One reason for the scarcity of information concerning early immigration is the fact that the United States government did not start recording lists of immigrants arriving into the country until 1820.  It was not until 1875 before the Supreme court ruled that it was the responsibility of the government to keep track of all immigrants and it was not until 1891 before the government assumed the task of inspecting, admitting and rejecting immigrants.  I was surprised by how late in the development of this country’s administration that the subject of immigration had finally loomed important enough to be contested in a court room.
    Castle Garden which was constructed in 1811 as the West battery fort to defend New York from the British would be the first official emigrant depot. The War of 1812 was building up during that time. The facility changed names and function several times and in 1855 it served as an emigrant staging area. Unfortunately most of the 8 to 12 million immigration records were burned in a pier fire. Today the site is known as the Castle Clinton National monument in battery park at the southern tip of Manhattan in New York city. 
   By the way, the name Clinton was from New York city mayor Dewitt Clinton, not  President Clinton.   Free access to what remains of the records between 1820 and 1913 are available at www.castlegarden.org .
     Most likely you had heard about Ellis Island and the renewed emphasis on immigration records. Ellis island was called Oyster island and was re-named after colonial New Yorker, Samuel Ellis. It was located at the mouth of the Hudson river in the New York harbor. It was the main entry point for immigration from January 1, 1892 to November 12, 1954. At it’s height in 1907, over 1 million of the 12 million immigrants flowed through it’s gates with a record of over 11,000 immigrants showing up on one day during that same year. The list of the immigrants is still being processed and a large section of names from 1892 to 1924 of Ellis Island can be found for free at http://www.ellisisland.org .
      The 1907 US immigration act also caused the government to swing its attention southward toward the Mexican border. This forced the administration to confront the immigration of  foreigners from multiple ports of entry into  the United States, rather than just New York.  By 1924 passports were required to enter the U.S. and by 1940 Alien registration receipt cards were the predecessor to the 1950 green card. This was an obvious solution to processing immigrants at various locations.  Finally by 1952 a quota system was launched, creating much of today’s immigration policies. All of these changes are important to a genealogical researcher by helping to know how a family member was processed, where he would of been processed, and in what years such immigration records would be created.. 
   With the invention of the computer and the internet, border officials can keep track of any entrance and exit of the country with a push of a button.
    It is interesting to note that as our nation argues over how to treat illegal immigrants, the subject of  the contraction of space, and opportunity to a financial future, will remain as the principle concerns of succeeding generations. The concerns over the migration of thousands will continue to cause increased friction, urging the creation of diverging policies to be written.  To our forefathers the idea of the loss of space, identity and jobs would  not have been imaginable as an important issue.  When they set foot on  American soil, it appeared to them that United States was boundless and unending in opportunities.  The streets may not have been paved in gold, but the roads stretched over the endless horizon for anyone with a bit of grit to explore.  
      
 
 

