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and 1797′ by the late Francis Baily (London, 1856)
* ‘Journal of a Tour in Unsettled Parts of North America in 1796
and 1797′ by the late Francis Baily (London, 1856).

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York was similar to that projected for the Potomac
The system proposed for the improvement of the waterways of New
York was similar to that projected for the Potomac. A canal was
to be cut from the Mohawk to the Hudson in order to avoid Cohoes
Falls; a canal with locks would overcome the forty-foot drop at
Little Falls; another canal over five thousand feet in length was
to connect the Mohawk and Wood Creek at Rome; minor improvements
were to be made between Schenectady and the mouth of the
Schoharie; and finally the Oswego Falls at Rochester were to be
circumvented also by canal. All the objections, difficulties, and
discouragements which had attended efforts to improve waterways
elsewhere in America confronted these New York promoters. They
began in 1793 at Little Falls but were soon forced to cease owing
to the failure of funds. Under the encouraging spur of a state
subscription to two hundred shares of stock, they renewed their
efforts in 1794 but were again forced to abandon the work before
the year had passed. By November, 1795, however, they had
completed the canal and in thirty days had received toll to the
amount of about four hundred dollars.

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proud, carried with it a suggestion of amphibious strength that
made it both apt and figuratively accurate
The title ‘alligator-horse,’ of which Western rivermen were very
proud, carried with it a suggestion of amphibious strength that
made it both apt and figuratively accurate. On all the American
rivers, east and west, a lusty crew, collected from the waning
Indian trade and the disbanded pioneer armies, found work to its
taste in poling the long keel boats, ‘corralling’ the bulky
barges–that is, towing them by pulling on a line attached to the
shore–or steering the ‘broadhorns’ or flatboats that transported
the first heavy inland river cargoes. Like longshoremen of all
ages, the American riverman was as rough as the work which
calloused his hands and transformed his muscles into bands of
tempered steel. Like all men given to hard but intermittent
labor, he employed his intervals of leisure in coarse and brutal
recreation. Their roistering exploits, indeed, have made these
rivermen almost better known at play than at work. One of them,
the notorious Mike Fink, known as ‘the Snag’ on the Mississippi
and as the ‘Snapping Turtle’ on the Ohio, has left the record,
not that he could load a keel boat in a certain length of time,
or lift a barrel of whiskey with one arm, or that no tumultuous
current had ever compelled him to back water, but that he could
‘out-run, out-hop, out-jump, throw down, drag out, and lick any
man in the country,’ and that he was ‘a Salt River roarer.’

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an association with some of their neighbors, for starting the
little caravan
‘In the fall of the year, after seeding time, every family formed
an association with some of their neighbors, for starting the
little caravan. A master driver was to be selected from among
them, who was to be assisted by one or more young men and
sometimes a boy or two. The horses were fitted out with
packsaddles, to the latter part of which was fastened a pair of
hobbles made of hickory withes,–a bell and collar ornamented
their necks. The bags provided for the conveyance of the salt
were filled with bread, jerk, boiled ham, and cheese furnished a
provision for the drivers. At night, after feeding, the horses,
whether put in pasture or turned out into the woods, were hobbled
and the bells were opened. The barter for salt and iron was made
first at Baltimore; Frederick, Hagerstown, Oldtown, and Fort
Cumberland, in succession, became the places of exchange. Each
horse carried two bushels of alum salt, weighing eighty-four
pounds to the bushel. This, to be sure, was not a heavy load for
the horses, but it was enough, considering the scanty subsistence
allowed them on the journey. The common price of a bushel of alum
salt, at an early period, was a good cow and a calf.

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‘The destinies of our country run east and west. Intercourse
between the mighty interior west and the sea coast is the great
principle of our commercial prosperity.’ These are the words of
Edward Everett in advocating the Boston and Albany Railroad. In
effect Washington had uttered those same words half a century
earlier when he gave momentum to an era filled with energetic
but unsuccessful efforts to join with the waters of the West the
rivers reaching inland from the Atlantic. The fact that American
engineering science had not in his day reached a point where it
could cope with this problem successfully should in no wise
lessen our admiration for the man who had thus caught the vision
of a nation united and unified by improved methods of
transportation.

