Conestoga Wagon

In the decade before the American Revolutionary War, the Mackey family, my ancestors, sold their farm in central Pennsylvania, loaded their belongings into their wagon and travelled on the Great Pennsylvania Wagon Road to western North Carolina, a journey of over 500 miles (850 km) to start a new life on the frontier. Their wagon was probably a Conestoga, the most common type of freight hauler in the colonies at the time. The typical Conestoga was 18 feet long (5.5 m), 8 feet 3 inches wide at the hubs (2.5 m) and 11 feet high (3.4 m). It weighed about 12,000 pounds (5,400 kg) and had a cargo capacity of five tons (4.5 metric Tons). These wagons were typicaly pulled by a team of six or seven strong horses. The distinctive curved shape of the cargo box was designed to prevent the cargo from shifting on the primitive roads of the time. The wagons were not cheap: the cost of a Conestoga in the 1770’s was about $250.00 or $5,600 in today’s money. Horses and tack cost another $1,200 ($36,300 current value.) This model is based on the drawings of Donald W. Holst in Conestoga Wagons in Braddock's Campaign, 1755, by Don H. Berkebile, Smithsonian Institution, 1959. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29653/29653-h/29653-h.htm