The wagon has a tilt, or cover, made of a sheet, or
perhaps a blanket. The family are seen before, behind, or within
the vehicle, according to the road or the weather, or perhaps the
spirits of the party.... A cart and single horse frequently
affords the means of transfer, sometimes a horse and pack-saddle.
Often the back of the poor pilgrim bears all his effects, and his
wife follows, naked-footed, bending under the hopes of the
family."*
* Quoted in Turner, "Rise of the New West," pp. 79-80.
Arrived at the Ohio, the emigrant either engaged passage on some
form of river-craft or set to work to construct with his own
hands a vessel that would bear him and his belongings to the
promised land. The styles of river-craft that appeared on the
Ohio and other western streams in the great era of river
migration make a remarkable pageant. There were canoes, pirogues,
skiffs, rafts, dugouts, scows, galleys, arks, keelboats,
flatboats, barges, "broadhorns," "sneak-boxes," and eventually
ocean-going brigs, schooners, and steamboats. The canoe served
the early explorer and trader, and even the settler whose
possessions had been carried over the Alleghanies on a single
packhorse.
Pages:
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131