The streets are almost deserted, a great number of the houses not tenanted, shops shut, merchants and mechanics failed; the rivers are both banked by ice, and many other things wearing the aspect of decayed trade and stagnation of commerce. Money I find purchases things very low. Flour from this city is sent over the mountains to Philadelphia for $1 per barrel, which will little more than half pay the wagoner's expenses for the 280 miles. Superfine flour was $4.12½ in Philadelphia, and coal three cents per bushel. Coal for cooking is getting in use in this city—probably two-thirds the cooking is with coal.
He had had no trouble up to this point in sending his baggage ahead. It was some days before the stage left for Erie. All was at length dispatched, however, and on February 14th he crossed over to Allegheny—I think there was no bridge there then—and marched along, day after day, through Harmony, Mercer and Meadville, his progress much impeded by heavy snow; at Waterford he met his old friend G. A. Elliott, and went to a country dance; and, finally, on February 20th found himself at Mr. Hamot's dinner-table in Erie, surrounded by old friends. They held him for two days; then, in spite of heavy snow, he set out on foot for Buffalo. Even the faded pages of the old journal which hold the record of these last few days bespeak the eager nervousness which one long absent feels as his wanderings bring him near home. With undaunted spirit, our walker pushed on eastward to the house of Col. N. Bird, two miles beyond Westfield; and the next day, with Col. Bird, drove through a violent snow-storm to Mayville to visit Mr. William Peacock—the first ride he had taken since landing in Boston in November of the previous year. But he was known throughout the neighborhood, and his friends seem to have taken possession of him. From Mr. Bird's he went in a stage-sleigh to Fredonia to visit the Burtons. Snow two feet deep detained him in Hanover town, where friends showed him "some tea-seed bought of a New-England peddler, who left written directions for its cultivation." "It's all an imposition," is Mr. Lay's comment—but what a horde of smooth-tongued tricksters New England has to answer for!
The stage made its way through the drifts with difficulty to the Cattaraugus, where Mr. Lay left it, and stoutly set out on foot once more. For the closing stages of this great journey let me quote direct from the journal:
I proceeded over banks of drifted snow until I reached James Marks's, who served breakfast. The stage wagon came up again, when we went on through the Four-mile woods, stopping to see friends and spending the night with Russell Goodrich. On February 29th [two years and twenty-four days from the date of setting out] I drove into Buffalo on Goodrich's sleigh and went straight to Rathbun's, where I met a great number of friends, and was invited to take a ride in Rathbun's fine sleigh with four beautiful greys. We drove down the Niagara as far as Mrs. Seely's and upset once.
What happier climax could there have been for this happy home-coming!