author
Margaret Van Horn Dwight
1790–1834
A sharp-eyed New England traveler, she left behind one of the most vivid firsthand accounts of an early American journey west. Her journal turns rough roads, crowded taverns, and everyday frustrations into lively, memorable reading.
1 Audiobook
A Journey to Ohio in 1810, as Recorded in the Journal of Margaret Van Horn Dwight
by Margaret Van Horn Dwight
About the author
Born on December 29, 1790, Margaret Van Horn Dwight came from a prominent New England family. She was the daughter of Dr. Maurice William Dwight, and her journal later became known to readers through A Journey to Ohio in 1810.
That journal records her overland trip from New Haven to Warren, Ohio, offering a personal view of travel in the early United States. What makes her writing stand out is its candor: she notices bad roads, uncomfortable lodgings, and the small details of daily life with humor and honesty.
Dwight died in 1834, but her journal has endured because it captures history at ground level. Rather than presenting the frontier in grand terms, she shows what such a journey actually felt like for one intelligent, observant young woman.