The Very Worst Road: Travellers' Accounts of Crossing Alabama's Old Creek Indian Territory, 1820-1847

by Benton, Jeffrey C.

• ISBN13: 9780817355500
• ISBN10: 0817355502
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-03-01
• Publisher: Univ of Alabama Pr

Summary

The Very Worst Roadcontains sixteen contemporary accounts by travelers who reached Alabama along what was known as the "Old Federal Road," more a network of paths than a single road, that ran from Columbus and points south in Georgia for more or less due west into central Alabama and to where the confluence of the Tallapoosa and Coosa Rivers forms the Alabama River. These accounts deal candidly with the rather remarkable array of impediments that faced travelers in Alabama in its first decades as a state, and they describe with wonder, interest, and, frequently with some disgust, the road, the inns, the travelling companions, and the few and raw communities they encountered as they made their way, often with difficulty, through what seemed to many of them uncharted wilderness.The Very Worst Roadwas originally published by the Historic Chattahoochee Commission in 1998. Accounts:Adam Hodgson, March 1820Auguste Levasseur, April 1825Bernard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenbach, January 1826Basil Hall, April 1828Margaret Hall, April 1828James Stuart, March 1830Anne Royall, 1830Thomas Hamilton, April 1831Sol Smith, May 1832Tyrone Power, December 1834George Featherstonhaugh, January 1835Harriett Martineau, April 1835P. T. Barnum, February 1837James Buckingham, March 1839Charles Lyell, 1846Alexander Mackey, 1847

Author Biography

Col. Jeffrey C. Benton USAF (ret.) holds the M.P.S. degree from Auburn University and a M.A. from the University of North Carolina. His other books include They Served Here: 33 Maxwell Men, A Sense of Place: Montgomery’s Architectural Heritage, and Air Force Officer’s Guide.