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

CHAPTER V
OVER THE MOUNTAINS FROM ESSEX COUNTY
T would even now be thought quite a venture
to start out with a young family to cross the
Alleghany Mountains in a wagon containing
the sum of one's earthly possessions, but this
daughter of "the schoolground of the American
Revolution" had heard good reports of those
fertile lands toward the westward, where game
and wild fruit were plenty. Grandfather Keeler was a plodder,
easy-going and yet industrious; while Grandmother Keeler
was business-like, a mother "looking well to the ways of her
household." She was tall and of large frame, with dark eyes
and hair. I never saw her with understanding eyes, for the
last time she was in our house was when I was born. Grandfather
was undersized, with very black hair and eyes. I can
remember him — a quiet little old man afflicted with rheuma-
tism, so he always carried his crutches.
My mother was about seventeen when they decided to
venture westward. Already we infer that she was a leader in
the family, and that her enterprise helped her parents in their
decision. As in the case of the journey of our Watkins ancestors
from New Jersey, we are left in almost complete ignorance
of the long and rugged way our Keeler parents came in their
oxcart with themselves and five children. The way to the land
of their dreams must have seemed long, we think, especially
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