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Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Alexandria–had relied for a while
on the deterring effect of a host of critics who warned all men
that a canal of such proportions as the Erie was not practicable,
that no State could bear the financial drain which its
construction would involve, that theories which had proved
practical on a small scale would fail in so large an undertaking,
that the canal would be clogged by floods or frozen up for half
of each year, and that commerce would ignore artificial courses
and cling to natural channels
It seems plain that the Southern rivals of New York City–
Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Alexandria–had relied for a while
on the deterring effect of a host of critics who warned all men
that a canal of such proportions as the Erie was not practicable,
that no State could bear the financial drain which its
construction would involve, that theories which had proved
practical on a small scale would fail in so large an undertaking,
that the canal would be clogged by floods or frozen up for half
of each year, and that commerce would ignore artificial courses
and cling to natural channels. But the answer of the Empire State
to her rivals was the homely but triumphant cry ‘Low Bridge!’–
the warning to passengers on the decks of canal boats as they
approached the numerous bridges which spanned the route. When
this cry passed into a byword it afforded positive proof that the
Erie Canal traffic was firmly established. The words rang in the
counting-houses of Philadelphia and out and along the Lancaster
and the Philadelphia-Pittsburgh turnpikes–’Low Bridge! Low
Bridge!’ Pennsylvania had granted, it has been pointed out, that
her Southern neighbors might have their share of the Ohio Valley
trade but maintained that the splendid commerce of the Great
Lakes was her own peculiar heritage. Men of Baltimore who had
dominated the energetic policy of stone-road building in their
State heard this alarming challenge from the North. The echo ran
‘Low Bridge!’ in the poor decaying locks of the Potomac Company
where, according to the committee once appointed to examine that
enterprise, flood-tides ‘gave the only navigation that was
enjoyed.’ Were their efforts to keep the Chesapeake metropolis in
the lead to be set at naught?

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invention to the good of the nation without personal
considerations, must be credited with perceiving at the very
beginning the peculiar importance of the steamboat to the
American West
Fitch, in addition to the high purpose of devoting his new
invention to the good of the nation without personal
considerations, must be credited with perceiving at the very
beginning the peculiar importance of the steamboat to the
American West. His original application to Congress in 1785
opened: ‘The subscriber begs leave to lay at the feet of
Congress, an attempt he has made to facilitate the internal
Navigation of the United States, adapted especially to the Waters
of the Mississippi.’ At another time with prophetic vision he
wrote: ‘The Grand and Principle object must be on the Atlantick,
which would soon overspread the wild forests of America with
people, and make us the most oppulent Empire on Earth. Pardon me,
generous public, for suggesting ideas that cannot be dijested at
this day.’

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the Governor of New France, his message was that ‘the Governor of
Canada desired his children on Ohio to turn away the English
Traders from amongst them and discharge them from ever coming to
trade there again, or on any of the Branches
When Celoron de Blainville was sent to the Allegheny in 1749, by
the Governor of New France, his message was that ‘the Governor of
Canada desired his children on Ohio to turn away the English
Traders from amongst them and discharge them from ever coming to
trade there again, or on any of the Branches.’ He sent away all
the traders whom he found, giving them letters addressed to their
respective governors denying England”s right to trade in the
West. To offset this move, within two years Pennsylvania sent
goods to the value of nine hundred pounds in order to hold the
Indians constant. The Governor had already ordered the traders to
sell whiskey to the Indians at ‘5 Bucks’ per cask and had told
the Indians, through his agent Conrad Weiser, that if any trader
refused to sell the liquor at that price they might ‘take it from
him and drink it for nothing.’ There was but one way for the
French to meet such competition. Without delay they fortified the
Allegheny and began to coerce the natives. Driving away the
carpenters of the Ohio Company from the present site of
Pittsburgh, they built Fort Duquesne. The beginning of the Old
French War ended what we may call the first era of the pack-horse
trade.

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the States in its proper light before the public, that the support of
the people in favor of national policies may be made certain
Organization of a campaign to place highways transport work throughout
the States in its proper light before the public, that the support of
the people in favor of national policies may be made certain. To this
end an outstanding feature of the work will be enlistment of the
support of all users of highways transport.

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and growth of commerce and trade in that section, it is to the
rivers of the trans-Alleghany country that we must look for a
corresponding picture in this early period
While road building in the East gives a clear picture of the rise
and growth of commerce and trade in that section, it is to the
rivers of the trans-Alleghany country that we must look for a
corresponding picture in this early period. The canoe and pirogue
could handle the packs and kegs brought westward by the files of
Indian ponies; but the heavy loads of the Conestoga wagons
demanded stancher craft. The flatboat and barge therefore served
the West and its commerce as the Conestoga and turnpike served
the East.

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