5. A Rifle, an Ax and a Bag of Corn (1)

The American West was a place of great opportunities and millions of hopeful citizens traveled west in hope of a new start in life. What lay ahead for those who chose to be pioneers and was it very easy to move from the East to the West? Read this story, and you will get a clear idea.

A rifle, an ax and a bag of corn. These were the weapons in a fierce battle—a fight that took courage, a struggle in which only the strong survived. Unlike the usual run of battles, this was not a fight of one organized army against another; it was a more thrilling war between men, women, and children on the one side, and the uncharted wilderness on the other.

From 1770 to 1840 the movement west grew from a handful of people to hundreds of thousands. Swarms of land seekers poured into the Mississippi Valley. It became a stampede. Single men packed up and left, families packed up and left, whole towns packed up and left. America was on the move. In 1770 there were five thousand people west of the Appalachians; in 1840 there were eight million. Millions and millions of acres of land were occupied by the moving horde.

How the people pressed into the Mississippi Valley! There were all sorts and conditions of people, walking, on horseback, pushing carts, in wagons, on boats. The Salem Mercury for Tuesday, December 23, 1788, reported this item of news from Virginia: "A gentleman who left Kentucky the 18th of September informs—that he met on his way 1 004 people, in one party, bound to Kentucky."

Robbstown is a village in Pennsylvania lying directly on the western highway to Pittsburgh. In one month, from October 6 to November 6, 1811, it reported that 236 wagons with men, women, and children, and 600 sheep, had passed through on their way to Ohio. This is the record for only one month in only one town.

"Reports from Lancaster (Pennsylvania) state that 100 moving families had been counted going through the town in a week, and that the turnpike was fairly covered with bands of emigrants. At Zanesville (Ohio) 50 wagons crossed the Muskingum in one day."

"At Easton, Pennsylvania, which lay on the favorite westward route for New Englanders, 511 wagons with 3 066 persons passed in a month. They went in trains of from 6 to 50 wagons each day."

Never before had the world seen such a movement. It was a never-ending stream. Towns grew and villages sprang up almost overnight. "Mount Pleasant in Jefferson County, Ohio, was in 1810 a little hamlet of 7 families living in cabins. In 1815 it contained 90 families numbering 500 souls, had 7 stores and 3 taverns, a meeting-house, a schoolhouse, a market-house, a machine for spinning wool, a factory for making thread, and 40 artisans and mechanics representing 11 trades."

In 1817 John Calhoun said, "We are great, and rapidly—I was about to say fearfully—growing." Perhaps fearfully was the correct word.

The figures alone shout the story. Michigan had:

This in only thirty years! It was astounding. The broadening line, moving, moving, ever moving to the West.

From the size of this tremendous westward movement it would be natural to suppose that going west was the easiest job in the world. Not at all. Most of these moving people were moving primarily because they had little or no money, so plush seats in speedy railroad trains that could make the journey in twenty-four hours were not for them; besides, railroad trains as we know them simply did not exist for anyone, money or not. The superb concrete roads familiar to us were not even dreamed of; trucks and automobiles with cushioned shock absorbers, comfortable springs, and rubber tires, were seventy-five years in the future. No, for these early pioneers, going west was what they wanted to do, but not because it was easy to do it. The Appalachian Mountains, though not as high as the Rockies, were nevertheless a real barrier.

Rivers which cut through the mountains were, of course, a great help. But the traveler had to ford the streams, and getting his family and cattle across was not very simple. Occasionally a summer rain would swell a mountain creek into a rushing torrent. Then crossing was very dangerous. Always there was the fear of attack by the Indians. Once safely past the mountains, the going was a little easier. Then the whole family, husband, wife, children, and cattle could board a raft or keelboat on a river and float with the current downstream. Unfortunately, because so many people were making the journey westward, it was difficult to procure a boat right away. Since everybody was on the move, workmen were hard to find. Often a traveling family would have to wait weeks before its boat was built. And always, even while floating down the river, there was the danger of surprise attacks by the Indians on the shore. For this reason many flatboats were entirely enclosed on all sides so that they looked like floating forts.

Wherever the road was wide enough, wagons were used. But many people couldn't afford even the crude, uncomfortable wagons of the time. To see whole families walking hundreds of miles on foot was a common sight. Often it was pitiful to behold. "A family of 8 on their way from Maine to Indiana walked all the way to Easton, Pa. (about 415 miles), which they reached late in February, dragging the children and their worldly goods in a hand cart. A blacksmith from Rhode Island made his way in the dead of winter across Massachusetts to Albany (about 200 miles). In a little cart on four plank wheels a foot in diameter were some clothes, some food and two children. Behind it trudged the mother with an infant at the breast and 7 other children beside her." It took courage to face hardships like that.

No, moving west was not easy. It was a life full of hardships. Even later, when the National Road was built and steamboats took the place of flatboats and the Indians were finally pushed far enough back to be less dangerous, even then the journey had its difficulties and dangers. Yet hordes of people continued to push west. Though occasionally land companies helped emigrants to get to lands that they wanted to sell, and sometimes groups of neighbors from eastern towns would band together and travel in one body, nevertheless the West was filled up, in the main, by separate families. Husband, wife, and children, hungry for land of their own, this was most often the unit that braved the dangers of travel, climbed the mountains, trudged over the trails, floated down the rivers, and carved a home out of the dense wilderness.

(to be continued)