00:19 - Hello.

00:20 - My name is Elizabeth Shope, and I am a park ranger here

00:23 - at Alleghany Portage Railroad National Historic Site.

00:26 - And today we are in the lemon House tavern.

00:30 - The lemon House tavern was built by Samuel and Jean lemon in the early 1830s,

00:35 - and it sat right along the Allegheny Portage Railroad.

00:39 - This is the original tavern, and today the first floor has been restored

00:43 - to a period tavern.

00:46 - During the summer season, we have Ranger programs

00:50 - that talk about travelers on the Allegheny Portage Railroad,

00:56 - demonstrations for what workers would have been doing

00:59 - on the Allegheny Portage Railroad that includes stone cutting and rope making.

01:03 - So during the summer season, we have a wide variety of different program

01:08 - offerings.

01:09 - Today, I will be talking about what it was like

01:11 - to travel on the Allegheny Portage Railroad.

01:15 - And just to give a little bit of background information,

01:18 - the Allegheny Portage Railroad was the final piece of the Pennsylvania

01:22 - main Line Canal, which ran from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh.

01:26 - When the Allegheny Portage Railroad opened in March 1834.

01:30 - This system was now complete, and this was the first exciting new way to travel.

01:37 - It cut down travel time from about three weeks to an average of five days,

01:43 - and in New York State, you had the Erie Canal that was opened.

01:47 - And Philadelphia, as a port city is being bypassed.

01:51 - And this was a way to move people and goods

01:55 - through Pennsylvania faster to Pittsburgh and and to the west

01:59 - beyond there for travelers, this was a new and unique experience.

02:04 - Most people had never been on a system like this.

02:08 - The Allegheny Portage Railroad was 36 miles over the Allegheny Mountains.

02:13 - It connected a canal basin in Hollidaysburg with the canal basin

02:17 - on the western side of the Allegheny Mountains in Johnstown,

02:21 - and the system worked by using a series of ten inclined planes

02:26 - that acted as stairs, five on each side of the mountain

02:31 - for travelers

02:32 - traveling on the Main Line canal.

02:35 - If you were going from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh,

02:38 - it would cost you about $12 for a ticket.

02:43 - But similar to travel today, if we think about airlines,

02:48 - you can purchase a ticket through different companies.

02:51 - They offer different prices, different itineraries.

02:54 - That was the same for this system, but the average price was about $12.

03:00 - Now, traveling on a canal boat,

03:03 - was a lot of sharing space

03:07 - with people that you didn't know for long periods of time.

03:12 - Oftentimes, canal boat

03:14 - owners want to fit as many people as possible into those boats.

03:18 - So travel was quite cramped.

03:21 - Charles Dickens, one of the Allegheny Portage Railroad

03:25 - and mainline Canal famous travelers, wrote in his book

03:29 - American Notes, describing his experience on this system.

03:34 - He traveled to America for the first time in 1842,

03:38 - and he talks about how low

03:41 - the ceilings were and the sleeping accommodations.

03:45 - You had a wooden plank board that was attached to the wall.

03:49 - That's what you slept on.

03:50 - You had a small blanket, and he talks about the complexities

03:54 - of getting on to this wooden board in the first place.

03:57 - And once he got himself situated, he wanted to get up.

04:01 - But it took so much effort to get on there

04:04 - in the first place that he decided he didn't want to alarm anyone

04:08 - by getting up, so he would just stay where he was.

04:11 - He also talks about looking up above him.

04:14 - these boards are attached to the wall going up the length of the wall,

04:18 - and there's someone laying on a board above him, and all of

04:22 - that is keeping that board attached to the wall was a little cord.

04:27 - He also talks

04:29 - about freshening up in the morning,

04:32 - you know, using the canal water to try and wash off a little bit.

04:38 - He also talked about the American habit of chewing tobacco,

04:42 - of chewing and spitting, and having to lay his jacket

04:46 - out on the canal boat to dry.

04:50 - When he got to the Allegheny Portage Railroad.

04:53 - He enjoyed the scenery here, as did many people.

04:58 - He talked about how the rails

05:01 - were laid upon the extreme verge of a giddy precipice.

05:04 - So the Allegheny Mountains are very steep,

05:06 - which was a challenge for building this system and for figuring out

05:10 - how to get over the Allegheny Mountains in the first place.

05:15 - Harriet Beecher Stowe is another traveler

05:18 - on the Allegheny Portage Railroad and Main Line Canal,

05:21 - and she wrote an article called The Canal Boat for a ladies Magazine.

05:26 - And similar to Dickens,

05:28 - she talked about the cramped conditions on the boat.

05:31 - She recalls people around her seeing the canal boat

05:35 - before they got on, and sort of looking around at

05:39 - how many people were around them and trying

05:40 - to figure out how all of these people were going to fit on the boat.

05:44 - And all of those people and more.

05:49 - Sleeping at night on the canal would have been a really good night's sleep.

05:54 - Think of sleeping in a common room with a bunch of other people.

