Ancestry Magazine

I don’t know anyone who likes moving. The packing up is hard to fit into a modern schedule, and if you’ve lived in the same place for any time at all, you’re bound to step on a dozen emotional land mines that will stop you in your tracks.

Relocating might seem like a modern concept, but our ancestors moved plenty—the census shows it. And, according to their wills, they gathered plenty of belongings to haul with them: furniture, tableware, pots, farm equipment.

Our ancestors moved in four different ways: by animal, by water, by rail, and by paved highway. How they moved depended on where they were. In the 1850s, people were using wagons to move to Oregon, boats to move from New York to Rochester, and trains to move from Baltimore to Wheeling.

Back in 1800, in areas where waterways allowed it, cargoes were moved by boat. In areas where the geography didn’t provide water travel, trails were cleared, and trains of pack animals were used. Mules, the offspring of a donkey and a mare, were stronger and had flatter backs and surer footing than horses. A horse seldom carried as much as 250 pounds, but a mule was routinely loaded with 300 to 500 pounds. String a few of them together, and they moved in what was called a “train.”

There were roads, too—east of the Mississippi River. But the cost of moving goods 30 miles inland was as much as moving them across the Atlantic. In fine weather, a horse- or mule-drawn wagon could cover 30 miles a day. But in winter the roads turned to mud, and travelers worked hard to cover a mile.

So how did we become the mobile society we are today?

1809—The Natchez Trace opens to wagons. The former American Indian path runs over 400 miles, from Nashville, Tennessee, to Natchez, Mississippi. It is common for men who live near the Ohio River to float their sellable goods down the Ohio on a raft and then down the Mississippi. When they find a buyer, they abandon the raft and buy a horse or they walk home via the Natchez Trace.

1811—The first steamship travels from Pittsburgh to New Orleans.

1814—The steamship Orleans makes a 268-mile trip from New Orleans to Natchez in six days, six hours, and 40 minutes.

1817—“Clinton’s Ditch” (the Erie Canal) is started. DeWitt Clinton, governor of New York, presses for a water canal from Buffalo to Albany, almost 400 miles. Thomas Jefferson thinks it’s crazy, but the state funds it and the digging begins.

1817—The steamship Washington makes the round-trip from Louisville to New Orleans and back in 41 days. Previously the trip from Louisville to New Orleans alone took about four months. Fourteen steamships operate on the Mississippi.

1823—The first steamship from St. Louis arrives at Fort Snelling, Minnesota.

1825—The Erie Canal is completed. This cuts the cost of transportation from Albany to Buffalo by 95 percent and travel time in half. Midwestern lumber and crops begin flowing to eastern markets, and manufactured goods and settlers begin flowing west. New York City becomes the largest American port city, with tonnage equal to that of Boston, Baltimore, and New Orleans combined.

1828—George Tucker drives the first wagon into Madison County, Arkansas, moving his family from Tennessee. To move west, you have to take lots of food, spare parts, camping gear, and money or something to trade along the way. From Nashville to Ft. Smith is about 500 miles: in 1828, a two-month trip. But George is young and doesn’t know any better; plus, he wants to put his still on some of that free homesteading land the government is giving out.

1828—Construction begins on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Baltimore isn’t happy with the shipping lost to New York City from the Erie Canal and raises the ante with this rail line. They never catch up, but at least the B&O gets a square on the Monopoly board.

1834—There are 1,000 packet steamers operating in the Mississippi River Valley—the dominant mode of travel and commerce in the region for about 50 years.

1838—Steamship travel from Louisville to New Orleans takes six days.

1843—The Oregon Trail opens. Settlers move by the hundreds and then by the thousands.

1848—The Mexican War gives the United States land west of the Rockies.

1848—The Illinois and Michigan Canal opens, ultimately allowing for contiguous boat travel from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.

1849—Men go west for the California gold rush. It has been said that the only people who make money in a gold rush are the ones selling shovels.

1850s—Miners use packing trains to look for new rivers and streams that will “pan out.” At the same time, railroads begin to hurt the Erie Canal: trains can travel from New York to Buffalo in a day.

1853—The B&O reaches into Virginia. For the first time, people moving to the Midwest from Baltimore can stack their crates into train cars and lash them into place. Unfortunately, trains can’t carry a family’s belongings from door to door.

1856—The first railroad bridge over the Mississippi River opens, running between Rock Island, Illinois, and Davenport, Iowa. Eastern Iowans are now 42 hours from New York City. Subsequent legal maneuvering between riverboat and railroad interests includes actions by Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis (historically remembered for a different connection). This bridge is a focal point for the issues of the day—between north and south, east and west, river and rail. Fifteen days after it opens, the bridge burns. It’s closed for four months.

1869—The Golden Spike is driven at Promontory Point, Utah, completing the transcontinental railroad.

1880—The Robert E. Lee makes the trip from New Orleans to Natchez in 17 hours 11 minutes.

1891—Brothers Martin and John Bekins form Bekins Van Lines with Sioux City, Iowa, as their headquarters. With three horse-drawn carriages and a single warehouse, Bekins averages one or two moves per day.

1895—First U.S. commercial cardboard box is manufactured. Within five years, iy replaced the wooden crate.

1900—Henry Ford’s third vehicle is a pickup truck.

1903—Bekins introduces covered moving vans and motor trucks.

1912—2.5 million miles of dirt roads exist in the United States. “Improved” means graded.

1913—A transcontinental New York to San Francisco highway, the Lincoln Highway, is proposed.

1919—A U.S. Army convoy from the White House to San Francisco makes the trip in two months. Lieutenant Colonel Eisenhower thinks a train would be a whole lot faster and more comfortable.

1920—1.1 million trucks drive U.S. highways.

1925—State highways are joined into a consistent numbering system.

1925—Masking tape is invented.

1928—The company that becomes United Van Lines is formed in Cleveland.

1930—3.6 million trucks drive U.S. highways.

1935—Moving companies are licensed by the federal government for interstate commerce.

1943—General Eisenhower sees the Autobahn and recalls his 1919 convoy experience. Some people take a while to quit complaining about long difficult trips.

1946—The growth of long-distance moving expands rapidly as the workforce becomes more mobile and interstate highway systems are developed. Bekins disposes of its last horse-drawn van.

1954—The passage of the Interstate Highway Act gives Eisenhower a chance to tell his convoy story again.

1985—Drake Hokanson writes in Smithsonian Magazine: “If it was restlessness and the desire for a better way to get across the continent that brought the Lincoln Highway into existence, it was curiosity that kept it alive—the notion that the point of traveling was not just to cover the distance but to savor the texture of life along the way. Maybe we’ve lost that, but the opportunity to rediscover it is still out there waiting for us anytime we feel like turning off an exit ramp.”

2007—The average American moves to a new residence 11 times in a lifetime.

Beau Sharbrough is a popular genealogical writer and lecturer. Reach him through www.rootsworks.com.