                           
     The difficulty in discovering what port an ancestor used is that not everyone used a conventional port or harbor to enter America. The quantity of how many immigrants clamored over the side of an anchored vessel  to waiting row boats will never be revealed. Certainly, the use of row boats and rafts to get from the ship to the shore would have been the means in which the earliest settlers had used to set foot on shore. It took time to discover rivers and natural harbors that were deep enough to except the draft of the first sailing ships. The Mayflower, with it’s 180 ton capacity and little over 100 passengers was designed for the mouth of the Hudson River, though it ended up at Plymouth Rock.
     Establishing docks and piers would have been  slow to appear, and their use and locations would have been eventually disseminated to the next wave of ships. Cargo, whether it be settlers, slaves, or commodities, would flow through the common areas where the geography and topography would permit it.  Some rivers could not be entered until the sea level rose enough to allow ships to enter the inland waterways. For settlers and immigrants, it was not anything like Ellis Island, and no one took names as they tramped through the cold surf to begin their lives in the New World. Below is a brief description and history of the major early ports in America:
      Boston Harbor: is a natural harbor, protected from the Atlantic by a combination of the Winthrop peninsula and Deer island to the north.  It is often referred to as being split into an inner and outer harbor.   The harbor area was first attempted to be settled in 1623 by an expedition which originally sailed to New England. It failed but, Rev. William Blackstone remained behind in what is today known as Boston’s Beacon Hill. Three years later the Puritans, fleeing from English persecution, came to the area. By the 1760’s the city swelled in size and the citizens grew  increasingly antipathetic to the Britons whom decided to tax the British colonies, eventually leading to the Boston Tea party in 1773.
   New York Harbor: includes the Upper and Lower New York Bay, the North river, part of the Hudson river, and several other Bays, Kills and the Harlem river. At the harbor’s peek, some 11 individual active ports resided in New York city, New Jersey and Staten island. It has been agreed that the first recorded European in the harbor was Henry Hudson in 1609.  In 1624 the first permanent European settlement was started on Governors island and eight years later in Brooklyn. The colonial Dutch ordered the first wharf to be built and it was completed in 1648. In 1686, the control of the leading port for the British was given over to municipality control.
   Philadelphia:  eclipsed Boston and New York in political and social importance and population in the 1700’s. In 1669 Swedish colonists became the first Europeans to settle the area. William Penn the renowned Quaker, who founded and developed Philadelphia in 1682 had encouraged thousands of Quakers to gobbled up land both in the city and inland.  In 1790 the US government was moved to Philadelphia and was the temporary capital of the nation until 1800.
   To reach this city, ships traveled through Delaware Bay and up the Delaware river. Because the tidewater reaches pass Philadelphia and meets the river at Trenton, New Jersey, commerce was very important on the upper river until railway competition in 1857.  However the average tide of six feet was obtained below Philadelphia causing improvements to be made to the river’s navigation as early as 1771. 
   Baltimore harbor: was reached by traveling up the Chesapeake Bay to a natural deep water harbor which began trading in 1706.  Fort McHenry was used as the first port of entry for the area’s tobacco trade with England. Baltimore Town which was later to become the city of Baltimore was established  in 1730. Fells point, the deepest part of the harbor evolved into a leading colonial ship building center which became famous for it’s sleek and maneuverable Clipper ships. The city had only twenty five buildings by 1752, but soon after that began to grow rapidly when the economy switched from tobacco to flour mills to feed expanding Pennsylvania population. The area had a diverse group of inhabitants whom were attracted to the area. By1756 settlers included, Arcadians, French speaking Catholics from Nova Scotia, Germans, Irish and Scottish nationalities.  Around 1806 Baltimore became a gateway for settlers headed for the Ohio Valley and other favorite destinations to settle.   
   James River: of Virginia was named after King James I. of England. It was the site of the first earliest English settlement in 1607 at Jamestown which failed.  The first ships crossed  the Chesapeake bay and traveled up the river’s mouth at Hampton Roads. As tobacco grew as an important crop, plantations with wharfs along the river’s banks sprang up, stimulating more immigration for the first 75 years in the Tidewater regions. Ocean going ships could not navigate past present day Richmond and Manchester, thus stimulating port towns like Lynchburg, Scottsville, Columbia and Buchanan to send product down river by small boats.  Eventually English and Welsh immigrants continued to press inward through out Virginia and North Carolina and further west.
