My Family Tree

Notes from Porter Matteson's Genealogy of the Vermont Gages:
[based on Loren Mitchell's account of the trip] Oliver Alford first visited the wilderness of NW PA in 1815 and after a year returned to VT to convince his daughters' husbands to move there. The trip from Vergennes, VT to Cambridge Springs, PA in January of 1816 took 3 weeks. The country they settled in is on the Lake Erie watershed, and at that time, was covered in a very dense growth of virgin timber, thick with the native bears, wolves, wildcats, deer, wild turkey, and pigeons. The trees were chiefly oak, chestnut, birch, maple, and pine, plus the Hemlock useful for tanning. Most of the houses were log cabins and the food was raised by the farmer himself. Porter considers the land laws of the time which were a direct result of attempting to pay off quickly depreciating debt from the Revolutionary War. In particular the Land Law of 1792 specified that Richard Gage, (Alford and Hodges) could buy 100 acres for about $11.25. He speculates that the route they took went thru the Juniata Valley in Pennsylvania.

A letter still exists by James Hodges recounting the trip - http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/HODGES/1999-04/0923527105

U.S. Census_________________
home in 1810: Ferrisburg, Addison, Vermont
home in 1820: Le Boeuf, Erie, PA (??? but cannot find in census image - only David and William Gage there)
home in 1830: Rockdale, Crawford, PA
home in 1840: Rockdale, Crawford, PA