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Day 1:  Lewis & Clark Arrive at the Great Falls

July 30, 2016 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Following Old Trails, Travel

First stop and day one is a trip to the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail Interpretive Center. If there is a local museum, then this is where I always begin.

Entrance to Great Falls Interpretive Center, Lewis & Clark

Our National Park Service does a great job of explaining what happened on the Lewis & Clark expedition, and these centers give me a great point of beginning for each area of the trail. But this one in Great Falls is run by the US Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service.

The falls are an important moment in Lewis & Clark’s 8,000-mile expedition. It was 1805 and as a point of personal reference, I realized that this was only about 23 years before my ancestors made their migration from South Carolina into Florida. Also, America was only 27 years old when Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase.

maps

His purchase doubled the size of our nation, but Jefferson had already prepared for Lewis & Clark to explore this area long the purchase. So they were already on their way to the west before the ratification of the purchase by Congress was made.

All of this happened during my fifth great grandparents lifetime,  Joel and Elizabeth Carter Walker. Maybe they read about it in their local newspaper and discussed it. Or maybe they heard about it by word of mouth. Either way you can be sure it was big news all across the nation in 1805.

The interpretive center is built into a scenic bluff with a spectacular view of the Missouri River. Its highlight is a two-story diorama of the expedition’s portage around not just one but five falls, only one of which is called Great Falls.

A Diorama of the Lewis & Clark Portage

The portage took a month as Lewis, Clark, Charbonneau, Sacagawea, her baby, all their supplies and even the canoes had to be portaged. It was an 18-mile portage in the intense heat of June.

Map Showing the Portage

This is desert country and the prickly pear cacti tortured the men’s feet because their moccasins were not enough to keep the puncturing plants at bay. The members of the expedition became much fatigued.

Here is why they had to portage. The Great Falls of the Missouri River are a series of five waterfalls, which are located within a ten-mile area of the river. Black Eagle Falls is over 26′ high, Colter Falls is over six feet high, Rainbow Falls is over 44′, Crooked Falls is 19′ high, and the Great Falls itself is 97 feet high.

The river drops a total of 612 feet from the first of the falls to the last. Meriwether Lewis said they were the grandest sight he saw on the entire expedition.

The Great Falls portage is through privately owned land and is not open to the public. After all, this is the west, and western water law is what they follow out here.

In the east we do not own the land under our waters, they are sovereign lands. But out here, they do. So to see the falls by water is impossible. You would have to row against the current and then would only see the first falls, as it would be illegal today to portage around the falls.

You can, though, see them from roads and trails. The Interpretive Center is just off of River Road which runs along the south side of the River. Just before reaching the center, I stopped at an overlook to see Black Eagle Falls, which was partially destroyed by a dam. Below is a picture of before the dam and after.

Black Eagle Falls

The Interpretive Center is on Hidden Springs Road just off of River Rd. The center has a great film about the portage with actors in period style clothing. It even had a trained grizzly in the story, but at one point I guess he forgot that he was trained and ran the actor playing Lewis out into the stream. In Lewis’s journal the bear stopped at the edge of the river. I guess he wasn’t that hungry. The scene in the film was a funny, but a very real moment in making the documentary.

They also devised a simulation of what it was like to pull the canoes along over the hard ground. I tried my strength and found out that I was only able to pull the canoe at four miles per hour. And that was only for about 5 seconds.  One day they were able to hoist a sail and sail the canoe across.

If you continue past the Center on Hidden Springs Road, you can see Rainbow Falls from another overlook.

Rainbow Falls

Colter Falls is submerged under the reservoir formed by the Rainbow Falls dam. It is the only one of the five falls that cannot be seen, but almost all the falls have been affected by the dams in one way or the other.

Colter Falls

To reach Crooked Falls I hiked down a small trail next to the river leaving from the trailhead at the second overlook on Rainbow Falls. There is a paved trail, but it winds around and is a longer trail. I took the unpaved trail near the edge of the bluff overlooking the river.

I got to a fork in the trail at one point and had my choice of a “more difficult” or a “most difficult” trail to take. Both led to the same place. I took the “more difficult” and still have no idea why they thought it was difficult at all. I wore a pair of plastic Birkenstock slides so I didn’t chance the “most difficult” one.

