Relax for a moment and pretend you are part of a family in 1780. Land is getting expensive, and the family decides to move westward — into the Northwest Territory.
With either oxen or horses pulling a wagon filled with your household goods and farming tools, you make your way via poor roads over the mountains to the area of Fort Pitt. Then the travel gets a little easier.
Either building or renting space on a flatboat, you use the Ohio River as a smooth road to your new home. Perhaps you settle in one of the new or established towns. Or travel inland a day or two to good farmland.
Today barges deliver goods up and down the Ohio River through a series of locks and dams which keep the water level sufficient for river traffic.
In the sweet historic romance, Stitching a Dream, Kurt Tafel, shoemaker, has made the journey from Pennsylvania to Illinois via steamboats on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Check out the details at the link to find the story of his first months in a new home. https://amzn.to/3VwoeFh