05:58 - People snoring, children crying throughout the night,

06:02 - people, getting up and going back to sleep.

06:06 - Also going through locks at night, too.

06:10 - That was, quite noisy.

06:12 - so Harriet Beecher Stowe did not

06:15 - necessarily like traveling

06:18 - by canal boat on the Allegheny Portage Railroad itself.

06:22 - If you were traveling on this system, you had to leave Hollidaysburg

06:26 - or Johnstown at a certain point

06:29 - in the morning to ensure that you made it over the mountains by nightfall.

06:33 - This system operated during the daylight hours

06:36 - and taverns, such as the lemon House.

06:39 - Here they were a welcome sight for travelers.

06:41 - This was a chance to, stretch out a bit,

06:46 - grab a bite to eat, and to share travel stories.

06:50 - So think about traveling with the same people for long periods of time.

06:55 - You know what? Everybody else knows.

06:57 - But you can come here to the lemon House,

07:00 - and maybe you can meet someone who is heading towards Hollidaysburg.

07:04 - And they just went through the Staple Bend Tunnel.

07:07 - The Staple Bend Tunnel was the first railroad tunnel in America.

07:11 - It was 901ft long, and people described it as a horizontal well.

07:17 - There were a few tunnels in existence for the canals,

07:20 - but this was the first one for the railroad.

07:23 - So traveling this system

07:26 - was a mixture of excitement and apprehension.

07:30 - you could talk about what it was like to go through that tunnel.

07:33 - You know, what it's like in Johnstown or in Hollidaysburg.

07:36 - So a nice opportunity

07:38 - to share travel stories and to catch up on the news of the day.

07:42 - There would have been newspapers in here for people to read as well.

07:47 - So in the lemon House, here in the dining room where we are

07:49 - standing, this would have been a very busy place

07:53 - with people coming in and out throughout the day,

07:56 - and most people didn't have a lot of time to spend here in the lemon House.

08:01 - It was a quick in and out stop, and Mrs.

08:05 - Lemon would prepare a typically a one pot meal, something with meat and potatoes.

08:11 - But if you were stopping into the lemon house

08:13 - and you didn't have a lot of time, you could quickly sit down.

08:17 - You could be served your meal is already warm and prepared.

08:20 - You could eat and continue on your travels.

08:25 - Folks did

08:26 - stay upstairs, but not all the time.

08:29 - If there was a delay where you couldn't make it over the mountains by nightfall

08:34 - or a train accident, you could have stayed overnight in the lemon House.

08:40 - I mentioned earlier about purchasing tickets for travel

08:44 - through different companies.

08:46 - Not every traveler stopped here in the lemon House, as I mentioned.

08:50 - For some folks, it was a quick in and out stop.

08:53 - Some had a planned meal stop here in the lemon house

08:56 - so they would have more time.

08:58 - Sometimes for meals the train stopped

09:01 - and you cooked your meal on the side of the tracks.

09:07 - The state did set speed limits for travel

09:10 - on the level sections of the Allegheny Portage Railroad.

09:13 - On the level sections, you were pulled by

09:16 - horses and later steam locomotives.

09:20 - On the incline planes, you traveled at about four miles per hour,

09:24 - and there was a stationary steam engine inside the engine house buildings.

09:29 - So there were ten incline planes, ten engine

09:31 - house buildings with stationary engines.

09:34 - You traveled about four miles per hour up the incline planes,

09:38 - and at about 18mph on the level sections.

09:44 - Ulysses S Grant, when he traveled

09:46 - on the Allegheny Portage Railroad on his way to West Point.

09:50 - He was talking about that speed and he said

09:54 - that it was traveling so fast it was like annihilating space.

09:58 - A few summers ago, I met a family who had a travel account

10:03 - of one of their ancestors that traveled on the Allegheny Portage Railroad

10:07 - and she wrote that

10:10 - they were traveling so fast she couldn't make out the individual trees.

10:14 - It was like they all blurred together.

10:18 - So this shows us again that this was a new experience.

10:22 - A lot of people had never traveled at that rate of speed before,

10:29 - so it wasn't all cramped conditions.

10:32 - People really enjoyed a lot of things about traveling on this system as well.

10:37 - The beautiful scenery of Pennsylvania.

10:39 - A lot of people remarked about the wilderness here and how beautiful

10:45 - this area was, and they really enjoyed going through the different towns.

10:50 - And again, it would have been a nice opportunity

10:52 - to meet different people as well.

10:56 - Thank you for learning about what it was like to travel

10:59 - on the Allegheny Portage Railroad.

11:01 - I invite you here to Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site.

11:05 - We have a visitor center with an orientation film and exhibits.

11:10 - We also have an engine house, six exhibit shelter.

11:14 - You can get a feel for what the machinery would have been like

11:17 - inside the engine House buildings.

11:19 - And you can visit the lemon House tavern.

11:22 - We do have events that take place throughout the year.

11:27 - and we invite you to visit our website to learn more about our operating hours

11:32 - and events that we have planned for you here at the park.

11:36 - Thank you, and we hope to see you here at the Park.