Biographical Memoir of William C. Redfield. 429 



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tliat early period before the age of steamboats and railways, and 

 when a large part of the way was covered with dense forests, with, 

 hardly an open path even for the pedestrian. Stage coaches, 

 indeed, ran on the nearer portions of the route, but these were 

 too expensive for the slender finances of our young adventurer.. 

 Accompanied, therefore, by two other young men, be shouldered 

 bis knapsack and commenced the arduous journey. Every even- 

 ing he noted down the incidents and observations of the day.. 

 This journal is now in my possession, and I have purused it with 

 deep interest for the graphic sketches it contains of the countries 

 he passed through, then mostly new settlements, and for the 

 indications it affords of those powers of observation, which after- 

 wards led to the development of the laws of storms. The style 

 of composition is far superior to what might reasonably have been 

 expected from one who bad enjoyed so few literary advantages,, 

 evincing two qualities for which Mr. Redfield was always distin- 

 guished — good sense and good taste. The sketches of Western 

 New York, and of Northern Ohio, taken while the sites of Ro- 

 chester and Cleveland were dark and gloomy forests, and Bufi'alo' 

 was a mere hamlet, possess no ordinary degree of historical inte- 

 rest. Instead of a " Lake Shore" road, traversed by the iron 

 horse, as at present, our young pedestrians could find no better 

 paths in which to travel ov-er the southern side of Lake Erie, than 

 ^o course along the beach. Yet in twenty-seven days they made 

 good their journey, having rested four days on the way, making an 

 average of about thirty-two miles per day. After passing the win- 

 ter with his friends in Ohio, he resumed his way homeward on foot 

 and alone, returning by a more southern route, through parts of 

 the states of Virginia, Maryland and Pensylvania. We shall soon 

 see to what valuable account he afterwards turned the observa- 

 tions made on these early pedestrian tours, in tracing the course as 

 well as originating the project, of a great railway connecting the 

 Hudson and the Mississippi rivers. 



Returning to his former home in 1811, Mr. Redfield commenced 

 the regular business of life. No circumstances could seem more 

 unpropitious to his eminence as a philosopher, than those in 

 which he was placed for nearly twenty years after his first settle- 

 ment in business; A small mechanic in a country village, eking 

 out a scanty income by uniting with the products of his trade the 

 sale of a small assortment of merchandize, Mr. Redfield met with 

 obstacles which in ordinary minds would have quenched the 



