Along the less-populated routes, travel was more challenging. Here is an account of early settlers written in 1850 by Daniel and Magdalena M'Cain, who arrived in Carroll County, Indiana from Ohio in the early 1820s:

I have not many particular incidents to relate during our journey, except the road, if such it could be called, was very muddy and difficult to pass in many places, on account of the trees and gulleys. When we arrived...the men began the work of erecting a cabin. In just three days they had our cabin so that it was barely possible to live in it, the roof being on, a door cut out, and one side and end... Cold weather set in so severe that we were forced to live in our house all Winter, just as we first went into it.

Our family was small when we first came here, having but one child. Our children now number eleven. We came here in high hopes, and our hopes have been in a great measure realized. What an astonishing improvements in the roads and travel! For years after we came here, if a man on horseback could ride from here to Lebanon, Ohio, in five or six days, it was considered a very speedy trip! Not so with the fierce and warlike iron horse; he goes thundering along at most fearful speed and carries you over the same distance in one day. What a contrast!

 

Early Settlement of Carroll County, Indiana (np: 1875), p. 51-53

Indiana Historical Society