In a message dated 12/21/02 7:08:46 AM Mountain Standard Time, [email protected] writes: << Did some of these families stop off in Bedford County, VA where they lived for a while before continuing on to Ross County, Ohio? >> This is getting into the bigger picture of migration patterns, a topic which takes more space than I have time for <g>. Some of these families had been in PA, and then gradually moved south through Maryland and Virgina into the Carolinas. So branches of the families could have been in Bedford and then re-joined in OH. This was not necessarily something that was accomplished in just one generation, but over a period of generations. But specifically, I don't know that any of the families that left Chatham in Sept of that year stopped off in Bedford. The info on this was in a history column I wrote for the Chillicothe Gazette back in 1986, and some of it was drawn from Bennett's HISTORY OF ROSS COUNTY. I quote, "(They) were conveyed from their North Carolina home to Charleston, Virginia, the men walking and driving (the stock). At Charleston, the goods were transferred to a keel boat, the wagons being taken apart and loaded on the boat with the women and children, while the animals were driven through overland. At that time, ther was no wagon road through the forest. Arriving at Gallipolis, the goods were again transferred tot he wagons and the journey resumed as before. (They) encamped for about six weeks near the present site of Richmond Dale, where friends preceding them had already made a temporary settlement." Since many of these families were or had been Quakers, I wonder if "friends" should have been "Friends", who had gone to the area due to the presence of Thomas Beals, an early Quaker preacher. Tacy