New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1913-04-13
EMPIRE STATE TRAILS
Henry |. HazIeton Tells How
Highways Developed.
WERE STARTED By INDIANS
Pack Horses, Carrying Furs and
Provisions, Widened Paths
Used by Red Men.

USeu ny Rcu Ntu.
reo origin Of American roads. or
rs.bcr their development from paths
ueed nv Indians in the early days. is
interestingly told by Henry l.. Hazleton
in AN article on automobile trails in the
,.,,,nire state. II might he said in this
Connection that some of the roads to
hc found not so far from New York
these DAYS would indicate that the mod
orn road builders have not advanced
much beyond the original settlers
Road making in North America began
with widening the trail which the Ind
iaus followed by the mere passing over
il with wider loads. Mr. Hazleton says.
The pack horse era supplied the West
with the merchandise it began to need.
The heavier the freight the more were
the bushes worn away and the more the
bed Of the road was trampled When
the last half of the eighteenth century
began the fur trade was enormous and
heavier loads were carried by the trad
ing ponies both "goin' in and comm
out as the pioneers used to say. The
10 is not certain that he ever bridged n
stream by Telling a tree, although it may
have heen that he did so or merely a
freak Of the currents.
BY 1850 three routes running through
southwestern Pennsylvania. Central
Pennsylvania and Central New York
we've worn deep and broad so that pack
horses could pass without serious dan
ger to their loads. The two great roads
opened westward where the armies of
WASHINGTON, Braddock and Forbes fol
lowed the trail partially widened by the
ohio company's pack horses. The
course was first marked out by Thomas
Crcsap.
Another route led mp the Mohawk
along the. Iroquois trail and down the
Onondaga 10 Oswego. 1t was a water
route primarily. the two rivers with a
portage at Rome Offering more or less
facilities for sending heavy baggage by
batteaus II was the portage path from
tho Hudson to Lake Ontario, the old
Iandward trail To Niagara not having
been opened by the army.
Though wagons went West with Brad
dock and Forbes they were not seen
again in the Alleghenies for more than
twenty-five years. Strings of tingling
ponies followed the wagon trail bearing
westward salt and powder. bars OF bend
ed iron and even millstones and bring
ing back furs and ginseng. Every fam
jly on the frontier collected what peltry
and fur il could and sent them across
The mountains for barter
The road was often dangerous. through
mountain defiles where a misstep might
hur the horse and rider into an abyss.
TO avoid this the bulky baggage was re-
moved and each horse was tethered 10
the saddle Of the one I'm front. Five hun
bred pack n. ses were seen at one time
in Carlisle. Penn, Rupp relates in his his
tory. Going west they were usually led
i'm divisions OF twelve 10 fifteen horses and
carried about two hundred weight each.
In fact. the country was not far behind
Old England. Travellers between Lon
don and Glasgow as late as 1879 found no
turnpike TIL within one hundred miles OF
the metropolis. Elsewhere they traversed
narrow causeways with an unmade. soft
road on each side. Strings Of pack horses
were passed. sometimes thirty or forty in
a train. The widened trail or bride path
was the forerunner OF the highway
The buffalo and Indian did not travel
I'm the winter. but the white man was
helped by the sleighing, which enabled
him 10 take short cuts. which afterward
became regular routes. In New York
travel on snow was common, and much
heavy freight was moved in winter when
the ground was hard, rather than al other
times. when IL was wet and treacherous.
Long after the building OF the Genesee
road freight was hauled in winter in pref
erence to summer.
One reason given for the delay in COM
dieting the Erie Canal was that the alb
sence OF snow in the winter Of 1918 and
1919 prevented the handling OF heavy
freight on solid roads.
The vehicle developed likewise from
primitive beginnings. The first was a
great clumsy cer with immensely high
and solid wooden wheels. They were
made by taking thin slice from the butt
OF the greatest log that could be found.
or were built piecemeal by rude car
penters.
They we're drawn by oxen. They
smoothed out ruts and were uninjured by
the rocks. They turned out often TO avoid
wet places: sometimes the route they fol-
lowed had three, four and five tracks.
They chose the hills rather than the low
ground because they were drier, but IN
dry weather they found the low ground
The easiest and quickest route, so the
great routes had their wet ard dry road
ways.
could 20 or where the old OK carts go,
and so more attention was given TO the
lavine logs closely together so az 10 form
q sold roadbed. but was never done sys-
temztically Travelling was desperate
and the heavy roads were almost I'M
passable Often loads were lost in wet
.cavities on which the drivers ventured.
To get stalled in one Of the old hog wal
low roads was q serious matter.