Revolutionary Reader: Reminiscences and Indian Legends

by Sophie Lee Foster

When the white man came, he, in time, brought horses and these were much appreciated by the Indians, who seemed to know intuitively how to manage and use them. In place of carrying burdens upon his own back, the red man fastened one end of his tent poles to the horse and fastened upon them the skins which composed his tent, and allowed the poles to trail upon the ground. This support furnished a method of transporting baggage, household effects and even women and children vastly superior to the old way.

The old trails of the red man, over which for many years they had traveled with their peculiar but rapid walk, now furnished bridle paths for the white man and his horse, and many of those bridle paths are today in use. Of course, the first sturdy settlers walked these trails as did the Indians, and we have the history of one journey of Governor Winthrop, when he was carried, at least over streams, "pick-a-pack" upon the back of an Indian. This is a very human, if undignified, picture of the worthy governor.

An early explorer in Virginia said that had she "but horses and kine and were inhabited with English, no realm in Christendom were comparable to it." As these blessings were all added to Virginia in course of time, we must believe her the fairest of colonies. As the Indians were too poor to buy the carefully guarded horses of the early settlers, and could not steal them, they were compelled to wait until races of wild horses were developed from the horses brought to Florida, Mexico and California by the Spaniards. The better grade of horse was used by the warrior and for travel, but the poorer horses for the drudgery and were quite naturally called "squaw ponies." In the early days before the carriage was introduced, wounded or sick persons were carried upon stretchers between two horses.

The early means of transportation on land, in the colonies, was by horseback, for either persons or property, and this was the universal method of travel until nearly the beginning of the 19th century. It was a common custom for the post rider to also act as a squire of dames, and sometimes he would have in charge four or six women travelling on horseback from one town to another. It was to the north that the carriage came first, and in the early days only the very wealthy families had them. And with the coming of the carriage, the colonists realized that they needed something better than an Indian trail or bridle path, and the agitation for good roads had its birth. One can form some idea of what the so-called roads must have been in 1704, when we read that the mail from Philadelphia to New York "is now a week behind and not yet com'd in." The mail after 1673 was carried by horseback between New York and Boston, but as late as 1730, the postmaster was advertising for applications from persons who desired to perform the foot post to Albany that winter. The route was largely up the Hudson river on skates. In 1788 it took four days for mail to go through from New York to Boston in good weather—in winter much longer.

The commerce between the settlements on the coast and those in southwestern Pennsylvania and western Virginia was carried on by pack horse. The people in these districts sent their peltry and furs by pack horse to the coast and there exchanged them for such articles as they needed in their homes and for work upon their farms. Several families would form an association, a master-driver would be chosen and the caravan move on its slow way to the settlement east of the mountains. Afterwards this pack horse system was continued by common carrier organizations.

The earliest legislation in reference to highways was in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1639, providing for supervisors, and the relaying of the roads so as to be more convenient for travel, with authority to "lay out the highways where they may be most convenient, notwithstanding any man's property, or any corne ground, so as it occasion not the pulling down of any man's house, or laying open any garden or orchard." The law in force in Pennsylvania, prior to the grant to Penn was part of the system established for the New York Colony in 1664. In 1700 a revision of existing road laws was made, giving control of county roads to county officials, but the king's highway and public roads to be controlled by governor and council.

The fact appears that while the early roads in the American colonies were bad, England had few, if any, good roads, and the improvement, when begun, was so rapid that driving for pleasure was introduced here long before it was known in England. In fact, the idea was carried back to England by officers who fought in the Revolution.

When stage coaches were started in the colonies in 1718, from Boston to Rhode Island, there was no wagon road over this route, it not being built until 1721. It was a common thing for the passengers of the early stage coaches to have to get out, and help lift or push the stage coach out of the mud, and the objection raised to this was the reason for the introduction of the corduroy road. If one has had the doubtful pleasure of riding over a short portion of such road, one knows that it was a question whether long stretches of it and being shaken around in the coach like peas in a pod, was much improvement over being dumped out into the mud, while the coach was lifted out of the mire with which the old roads were padded. With the development of stage routes, came bridges, ferries, turnpikes and national roads. As the passengers and light baggage were carried by stage, the freight traffic was carried on by the old time teamsters, with their huge wagons, with six or eight horses attached to each, and moving along the turnpikes, traveling together for company and protection. These turnpikes presented a bustling appearance, with the dashing stage coaches, parties on horseback, the long trains of teamsters' huge wagons, and the many taverns that lined these thoroughfares. The passenger on the stage coach had time to study nature and his surroundings as he passed along, and to be fortunate enough to secure the box seat with the stage driver and hear, as one rode along, the gossip of the route, made a joy one does not experience in our days of rapid travel.

Following the institution of national roads and staging, came the introduction of canals and artificial waterways, as a means of transportation for freight in the carrying on of commerce. A short canal, for the transporting of stone, was built in Orange County, New York, as early as 1750. The first public canal company was the James River Company, incorporated in 1785. From that time on there have been vast improvements in methods and much of our freight is moved by means of the large canals all over our country.