I have been surprised at the numbers of listers who have emailed me
privately having to do with the speed of movement and about the great
migration west.  In those notes, it would appear that many, if not most of
us, have an anecdote or a family tradition as to such migration.    
 
I believe that some of such were true, but many of those stories arose from
speeds and distances (and literary license :-) that were thought remarkable
for those times.  As but isolated examples,  while the first trains to move
freight and people came in the years before 1850, before which there were
only foot and animal drawn vehicles and boats, the first train to travel 100
mph did so in New England  in 1893.  However,  ever since locomotives had
been invented, the vast majority of such averaged not more than 15 mph early
and then, after the 19th Century, 25 or so mph.  Note too that while some
healthy, young and trained horses could trot or canter along at 12-15 mph
and do so for some number of hours, by far and away those pulling the carts
and wagons west were draft animals that had served only to pull plows,
discs, folks to market on Saturday, workers to the fields, to pull stumps
and blocks and tackles, and such like back home.  So, the answer is, I do
not know what we should conclude, nor do I think that any generalization we
might make is worth a damn without several specifics (from Justice Holmes).

 
Millions of our people moved west, that "west" and their destinations
perceived differently by near all,  who likewise were different, each from
the other, in their starting place, strength, money, numbers of family
members, their plans upon arriving at wherever, and their temperament,
religious inclinations and work ethic.  Of those millions, the vast number
were working men with their wives and family members, young men who felt the
need for adventure, those who for whatever reason decided to "get out of
Dodge", and the hundreds of thousands who thought that only in that
undefined, far-away "west" could they start a life for themselves and their
families to be.  Just as those myriad people were very different, each from
the other, so too were the lands that posed obstacles along the way -
mountains, rivers, plains, raw land to be settled, the sweltering heat of
the South and Southwest and the bitter cold of most of the Northern States.
Their purses varied in content from nothing to that considerable sum of
money they would need for the trips and for shelters when they reached their
destinations.
 
The west was settled not on galloping, well-bred newly accoutered horses,
plush stagecoaches or Pullman cars, but rather by families with 2 horse or 2
mule wagons (one in case the other broke down) with a cow trailing behind,
women and kids frequently walking alongside the wagons or inside when
weather demanded or nice, smooth and flat roads.  Very often an aged parent
or an infant was with such people, and some minimal supplies, such as flour,
coffee, and dried meats, that would be needed for the trip and weeks to
follow; a small kit of instruments for accidental wounds, broken or
dislocated bones, and animal bites, a pan - maybe 2 - for cooking, a couple
of tin cups, a couple of small plates with a few knives and spoons, an axe,
perhaps one extra pair of shoes for those who would be walking, needles and
thread for mending and patching, almost always a rifle or "scatter-gun" and
a Bible.
 
The time involved in such trips had very little, or next to nothing to do
with fast, strong and virile young men and strong, young women, well-bred
horses and buggies, comfortable carriages, fine foods, hotels and inns along
the way, churches with disciplines to suit everybody, knowledgeable doctors,
clothes for all weather, tools for any need, no drugstores and but very few
blacksmiths or wagon and wheel makers.  
 
The West was settled in a fashion that might be illustrated by comparison
with a great glacier stretching from Canada to the Gulf.  It moved, creeping
ahead toward the Mississippi and then on toward the Pacific, and did so
often in "baby steps" and occasionally by "elephant steps", here and there
meeting obstacles to conquer or go around, meeting and defeating or evading
hostile animals, natives, and insects by the zillions.  It provided weather
of every nature and sort, and a giant land that was alternately almost
impassable mountains, sometimes great rivers, and vast, gentle and beautiful
prairies.  It was vast beyond the conception of virtually all who so
ventured.  In 1940, Churchill said it well (his mother was American); "We
have not traveled all this way, across the centuries, across the oceans,
across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar
candy."         
 
     

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