Finally, I reached Crooked Falls, but the water flow from Rainbow is so low that much of these falls are dry. Still, though, the entire scene was beautiful, as I walked high above the south side of the river. It is only in the mid 80s today, but the sun is intense. Thankfully I had a cross breeze.

Crooked Falls

Crooked Falls

Next, I went in search of the Great Falls themselves. I drove across the river and took the north side River Road until the Ryan Dam Rd. forked off to the right.   It ran through farm lands.

Northside River Road, Great Falls

River Rd. on the North Side of the Missouri River, Great Falls

The road curved and I followed it down until it came to a rim of a canyon. The river was below. There was an island below this dam with a wonderful view of the falls and the dam above. A bridge provided foot access to the island.

Island at Great Falls

The Island at Great Falls

But before I got out of the car I took a moment to snack. I was hungry. I had a little packet of an Arbonne fizzy-powdered drink mix to add to my water. My sister gave it to me the last time we were together in Orlando.

So I poured the whole thing into my bottled water, whereupon it erupted. My bottle looked like a pink volcano, and there was no way to stop it, as it flowed out the top and over my hands. I jumped out of the car but not before some of it got on my clothes. Thankfully the car was untouched.

Would have been ok, but there was no running water in the primitive bathrooms and the river was way below in the canyon. Also the volcanic water bottle was my last one. It was a sticky mess that was only alleviated by licking the junk off my hands. Thank you Arbonne and Linda!

I finally made my way over to the island and to a rock outcropping with a view platform. Of course there is much less water spilling over the falls than in Lewis & Clark’s day. It was still quite a sight and even the smaller waterfalls were still magnificent. I took a picture but the angle of the sun is all wrong. It is already past 6 pm.

Great Falls

Great Falls

It was a great first day, and I’ll travel on up the river in the morning. Tomorrow I’ll make it all the way to the headwaters of the Missouri.

Traveling Old Trails

July 27, 2016 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Following Old Trails, Genealogy, Palmetto Pioneers

I have several interests, but one of them is traveling old trails.  About twenty years ago my Dad and I talked about traveling the Oregon Trail.  I even went as far as figuring out which paved roads came closest to it.

 

 

The Oregon Trail Historic Marker

 

 

I found out that the beginning of that trail had several jumping off points, so we picked Independence, Missouri as our point of beginning.  But time and events both his, my Mom’s and mine got in the way; and we kept putting off the trip. Dad died in 2003, and we never got around to it.

 

 

Rock Creek Station

Rock Creek Station on the Oregon Trail (a Pony Express Station)

 

 

But several years later while Chuck was in Idaho on his annual fishing trip with his buddies, I flew to Independence and followed the Oregon Trail by car all the way to Boise, Idaho where Chuck joined me. We continued until Oregon City, Oregon at the trail’s end.

 

 

End of the Oregon Trail

The End of the Oregon Trail

 

 

It was a great trip, though not as great if Dad had shared it with us.  There were times, though, when I felt he was there.  I even made a comment or two for him, such as my first sighting of wagon ruts still visible today.  I remember being alone and saying out loud as if he were standing right there beside me, “Well, Daddy, these are pretty darn cool, aren’t they?”

 

 

Wagon Ruts

Wagon Ruts on the Oregon Trail

 

 

Years later I spent some time again following the Lewis and Clark Trail, again while Chuck was fishing .   I began in nearby St. Louis, Missouri and ended at Great Falls, Montana.  I’ll do the rest of this trail later—in fact some of it later this year.  This trail is a water trail mostly following the Missouri River and then other westerly rivers, but it is almost impossible to do it by boat because of all the dams.

 

 

Lewis & Clark Trail

Lewis & Clark Trail, Wiki

 

 

Chuck and I just did another one of the old trails and several old roads back in March.  We were on our way back from staying at my sister’s bedside in Winston-Salem, NC.  We thought she was doing better because she was progressing so rapidly, and Chuck needed to get some stitches out from an outpatient surgery that had been done a few days before Pam was placed in the hospital.

 

So on our way back down to Florida, we picked up this migratory route in Lodge, SC and followed it all the way west and south to Millegeville, Ga. where our daylight ran out.  This research was for my book “Palmetto Pioneers”.   I was trying to determine how the Walker Family migrated from their home in South Carolina to their new land in Jefferson County, Florida.

