Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 12).djvu/161

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THE CATSKILL TURNPIKE
157

(sic) than the Susquehanna proper, quite as deep and as difficult to be forded. Our course to the river was south-west. We then turned directly north along the banks of the Unadilla, and travelling over a rugged hill, passed through a noble cluster of white pines, some of which though not more than three feet in diameter, were, as I judged, not less than 200 feet in height. No object in the vegetable world can be compared with this.'

"Eleven years later, Dr. Dwight again passed over the turnpike on his way to Utica. 'The road from Catskill to Oxford,' he said, 'I find generally bad, as having been long neglected. The first twenty miles were tolerable, the last twenty absolutely intolerable.' After noting that in Franklin 'religion had extensively prevailed,' he wrote:

"'Unadilla is becoming a very pretty village. It is built on a delightful ground along the Susquehanna and the number of houses, particularly of good ones, has much increased. A part of the country between this and Oxford is cultivated; a considerable part of it is still a wilderness. The