Original Document

January 8, 1807

"I left Philadelphia on foot, accompanying a wagon which carried by baggage. I preferred this mode of traveling for several reasons. Not being pressed for time, I wished to see as much of the country as possible; the roads were in fine order and I had no incentive to make me desirous of reaching any point of my intended journey before my baggage. With respect to expense, there was little difference in my traveling in this manner, or on horseback, or in the stage, had I been unincumbered with baggage; for the delay on the road, awaiting the slow pace of a loaded wagon, which is not quite three miles an hour, and not exceeding twenty-six miles on a winter's day, will occasion as great expense to a traveler in a distance performed otherwise in less than half the time, including the charge of horse or stage hire.



The first object which struck me on the road was the new bridge over the Schuylkill which does honor to its inventor for its originality of architecture, and its excellence of mechanism.


There is a turnpike road of sixty-six miles from Philadelphia to Lancaster, which my wagoner left at Downingtown about half way keeping to the right along a new road, which is also intended for a turnpike road to Harrisburg, and which passes through New Holland where he had some goods to deliver. The face of the country between Philadelphia and Lancaster is hilly. And variegated with woods and cultivated farms. It is extremely well inhabited and consists of almost every variety of soil. The first settlers of all this tract were English, Irish, and German, but the latter have gradually purchased from the others, and have got the best lands generally into their possession.



January 22

"On Thursday, 22nd of January, I left Lancaster on foot, proceeding along the Harrisburg Road, at a steady pace of about three miles and a half an hour. The weather was remarkably fine, and the road in excellent order, and what was remarkable for the season, a little dusty. About a mile and a half from Lancaster, I passed a turnpike toll gate, from a little beyond which I got the last view of the steeples of that town, and soon after, I crossed a branch of Conestoga Creek. The road continued fine, and the country rich, laid out in large farms with good dwelling houses of brick and stone and immense barns…Two miles further I had to cross another Indian bridge over Little Chickey Creek…The road now became very bad, the turnpike intended from Lancaster to Harrisburg not being as yet finished any further. The country also is not so highly improved as in the neighborhood of Lancaster, the inhabitants still residing in their original small log houses, though they have generally good and spacious stone barns. After four hours walking, I arrived at Elizabethtown, eighteen miles from Lancaster, and stopped at the sign of General Wayne, where for a five penny bit (six cents and a quarter) I got a bowl of excellent egg punch, and a crust of bread.



The road to Harrisburg leads parallel to the Susquehanna, in some places, close to the river, and never more distant from it than a quarter of a mile, along a very pleasant level, bounded on the right by a ridge of low, but steep wooded hills, approaching and receding at intervals, and affording a fine shelter from the northerly winds, to the farms between them and the river; which is perhaps one reason that the orchards are so numerous and so fine in this tract.
About three miles below Harrisburg the mountains terminate. When within a mile and a half of Harrisburg, the white cupola of its courthouse, and roofs of the houses of the town are seen peeping over the trees, and have a good effect. At one o'clock I entered the town to the left over Paxton Creek Bridge.



Saturday, January 24

On Saturday, 24th, I arose early, but the ferryboat not being ready I partook of an excellent breakfast with my friendly host and his family, and at ten o'clock I embarked in a large flat, with the western mail and several passengers and horses…Ten miles further brought me to Carlisle, at six o'clock in the evening; the whole road from Harrisburg being fine and level, the houses and farms good, and the face of the country pleasant. The view on the right is all the way terminated by the Blue Mountains–the longest northeastern branch of the Allegheny ridge, from six to ten miles distant.
Before I retired to rest, I walked to the tavern where the wagons generally stopped, and had the pleasure of finding that arrived which carried my baggage, which I had not seen since I left Lancaster.



January 25

On the 25th of January at 8 a.m. I left Carlisle having previously taken an egg beat up in a glass of wine. I took the stage road, as the wagon with my baggage was to go that way. At eleven o'clock I stopped and breakfasted at a large tavern seven miles from Carlisle; I got coffee, bread and butter, eggs and excellent honey in the comb, for which I was charged only nineteen cents. My landlord presented me one of the largest and finest apples I had ever seen. As I proceeded from thence, two very beautiful foxes playfully crossed the road about a hundred yards before me. At half past four I arrived at Shippensburg. I stopped at Raume's, a German House about the middle of town, and apparently the best tavern in it. I bathed my feet in cold water, and dressed the left one which was much blistered and very painful. Soon after which my wagoner Jordan with three others in his company arriving, we all sat down together according to the custom of the country to a plentiful and good supper; after which the wagoners spread their mattresses and blankets around the stove in the bar room, and I retired to a good bed, but without an upper sheet.



January 27

On the morning of the 27th of January, I took leave of my friendly host, Skinner. After riding four miles on a continued ridge of the Sidelinghill, we stopped at a log tavern. It was a large half-finished log house, with no apparent accommodation for any traveler who had not his own bed or blanket. It was surrounded on the outside by wagons and horses, and inside, the whole floor was so filled with people sleeping, wrapped in their blankets round a large fire, that there was no such thing as approaching it to get warm, until some of the travelers who had awoke at our entrance went out to feed their horses, after doing which they returned, drank whiskey under the name of bitters, and resumed their beds on the floor–singing, laughing, joking, romping, and apparently as happy as possible. So much for custom.