 

I know that my Walker family migrated to Florida around 1828 to 1829,  and so I tried to figure out how they got here.  I learned through research that the area west of Macon, Georgia, had just recently opened up due to a treaty between the Creek Nation and our government. I also learned that the only road into this part of Florida at that time was one of the old trails called the Hawthorne Trail.  It started somewhere up on the Old Federal Road west of what is now Macon and passed down near Cairo, GA before ending near Concord, Florida north of Tallahassee near the Florida/Georgia state line.

 

 

Old Hawthorne Trail

The Old Hawthorn Trail

 

 

But how did they get from Lodge, SC all the way to the Macon area on the Old Federal Road?  So starting in Macon, Georgia, I  looked for roads that were here in 1827; and since there were few and many times only one road or trail, I worked back using these roads or trails to their home in SC.  It is speculation or at best an educated guess.

 

The Hawthorn Trail ran south from the Old Federal Road.  For our purposes the Old Federal Road ran from near Macon to the west, all the way to Mobile.  It connected with the Fall Line Road which ran through Milledgeville, GA, which was then the capitol of Georgia.  The Fall Lind Road was one of the oldest roads in America, and it ran from Philadelphia all the way down well into Alabama.  For our purposes, though, we are only interested in that portion which ran from Augusta, Ga., to Milledgeville.

 

 

The Fall Line Road & other Trails

The Fall Line Road, a Family Search Wiki Map

 

 

But again how did they get to Augusta from Lodge, SC which is located in the South Carolina low country southwest of Charleston?  I found an earlier route or road between Charleston and Augusta.  Actually it was called the Fort Moore-Charleston Road. Fort Moore was located across the river from Augusta in South Carolina.  It was an earlier trading post, and Augusta grew up around this area.  The commerce continued between the Indians and Europeans until eventually the fort closed and was abandoned, but this area across and up the river to just before the fall line is where the city of Augusta continued to grow.

 

 

Fort Moore-Charleston Trail

Fort Moore-Charleston Road

 

 

Once I discovered these early trails or roads, I looked for a current road or roads which followed it as closely as possible.  It turned out to be US 78 which ran all the way from Charleston southwest to where Fort Moore used to be then from Augusta and down through Thomson, Georgia.   I found it amazing that one major road today followed a good part of this early migratory route.  So with my research fairly complete, Chuck and I first began near Lodge, SC, our point of beginning, which was the Walker families’ point of beginning, too.

 

We quickly found northeast of Lodge the Little Salkehatchee River and immediately on the other side of the river was Carter’s Ford Baptist Church.  What a great find.  My 5th great grandmother was a Carter from here as was her mother-in-law.  It seems that Joel and Elizabeth Walker were kin to each other before they married.

 

Carter's Ford Baptist Church

Carter’s Ford Baptist Church

 

Below are the families that migrated from here in 1828-29.

 

  • Joel & Elizabeth’s son Jesse & his wife Elizabeth Wilson Walker including their children 6-7 year old Mary Adeline (my 3rd great grandmother), 4-5 year old Henry, 2-4 year old Sarah, and 1-2 year old James J. all born in SC
  • Joel & Elizabeth’s son James & his wife Elizabeth Padgett Walker including their daughter 0-1 year old Delilah who was born September 28, 1828 in SC
  • Joel & Elizabeth’s son Littleberry Walker, who was 17-18 years old, born in SC
  • Joel’s son Stephen Walker, who was 22-23 years old, born in SC (We are still unsure if he traveled with the family to Florida, though).

 

There is a possibility that the parents of Jesse, James, Stephen & Littleberry Walker came down to Florida with them; but their daughter Mary Jane Walker & her husband Stephen Lightsey did not come down until between July 12, 1832 and 1835.  Family lore says that the parents came down later than their Walker sons.   If they did come down later this is probably their party:

 

  • Joel & Elizabeth Carter Walker with their son 13-16 year old David
  • Mary Jane Walker & Stephen Lightsey with their two sons 2-5 year old John Adams and 1-3 year old Joel Walker

 

 

Carter’s Ford was a natural ford on the Little Salkhatchee River.  The Walker land was nearby, quite possibly across the road from the church.  Today, that road is SR 217.  Using old maps, it looks as if their land is north of the road on the west side of the river.  It looked like prime cotton land or land for cattle.  The Walkers did both.

