Some idea of the difficulties of travel in those days may be given by the following extract from a description of a journey westward in 1784.* "Pack-horses were the only means of transportation then, and for years after. We were provided with three horses, on one of which my mother rode carrying her infant with all the table furniture and cooking utensils. On another were packed the stores of provisions, the plough irons, and other agricultural tools. The third horse was rigged out with a pack saddle and two large creels, made of hickory withs in the fashion of a crate, one over each side, in which were stowed the beds and bedding, and the wearing apparel of the family. In the centre of these creels there was an aperture prepared for myself and little sister, and the top was well secured by lacing to keep us in our places, so that only our heads appeared above. Each family was supplied with one or more cows; their milk furnished the morning and evening meal for the children, and the surplus was carried in canteens for use during the day.

"When the caravan reached the mountains, the road was found to be hardly passable for loaded horses. In many places the path lay along the edge of a precipice, where, if the horse had stumbled or lost his balance, he would have been precipitated several hundred feet below. The path was crossed by many streams raised by the melting snow and spring rains, and running with rapid current in deep ravines; most of these had to be forded, and for many successive days, hair-breadth escapes were continually occurring; sometimes horses falling, at others carried away by the current, and the women and children with difficulty saved from drowning. Sometimes in ascending steep acclivities, the lashing of the creels would give way, both creels and children tumble to the ground and roll down the steep, unless arrested by some traveller of the company. The men who had been inured to the hardships of war, could endure the fatigues of the journey; it was the mothers who suffered; they could not, after the toils of the day, enjoy the rest so much needed at night. The wants of their suffering children must be

* American Pioneer, vol. II.

attended to. After preparing their simple meal, they lay down. with scanty covering in a miserable cabin, or, as it sometimes happened, in the open air, and often unrefreshed, were obliged to rise early to encounter the fatigues and dangers of another day."

"The division lines between those whose lands adjoined, were generally made in an amicable manner, before any survey of them was made by the parties concerned. In doing this, they were guided mainly by the tops of ridges and water courses, but particularly the former. Hence the greater number of farms in the western parts of Pennsylvania and Virginia bear a striking resemblance to an amphitheatre; the tops of the surrounding hills being the boundaries of the tract to which the family mansion belongs."

Besides the exposure of the emigrants to Indian depredations and massacres," they had other trials to endure which at the present day cannot be appreciated. One of the most vexatious was the running away of their horses. As soon as the fly season commenced the horses seemed resolved on leaving the country and crossing the mountains. They swam the Monongahela, and often proceeded a hundred and fifty miles before they were taken up. During the husband's absence in pursuit of them, the wife was left alone with her children in their unfinished cabin, surrounded by forests, in which the howl of wolves was heard from every hill. If want of provisions, or other causes, made a visit to a neighbor's necessary, she must either take her children with her through the woods, or leave them unprotected, under the most fearful apprehension that some mischief might befal them before her return. As bread and meat were scarce, milk was the principal dependence for the support of the family. One cow of each family was provided with a bell, which could be heard from half a mile to a mile. The matron on rising in the morning listened for her cow-bell, which she knew well enough to detect, even amidst a clamor of others. If her children were small, she tied them in bed to prevent their wandering, and guard them from danger of fire and snakes; and guided by the tinkling of the bell, made her way through the tall weeds and cross the ravines until she found the objects of her search. Happy

on her return to find her children unharmed, and regardless of a thorough wetting from the dew, she hastened to prepare their breakfast of milk boiled with a little meal or hominy; or in the protracted absence of her husband, it was often reduced to milk alone. Occasionally venison and turkeys were obtained from hunters."

An anecdote is related in the "American Pioneer," of Gov. McArthur, on his first visit to the West, which throws light on the situation of the early settlers. He stopped some time at Baker's Station, about twenty miles below Wheeling. There was war with the Indians, and the settlers about Fish Creek were occupying the station for security; so long, however, had the enemy been absent from that section of country, that the inmates went and came when they pleased. A young lady of great beauty, who lived at the place, had acquired proficiency in the art of shooting with the rifle. "I think her name was Scott, but it may have been Baker. Early one morning she went to the run, some fifty or sixty yards above the post, to wash linen, taking her gun along, and young McArthur accompanied her to stand guard while she was employed at the wash tub. Before long a small dog that was with them commenced barking, and gave such manifestations of alarm that the young lady desired her companion to make a hasty reconnoissance of the adjacent grounds. The motions of the dog had awakened fear that Indians might be lurking close by, but McArthur discovered nothing to confirm the suspicion. The washing was resumed and in due course completed; after which they both returned to the station. Just as they were about to enter the gate, a tall athletic looking Indian sprang from behind a tree not more than thirty paces beyond the spot where they had been washing, and darted off rapidly into the woods. Pursuit was instantly made, but he was not overtaken. He must have posted himself behind the tree during the previous night, with the intention of shooting the first person that ventured out of the works in the morning. The appearance of two disconcerted his plan. McArthur's gallantry on this occasion was the means of saving the young lady's life."