   Charleston harbor: South Carolina has three major rivers flowing into it; Ashley, Wando and Cooper. The area was first settled by the English in 1670.  They settled on the Ashley river and later moved to Oyster Point, the present site of Charleston.  It was first called Charles Town after King Charles II of England. The first settlers were from England and the Caribbean islands, followed by Huguenots, Quakers, Scottish, Irish and Belgian.  Because the port was considered one of the most religiously tolerant of the colonies, it attracted settlers of different faiths. By 1700 over 5,000 lived in the area. Part of the colorful history of the port was the trade with England of corn, pork, lumber, deerskin and rice which was threatened by pirates demanding ransom. Today only Fort Sumter remains of the earlier fortification to protect the city. During the revolutionary war the city was divided and endured much strife, followed by turmoil over slavery until the end of the civil war.
   Georgia and Florida ports were conspicuously absent from the compiled lists of immigrants. This was mostly due to the fact that the navigable ports like, Savannah Georgia, Biscayne and Tampa Bay of Florida were under early Spanish control. These two most southern states, during the 16th and 17th century, as well as the gulf states were used as pawns for the chess match between the Spanish and French whom were most of the time either an enemy or at least in competition with England. Savannah was not established until 1733 and  Florida wasn’t an organized territory of the United states until 1822, two years after U.S. decided to keep records of immigrants.      
  Mobile Bay: was first visited in 1519 by a Spanish explorer. The area was briefly settled in 1559 before re-settling to Pensacola Bay, and it was not until the late 1600’s before it was used by the French whom laid claim to the mouth of the Mississippi river. Facilities on Mobile Bay’s Dauphin island, which was a deep water harbor, became the French’s attempt to halt both Spanish and English sprawl of the gulf.  By 1701 the island became the first capital of the growing French colony of Louisiana. The city of Mobile evolved from the French settlement in 1711. The area was held until the Treaty of Paris in 1763 which ceded the Louisiana territory to England, only to have Mobile taken from the English by Spain in 1780. Alabama finally becomes a territory of the U.S. in 1817, separating from the Mississippi territory and becoming a state one year later.  
    New Orleans: was founded in 1718 by the French. The site was selected because it was a rare bit of natural high ground along the flood-prone banks of the lower Mississippi. It was named after a Regent of France, Phillip II, Duke Orle’ans. In 1722 this site of hovels in a malaria wet thicket of willows was made the capital of French Louisiana. After a hurricane blew most every structure down, an area was built in a grid pattern which is today known as the French Quarter. The city hosted an eclectic group of trappers, prospectors and other referred to as undesirables. In 1763 the colony was secretly ceded to Spanish rule, but that did not last long. The great fire of 1788 destroyed 856 buildings on Good Friday.  The sugar industry, and the expanding use of the Mississippi river for  transportation in the last twenty years of the 18th century, increased the stature of the city.  In 1803 Napoleon sold Louisianan to the United states. By 1820 New Orleans had over 10,000 people of various mixed nationalities which included the migration of  French planters from Cuba.
   Galveston Bay and Houston ship channel:  occupy the western most area of the Gulf. The area was first visited by Spanish explorers whom met up with a particular fierce tribe of Indians, and was not considered a favorable place to settle in the 16th and 17th century. In the early 1800’s buccaneers had a short lived settlement on Galveston Island. It was not until 1820 before settlers began moving into Texas was Galveston Bay area found to have many rich resources like shellfish, forests, construction materials, and prairies for farming.   Alterations of the bay began with several canals, including the most important being the Houston ship channel in 1836 which linked the City and Port of Houston to the Gulf of Mexico by way of Galveston Bay.  Dredging was conducted in the intercostals waterways in order to enhance shipping and navigation . In 1837 the Republic of Texas emerged from the war with Santa Anna and Houston became briefly the capital. Texas became a state of the United States in  1845. By 1870 the city had 9,000 citizens.   
       The final port listed with an immigration record was on the far west coast at San Francisco  Harbor.  San Francisco Bay is a shallow estuary with interconnecting rivers, bays and waterways which drain much of northern California.  The bay was navigable as far south as San Jose until the 1850’s. Massive amounts of sediment from rivers and mining operations, reduced the Bay’s size. The first recorded European to find his way into the bay was in 1775 by a Spanish explorer. San Francisco became the premier location for settlers moving westward after 1820.  After the seizure of the region from Mexico, California was annexed to the U.S and became a state in 1846. The gold rush of 1849 assisted a migration to California by both land and sea routes. It was not an important port until the railroad reached the bay in 1869, urging the creation of additional wharfs in Oakland and other areas.
   The above data gives the researcher a general time line of the events surrounding the major ports. I hope this gives a better understanding of what family ancestors may have confronted during certain periods of time in US history. 
  