It was neat to stand where they probably lived and thrived for several generations before moving on. The land here is up on a ridge, high and dry.  The fields here lie fallow; but when I got out to take a photo, a covey of quail jumped up in front of me.  This land with its palmettos in the flood plain next to the river and its cypress swamps and stands of pine remind me of the Aucilla River and its river swamps.  This is the low country just before rising up to the coastal plans below the fall line.  We’re about 22 miles from Waltersboro, which was then and still is today the county seat of Colleton County.

 

 

Walker Land near Lodge, SC

Possible Site of the Walker’s Land

 

 

By studying the old maps, I’m fairly certain they went northwest from their home to meet up with the Fort Moore-Charleston Road.    The only other route which intersects with US 78 goes southeast through a very low long swampy area, so I felt they didn’t take that route because of the wagons.  They also would have had to cross the Little Salkehatchee here, and it is wide.

 

 

The Little Salkehatchee River

 

 

We drove on into Lodge which is really just a crossroads and did not exist when the Walkers lived here.  The old road today travels closest to US 64 and US 601.  They built the latter road in 1927 and most likely on top of the already well-established trail.  Just before we got to Bamberg, we crossed again the Little Salkehatchee River; but it is narrow here.  They probably used a ferry because the river looks deep.  The rest of US 601 like US 64 was high and dry.  Today, there aren’t any old forests, but I felt like there might not have been any then either.  After all they were moving on because the ground was worn out cotton fields.

 

We intersected with US 78 at Bamburg, SC.   I looked up the history of Bamburg to see if it was a town when they passed through here about 1828. The town was founded around 1750 by French Huguenots and Scots-Irish so it was definitely there then.

 

As we drove west on US 78, I looked to see if there was a wiki page on this road.  I found much more info.  There are wiki pages for most federal and some state roads in the US.  They contain great historical information about these routes.

 

I questioned what the weather was like in the fall of 1827, but I found nothing online.  I need to read local papers from Charleston, Augusta (1828 to 1829) and surrounding towns to see what I can find.  Today, though, it is wet.

 

When the family got to Bamberg, the town then was called Lowerys, a crossroads on the Fort Moore-Charleston Rd.  I was able to look up the history of each town as we passed through.  I looked for answers to questions like:  when was the town established, what buildings are still standing today that were standing in the 1820s, and what was the town like in 1820?  I was trying to figure out what the family saw as they passed through.

The next town of Denmark, a railroad town in 1830, was built on the earlier town called Graham’s Turnout.  If the railroad was built to Denmark by 1830, then this means they built the railroad here when the family traveled down this road.   It helps me picture what they saw.  I’m sure they used slave labor, because this was before the Civil War.

The next town is Blackville.  Blackville is in the part of South Carolina called the “Back Country.”  Due to a plentiful supply of water for drinking and transportation, settlers came to this area prior to the Revolutionary War.  They fought the Battle of Slaughter Field north of Blackville near the Mennonite church.   When the railroad built between Charleston and Hamburg, John Black chose this area as an overnight stop for the train.  Several hotels sprang up, as did a bustling railroad town.  Blackville was established in 1833 and chartered in 1837.  So though we know there was a settlement here when the family passed through, it looks like they built the hotels and railroad station a little later.

Just so you know, though, Blackville became a marketing and transportation center and thrived until the Civil War.  By February of 1865, though, sixty thousand Union troops had passed through the town.  General Sherman met with his generals here, burned much of the town, looted, demolished the railroad, and continued on his march. So whatever existed when the family came through just before 1830 Sherman probably burned.

Next we got to Williston, South Carolina. We noticed that all of these towns are about 6-10 miles apart.  We know that the Wills family came to this area before the 1790 census, and that a settlement grew up on this road.  When the family came through here, we’re not sure whether it was called Williston or Willis Station.  It became another railroad stop, but stagecoach service existed between Charleston and Augusta, so it could have been a stage station, too.

Finally, the family got to the Augusta area, but their road did not go directly into the city before crossing the Savannah River.  Instead it came to a ferry down river from the city.  When researching this ferry, I found that it had been called the Sand Bar Ferry; and someone took a picture of the abandoned ferry before it disintegrated.  It is below.  This ended Fort Moore-Charleston Road.

