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From: PHHGENE <>
Subject: [RHEA-L] Early American Trails and Roads: Part 2
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1998 00:29:56 EST


Early American Trails and Roads... Continued.

See "Early American Trails and Roads: Part 1" for details.

THE MOHAWK (IROQUOIS) TRAIL
The Mohawk Trail of New York, also known as the Iroquois Trail, extended from
Albany west to the eastern end of Lake Erie, where Buffalo is now located.
This was the most northerly route through the Appalachian Mountains, leading
from New York's Hudson Valley along the Mohawk River on to the Great Lakes.
It
was used heavily by New York's early emigrants and was much involved with the
state's early history. Today's maps show the travel route as the New York
Thruway (I-90) from Albany west. From about 1680 the French-Iroquois Country
was a major stronghold. A wagon trail reached from Albany to Lake Erie after
the French and Indian War and became a part of the route followed by
Loyalists
into Upper Canada, later to become Ontario. The Mohawk Turnpike opened as far
as Utica by 1793. In the 1820s this route became that of the Erie Canal, and
in 1845 it became the route of the New York Central Railroad.

THE MORMON TRAIL
The Mormon Trail stretched nearly 1,400 miles across prairies, sagebrush
flats, and steep mountains. Each had its challenges for the early wagon
trains
and the later handcarts. The Mormon Trail originated in Nauvoo, Illinois, and
extended westward to Utah where they established Salt Lake City. In 1845, to
allay violence and night-riding, Brigham Young and the Twelve agreed to leave
Illinois "as soon as grass grows and water runs." From Nauvoo, the Saints
crossed Iowa. Their first real way-station was at Garden Grove, where 170 men
cleared 715 acres in three weeks, for the purpose of providing shelter for
those coming behind. In 1846, they crossed the Missouri River at Council
Bluffs, setting up Winter Quarters on Indian lands, at what is now an Omaha
suburb. While 3,483 Saints waited there for spring, more than 600 perished.
As
spring 1847 approached, approximately 10,000 Mormons were encamped along the
trail in Iowa and at Winter Quarters. Brigham Young and the Council of the
Twelve organized the Pioneer Company to go ahead to mark the trail and lay
the
cornerstone of the new Zion. The first group of Mormons passed through Echo
Canyon, over Big Mountain and Little Mountain and down Emigration Canyon,
coming into full view of the Great Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. During
the period from 1846 to 1869, about 60,000 Mormon pioneers crossed the
prairies. They came from existing American states and also from many European
countries.

THE NATCHEZ TRACE
The Natchez Trace has a colorful history. By 1785, there were traders from
the
Ohio River Valley (called "Kaintucks") arriving in Natchez with flatboats and
rafts filled with products and crops. But of course it wasn't possible to
return upriver against the currents. Instead, they would walk or ride horses
northward on the Trace to their homes. Often they were attacked and robbed of
the riches so recently gained. The Trace gained the nickname "Devil's
Backbone." You might be able to locate the book which relates to that name.
It
is by Jonathan Daniels, "The Devil's Backbone, the Story of the Natchez
Trace." The U.S. never owned the public lands of Tennessee through which
about
100 miles of the Trace ran. In Alabama, it went only 40 miles, touching only
two counties. 300 miles of it lay in Mississippi. The coming of steamboat
traffic spelled the end of the dominance of the Natchez Trace. Andrew Jackson
made a lot of trips up and down the Trace. In 1813 when he walked it with his
army, he acquired the name "Old Hickory" because his volunteers considered
him
as tough as the hickory trees around them. Another significant name connected
to the Trace is that of Meriwether Lewis of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
The question still lingers--was his death on the Trace suicide or murder?

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