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Anyone have a grasp on how fast our ancestors traveled? 

How far was a day's ride on horseback? By coach? Oxcart?? How far could one
walk or march? 

Thanks in advance, Matt Harris 

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Hi Matt. 

One of my ancestral families, during the summer of 1828, traveling with some
elderly and several children and including the old, via what soon would be
the National Road, hurriedly as could be, with 14-16 hours days and trailng
no other animals, moved a distance of about 425 miles (Perrysburg, PA to
Marion, OH) by horse-drawn wagon in 28 days, something near 18 miles per
day.  A. P. Hill's Corps under pressure marched from Harper's Ferry to the
battle of Antietam (16) miles in approx 8 hours.  Most folks considered that
a man and a horse at a fast walk could travel a mile in 12-15 minutes. Folks
also presumed that a man and a horse walked at about the same speed - 12 to
14 miles in an average day.  

I personally urged a grade gelding to take me about 12 miles in about 7
hours.  It is written that the trip by a one horse buggy from Marion, OH to
Delaware, OH, 23-24 miles, could be done in a full day.  For his
Inauguration, Andrew Jackson traveled from Nashville to Washington by horse
and carriage, a distance of about 670 miles, in 66 days. Ox-drawn wagons or
wagons trailing a cow were considerably slower than were horse or mule-drawn
vehicles.  During World War II we learned that by walking 50 paces, then
trotting 50, then again walking 50, alternating, etc., etc, while quite
tiring, would take a strong young man a mile in about 12 minutes (5 miles an
hour). 

My father and grandfather both were railroad people (the Erie), both
involved in at least a passenger train trip a week in the early decades of
the 20th-century, operated on the basis that a passenger train, presuming
the average number of needed stops (and whistle stops), could be expected to
average 20-25 miles an hour.  The New York Central RR boasted that it had
the first-ever regular passenger train service - "20th Century Limited" -
from N.Y. City to Chicago in 24 hours; that, about 725 miles by rail and
averaging near 30 mph.  Not long thereafter, several RRs met that
competition with like speed.

Perhaps the most interesting rate of movement that I came across was when 2
of my ancestral uncles, every summer, (before the coming of the railroad)
drove turkeys on foot from central Ohio (Delaware County) to the railhead at
Pittsburg, 210 miles.  It took them about 3 months.  They then walked back
to Delaware County, OH.  I found it humorous to learn that when any single
turkey decided to rest or sleep, every bird in the herd did the same, thus
having controlling command of all.  So, a turkey herd moved at 1.5-2 miles a
day - really fast, huh :-). 

Important to our family, during the Revolution and at the order of General
Benjamin Silliman, Isaac Sherwood - an ancestral cousin - rode 98 miles from
Fairfield CN to Hartford CN, to Lebanon CN and then returned to Fairfield
(his home) - in 7 days (about 13 miles a day).  For that long ride the CN
colony paid him near 18.5 Pounds (L18/7S/6p), about, 2.5 Pounds a day (about
$150.00 in the money of today), and Sherwood supplied his own horse, the use
of which and his meals were included in that sum as reimbursement. 

Caveat: migrating, pulling loads or livestock work animals and even trains
moved at much slower speeds than those same transporters might individually
move much more rapidly  much shorter distances in a train of wagons, such as
those often employed when multiple families migrated any considerable
distance, would only move at the rate the slowest could go, and that rate
was in no small measure determined by the quality of horses or mules, the
condition of the roads, the weather and by reason of the need to move slowly
enough to accommodate the stress on the animals, the elderly and all
children.  Though the maximum walking speed of a single horse or mule was a
good bit more rapid, a family could not move that quickly.

Paul     

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