Distance between Two Points – Part 3: France to Ohio (1832)
On 6 September, 1492, Columbus departed from the Canary Islands off the coast of North Africa and reached the new world somewhere near the Bahamas on October 12th – traveling a distance of approximately 3,000 nautical miles of ocean in a little over 5 weeks time at an average speed of about 3 ½ knots (6.75 km/h).
In contrast the voyage of the Mayflower in 1620 took about 9 ½ weeks (66 days) to travel from Plymouth, England to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. While the distance traveled was approximately the same, the circumstances of the voyage of the Pilgrims was much different considering that the Mayflower was a larger ship than the Santa Maria, carrying a greater cargo and more passengers under different weather conditions.
Yet people then did not travel only from one sea port to another sea port. Just as we today need get to and from the air port, people then needed to travel overland from their homes to the port and from their port of arrival to their ultimate destinations, but more so then than now it required a variety of different modes of transportation.
Francis Gaume, a ggg-grandfather, emigrated alone from eastern France at the age of 25 and landed at New York on 25 April 1833 on board the SS Charles Carroll out of Havre, France. The route that Francis took from his home in Montecheroux, France to Louisville, Ohio was most likely similar to one described to me by Patrick Drouhard, an Ohio historian, regarding the emigration route probably taken by his ancestors from St. Sauveur, France to Massillon, Ohio in 1833:
Pierre and Marguerite Drouhard came from St. Sauveur, Department of Haute Saone, France in 1833. They sailed from Le Harve, an Atlantic port on the French coast, to New York City, and then north to central Ohio. Here is their approximate travel route. Overland travel from St. Sauveur to Vesoul, and then Port-s-Saone at the Saone River (southwest and then west a distance of approximately 36 miles). At Port-s-Saone, they boarded a boat or barge and followed the Saone River southwest to St. Jean-de Losne (a distance of 50 miles). At St. Jean – de Losne they entered the Canal de Bourgogne and traveled northwest through Dijon, Montbard, Ancy-le-Franc and finally to Migennes, where they picked up the Yonne River which flows into the Seine River (150 miles). They continued on the Seine River in a northwest direction to Paris and finally the Atlantic port city of LeHarve (a distance of 110 miles). In all, they traveled approximately 400 miles from their home to LeHarve. It took them approximately 4 weeks. From Le Harve, they sailed across the Atlantic to New York City, and then north up the Hudson River to Albany, New York. At Albany, they entered the Erie Canal…
Out of all the possible modes of transportation that my ancestors might have used during their migrations, I find that travel by way of the great canal system that once moved thousands of emigrants from the east to the west during the early part of the 19th century to be fascinating and exotic.
From a number of first-hand (tour book) accounts of travel on the Erie canal, most written in the 1830′s -The Great Water Highway through New York State (1829), Three Years in North America (1833), and Some Account of a Trip to the “Falls of Niagara” (1836), I have reconstructed what Francis Gaume’s trek to Ohio from New York must have been like.
Steamboats traveling from New York could each convey several hundred passengers on the 164-mile trip up river to Albany. There were both day and night boats that made the 10 ½ to 16 hour trip depending on how many stops the steamboat made along the way. The fare for the “first class” travelers was $2 to $3 with meals being extra. Prior to steamships, the trip upriver might have taken 8 days.
The Erie Canal begins at Waterford (a few miles north of Albany) and courses 363 miles to Buffalo on Lake Erie. Construction of the canal began in 1817 and was completed in 1825. The original canal had 83 locks, 18 aqueducts, was 40 feet wide and 4 feet deep. Moving through the series of locks on the canal the boats would gradually reach Buffalo at an elevation of 560 feet above the Hudson River valley.
Most passengers would not get on the canal at Albany, but would rather take a 9-passenger stage ride to Schenectady and begin their canal journey there. Apparently, there were too many locks on the 28-mile portion of the canal from Albany to Schenectady and this would add another 24 hours to the trip, where the 17-mile trip by stagecoach was much shorter and quicker. With a combination of a horse-drawn and steam-pulled stage the trip to Schenectady took only an hour and a half and cost 62 ½ cents in 1836.
Passengers usually traveled in the faster canal packet boats whereas freight was moved in line boats. The packet boats were pulled by three horses and traveled about 4 mph. The line boats used two horses and moved about 3 mph. Passengers were each charged 3 to 4 cents per mile. The canal was owned and operated by the state of New York, but service on the canal was operated by private companies who competed with another for passengers and freight.
At Schenectady passengers arriving from Albany were accosted by “runners” who represented the different packet boat companies each vying to fill their boat with passengers for the 80 mile trip up river to Utica. Depending on delays caused by problems with the locks along the way, the trip to Utica could take over 24 hours. Along the way (usually at the locks), there were “hotels” that sold fruit and liquor. Passengers would jump off the packet boat, make their purchase and then jump back on the boat.
Low bridges were hazards along the canal and passenger’s were cautioned to pay attention to the stewards would frequently yell out “Low Bridge!” meaning for everyone to duck down as the boat passed under a bridge. During the 1832 presidential election the democratically-inclined stewards might yell out some like “All Jackson men bow down!” hoping that the aristocratic Adam’s supporters might get conked on the head by a passing bridge.
Passengers arriving at Utica would switch to another packet boat to take them on to Rochester, sometimes just walking over the side of one boat and on to another. The 160-mile trip from Utica to Rochester would take about 26 hours and cost $6.50 in 1836.
Twenty-two miles upriver from Utica is Little Falls there are a series of falls or rapids that made necessary a number of locks at that location. Beyond that, the canal enters a fairly straight and flat region that was called then the German Flats.
At Rochester, passengers would switch again to another packet boat to take them the remaining 93 miles to Buffalo and another 26-hour trip. Beyond Rochester, at the town of Lockport, was a series of five double-locks that elevated the boats another 60 feet. Double-locks allowed for traffic going both ways to pass through the locks at the same time. Near Buffalo, the packet boats would enter Tonawanda creek for the remaining 12 miles of the journey.
From Buffalo passengers could board steamships on Lake Erie bound for the west. Beside emigrants headed west such as my ggg-grandfather, many a sightseer made the trip up the canal in the 1830′s for a visit to Niagara Falls and many travelers from Great Britain used the Erie canal to get to Canada which they found to be better route than going up the St Lawrence River by way of Montreal. Since the port at Buffalo was closed for five months of the year in the winter most people would have made the journey in the spring and summer months. (See Erie Canal Tour (1830′s) for map of route)
Mr. Drouhard’s description completes the final leg of the trip:
…At Buffalo, they took a Lake Erie boat to Cleveland (approximately 100 miles). At Cleveland, they entered the Cuyahoga River and then the Ohio Canal, which ran south through Akron, Canton and Massillon to Bolivar, Ohio (a distance of about 60 miles). At Bolivar, they left the canal and travel overland approximately 20 miles to Mt. Eaton, Ohio, where they settled. The nearly four thousand mile journey probably took about 12 weeks to complete.
After arriving in Ohio Francis Gaume (Sr.) became a farmer. The Gaume farm was located south of the village of Louisville near where Miday Rd. splits from the present Route 44 a few miles outside of Canton, Ohio.
(This has been part 3 of a 4 part series regarding communications and transportation in the 19th century)