About four miles from hence, we descended the western side of Sidelinghill Mountains, here called Rayshill, at the foot of which we forded the river Juniata. After crossing the Juniata, we pursued our road through a broken country, very hilly, with the river always in sight, sometimes on one hand and sometimes on the other, as its bends approached or receded from the road, and sometimes directly under us at the foot of terrific precipices, down one of which, about twenty years ago, a wagon was carried by the horses falling three or four hundred feet perpendicularly–the wagoner and horses were killed and the wagon was dashed to pieces.



January 31

The 31st of January at four in the morning I left Bedford in the stage with three gentlemen and a young girl as passengers. It had snowed all night, and the ground was covered some inches deep so we had to proceed slowly crossing the West branch of the Juniata twice in the first three miles. As day dawned the country appeared to be in general rather more settled and cultivated than on the eastern side of Bedford, but it was still very hilly, and woods was the prevailing feature. At half past ten, we had reached the foot of the Allegheny ridge, where we breakfasted; and here I found one of the advantages of traveling in the stage, was to be charged a sixteenth of a dollar more per meal than if one traveled in any other way.



We were now in Somerset County, and having changed stages, horses, and drivers, we ascended by a very easy road of one mile to the top of the highest ridge of land in the United States, to the eastward of which all rivers flow to the eastward, to empty themselves into the Atlantic Ocean, while to the westward they flow westerly to unite with the Mississippi, which is their common aqueduct to the gulf of Mexico.
The face of the country before us is changed for the better…well inhabited and cultivated; and the ridge of the hills, though long, not so steep, and finely clothed with heavy wood. This was the general appearance of the country, until we arrived at Somerset, the capitol of the county, fourteen miles from the top of the Allegheny ridge.



February 1

The 1st February at 4 a.m. I left Somerset in a sleigh, a good deal of snow having fallen the day before. At 10 a.m. we changed horses and our sleigh for a stage wagon, two miles from M'Mullen's at M'Ginnis's, perhaps the dirtiest tavern on the whole road. We crossed the river Sewickly, a fine millstream, by a bridge and eight miles further we arrived at Greensburg, the capitol of Westmoreland County. Greensburg is a compact, well-built snug little town, of about a hundred houses, with a handsome courthouse, a Presbyterian meetinghouse, and a market house.
On entering Habach's tavern I was no little surprised to see a fine coal fire, and I was informed that coal is the principal fuel of the country fifty or sixty miles around Pittsburgh. It is laid down at the doors here for sixty cents a bushel.



February 2

At five o'clock next morning we resumed our journey. At eight miles from Greensburg we passed on our right an excellent house and fine farm of a Colonel Irwin, one of the assistant judges; and three miles farther we stopped to change horses and breakfast at Stewart's where we were charged only a quarter of a dollar each.



We soon after entered Allegheny County. At nine miles from Stewart's we descended a very long and steep hill by a shocking road, crossed Turtle Creek at the bottom, which runs to the southward to join the river Monongahela, twelve miles above its confluence with the Allegheny; we then descended another hill by an equally bad and dangerous road. It is astonishing that in so fine and so improving a country more attention is not paid to the roads. A turnpike is projected from Pittsburg to Harrisburg, which I am clearly of opinion might be kept in repair by a reasonable toll; and then wagons with goods may travel between the two places in a third less time than they do now, and without the present great risks of breaking down, and the mails may be delivered at the post offices one-half sooner.



When about seven miles from Pittsburgh, we had a picturesque view of the Monongahela on the left, which was soon hid again by the intervening hills, and then within three miles of that town the view was beautiful over the low cultivated level, or bottom as it is called, which skirts the river Allegheny from thence to Pittsburgh, which is seen at the confluence of that river with the Monongahela, beyond which, the high and steep coal hill crowned by a farm house most romantically situated, seems to impend directly over the glass manufactory, on the bank of the river opposite the town.



The last two miles was along the fine level above mentioned passing on the right, between the road and the Allegheny. After we passed Fort Fayette, a stockaded post on the right, we entered Pittsburgh and put up at Wm. M'Cullough's excellent inn.



Note to teachers:

In 1805, the post and stages were running regularly to Pittsburgh from Chambersburg. In 1806 the turnpike road over the mountains was begun, and the road from Lancaster to Columbia, or Wright's Ferry, was completed. Phillip Gossler kept the tavern and ran the ferry in 1800, and sometimes one hundred fifty Pitt teams were awaiting to be ferried over the Susquehanna. The great ferry carried two Conestoga wagons and their teams at a time across the river. In 1812 the ferry was replaced by the longest bridge in the world.



Turnpikes were also built from Columbia to York, and to Gettysburg and Chambersburg. In 1815 a slate and limestone road twenty-two feet wide was built between Bedford and Stoyestown, and the next year it was continued to Greensburg.