Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 12).djvu/145

 Batavia woods, famed for their horrors, which were not abated by our having been informed at Russell's, that not far from here a white man had lately been killed by the Indians. We found the road much better than we had anticipated; the last four miles were the worst. A little labor would make the road all very good, at least in dry weather. There is another way to come from Batavia here; but it is six miles further, and probably little or no better than this.

"It was but three years since Vandevener began here. He at first built a log house, but he has now a two-story framed house, adjoining that. His whole territory is five hundred acres, one hundred of which he has already got under improvement

"July 23d. To Ransom's in Erie, to breakfast, fourteen miles. Ransom came from Great Barrington in Massachusetts, and settled here last September The last three miles from Ellicott's Creek to Ransom's is a new road cut through a thick wood, and is as bad as any part of the road through the Batavia woods.

"To Crow's at Buffalo Creek, eight