JOURNAL
Thursday, April 7, 1803
Having ridden this morning from Shippensburgh, a
distance of eleven miles, we stopped at Strasburg to
breakfast.[1]
As we approached the Alleghany Mountains, their form and magnificence became more and more distinct. We had, for several days past, seen their blue tops towering into the sky, alternately hidden and displayed by rolling and shifting clouds. Now, we ascertained that some of them were quite covered with trees; but that the rocky and bleak tops of others were naked, or scantily fringed with low savins.
These stupendous mountains seemed to stretch before us an impassable barrier; but, at times, we could see the narrow winding {12} road by which we were to ascend, though it apprized us of the fatigue and difficulty to be encountered in the undertaking. Our apprehensions, however, were somewhat abated by information that, the way, though more steep, was not so rough, nor much more difficult than the Connewago Hills we had already passed.
Strasburg is a pleasant post-town in Franklin County, Pennsylvania. It is situated at the foot of the Blue
- ↑ Harris travelled westward by the Pennsylvania State Road, the great thoroughfare to the Western country. It was completed about 1785, and passed west from Carlisle through Shippensburg, Strasburg, and Bedford. Beyond Bedford the road forked, and Harris took the lower, or Glade Road. Michaux had gone out the preceding year by the northern branch, also reaching Carlisle by a different route. For a more detailed description than Michaux gives, see Cuming, Sketches of a Tour of the Western Country (Pittsburg, 1810), which will be republished as vol. iv of the present series.—Ed.
