The Paths of Inland Commerce: A Chronicle of Trail, Road and Waterway

Chronicles of America #21

by Archer Butler Hulbert

Excerpt from The Paths of Inland Commerce: A Chronicle of Trail, Road and Waterway
If the great American novel is ever written, I hazard the guess that its plot will be woven around the theme of American transportation, for that has been the vital factor in the national development of the United States. Every problem in the building of the Republic has been, in the last analysis, a problem in transportation. The author of such a novel will find a rich fund of material in the perpetual rivalries of pack-horseman and wagoner, of riverman and canal boatman, of steamboat promoter and railway capitalist. He will find at every point the old jostling and challenging the new: pack-horsemen demolishing wagons in the early days of the Alleghany traffic; wagoners deriding Clinton's Ditch; angry boatmen anxious to ram the paddle wheels of Fulton's Clermont, which threatened their monopoly.
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Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1920

About the author

Archer Butler Hulbert, FRGS was an historical geographer, writer, and professor of American history.