I think the original question was how they would get from Maryland to Rock Island County in 1888 which was 30 years after there was a railroad, but the many replies regarding the pre-railroad transportation are interesting for the variations they show. I'll throw out some things for others to correct and add to. I believe the Dunlap expedition which came to lower Rock Island County in 1835 originally came by horseback. Some of them returned to Pennsylvania the following year to get their families, and this time they hired a flatboat to take them from Pennsylvania down the Ohio and then went up the Mississippi to what is now Andalusia by something called a pole boat. Apparently the pole boat used man power (men on the boat pushing poles into the river bed???) to get upstream on the Mississippi. Does anyone have good information on pole boats? The rapids above Rock Island were a barrier to river traffic above Arsenal Island upstream. Seems that in spite of that there is the story of Col. George Davenport piloting a boat through the rapids which were 12 miles long?? Someone probably has the accurate facts on the length of the rapids and how many hours it took him to get through them. Getting a boat through the rapids apparently could be done, but I don't suppose pioneers had access to this mode of transportation. That probably would have been reserved to boats taking supplies to army forts farther upstream??...Merriel