The Paths of Inland Commerce, A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway | Page 9

the
trans-Alleghany country is now occupied by an important railway
system, with the exception of the Warrior's Trail through Cumberland
Gap to central Ohio and the Highland Trail across southern
Pennsylvania. And even Cumberland Gap is accessible by rail today,
and a line across southern Pennsylvania was once planned and partially
constructed only to be killed by jealous rivals.
These numerous keys to the Alleghanies were a challenge to the men of
the seaboard to seize upon the rich trade of the West which had been
early monopolized by the French in Canada. But the challenge brought
its difficult problems. What land canoes could compete with the
flotillas that brought their priceless cargoes of furs each year to
Montreal and Quebec? What race of landlubbers could vie with the
picturesque bands of fearless voyageurs who sang their songs on the
Great Lakes, the Ohio, the Illinois, and the Mississippi?
In the solution of this problem of diverting trade probably the factor of
greatest importance, next to open pathways through the mountain
barriers, was the rich stock-breeding ground lying between the
Delaware and the Susquehanna rivers, a region occupied by the settlers
familiarly known as the Pennsylvania Dutch. In this famous belt,
running from Pennsylvania into Virginia, originated the historic
pack-horse trade with the "far Indians" of the Ohio Valley. Here, in the
first granary of America, Germans, Scotch-Irish, and English bred
horses worthy of the name. "Brave fat Horses" an amazed officer under
Braddock called the mounts of five Quakers who unexpectedly rode
into camp as though straight "from the land of Goshen." These animals,
crossed with the Indian "pony" from New Spain, produced the wise,
wiry, and sturdy pack-horse, fit to transport nearly two hundred pounds
of merchandise across the rough and narrow Alleghany trails. This

animal and the heavy Conestoga horse from the same breeding ground
revolutionized inland commerce.
The first American cow pony was not without his cowboy. Though the
drivers were not all of the same type and though the proprietors, so to
speak, of the trans-Alleghany pack-horse trade came generally from the
older settlements, the bulk of the hard work was done by a lusty army
of men not reproduced again in America until the picturesque figure of
the cow-puncher appeared above the western horizon. This breed of
men was nurtured on the outer confines of civilization, along the
headwaters of the Susquehanna, the Potomac, the James, and the
Broad--the country of the "Cowpens." Rough as the wilderness they
occupied, made strong by their diet of meat and curds, these Tatars of
the highlands played a part in the commercial history of America that
has never had its historian. In their knowledge of Indian character, of
horse and packsaddle lore, of the forest and its trails in every season,
these men of the Cowpens were the kings of the old frontier.
An officer under Braddock has left us one of the few pictures of these
people*:
* "Extracts of Letters from an Officer" (London, 1755).
"From the Heart of the Settlements we are now got into the Cow-pens;
the Keepers of these are very extraordinary Kind of Fellows, they drive
up their Herds on Horseback, and they had need do so, for their Cattle
are near as wild as Deer; a Cow-pen generally consists of a very large
Cottage or House in the Woods, with about four-score or one hundred
Acres, inclosed with high Rails and divided; a small Inclosure they
keep for Corn, for the family, the rest is the Pasture in which they keep
their calves; but the Manner is far different from any Thing you ever
saw; they may perhaps have a Stock of four or five hundred to a
thousand Head of Cattle belonging to a Cow-pen, these run as they
please in the Great Woods, where there are no Inclosures to stop them.
In the Month of March the Cows begin to drop their Calves, then the
Cow-pen Master, with all his Men, rides out to see and drive up the
Cows with all their new fallen Calves; they being weak cannot run
away so as to escape, therefore are easily drove up, and the Bulls and
other Cattle follow them; and they put these Calves into the Pasture,
and every Morning and Evening suffer the Cows to come and suckle
them, which done they let the Cows out into the great Woods to shift

for their Food as well as they can; whilst the Calf is sucking one Tit of
the Cow, the Woman of the Cow-Pen is milking one of the other Tits,
so that she steals some Milk from the Cow, who thinks she is giving it
to the Calf; soon as the Cow begins to go dry, and the Calf grows
Strong, they mark them, if they are