 

 

                  
                           
   The colonial period is often the period most researchers are trying to crack. The period leaves 150 years when families came to our shore, most of which were undocumented. If documented by anyone,  the task was left to the whim of port authorities, shipping lines, captains or a family member scribbling down the names in a family bible. A strong effort has been exerted over the years to find the surviving passenger lists and cargo manifests which ended up in various archives and museums around the U.S..   
     The search for immigrant names and the ships they arrived on, became harder and harder to find prior to 1820. One source on line is the library of congress at: http://www.loc.gov/rr/genealogy/bib_guid/immigrant/lists.html where you will find a guide to published sources of immigrant arrivals. If you study the passenger list titles which were last revised in 2001, you will see that this list of compiled lists has one of three searching criteria. Most of the lists either concentrate on  1.) a particular port of entry during a particular time period,  2.) concerning a particular national or ethnic group migrating to the U.S. by way of several ports, or in some cases, 3.) the final location or region in American where the immigrants were headed for. In the third criteria, they were often of one particular faith and belonged to the same church which documented the individuals and families who settled in the area. 
   Additional sources of such ships and passengers can also be found at www.archives.gov/genealogy/immigration/passenger-arrival.html . Lists are also available on CD sold by Broderbund and other publishers. A good book  is the “New World Immigration” published in 1980 by Michael Tepper and can be found at Amazon.com for $33.50.  There is microfilm at the national Archives and the Family History Library. Ancestry.com, a commercial site, also has an accessible database.
     The ports listed at the Library of Congress site include Canada in general and ten ports in the U.S..  American ports were; Boston, Philadelphia ,  Houston, Galveston , Mobile,  Charleston, New Orleans, New York, Baltimore  and San Francisco.    
   Each port attracted it’s unique share of ethnic and religious groups and the lists of ships and passengers are not necessarily in the same locations in present day as they were when first scribed.  Each port was in operation at various times, some being much earlier than others. My research of each of these U.S. port is in part III of this article.
      The colonies of New England which included, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut had harbors through out the region. It was not an area of good farming and tended to rely on natural resources like fur, lumber, fish and ship building. It was not until 1643 before the New England communities formed a confederation in order to provide defense against Indians.  This was the site of the Pilgrims and the famed Mayflower in 1620.  The Puritans eventually settled around the main harbor of Boston. 
   In the middle colonies, which includes New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, there were excellent areas of farming and natural harbors. Natural harbors, which is the sheltered part of a body of water deep enough to provide anchorage, was extremely important to strategic and economic concerns. The Dutch surrendered New Netherland in 1664 to the Duke of York while New Jersey did not become a royal colony until 1702 and Pennsylvania had long since remained the domain of Quakers. 
   The southern colonies, which included:  Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, grew most of their own food and had cash crops of tobacco, rice and indigo for primary trade with England. It was the demand for labor in the south which fed the need for immigrants and later the use of slaves. Jamestown was the first English settlement in America in 1607, but it was not until 1624 before it was made a royal colony. A handful of men received charters in 1663 to settle in the area called Carolina, the main port being Charleston which was first known as Charles Town. In 1729, the Carolinas separated into two royal colonies and Savannah, Georgia  became a colony in 1752.
   This leaves four ports in the Gulf of Mexico which included; Mobile,  New Orleans, Houston and Galveston, and the earliest main port on the pacific coast which was San Francisco.  The further you are lead away from the Atlantic seaboard to the west coast, the later the dates are for the first use of ports. Florida was held by a foreign power for quite some time, as was Louisiana and Texas. Their respective ports of call or harbors were not recognized as being part of the United States until after 1800, though they had settlers under different flags, many would have had  later generations patronized as Americans. Thus is the history of the French quarters of New Orleans or the Spanish missions of California.
    All these exceptions further muddy up the picture of when ancestors first stepped on shore. The best which can be rendered, is a timeline which gives the researcher some idea of the occupying authority and the conditions present when an ancestor stepped out of a row boat and felt what would later become the soil of the United States of America.
 
