Walton wrote: > > Can any researcher give me details about why my Oppau ancestors settled in > Lawrence Co., OH in 1847? I'm guessing that they arrived in NY, traveled > by rivers and canals to Lake Erie and then more rivers and canals to > Portsmouth on the Ohio River, but WHY? > Another subscriber who wishes to remain anonymous sent me the following which he said I could repost to the list: bob gillis The route suggested by Walton is erroneous. There were paddle boat packests running from Pittsburgh down the Ohio to Louisville and back up starting in 1811. So the trick was to get to Pittsburg, and then down the Ohio. After 1843 with the establishment of what was to become the Baltimore & Ohio RR. that came close to Portsmouth, and you could take a connecting RR down to Portsmouth. But the most important item was the fact that people from the middle of Europe who could speak no English, came to the place where relatives and/or friends had come before who wrote back to Europe telling them of the advantages of coming here. Bear in mind that these people were at the end of their finances, and needed to stay with relatives/friends until those could help the men get jobs, so that they could pay for rend for living quarters. Also these relatives/friens would teach them how to get around in their new surroundings. The largest advertisers were the railroads, who were given a strip of land ten miles wide to encourage them to build the railroad. They would then send agents to Europe to recruit immigrants with the promised of "cheap" land - as it cost them nothing, and the sale thereof provided capital to build the railroads.