A few years ago there appeared a little book telling of the experiences of a family migrating from Connecticut to Ohio in 1811.  In interesting contrast to the morning dash just outlined is the story of that journey of a little more than one hundred years ago.  Before crossing the North River the voyagers solemnly discussed the perilous waters that confronted them.  “Tomorrow we embark for the opposite shore:  may Heaven preserve us from the raging, angry waves!” The first night’s stop was at Springfield, where, within the living memory of the older members of the party, a skirmish between the American troops and the soldiers of King George had taken place.

Another day’s travel carried the party as far as Chester.  At that point the task of travel became arduous.  Over miry roads, in places blocked by boulders, there was the painful, laborious ascent of the steep grade leading to the summit of what we now call Schooley’s Mountain.  There the party camped for the night, beginning the descent early the morning of the following day.  The brisk three or four hours’ run that gives the motorist of today just the edge of appetite needed for the full enjoyment of his midday meal was to those hardy adventurers of a century ago almost the journey of a week.

For transatlantic travel there was the Black Ball line, between New York and Liverpool, first of four ships, and later of twelve.  That service had been founded in 1816 by New York merchants.  The Red Star line followed in 1821, and soon after the Swallowtail line.  The packets were ships of from six hundred to fifteen hundred tons burden, and made the eastward trip in about twenty-three days and the return trip in about forty days.  The record was held by the “Canada,” of the Black Ball line, which had made the outward run in fifteen days and eighteen hours.  That time was reduced later by the “Amazon.”  The first steamer to cross the Atlantic was the American ship “Savannah.”  She made the trial trip from New York to Savannah in April, 1819, and in the following month her owners decided to send her overseas.  The time of her passage was twenty-six days, eight under steam and eighteen under sail.  Stephen Rogers, her navigator, in a letter to the New London “Gazette,” wrote that the “Savannah” was first sighted from the telegraph station at Cape Clear, on the southern coast of Ireland, which reported her as being on fire, and a king’s cutter was sent to her relief.  “But great was their wonder at their inability to come up with a ship under bare poles.  After several shots had been fired from the cutter the engine was stopped, and the surprise of the cutter’s crew at the mistake they had made, as well as their curiosity to see the strange Yankee craft, can be easily imagined.”  From Liverpool the “Savannah” proceeded to St. Petersburg, stopping at Stockholm, and on her return she left St. Petersburg on October 10th, arriving at Savannah November 30th.  But the prestige that the journey had won did not compensate