Did your forebear make this trip in 1847?

Check out page 300 in the previously blogged Appletons' Railroad and Steamboat Companion, a summary of the five-day, 1500-mile trip from New York City to Chicago in the summer of 1847:

by boat from NYC to Albany...

by train from Albany to Buffalo (riding all night if you're in a hurry)...

and the rest of the way by "one of the large and elegant Upper Lake boats" ("ladies and gentlemen...with guns, fishing-tackle, harps, flutes, violins, and other music")...

stopping at Cleveland, Detroit, "Mackinaw," where you can try your luck at fishing "in water so clear that you can see a trout twenty feet from the surface"...

and then south down Lake Michigan to Chicago, population 16,000.

Total fare: $21.