Some days I think I shall die waiting for August 12th
to get here. It has been twelve months
and 27 days since I returned from my last real trip and there is still two weeks to go! For years we have been launching
ourselves west mid-May and returning home in early July. The last four months have been an eternity
for me.
What is it about my trips that make them so important? Well,
from the beginning it seems my ancestors were a bit adventurous, being willing
to travel great distances to unknown territories to improve their
circumstances.
The desire for freedom—in most cases religious
freedom—brought some of my family on the Mayflower to Plymouth; others came
somewhat later to Lancaster, Pennsylvania with William Penn. The English branch sought access to land not
available to them in their home country and came early as planters to
Jamestown, Va. Continued religious
persecution in Germany and Switzerland brought others, while seeking increased
opportunities for commerce brought others to upstate New York from the Netherlands.
Poverty and persecution drove the Scotch-Irish part of the family from Ulster,
Ireland to America.
None of these people were content to remain where they first
arrived in America, but every generation or two continued to move west looking
for better farmland, better jobs, better opportunity.
The ‘west’ to them was
reached in most cases by following what had been the “Warrior’s Path”, that led
from where the city of Philadelphia was founded, southwest through the
Shenandoah Valley, and eventually branched north through Cumberland Gap.
As German and Scotch Irish settlers worked their way down
the “Warrior’s path” with their horses, and later the famous “Conestoga Wagon”
(built in Lancaster County, Pa), the widening road became known as the “Great
Wagon Road”, and farms were staked out in the valleys or on the mountains sides
according to the preferences of the settlers.
By the time of the Revolutionary War, settlements straggled along
the Shenandoah valley and the “west” was a couple of small towns that sprang up between
Philadelphia and Staunton, Virginia.
Later the “west” extended all the way to our Blue Ridge Mountains. To go beyond those mountains, pioneers had to
follow another Indian trail through Cumberland Gap, that led eventually to the
Ohio River near where Louisville, Kentucky is today. Daniel Boone made famous that Indian trail,
and it became known as the “Wilderness Road”.
My recent eight-day sojourn to learn about my grandfather’s birthplace
in Indiana followed the Warrior Path and Wilderness Road west to Corydon,
Indiana, the original capital, when the Indiana Territory first became a
state.
I imagined myself on the same
trip --headed west along what is now US 158 in Virginia, just north of Boone, then turning north to cross the Gap. Emerging
on the other side to find gentle, though wooded terrain. Continuing to the
Falls of the Ohio,
and crossing to stake my claim on the northern banks of the
Ohio. I stood where their farms had
been. I found the family graveyards, and
touched the crumbling tombstones with my family names engraved. I never
imagined it was such a pretty rural area.
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| JAMES HISEY, MY GREAT GRANDFATHER |
 |
| MY GRANDFATHER |
 |
| MY AUNT KAT |
I talked with people who had grown up there, and knew the
history of the area. I found a museum
that showed me how my great grandfather had helped build the locks on the
river, to enable further exploration of the ‘west’ by the white man. I saw a local play about the history of the
town and its role in the development of the state. In the library I learned my
great grandfather earned part of his wealth from building a toll road… the
first one in American had been built in Pennsylvania between Philadelphia and
Lancaster just a few years before.
I share this with you because I think that desire to go to
new places, to learn about and learn from other parts of the country, to have a
new ‘adventure’ everyday, to never quite know what is ‘just around the corner”
may be part of my DNA. Traveling is my
own search for freedom. Last year my theme was “canyons” and we visited the
Palo Duro Canyon in Texas, Grand Canyon in Arizona, and the Big Horn Canyon in
Wyoming and Montana as we traveled and camped in state and national parks in 17
states.
This year I am using family as the framework to decide the
routes we take. We will begin with Jamestown, Williamsburg, the Isle of Wight in Virginia. Then we will move north west across the Blue Ridge into the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia to the towns of Woodstock and Edinburg.
From there we follow the old "Wagon Road", now Route 11 and Interstate 81 into Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and Philadelphia.
The last half of the trip will be where my own family, Chick
and I, spent more than 10 years dating, hiking, fishing, camping, and hanging
out in upstate New York. We will revisit favorite places and find some new
adventures: Lake Ontario, Adirondack Park, and the Catskills.
I look at Mother’s family, traveling back and forth between
Pennsylvania and St. Louis before there were even road maps or highway numbers;
or look at my Daddy, who job-hopped in towns across Tennessee until he met my
Mother in St. Louis. I recall my
childhood: at every opportunity we jumped in the car to “go somewhere”. When I hear my Daddy’s admonition to “Go
wherever you can go; do whatever you can do. They can repossess your house,
they can repossess your car, but they can never take away what you have seen
and done”, then it makes sense that I am dying to hit the road!
Only 2 more weeks!
