some places in Europe. It was about the year 1820 that this new method of transportation began to claim the serious attention of the progressive business men throughout the state. The feeling that some better system than the one in use must be found was fed and intensified by the fact that New York State was then constructing a canal from Albany to the lakes; that when completed it would give the business men of New York City an unbroken water route to the west. . .
"With the completion of the entire Pennsylvania canal system to Pittsburg, in 1834, the occupation of the famous old Conestoga teams was gone.[1] The same may also be said of the numerous lines of the stages that daily wended their way over the turnpike. The changes wrought were almost magical. Everyone who rode patronized the cars; and the freight was also forwarded by rail. The farmers, however, were not ruined as they had maintained they would be. Their horses, as well as
- ↑ The rise of the Pennsylvania canal and railway system will be treated in chapter four of Historic Highways of America, vol. xiii.
