Voice of the People: Daily Life in Antebellum Rural Delaware County New York and Environs

Transportation/Travel

Transportation/Travel Home page | 1823 travel journal of Laura Sherwood: Table of Contents

Note: For serious researchers: may be hard to read, as is the original
Background: Laura Sherwood, husband Samuel, and two of her children, Ann Eliza and Samuel Augustus left their home in Delhi, NY in September 1823 for a lengthy tour of upstate New York. Although the method of transportation for the majority of the trip is not clear, at least one entry indicates they rode on horseback. The journal describes people, scenery, accommodations, villages, and the opening of a canal aqueduct in Rochester. The journal abruptly ends before they return home.

Excerpt from page 37:

"...such a tempest that our boat roll'd and toss'd most alarmingly the water washed over the deck and all was confusion and dismay. Sea sickness was added to our terror and at one time Ann E - Mrs. Brown, and Augustus, were all cascading in one large bowl, rolling on the floor unable to reach their births. Myself in another corner unable to move from [] illness and almost dying with alarm. As we approached the harbor the wind decreased and we came in about eleven....

Original journal courtesy of the Delaware County Historical Association Archives, Delhi, NY. Further information on the Sherwood Family is available in the Letters and Journals of Samuel and Laura Sherwood (1813 - 1823), edited by John Crocker, Delhi, NY, 1967,  available in the Delaware County Historical Association Archives and Milne Library, State University of New York College at Oneonta.

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