The HORSE DRAWN Papers #7

A   R E T R O S P E C T I V E

The following is pages 141 to 142 extracted from an unattributed article from Alexandria and St. Albans Township (1952).

When Phineas Ford with his wife and family were pushing through the forests on their way from Frankinton (now Columbus) to a spot in what is now Union Township in April 1800, they passed through the southern part of our present St. Albans Township.  Their only help in seeking out a home in an entirely unsettled region was a pocket-compass and a map of this part of the Ohio Company's lands.  Their worldly possessions were all packed in a wagon drawn by an oxteam.  The first day out of Franklinton a wheel of their wagon broke under the strain of hard traveling.  Mr. Ford made some felloes for the wheel, it is recorded, from a crooked dogwood, screwed on the tire and started on again.  The next day a member of the party thrust his gun into a wheel to save the wagon from turning over and broke the stock off his gun.  When coming down a steep bank on Mootz Run, probably where the old trail crossed the stream on what is now Forsyth land, a grape vine caught under the oxen, and the of the wagon drove them forward with such impetus that is swung the cattle from the ground until relieved by cutting the grapevine.

In 1815, Lewis Martin and family and several relatives were on their way from Charleston, Va., to Jersey township where Martin had already built a cabin.  They got as far as Mootz Run where they had to cut out a wagon road before they could proceed with their teams.  Mr. Martin and his company were assisted in cutting out a wagon track by Joseph Headley and the colored [sic] in his employ.  They left the Worthington Road on what was later Spellman or Forsythe land.  The first day in opening the road they came to a point on Mootz Run where the Jersey road first crossed it, probably just below the present covered bridge.  On the second day they succeeded in cutting their way through to their new homes, all moving into the cabin on the 15th day of June 1815.

Wickliff Condit and his wife of Morristown, New Jersey, when migrating to Jersey Township in 1819 arrived at Blood's Tavern on the road from Granville and Alexandria on June 6, stayed all night, left their baggage as security for payment for lodging and walked to Jersey on the 7th.

An example of the Conestoga wagon.  The front axle is lower front axle.  Smaller wheels in front means tighter turns and the inclusion of the "lynch" or king pin necessitates more wood bolstering the front.

Although the simpler means of transportation already described really did the first work of opening up the overland trails for the onrush of settlers, it is the lynch-pin Conestoga or "covered wagon" of a slightly later period which has somehow come to be the symbol of America's great movement of western expansion.  St. Albans knew the lynch-pin wagon best in te 1830's and 1840's.  At least two of St. Alban's township's highways developed early into transcontinental emigrant routes.  The old Delaware road and the Worthington Road were among the most traveled routes for settlers seeking the west and northwest during the first fifety years of the last fifty years of the last fifty years of the last century, partially because, no doubt, because there were no toll gates on these highways.  The Worthington Road, the present Route 161, was an important emigrant route as early as 1805, early maps of the state reveal.  Several decades preceding the Civil War period, caravans of covered wagons in steady succession were probably the most conspicuous feature of St. Albans highways during the seasons of the year when travel was at all possible.  Needless to say, the taverns which sprang up along these routes, nearly as thick as filling stations today, did a thriving business.

The lynch-pin wagon continued as a much-used vehicle for many years, for local as well as for cross country travel.  [...]

Locally, there was of course much recourse in early years to oxcarts and sleds and particularly horseback for transportation.  The young swain very commonly took his best girl on horseback and Dobbin was made to carry "twice".  Buggies were being manufactured in a limited way at this time, but few were in general use.  Wagon travel was common.  When the family went traveling in one of these early wagons, either the kitchen chairs were brought into use for seats or improvised wooden springs.  One method of shock absorbing was by means of two hickory poles about two and a half inches in diameter suspended by iron hooks over the sides of the wagon body, one on either side with seat boards covered with bed blankets resting on the poles.  In this manner comfort in riding was greatly improved.

In the late 40's and early 50's buggies began to come into common use.  The earliest of these were clumsy, heavy affairs with wooden axles, wheels as heavy as those on a light one-horse wagon today, and rigid tops fastened to a post at each at each corner of the body, but with steel springs, a great advance over the wagon for the convenience in travel.  In the 50's these vehicles were greatly improved by means of iron axles, lighter wheels, and more shapely bodies.  Spring wagons also appeared at this time for taking the family.  In the 60's came the lighter one-horse buggy with an adjustable top similar to those of the present day.  The body from the seat to the floor of the buggy in the rear was a direct slant like the roof of a house.  In the early 70's came the buggy with a "boot" body, followed in the later 70's with the "piano bed" body which is still with us.

In the 70's also, for light business driving, the "skeleton wagon" was quite commonly used.  This vehicle had no body, simply the gears, a slatted floor, a seat resting on half elliptic springs.  In the 80's carts for the same purpose were popular.