivalry which existed among the American colonies and which always meant jealousy and sometimes bloodshed. ”

“ If a fire takes place on a prairie where there is already a distinct trail, it is as easy to follow it, if not more so than before; because the short and beaten grass offering no food to the fire, partly escapes its fury, and remains a green line upon a sea of black; but if the party making the trail pass over a prairie which is already burnt, in the succeeding season when the new grass has grown, it can scarcely be traced by any eye but that of an Indian. ”

“ To see in these grand surroundings the development of good principle and the struggle toward a more perfect life; to admire the spirit of enterprise as it works toward a great plan, which seems to be in relation to the great plan which nature itself has followed, and at last to anticipate by a secret feeling, the future greatness and prosperity which lies before this growing country. ”

“ Rising out of Onondaga Hollow is a long and very steep hill. The road is constructed on the southern side of a precipice, in such a manner that, as you approach the top of the hill, you have a tremendous gulf on your left hand, at the bottom of which you hear the murmur of a brook fretting among the rocks, as it is passing on toward the Onondaga Creek, which it joins in the Hollow. ”

“ The 'dividing ridge' of a district is that which, while it is, as it were, the back-bone of the range of which it forms a part, heads at the same time all the transverse ravines, whether on the right or on the left hand, and thereby spares to the traveller an infinity of toilsome ascent and descent.
"I have sometimes observed that an Indian trail wound through a country in a course perfectly serpentine, and appeared to me to travel three miles when only one was necessary. ”

“ It was not uncommon for one of the hotels, which marked every few miles of the route, to entertain thirty or forty guests at a time. The freight wagons were huge in size, drawn by six and eight horses, and had wheels with wide tires. Stages drawn by four and six horses were continually in use. Not infrequently came families bound for Ohio, where they expected to settle—some of these Connecticut people, who helped to plant the Western Reserve settlements. This vast traffic brought easy prosperity to the people along the turnpike and built up towns and villages. ”

“ To give the more vivid impression of personal experience a chapter is devoted to a portion of Thomas Bigelow's Tour to Niagara Falls 1805 over the Genesee Road in its earliest years, when the beautiful cities which now lie like a string of precious gems across this route were just springing into existence. For a chapter on the important "Catskill Turnpike," which gives much information of road-building in central New York, we are indebted to Francis Whiting Halsey's The Old New York Frontier. ”

“ Agriculture and cattle-raising, in their beginning produce careless customs and indolence; the mental faculties remain weak, the ideas limited, and the imagination, without counterpoise, extravagant. Therefore we admire the wisdom and penetration of the North American Indian, his sublime eloquence and heroic spirit in contrast to the Asiatic shepherd, from whom we receive only simple Arabic fables. The man, of whatever color he may be, is always that which the irresistible influence of his surroundings has formed him. ”

“ Parkersburg became one of the important entrepôts in the Ohio Valley; as early as 1796, we shall soon see, a pioneer traversing the country through which the Northwestern Turnpike's predecessor coursed, speaks of an awakening in the Monongahela Valley that cannot be considered less than marvelous. Taking it through the years, few roads have remained of such constant benefit to the territory into which they ran, and today you will be told that no railway has benefited that mountainous district so much as this great thoroughfare. ”

“ The whole country from Utica to this place is thickly settled. The houses are mostly well built, and many of them handsome; very few log houses to be seen. Young orchards are numerous and thrifty, and Lombardy poplars line the road a great part of the way; and yet we saw not a single field which had not the stumps of the original forest trees yet remaining in it. Honey is sent from hence to Lake Ontario, in barrels.
"To Shethar's in Sullivan, eighteen miles, to dine; a good tavern. The face of the country is not so level here as about Utica, though it cannot be called hilly, even here. ”

“ One of the first persons to advocate a water highway which would eclipse the land route, sent a number of articles on the subject to a local paper, whose editor was compelled to refuse to print more of them, because of the ridicule to which they exposed the paper! Poor as the old road was in bad weather, people could not conceive of any better substitute. ”

