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

3IO ANNALS OF OUR ANCESTORS
that we have passed over in coming here was bad enough. To
encourage me they told me at one place where we stopped that
the road was much better than it used to be; that there were
only two or three places where we would have to let the wagon
down with ropes. We did not let it down with ropes but I
think we ought to have done so. I never thought a wagon
could get down such steep pitches without being broken or
oversetting.
28 July.
The young man agreed to take our oxen and horse through
for ten dollars. He will start next Monday. We have been
talking with the different movers encamped here and arriving
every day and trying to raise a company to build a big boat,
but it doesn't seem to work. James can't talk to the people
and mother is in favor of a small boat and wants to start at
once. She says that it will cost us more than we can pay to
stay here on expenses and bear our share in building a large
boat.
29 July.
We reached a conclusion last night. Mother and I talked
it over and went to see Aliens and Flemings. In the latter
family are, besides the father, one grown son and one of eighteen
years. So we will have a crew of six men. The price of the
boat is seventy-five dollars. This morning Allen went over
and bought the boat for the party and this afternoon it will be
brought down to the landing and we will begin to load. They
tell me that it will take us more than two weeks to float down
and I fear that we will run out of money. The tavern bills we
had to pay in Pennsylvania cut deeply into our hundred dollars
that we started with. We stopped in Pennsylvania and James
worked two weeks in harvest at fifty cents a day. Our stock
of provisions which we brought from Jersey is nearly exhausted.
We still have some of the big cheese that was mistaken for a
grindstone by some who saw it.
30 July. Saturday.
The boat was brought down and we unloaded our wagon of
its heavy freight, took out the nail machine which was the first
that had ever been seen here, took out the anvil and the black-