De Hass describes a station as a parallelogram of cabins united by palisades, so as to present a continued wall on the outer sides, the cabin doors opening into a common square on the inner side. A fort was generally a stockade enclosure, embracing cabins, etc., for the accommodation of several families. Doddridge says, a range

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side, separated by divisions

of cabins commonly formed at least one or partitions of logs. The walls on the outside were ten or twelve feet high, with a roof sloping inward. Some of the cabins had puncheon floors, but the greater part were earthen.

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The blockhouses were built at the angles of the fort, and projected about two feet beyond the outer walls of the cabins and stockades. Their upper stories were about eighteen inches or two feet every way larger than the under one, leaving an opening at the commencement of the second story, to prevent the enemy from making a lodgment under their walls. In some forts, instead of blockhouses, the angles were furnished with bastions. A large folding gate, made of thick slabs, nearest the spring, closed the fort. The stockades, bastions, cabins, and blockhouse walls were furnished with portholes at proper heights and distances. The whole of the outside was made completely bullet proof. The families belonging to these forts were so attached to their own cabins on their farms, that they seldom moved into the fort in the spring until compelled by some alarm; that is, when it was announced by some murder that Indians were in the settlement."

Butler describes the dwellings of the first settlers of the West as composed of the trunks of trees, bared of their branches, notched at the ends and fitted upon one another in a quadrangular shape, to the desired height. Openings through the logs left room for doors and shutters. A capacious opening, nearly the whole width of the cabin, made the fire-place. By this ample width economy of labor in cutting fire-wood, as well as comfort in houses, was consulted.

"The furniture of the table, for several years after the settlement of the country, consisted of a few pewter dishes, plates and spoons; but mostly of wooden bowls, trenchers and noggins. If these last were scarce, gourds and hard-shelled squashes made up the de

ficiency. The iron pots, knives and forks were brought from the East, with the salt and iron, on pack-horses. These articles of furniture corresponded very well with the articles of diet. 'Hog and hominy' was a dish of proverbial celebrity. Johnny-cake or pone was at the outset of the settlements the only form of bread in use for breakfast and dinner; at supper, milk and mush was the standard dish. When milk was scarce, hominy supplied its place, and mush was frequently eaten with sweetened water, molasses, bear's oil, or the gravy of fried meat.

The

"In our display of furniture, delf, china and silver were unknown. The introduction of delf ware was considered by many of the backwoods people as a wasteful innovation. It was too easily broken, and the plates dulled their scalping and clasp knives. Tea and coffee, in the phrase of the day, 'did not stick by the ribs.' idea then prevalent was, that they were only designed for people of quality, who did not labor, or for the rich. A genuine backwoodsman would have thought himself disgraced by showing a fondness for such slops.

"On the frontier and particularly among hunters in the habit of going on campaigns, the dress of the men was partly Indian. The hunting-shirt universally worn was a kind of loose frock, reaching half way down the thighs, with large sleeves, open before, and so wide as to lap over a foot or more when belted. The cape was large, and sometimes fringed with a ravelled piece of cloth, of differ ent color from the hunting-shirt. The bosom of this dress served as a wallet to hold bread, cakes, jerk, tow for wiping the barrel of the rifle, or any other necessary for the hunter or warrior. The belt, always tied behind, answered several purposes; in cold weather the mittens, and sometimes the bullet-bag, occupied its front part; on the right side was suspended the tomahawk, on the left the scalping knife in its leathern sheath. The hunting-shirt was generally made of linsey, sometimes of coarse linen, and a few of dressed deer-skin; these last very cold and uncomfortable in wet weather. The shirt and jacket were of the common fashion. A pair of drawers, or breeches and leggins, were the dress of the thighs and legs; a pair