                      

                                        Note: This is a four part article:
                                        Part One: “Historical influence on US Immigrants
                                        Part Two: “The Colonial period of immigration”
                                        Part Three “History of the early Ports”
                                        Part Four:  “History of Immigration after 1820”        
                                  
                       Part One:   Historical influenced on US immigrants
     If you are one of the fortunate genealogists whom have found out the name of the ship which was used to carry an ancestor over a body of water to enter America, consider such data a diamond in the ruff of the family history pile of data.  Of  my two sets of grand parents, only my mother’s mother’s family, the Millers, have recorded the name of the ship in which they arrived. They arrived by the “Moon-de-Grass” in 1839. 
     Having the ship’s name and when and where an ancestor came from is a very important piece of information. It can make all the difference in your family history line being landlocked in America or stretching across to another continent.  Without that data, a researcher can never be sure when the first individuals of a family tree arrived, or even if there were more branches whom arrived independently in America. DNA research can help, and once both Europe and other governments expand their DNA databases in unison with United States, finding your ancestor from Europe may improve.     I wanted to have a clearer understanding of the history of immigration and which ports  my ancestors could have used to come on shore. I soon discovered that my quest was not a simple one, and my research began to grow until I decided I needed to break up this article into several parts.  
    The subject of immigration is complex due to the social, economic and political issues associated with the topic. I researched a lot of material, and found myself immersed in a great deal of charts and graphs. Two sources I found interesting was at the history section at www.rapidimmigration.com and the article; “Immigration to the United States” at wikepedia.com .
       The United States has accepted more immigrants as permanent residents than any other country. The history of immigration is often broken down into four periods which include: The Colonial period, prior to 1820, The mid ninetieth century, the turn of the twentieth century and the last period  post 1965.  The migration of your family ancestors most definitely would be influenced by four phenomena; 1.) Immigrants are likely to live and travel through areas which are populated by people with similar backgrounds which include racial, ethnic and religious beliefs.    2.) The arrivals of immigrants are regulated by how certain nationalities are regarded at certain times, like Germans and Japanese during post World War II and other groups were regarded with opposition at different times in history 3) The creation or changes in immigration policies and viewpoints concerning immigration in general has shaped the places immigrants came from and the qualifications of immigrants, and 4.) What was the driving force which pressed the immigrants to take such a risk to travel to America in the first place. I found it useful to read up on the history of immigration and I recommend researchers get an overview of the subject.
     Answering how the four above phenomena are associated with your particular ancestors will give you an idea of where to begin and in what obstacles your ancestors encountered while entering the U.S.      
    In number one above, simply knowing the nationality of your ancestors will often be a key to informing you where they may have settled.  There is a lot of information to be researched about particular ethnic groups. Swedes, Dutch, Germans, Chinese, Africans, Irish and Welsh etc., all came across in waves at certain times and established settlements in certain geographical locations.
    In number two above, you can further breakdown how immigrants were regarded by three changing viewpoints over the 250 years of our nation. Up until the mid and late 1800’s  policies like Headrights and the Homestead act reflect how America was trying to make moving here attractive. Large numbers of labor, slaves, farmers, etc. were needed to expand across a landscape which was thought to be limitless and abundant with resources. In deed some countries emptied their jails and dumped them in America.
   With number three above, immigration policies like;  the asylum declaration and quota regulations, are a few of many examples which impacted immigrants. Regulations began restricting immigrants, qualifying how many could come from where etc. Immigrants were allowed here by some kind of contract.  In the modern periods immigrants needed working histories, sponsors and familial ties and strict quotas were set in place. Certain countries are limited as to how many immigrants can be allowed to migrate to the US, and depending on who is friendly or not, these quotas change on a yearly basis. 
       The driving force which caused your ancestor to cross the dangerous Atlantic may also be very important. Germans rushed out of the Rhine valley after the Rhine river froze over in 1708-09. They had lost entire crops and recalled the time when William Pen disseminate about Pennsylvania. They migrated across the Atlantic Ocean by the thousands.  Germans whom lived in Europe between 1748 to 1751, where every third German was slain during a thirty year war with France, headed to the new world to escape the violence.  The Puritans came due to religious or ethnic persecution and the Irish flocked to America after the potatoes famine of 1845-1852.  It would be a good idea to read the history concerning the country  your ancestor came from and the time period in which you suspect they crossed the Atlantic. This first part of my four part article was designed to give you an overview of the immigration process and some of the factors which influenced our ancestors as they stepped ashore.  It can also help in directing a researcher toward materials which may reveal more history about your family tree.
  
