My girlfriend Becky and I were hiking in the Brighton Recreation Area today. It’s a fantastic resource about 3 miles from my house. We hiked the 5 mile trail that is restricted for bikes, but there are 3 mountain bike trails that total about 20 miles.
We saw this mileage marker and we both instantly thought of the GW Howell letter.
This marker is 3 1/2 — but the 1 looks like a 4. Could this be the problem with the date I described in my post called The Letter. The year 1816 was too early for GW Howell to take a horseback ride of 1300 miles; he was 4 years old. It would make a lot more sense if he did so in 1846 instead. Could this have been misread by the person who typed this letter. The handwritten 4 could have easily been a little sloppy and appeared to be a 1.
GW Howell would have been 34 in 1846, and his cousins would have been 46 and 43. This scenario is much more plausible since he writes of selling his property and moving to Michigan. I find it interesting GW didn’t buy his portion of his father’s land/farm until 1847. In the Fall of 1846, he was most likely aware of his father’s intent to sell the farm to he and his brother, but didn’t have land of his own at the time.
Changing the date forward by 30 years is unfortunate but not crucial to my journey. It does make me wonder why he didn’t cut across Pennsylvania to get back home, but that will have to remain a mystery.
