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

Transportation/Travel

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

Warning: For serious researchers only: may be hard to read, as is the original

Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5 | Page 6 | Page 7 | Page 8 | Page 9 | Page 10 | Page 11 | Page 12 | Page 13 | Page 14 | Page 15 | Page 16 | Page 17 | Page 18 | Page 19 | Page 20 | Page 21 | Page 22 | Page 23 | Page 24 | Page 25 | Page 26 | Page 27 | Page 28 | Page 29 | Page 30 | Page 31 | Page 32 | Page 33 | Page 34 | Page 35 | Page 36 | Page 37 | Page 38 |

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 12:

"In the hospital saw seven or eight ill, their wretched appearance excited all my sympathy to see the misery of disease added to their other inflictions seemed too much.. We next entered a hall here there were twenty or more weaving. The are employed ten hours in the day and not allowed to speak a word. in another hall of similar construction shoemaking and Tailoring and the same rigid rules were observed".

..."The town seems promiscuously built without the least attention regularity or plan."

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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