  
                               

                          
 
 
                       

 

   It was once remarked that the price of freedom was; "constant alertness and constant willingness to fight back.  It is true in world affairs, in law enforcement and regrettably it is true when it comes to protecting yourself and others from fraud, theft and damage from online predators and hackers.
    In genealogy we too often forget that many of our security questions and passwords are based on family data. Thus, in our vigor and enthusiasm to share with others about our family history, other unscrupulous characters with dark intentions to corrupt files and computers, steal data for vile reasons. They would take advantage of our passions and hobbies and twist our best of intentions to their warped desires. Some are searching for identities to steal which include birthdates and social security numbers.
    Never forget, if you have been a victim or become a victim in the future of such a crime, that it is not you or the wonderful technological highway's fault. It is, however, always the fault of the black hearted and twisted thrill seekers whom see in cracking our passwords and crashing our hard drives and stealing our identities, as some sort of sick challenge. Evil is hard to understand and even harder to confront. We sometimes become too lacks in our approach or perhaps too lazy to ensure our data is safe and secure.
    It happened to me, and I wanted to write an article to warn of such people and to inform others of some simple steps to prevent such attacks from being successfully sprung against yourself and others. You don't want to be the week link that caused a friend or family member to loose all their long hard data and work.
   A few years ago I received an e-mail which asked me about writing. I jumped in without thinking that I did not really know the sender and the link launched a worm into my computer which eliminated the ability to access any of my programs and files. If it was not for a good and kind friend whom was also my ISP provider, I would of lost all my hard drive and all my long hard work. As a writer, losing an entire manuscript is too painful to contemplate. Fortunately for me, for a small fee he incased the little booger and I was able to continue on.
   Recently, someone hacked into my hotmail account, used my e-mail contact list to send a message to the addresses and then deleted my contact list. The perpetrator used my name as the sender, thus damaging my reputation and ensnarling other's with his scheme. 
   After this second attack, which was not as damaging, yet much more personal I realized I had been lacks in my security measures.
   The main thing genealogist must remember is that maiden names of mothers are often used as a security question for access to bank accounts, e-mail accounts and websites. All the perpetrator has to do is to say that he forgot his password while at another's account and answer the security question of "What is your mother's maiden name?" and "open sesame" he's into the account. Thus I made a list of what not to use as a password and types of information which you must understand could be applied against your own security.
      1.) Change your password and your security question frequently.
      2.) Use uncommon or non-reoccurring letters and numbers in a mixture as your password. Never use words, names or phrases for passwords which you have posted on the internet or in a profile of a website or social networking site. ( The bad guys are cleaver. They read your profiles which people place on myspace and face book etc., and then they use everything you wrote against you by testing them against your passwords. It does not matter if the internet accounts and sites are related in nature or subject, the bad guys can figure out that you are the same person.
   3.) Never place personal information on the internet, especially birthdates, social security numbers, addresses or links to such data of living individuals. This is what the identity thieves thrive after. In your enthusiasm to be thorough, such information can cause headaches which were unintended. Be careful of what you add to your profile sections of various networking websites.
   4.) If possible, use some other security question other than your mother's maiden name. Some sites offer alternative questions and some allow you to formulate your own question. You can also use an alternate e-mail address when changing a password which is an improved security measure over using the same e-mail address which you are trying to safeguard with a new password.    
   5.) If you publish a book or newsletter on family history, include a copyrighted message and a warning that information in your publication is not to be posted on the internet.   
   6.) Never open any attachments unless you absolutely know the sender and expect the message. 
   7.) Back up your important documents and files to disc on a regular basis.   
   8.) Use a pet name or nickname or title you like rather than your own proper name on a profile or social networking site.
   9.) Perhaps an extreme measure, but effective in stopping the spread of viruses and worms is to not keep track of your contact and family e-mail addresses with the e-mail account. It maybe a pain to have to retype an e-mail address each time you send a new message, but it prevents the hackers from gaining access to such sensitive information and thus  the bad guy being able to send your friends a bunch of bugs and unwanted mail. 