 

 

Sand Bar Ferry

The Sand Bar Ferry on the Savannah River

 

 

So what was Augusta like when the family came through there in 1828-1829.  The Native Americans used Augusta as a place to cross the Savannah River, because of its location on the fall line.  They also traveled a fall line path, which later became the Fall Line Road.  I found an old map which shows how the Fort Moore-Charleston Trail entered Augusta and how the Fall Line Road left the town.

 

 

Old Augusta Map

Old Map of Augusta Showing the Fall Line Road leaving Augusta up and to the left near the falls on the down side of the river and the Fort Moore-Charleston Road entering Augusta at Fort Moore.

 

 

Oglethorpe named the town Augusta, in honor of Princess Augusta, wife of Frederick, Prince of Wales.    The town was laid out on the flat slopes of the Savannah River.  The townspeople got along peacefully most of the time with the surrounding tribes of Creek, Yuchi and Shawnee Indians. The Shawnees in the region were known as the Savano Indians. The name of the Savannah River is an anglicized version of their tribal name.

When the family came through the city, it was already incorporated and had been since the 1790s.  Still standing in the city today are two buildings that were standing there. They are the First Presbyterian Church and a mansion called Ware’s Folly, the home of the Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art.

 

 

 

First Presbyterian Church, Augusta, GA

First Presbyterian Church, Augusta, GA

 

 

The house built by Ware was called his folly because he spent $40,000 to build it in the early 1800s.  In today’s dollars it would be a $12 million house.  I could see the Walker families riding by just to see what a $40,000 house looked like.

 

 

Ware's Folly

Ware’s Folly

 

 

Leaving the city, the families took the Fall Line Road.  This road follows a geographical (water) fall line, where rivers drop to the coastal plain. Towns grew up on the fall line because cargo on boats had to be portaged around the waterfalls. These falls served as an early source of water power, so mills sprang up harnessing the power supplied by the falling waters,  In time towns grew around the mills.

The Fall Line Road (or Southern Road) was the road built to connect most of those growing mill towns. It followed, though, an old Indian path as so many of these roads did. It was well established by the time the Walkers  traveled it in 1828-29.

 

The Fall Line Road continued on this path as far south as west of Milledgeville, GA until a series of Indian treaties from 1790 to 1826 opened up the Georgia and Alabama parts beyond the Macon area.  Notice that this area opened up in 1826 and the Walkers moved south around 1827 to 1828.

 

The road here still follows US 78 and will until we get to Thomson, GA.  The first town past August is Harlem, but it was called Sawdust when the family came through.  It was a lumber town and was quite wild. It was known for a lot of drinking, gambling, prostitution and carousing; and it was full of men. I don’t really believe they stopped here to spend the night. Not with the young children, though some of the men may have slipped into town on the pretext of needing some supplies.

 

There are now several more small towns between Harlem and Thomson, but they did not exist when the family migrated through.

Thompson Georgia was called Slashes in the late 1820s.  The area between Harlem and Thomson is rolling hills and less of the flatlands that we drove through on the other side of the river in South Carolina.  This is a very pretty area with lots of farmland, but when they passed through it was a booming timber operation.  I guess that is why one town was called Sawdust and the other Slashes.  It makes me wonder if this was all old forest timberland back then or if much of it had already been timbered out.  Looking at the economics of the town will probably give me that answer.

Once we passed Thomson, we then took SR 16 through Warrenton and down to Sparta where we took SR 22 all the way down to Milledgeville.  This continues to follow the Old Fall Line Road.

Warrenton, Georgia was a town with a wooden courthouse when the family came through here in 1827.  The Stagecoach Inn was here, and the family may have stayed there since they were not destitute and everyone probably needed a good bed and bath.  We know that the Marquie de Lafayette stayed in town at the Allen House in 1835, and he gave us a pretty good description of the town in his journals.   The Allen House has since been moved to Oglethorpe where it stands today.

 

 

The Stagecoach Inn in Warrenton, GA

The Old Stagecoach Inn in Warrenton, GA

 

 

We crossed the Ogeechee River, and the fall line rapids are very visible from the road.  I was about 95% sure that this was the Old Fall Line Road, but now I’m 100% sure.  We stopped and took a picture of the rapids.

 

 

Ogeechee Rapids

Ogeechee Rapids, as seen from the road

 

 

 

This is beautiful country through here.  I wonder if they thought about stopping?  Maybe some of their party did.  We have found no journals or diaries, so we wouldn’t know for sure.

