Annals of our ancestors; one hundred and fifty years of history in the ...

WHEN THE CENTURY WAS NEW 7
for it was indeed an epoch in our generations. We will try to
picture the scene of their setting forth on that journey which
has meant so much to each one of us and which was made
under circumstances so different from the present. We
imagme that it caused no small stir in the town of Elizabeth,
New Jersey, when James and Rachel Watkins had completed
their preparations to start for Ohio. A loaded emigrant wagon
stood in front of their first home and the long way westward
stretched out before them. Their relatives and neighbor^ had
but the gravest forebodings and recounted with long faces the
perils of the way. They pictured great unfordable rivers and
mountains so precipitous that emigrant wagons must be taken
apart and let down steep places by means of ropes! Nothing,
however, could dissuade these progenitors of ours; they had
heard of that wonderful land of "corn and wine" that lay beyond
the mountains; they had caught the Ohio fever and stood
ready to receive what lay in store for them.
Grandfather's anvil and beliows, besides a nail-cutting
machine of his own invention, were packed in the wagon containing
all the rest of his earthly possessions. As the family
walked out from that home for the last time we can well
imagine that for a moment their hearts almost stood still at
the thought — but there the yoke of oxen stood in place, while
old Star, the horse, was tied to the end-gate, and the tar-bucket
hung securely fastened to the coupling pole at the rear of this
emigrant wagon of the olden time. It was not the moment to
grow faint-hearted, and so we see them stepping up on the
doubletrees to take their places in the wagon: Grandmother
Rachel Badgley with her grandson, Robert Utter; then James
Watkins and his wife, Rachel — all are settled at last amid
straw and feather beds, while quilts and blankets are spread
in the wagon to make them more comfortable. The heavy
linen cover is well roped down, making it possible to store
much of value to them beneath its arching bows. The oxen
begin to toss their heads from side to side, while the driver sits
on a board in front with his feet on the doubletree, ready to
spring instantly should the beasts take it into their stubborn
heads to turn into the wrong road. At last they are ready to