It is doubtful if any more ancient accounts of traveling across New Jersey can be found than the following, extracted from the journals of John Burnyeate and George Fox, distinguished members of the Society of Friends; in company with them were Robert Withers, George Patison and others, some of whom returned by the same route a few months afterwards. These noted Quaker preachers left Maryland in the latter part of February, 1672, and arrived at New Castle, Delaware, about the first of March. From thence Burnyeate gives the following account of their journey across the State to Middletown:

"We staid there (New Castle) that night, and the next day we got over the river (Delaware). When we got over we could not get an Indian for a guide, and the Dutchman we had hired would not go without an Indian, so we were forced to stay there that day. The next day we rode about to seek an Indian, but could get none to go; but late in the evening there came some from the other side of the town, and we hired one, and so began our journeying early the next morning to travel through the country, which is now called New Jersey; and we travelled we supposed nearly 40 miles. In the evening we got to a few Indian wigwams, which are their houses; we saw no man, nor woman, house nor dwelling, that day, for there dwelt no English in that country then.

"We lodged that night in an Indian wigwam, and lay upon the ground as the Indians themselves did, and the next day we travelled through several of their towns, and they were kind to us, and helped us over the creeks with their canoes; we made our horses swim at the sides of the canoes, and so travelled on. Towards evening we got to an Indian town, and when we had put our horses out to grass we went to the Indian King's house, who received us kindly, and showed us very civil respect. But alas! he was so poorly provided, having got so little that day, that most of us could neither get to eat or drink in his wigwam; but it was because he had it not- so we lay as well as he, upon the ground- only a mat under us, and a piece of wood or any such thing under our heads. Next morning early we took horse and travelled through several Indian towns, and that night we lodged in the woods; and the next morning got to an English plantation, a town called Middletown, in East Jersey, where there was a plantation of English and several Friends, and we came down with a Friend to his house near the water-side, and he carried us over in his boat and our horses to Long Island."

It is impossible to read the accounts of travelling at this early period without being forcibly reminded of the contrast in traveling then and now. Many of the Quaker preachers speak of crossing streams in frail Indian canoes, with their horses swimming by their side; and one, the fearless, zealous John Richardson, (so noted among other things for his controversies with "the apostate George Keith") in substance recommends, in traveling across New Jersey, "for safety, travellers' horses should have long tails." The reason for this singular suggestion was that in crossing streams the frail canoes were often capsized, and if the traveller could not swim, he might probably preserve his life by grasping his horse's tail. Mr. Richardson describes how one man's life was preserved by this novel life preserver; in this case the life-preserver being the long tail of Mr. R.'s own horse; and in commenting upon it he quaintly observes "that he always approved horses' tails being long in crossing rivers."

Long before Fox and Burnyeate crossed the state. the whites, particularly the Dutch, frequently crossed our state by Indian paths, in going to and fro between the settlements on the Delaware and New Amsterdam (New York), though they have left but meagre accounts of their journeyings, and there are strong probabilities that the Dutch from New Amsterdam, after furs and searching for minerals, crossed the state as far as Burlington Island, Trenton, and points far up the Delaware from forty to fifty years before the trip of these Quaker preachers.

That their journeyings were not always safe, is shown in the following extract of a letter written by Jacob Alricks, September 20th, 1669:

"The Indians have again killed three or four Dutchmen, and no person can go through; one messenger who was eight days out returned without accomplishing his purpose."

The next day he writes:

I have sent off messenger after messenger to the Manhattans overland, but no one can get through, as the Indians there have again killed four Dutchmen.

At the time of writing these letters Alricks resided in Delaware, and they were addressed to the Dutch authorities at New York.