   These are just a few things I have learned which can aid in the war against the bad guys on the net.  I found another article which adds a few other concerns at http://www.unyg.com . The article has the title of: "Upstate New York Genealogy- Researchers Data Sources & Links-Internet security".

                                                                  

                                                 
                                   
      Occasionally I discover that I know a little more than others on some subjects. It is an infrequent occurrence, but the positive feedback which I received from my article about the National Road in my Smith family history book; “I don’t know you from Adam”, prompted me to share it with a broader audience. The article is a very intimate account concerning my gggg-grandfather Adam Smith Jr., who not only traveled to Ohio on portions of the road, he helped build it, haggled with congress over being paid for his work on it, depended on the traffic of the road for a good portion of his annual revenue, and when he passed away, the national road was mentioned in his will.
   Adam Smith Jr. settled near the Licking and Muskingum county border in Ohio in the year 1811 where he erected a saw mill, grist mill, tavern and store. Family lore has it that Adam called his new community as Smithfield, though today it is called Gratiot, Ohio.
   It was indeed a good location for the inevitable explosions of migrating families which would flow west on this road.
   The favorable climate and the geography of the Ohio region was ideal for early Americans to settle. There were mountainous sections and level plateaus; broad valleys and extensive plains; rich forest and open prairies, with it’s own peculiar products of animal, vegetable and mineral wealth.  However in the late 1700’s the only way into this territory was to skirt around the great lakes or travel along the winding Ohio river until reaching one of the tributaries like the Muskingum, Scioto or Miami rivers.
  In 1797 Ebenezer Zane opened “Zane’s Trace” which traveled westward through present day Fairfield county.  Funding for the National Road was arranged in 1802 and Jefferson signed legislation in 1806 to officially establish a national highway to run from Cumberland to the Mississippi with the stipulation that the road had to run through each state’s capital.
   Ohio became a state in 1803 and my gggg-grandfather Adam Smith Jr. traveled from the Shenandoah valley in Virginia over parts of this road in 1811.  In 1838 Adam petitioned congress to be compensated for the rock which he had  provided for what was called then the Cumberland road.  The 1st session of the 23rd congress took up the matter and it was confirmed that indeed Mr. Smith had delivered both prepared stone and unbroken stone.  By this time the road had reached Indiana. The road was often referred as the Pike by settlers in Perry County, Ohio.  
   Genealogists can appreciate the date coincidence in many family migrations with the building of roads, railways and canals. Suddenly we find entire families moving by leaps and bounds across America, instead of a few counties. One of the earliest questions about the National road was, “Who used it?” 
   The simple reply is, “Darned near everyone!”
   In the early 1900’s efforts were made to promote the national road to an ocean to ocean highway which would stretch from New York city to Los Angeles. Today, like in many locations, the old US highway 40 was bypassed in lieu of other freeways. My grandfather’s town is now off the main drag as Interstate 70 runs around the outskirts of Gratiot, Ohio and only the echo’s of the past reverberates where my relatives use to live.
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