the most common land route from New York to Upper Canada, chosen by
the Loyalists at the close of the war, was to Albany 180 miles up the
Hudson river, which divides into two branches about ten miles north of
Albany. The western branch is called the Mohawk, leading to Rome,
formerly Fort Stanwix. A branch of the Mohawk, called Wood Creek, leads
towards the Oneida lake, which was reached by a portage. From Oneida
Lake, Lake Ontario was reached by the Oswego river. Flat-bottom boats,
specially built or purchased for the purpose by the Loyalists, were used
in this journey. The portages over which the boats had to be hauled, and
all their contents carried, are stated to be thirty miles. On reaching
Oswego, some of the Loyalists coasted along the eastern shore of Lake
Ontario to Kingston, and thence up the Bay of Quinte; others went
westward, along the south shore of the lake to Niagara and Queenston;
some pursued their course to the head of the lake at Burlington; others
made their way up the Niagara river to Queenston, conveyed their boats
over the portage of ten or twelve miles to Chippewa, thence up the river
and into Lake Erie, settling chiefly in what was called the "Long Point
Country," now the county of Norfolk. This journey of hardship,
privation, and exposure occupied from two to three months. The parents
and family of the writer of this history were from the middle of May to
the middle of July, 1799, in making this journey in an open boat.
Generally two or more families would unite in one company, and thus
assist each other in carrying their boats and goods over the portages.

A considerable number came to Canada from New Jersey and the
neighbourhood of Philadelphia on foot through the then wilderness of New
York, carrying their little effects and small children on pack horses,
and driving their cattle, which subsisted on herbage of the woods and
valleys. Some of the families of this class testified to the relief and
kindness they received in their extreme exigencies from the Indians.

The hardships, exposures, privations and sufferings which the first
Loyalists endured in making their way from their confiscated homes to
Canada, were longer and more severe than anything narrated of the
Pilgrim and Puritan Fathers of New England in their voyages from England
to Massachusetts Bay; and the persecutions to which the emigration of
the Puritans from England is attributed were trifling indeed in
comparison of the persecu