If they had waited five or six years later, they could have had it much easier.  Railroads were being built several years right behind them.

Jewel was the next town.  It is very near the Ogeechee, but I cannot find any sign that Jewel was there when they came through. It seems that it became a mill town later on, a mill town sitting on the river.  There probably was a ferry here at one time, and they may have used it to cross.

Sparta was here, though, when they came through.   It was called Sparta and may have gotten its name because it is said that its frontier residents fought like Spartans during the Creek War of 1811-1815.  Major Charles Abercrombie laid out the town from his own lands in 1795, and his former home still stands on Maiden Lane today. Rabun Street, named for Matthew Rabun, the father of Georgia Governor William Rabun, became known as Maiden Lane when Sparta’s Female Model School was organized there in 1831.   Abercrombie’s house was there when the Walkers came through.

I imagine that the family looked forward to seeing Milledgeville.  It was already established as the capital of Georgia and had been since 1804.  The Treat of Fort Wilkinson (1802), in which the people,, hard pressed by debts to white traders, agreed to cede part of their ancient land.  This opened up this part of Georgia.  The restless Georgians and Carolinians quickly pressed west and south in search of new farmland; and the town of Milledgeville, which was carved out of the Oconee wilderness, helped accommodate their needs.   So this was settled by the time the families came through here in the late 1820s.

The town was laid out and modeled after Savannah and Washington, DC. It  included four public squares of about 20 acres each. It stood on the edge of the fall line , where the Upper Coastal Plain merged into the Piedmont.  Its Gothic revival style state capital was built by 1809, and it was then known as the first United States public building built in America.  I believe the families would have wanted to see this building, which is still standing today.

 

 

Georgia's Old State Capitol

Georgia’s State Capitol in Milledgeville

 

 

By the time they got to Milledgeville, the town had been prosperous especially after the cotton boom of the early 1800s.  There were elegant houses with colossal porticoes, cantilevered balconies, pediments adorned with sunbursts, and fanlighted doorways. There were several very nicely built churches on its Statehouse Square.  Imagine how they felt seeing this city, but remember that they lived a short distance from Charleston and had probably visited that city as well.  Elizabeth Carter Walker’s mother was a Middleton, a family well-known in South Carolina and Charleston, so we feel certain the older members of the families had visited Charleston.  Milledgeville, though, was a much newer city.

Finally, the families left Milledgeville and entered the newly-opened territory, the area that the Creek’s had just ceded to the government.  And that is where I will stop this post for this week.

The next section of their travels was much harder to research because there were no settled communities and the old roads were hard to follow, both for them and for me.  That will be discussed hopefully soon

Below is a little list of questions that helped me determine what old trails my ancestors used when they migrated from SC to Florida.

 

 

List of Research Questions

  1. What date did they first appear in their destination?  (I used birthdates of children to help me figure out a range of dates—1828-1829 and 1835-1838.  This showed me that the family migrated to their destination of Florida in two groups.)
  2. What old trails or roads were available during these dates?  I used old maps to help me determine what trails and roads were available.)
  3. What towns did each of the old trails or roads pass through?  (I used Wiki and local historical information to try to find what was happening in the town and what buildings were there that are still standing today.  Also, to find out when it was settled to make sure it existed when they passed through.)
  4. Look at the history of the areas to see what might have led to or aided  their migration down these old trails or roads?  (The history of their home county or point of beginning showed an economic collapse of cotton , and the history of the Indian treaties showed an area that opened just before their migration. Also, in Florida, the First Seminole Indian War had ended and Jefferson County was just formed.)
  5. Who used the old trails or roads?  (We know from diaries, journals and historical accounts that the railroad was being built between Charleston and Augusta and that freight was already hauled on the trails or old roads from Augusta, Milledgeville and other river ports  up and down the Fall Line Road.   We also know that Georgians and Carolinians were migrating on to Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and points beyond.   Finally, there was a stage line operating on these roads, too These roads were also postal routes.)
  6. I have not looked up the surnames along the migratory path yet, but it would be good to see if anyone stopped and stayed behind. (Use Census records.)
  7. Look up the weather for that time period. Was it normal, wet or drought? (Use newspaper articles, diaries and journals.)
  8. Finally, this question unique to this study needs an answer. How much of the forests had already been removed on the Fall Line Road southwest of Augusta?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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