In 2019, I retraced the steps of Archer Alexander as he was brought from Virginia to Missouri, with his wife Louisa, and his son Wesley. They had spent over eight weeks traveling over 1,000 miles, a trip that can be made today in less than 11 hours.
I had located the journal of William M. Campbell who had made the journey giving all of the locations they had stopped. While the Journal tells about all of the white families making the journey, there are four familes, it never mentions the enslaved other than to say how many each family is bringing. There are fifty people in the caravan, more of them are black than white.
I travel in company with four families containing about fifty individuals, white and black. The first family is that of Dr. McCluer, his wife (my sister) and five children from six months to thirteen years old and fourteen negro servants. Two young men, McNutt and Cummings, and myself form a part of the traveling family of Dr. McCluer. Dr. McCluer leaves a lucrative practice and proposes settling himself in St. Charles County Missouri on a fine farm which he has purchased about 36 miles from St. Louis. The second family is that of James H. Alexander, who married a sister of Dr. McCluer, with five children and seven negro slaves. Intends farming in Missouri. Third family, James Wilson, a young man who is to be married this night to a pretty young girl and start off in four days to live one thousand miles from her parents. He has four or five negroes. Fourth family, Jacob Icenhoward, an honest, poor, industrious Dutchman with several children and a very aged father in law whom he is taking at great trouble to Missouri, to keep him from becoming a county charge. He has labored his life time here and made nothing more than a subsistence and has determined to go to a country where the substantial comforts of life are more abundant.
There are 38 entries in Campbell’s journal, which begins on August 20, 1829 that you can read and follow the story as one day links on to the next, so that you can follow their journey. Campbell’s journal is located in the Archives at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia and is being shared here so that we may hear all the voices, including those whose voices were not shared originally. The photos were taken by me when visiting Virginia for research and then following the pathway that Campbell shares in his journal. Please keep in mind the context of the time in which this journal was written. Feel free to share your comments directly on this blog.
START YOUR JOURNEY HERE… https://archeralexander.blog/2021/08/20/from-virginia-to-missouri/
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Below are some photos
ARCHER ALEXANDER 
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