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27 3 Boyhood in Homer The days of the railroad had not yet come. From an early period of the civilized era in the history of the state, there had been a stage route through the center of it, from Albany westward. It was still in existence, but it was supported by such passenger traffic as did not belong to the line of the canal, or that was desirous of traveling faster than six miles an hour, the limit of the new waterway passenger or “liner” boats. These carried freight as well as passengers and were not as aristocratic. Both depended upon horsepower in its original form, sometimes going as high as three horsepower to the boat. Places were secured upon a craft of the best kind for the [eastward] migration of the Stoddard family, and the voyage was begun, for one member of it at least, in a high condition of mental exhilaration and with some curious questions in his mind as to whether or not such a vessel were at all liable to shipwreck. There were wonders all the way, including the bridges in passing under which all the grown-up people had to bob their heads, while a short boy might safely stand erect and stare up at the bridge. Then there were the locks, by means of which the boat was to be let down to eastern and lower levels, through vast, cavernous clefts in the surface of the earth, while the boat staggered back and forth as if she were frightened. I can well remember how, before dinner time, the entire boat would be pervaded by the rich aroma of boiling corn, sweet corn, of which I was fond when hungry. I do not now recall any remarkable incidents of that voyage, but at night it was wonderful to be out away upon a shelf at the side of the cabin and to be darkly curtained in. I saw two luckless power horses slide from the 28 boyhood in homer towpath into the dreadful water at Syracuse and that is all there was to interest me in that then very young village. It may have contained six thousand people but it contained us only long enough for us to be transferred to the “extra” which was to convey us to Homer. This vehicle received its name from the fact that there was a regular stage line running, with the regulation pitch and roll coaches, and that whenever the rush of passengers overflowed it was needful to put on some other kind of wagon instead of building another coach. The vehicle provided for us was a long two-horse carryall with a closable hood and curtains. It was warranted to do the required thirty miles in one day, with several stoppages. It will be seen that if a day [trip] contains six hours, that stage speed had to be worked up to the high pressure point of five miles an hour. I saw them do it, myself, in spite of the long, long hills and the danger we were in from the Indians. This peril belonged to the fact that a part of the road from Syracuse southward runs through the Reservation of the once-proud and merciless tribe of the Onondagas. At the date of this my first long journey, the dangerous nation numbered, I was informed, about three hundred souls, chiefs, warriors, squaws, and papooses. There was nothing terribly warlike in the aspect of the one-story wooden Council House, which was pointed out to me on the left as we went by, but my acquaintance with the red men and my interest in them may be said to have begun then and there, although I believe I must have heard a great deal about them at even an earlier day. It stuck in my mind that the Council House stood upon the spot where in former ages had burned the Sacred Fire of the Iroquois, the Six Nations, who had killed and scalped so many white men. I think that it was in pleasant September weather that our trip was made; it was warm and sunny and we reached our destination in first-rate order, in the evening. My uncle Edward Bright was at the time and during several years which followed the pastor of the Homer Baptist Church, and he and his family had been visiting at my grandfather’s house until their own could be made ready for them...

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