Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 12).djvu/160

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156
PIONEER ROADS

vales along the Susquehanna. On a remarkably ragged eminence immediately north-west of the river, we saw the first oaks and chestnuts after leaving the neighborhood of Catskill. The intervening forests were beach, maple, etc. The houses in Unadilla were scattered along the road which runs parallel with the river. The settlement is new and appears like most others of a similar date. Rafts containing each from twenty to twenty-five thousand feet of boards are from this township floated down the Susquehanna to Baltimore. Unadilla contained in 1800 eight hundred and twenty-three inhabitants.'[1]

"On September 27, 1804, Dr. Dwight left Mr. Hanna's inn and rode through to Oxford. The first two miles of the way along the Susquehanna were 'tolerably good and with a little labor capable of being excellent.' He continues:

"'We then crossed the Unadilla, a river somewhat smaller but considerable longer

  1. Dr. Dwight's figures are for the township, not for the village, which was then a mere frontier hamlet, of perhaps one hundred souls.—Halsey.