Don't forget the rivers used for traveling. Mamie ----- Original Message ----- From: "G. Lee Hearl" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, May 21, 2005 3:38 PM Subject: Re: [RowanRoots] Migration from PA, MD, DE, NJ GerriAnn, I don't think there were "wagon trains" coming down to NC like were organized to move to the western states, California, Oregon etc. Of course there were people traveling in groups at times and as history tells us, the people moving south from Pa came down the Valley of Virginia and very likely families in Virginia joined them. No, wagon trains did not pass through DE or Maryland (just a narrow neck of Md.) to get to NC. The earliest settlers (before 1740-50) coming from eastern Pa to NC came through a narrow neck of Maryland, down through the Northern Neck of Va. and south of the Blue Ridge Mountain. The later ones traveled down the Valley of VA and crossed the Blue Ridge Mountain at Bedford, Va. or Salem, Va., the mountain was easy to cross at those two places. The Great Wagon Road crossed at Salem, Va. down through Rocky Mount, Va., Martinsville, Va. into NC. Many families knew each other in northern Va. , Pa and Md before they moved south, even if they didn't move together. G. Lee Hearl Authentic Appalachian Storyteller Abingdon, Va. ==== ROWANROOTS Mailing List ==== To unsubscribe from RowanRoots-L send a message from the address you subscribed from to [email protected] with the word unsubscribe in the message body.

Mamie Wrote: Don't forget the rivers used for traveling. Mamie <<<<<<<<< Actually, there are no rivers which pass through the Blue Ridge mountains which one could travel when moving from Pa., Md and the upper Valley of Va which would carry settlers to Rowan Co. NC. The Potomac River flows out of Pa. Md and the northern part of Va. into Cheaspeake Bay. James River and Roanoke River break through the Blue Ridge but both flow east and could not be used to get to the settlement area along the Dan and Yadkin Rivers. The South Fork and North Fork of the Holston River carried some settlers west but, generally speaking, this waterway was not large enough for river traffic westward and southward until it reaches Kingsport Tenn. The Austin family moved from Wythe co. Va. to Missouri by river boats but traveled overland almost to the Ohio River before building boats to finish the journey by river. Much commerce was moved by river such as tobacco and produce in early times before the railroads but the direction the rivers flow in Virginia made them unuseable for transportation of the pioneers. G. Lee Hearl Authentic Appalachian Storyteller Abingdon, Va.