ed
down the mountain roads to the towns, and came home laden with salt,
nails, tea, pewter plates, etc. At night the horses were hobbled, and
the clappers of their bells were loosened; the ringing prevented the
horses being lost. The animals started on their journey with two hundred
pounds' burden, of which part was provender for horse and man, which was
left at convenient relays to be taken up on the way home. Two men could
manage fifteen pack-horses, which were tethered successively each to the
pack-saddle of the one in front of him. One man led the foremost horse,
and the driver followed the file to watch the packs and urge on the
laggards. Their numbers were vast; five hundred were counted at one time
in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, going westward. It was a costly method of
transportation. Mr. Howland says that in 1784 the expense of carrying a
ton's weight from Philadelphia to Erie by pack-horses was $249. It is
interesting to note that the routes taken by those men, skilled only in
humble woodcraft, were the same ones followed in later years by the
engineers of the turnpikes and railroads.

As the roads were somewhat better in Pennsylvania than in some other
provinces, and more needed, so wagons soon were far greater in number;
indeed, during the Revolution nearly all the wagons and horses used by
the army came from that state. There was developed in Pennsylvania by
the soft soil of these many roads, as well as by various topographical
conditions, a splendid example of a true American vehicle, one which was
for a long time the highest type of a commodious freight-carrier in this
or any other country--the Conestoga wagon, "the finest wagon the world
has ever known." They were first used in any considerable number about
1760. They had broad wheel-tires, and one of the peculiarities was a
decided curve in the bottom, analogous to that of a galley or canoe,
which made it specially fitted for traversing mountain roads; for this
curved bottom prevented freight from slipping too far at either end when
going up or down hill. This body was universally painted a bright blue,
and furnished with sideboards of an equally vivid red. The wagon-bodies
were arched over with six or eight stately bows, of which the middle
ones were the lowest, and the others rose gradually to front and rear
till the end bows were nearly of equal height. Over them all was
stretched a strong, white, hempen cover, well corded down at the sides
and ends. The