The Potter journal. [volume] (Coudersport, Pa.) 1857-1872, 1866-10-02
From the Philadelphia Press. September III
Editorial COTrcSpOndess &c. Z
CoUDERsPoRT, Potter Co., Pa
September Is, 1866.

Although the skies were clouded and a
slow rain fell from the time we started
yesterday morning on our journey here
from Emporium, on the Philadelphia and
Erie railroad, three hundred and one miles
from Philadelphia, it was exceedingly pleas
ant The road, some twenty-sx miles in
extent, is an excellent one, and has opened
Coudersport to many advantages hereto
fore only secured after long and tedious
Journey. More than one half Of it runs
through dense and almost impenetraJle
forest of hemlock and pine. For nearly a
hundred miles this wilderness extended
around US. As we looked into its dim
shades and tried to penetrate its distant
soltudes, we endeavored to imagine the
difficulties and priVations of the original
settlers. Even now, when civilization is
building railroads and runningthe telegraph
wires along and through these regions, the
people are compelled to submit 10 many
discomforts. But what must have been
the condition Of those who, within the
memory Of men still living, carried their
families and goods in canoes along the AL
legbany, the Susquehanna and their trbu
tarieS, and when the streams failed them
bore these canoes upon their stoat shoul-
ders until they met the water again. The
journey from Williamsport consumed two
full months, and Yet 1T was endured with
that patience aad fortitude which have
gradually conquered the obstacles of ma
ture, and have founded flourishing towns
between almost insurmountable hills, and
are breaking thorougofares into the neigh
boring and more populons centres OF New
York. The road from Emporium here j,
the result of the enterprise Of the people of
Potter county. The great land-holders
who possess theilimtabIe tracts that bound
it on either side were assessed to pay the
expenses, and they bore them willingly, as
we'll they might, for the improvement is
one that will gradually appreciate their
lands and bring them into immediate and
more general notice. With pair of good
horses, a skiIfuI and daring driver, and sucA
a companion as Col. Carleton B. Curtis, of
Warren. former Representative in Congress
from this district, who was coming here to
attend the courts which opened yestereay,
and who whled away the time with sketches
of the old settlers and stories of encounters
with the untamed animals of these prlmi-
tive forests, at the end OF a little more than
four hours we bowled into the smiling and
thriving county-seat of Potter.
Coudersport is situated in beautiful
valley, among the spurs of the Al'eshanIes,
which divide the headwaterS of the Ale
ghany, the susquehanna and the Genesee,
thence debouching into the Gulf of Mexico,
through the Mississippi, the Gulf of st.
Lawrence through the river of that name,
and the Chesapeake Bay. The great range
of the Aileghanies, which are here as i'm
posing as 10 Central Pennsylvania, extend
on the south through Virginia and North
Carolina, and lose themselves in North
western Georgia and Northern Alabama
1t has population Of Ave hundred, the
county containing about fourteen thousand.
Here we find a Pennsylvania town of New
York habitudes. The long exclusion from
Philadelphia and other portions of the
State, however, has been finally broken by