“ There is scarcely any one to help him; there are seldom any loungers standing round; and never any stable-company with jokes to crack. Sometimes, when we have changed our team, there is a difficulty in starting again, arising out of the prevalent mode of breaking a young horse; which is to catch him, harness him against his will, and put him in a stage-coach without further notice: but we get on somehow or other, after a great many kicks and a violent struggle ”

“ The road from Cayuga to Geneva is for a few miles along the southern or south-eastern side, and the rest along the northern or north-eastern side of the Seneca outlet. The face of the country near the road is more level; but the soil is more sandy and uninviting than we had lately seen, till we approached near to Geneva. The land there is excellent, as we were told it was, through all the tract which extends between the Cayuga and Seneca Lakes. This tract rises in a kind of reguular glacis from each lake, so that from the middle of it one can see both. ”

“ The very slightest of the jolts with which the ponderous carriage fell from log to log, was enough, it seemed, to have dislocated all the bones in the human body. It would be impossible to experience a similar set of sensations, in any other circumstances, unless perhaps in attempting to go up to the top of St. Paul's in an omnibus. Never, never once, that day, was the coach in any position, attitude, or kind of motion to which we are accustomed in coaches. Never did it make the smallest approach to one's experience of the proceedings of any sort of vehicle that goes on wheels. ”

“ It can't be done.' The drivers on these roads, who certainly get over the ground in a manner which is quite miraculous, so twist and turn the team about in forcing a passage, corkscrew fashion, through the bogs and swamps, that it was quite a common circumstance on looking out of the window, to see the coachman with the ends of a pair of reins in his hands, apparently driving nothing, or playing at horses, and the leaders staring at one unexpectedly from the back of the coach, as if they had some idea of getting up behind. ”

“ I think that the first quality in a guide through an unknown range of rolling prairie, is having a good and a quick eye for hitting off the 'dividing ridge;' the second, perhaps, in a western wilderness, is a ready and almost intuitive perception (so often found in an Indian) of the general character of a country, so as to be able to bring his party to water when it is very scarce. . .
A few miles farther we crossed an old Indian trail I think it was of a Pawnee party, for it bore north by west . . it had not been a war-party, as was evident from the character of the trail. ”

“ The facility of transportation by means of the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers on one side, and Wood Creek, Oneida, and Ontario Lakes on the other, together with the extraordinary fertility of the adjacent country, must at no great distance of time make Utica a place of great business and resort, and of course its population must rapidly increase. ”

“ In a wide extent of country composed of a succession of hills and ridges, it is evident there must be a great number of steep banks, which offer to an inexperienced traveller numerous obstacles, rendering his own progress most toilsome, and that of loaded packhorses almost impossible. If these ridges all ran in parallel lines, and were regular in their formation, nothing would be more simple than to get upon the summit of one, and keep it for the whole day's journey: but such is not the case; they constantly meet other ridges running in a transverse direction ”

“ Occasionally, when we stop to change, some two or three half-drunken loafers will come loitering out with their hands in their pockets, or will be seen kicking their heels in rocking-chairs, or lounging on the window sill, or sitting on a rail within the colonnade: they have not often anything to say though, either to us or to each other, but sit there idly staring at the coach and horses. ”

“ This is higher than anything it has cost us on the road in proportion, but we cannot help it. It is better than to waste so much time in a tavern. It rains steadily, and the road is all mush and water. Before I get on a hundred rods I am half-leg deep in mire. Set off about eight o'clock, and overtook the wagon about two miles ahead. However, it clears off before night, and the sun shines warm, and the roads mend fast. We made a stay in Elizabethtown about two hours to feed and rest. The doctor and I had two quarts of beer and some gingerbread and buckwheat cakes for dinner. ”

“ We next passed the Oneida Creek, which unites with the Skanandoa. The earth in some places here is of the same color with that on Connecticut River, where the red freestone is found. In the Oneida village, the fields are free from stumps, the first to be met that are so from Utica to this place. . . To Tyler's in Onondaga Hollow, to sleep, twenty-one miles. The last sixteen miles are over a very hilly country; the Canaseraga Mountain, in particular, is four or five miles over, and very steep. ”