Upstate
Here's a random diversion from Wisconsin for one picture.
One of the things I'm reading right now is an account written by noted geographer, geologist, and ethnologist Henry Schoolcraft of a trip he took from New York City across the Great Lakes region through the territory of the Ojibwe (or Chippewa) Indians. I'm reading this mostly for genealogical purposes, but Schoolcraft is one of those writers who describes every step of a trip in exhaustive detail, so I'm only about halfway across upstate New York. That's why I'm posting this picture of upstate Saranac Lake from the 2015 summer trip. Schoolcraft didn't pass near Saranac Lake on his trip, but a lot of the territory he did pass through looks a lot like this, so here it is.
Schoolcraft's trip across New York involved a sequence of stage coaches, a method of travel I have trouble imagining. I know what a stage coach is and how it works, and I know they were used extensively for travel all across the United States before trains became a thing. But a stage coach only carries a small number of people and goods, which I'd think would make the whole enterprise extremely expensive, and you'd have to run a lot of stage coaches if a lot of people wanted to go to the same place. People just didn't travel all that much.
One of the stage coaches Schoolcraft took ran from Utica to Geneva, a distance he says is 96 miles. He left at 2 in the morning and arrived at 1 in the afternoon, making this an 11-hour trip. That gives you an idea of how long it took a person to get anywhere in 1820. Mapquest suggests the shortest car route covering the same ground today is 103 miles, but it only takes an hour and 41 minutes.
Upstate
Here's a random diversion from Wisconsin for one picture.
One of the things I'm reading right now is an account written by noted geographer, geologist, and ethnologist Henry Schoolcraft of a trip he took from New York City across the Great Lakes region through the territory of the Ojibwe (or Chippewa) Indians. I'm reading this mostly for genealogical purposes, but Schoolcraft is one of those writers who describes every step of a trip in exhaustive detail, so I'm only about halfway across upstate New York. That's why I'm posting this picture of upstate Saranac Lake from the 2015 summer trip. Schoolcraft didn't pass near Saranac Lake on his trip, but a lot of the territory he did pass through looks a lot like this, so here it is.
Schoolcraft's trip across New York involved a sequence of stage coaches, a method of travel I have trouble imagining. I know what a stage coach is and how it works, and I know they were used extensively for travel all across the United States before trains became a thing. But a stage coach only carries a small number of people and goods, which I'd think would make the whole enterprise extremely expensive, and you'd have to run a lot of stage coaches if a lot of people wanted to go to the same place. People just didn't travel all that much.
One of the stage coaches Schoolcraft took ran from Utica to Geneva, a distance he says is 96 miles. He left at 2 in the morning and arrived at 1 in the afternoon, making this an 11-hour trip. That gives you an idea of how long it took a person to get anywhere in 1820. Mapquest suggests the shortest car route covering the same ground today is 103 miles, but it only takes an hour and 41 minutes.