IN AMERICA.
Before the Revolution the American colonists lived in almost complete isolation. Travel by land was limited, for water communication presented fewer obstacles to progress. Population was arranged along the seaboard, or in isolated groups a short distance inland. Living narrow, self-centered lives, each community developed a distinct dialect and characteristic customs and dress. Social activities were limited to going to mill, market and church, or exchanging friendly calls; traveling on foot or on horseback along wooded trails. Even between seacoast towns there was little interchange of products or population; and a citizen of one colony going to another was at once struck with the many local peculiarities. It was less than twenty years before the Revolutionary war when the first stage line was opened between New York and Philadelphia, and three days were then required for a single trip. It was ten years later when the first stage line was established between Philadelphia and Baltimore.
METHODS OF TRAVEL AND TRANSPORT.
Between towns of considerable size there were country roads over which vehicles could pass when the weather would permit. The stage coach, which was the only public land conveyance, plied along the coast and between a few inland centers, but the coaches of that day were rude boxes swung on wheels by leathern straps instead of springs, with seats for a dozen or more and accommodations for a limited amount of baggage. The rate of travel was from two to six miles an hour, according to the condition of the roads and the importance of the route. On the farm the mud-boat or stone sledge was in common use, and at times it was even employed to carry produce to local markets. In more progressive communities two-wheeled carts and wagons were to be found. The best of roads, however, were nothing but "mud roads"; and the wagons, commonly of the linchpin type, were clumsy and awkward. Some of the more primitive wagons had wheels made of cross sections of trees, trimmed and centered to roll on axles of wood. Those who traveled had little thought of time; companionship found expression in story-telling, gossip and tippling; and an emergency which required all to get out and "take a wheel" only added spice to the trip.
We have the following description of the roads about Philadelphia, the metropolis and commercial center of the New World: "On the best lines of communication the ruts were deep, the descents precipitous. * * * Near the great cities the state of the roads was so bad as to render all approach difficult and dangerous. Out of Philadelphia a quagmire of black mud covered a long stretch of road near the village of Rising Sun. There horses were often seen floundering in the mud up to their bellies. On the York road, long lines of wagons were every day to be met with, drawn up near Logan's hill, while the wagoners unhitched their teams, to assist each other in pulling through the mire. At some places, stakes were set up to warn teams of the quicksand pits; at others, the fences were pulled down, and a new road made through the fields." Transportation facilities were either entirely lacking or such as to make travel both expensive and hazardous. It is difficult to realize that as late as 1780 the roads over a large part of Pennsylvania were narrow paths which had been made through the woods by Indians and traders.
ABSENCE OF ROADS IN THE INTERIOR.
The isolation of interior settlements finds apt illustration in the Wyoming valley. This rich region along the Susquehanna had been until 1786 almost completely cut off from the outer world. A small colony had moved in from the East, and taking color of title from Connecticut, disclaimed the sovereignty of the Quaker proprietary. War consequently broke out between this isolated settlement and the Pennsylvania government. Several military expeditions were sent out to reduce the "Yankees" to submission; but the absence of roads and the necessity of carrying provisions on horseback left the determined pioneers masters of the situation when the larger issue, the Revolutionary war, suspended local strife. The spring after Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga the settlers of the Wyoming valley learned that a detachment of Johnson's "Royal Greens" and Butler's "Rangers," with a company of Tories, had allied themselves with the Seneca Indians, and were preparing to descend upon the valley. A courier was despatched to congress, and appeals for aid were made to the neighboring states, but the isolation which had before served for defense now brought disaster. With the June freshet the British allies came down from Tioga, and nothing but ruins were left to mark the scene. One of the reasons urged for the removal of the state capitol from Philadelphia to Harrisburg in 1799 was the cost of travel, which bore heavily upon legislators from the interior.
THE ROADS OF NEW ENGLAND.
The early settlers of Springfield, Massachusetts, were obliged to send their household goods from Roxbury around by way of Long Island Sound and the Connecticut river, but they themselves were able to proceed on foot along an Indian trail. In time this trail was widened, and as the "Bay path" and the "Boston road" occupied an important place among the transportation routes of the colonies. It was, however, little more than a narrow wagon path until after the Revolution, and so indistinct was it that travelers frequently wandered off the route. A curious stone post marks the place near the national armory at Springfield, where in 1763 a western Massachusetts merchant lost his way, and set up a guide for other travelers. Even as late as 1795 there were but two stages between Boston and New York, and a week was required for the journey. John Bernard, the English actor, thus described a typical New England road in 1797: "Though far better than in any other quarter of the Union, the frequent jolts and plunges of the vehicle brought it into sad comparison with the bowling-greens of England. Very often we surprised a family of pigs taking a bath in a gully of sufficient compass to admit the coach. As often, such chasms were filled with piles of stones that, at a distance, looked like Indian tumuli. The driver's skill in steering was eminent. I found there were two evils to be dreaded in New England traveling—a clayey soil in wet weather, which, unqualified with gravel, made the road a canal; and a sandy one in summer, which might emphatically be called an enormous insect preserve." Such testimony makes real the difficulties which attended travel over the important routes, and enables one to understand how it could have required Washington nearly two weeks to make the trip from Philadelphia to Cambridge at the outbreak of the Revolution.
AFTER THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.