Neither rain nor hail nor . . . the Great Black Swamp . . .

Benoni Adams, an early resident of Columbia, and who later married Sally Bronson after Bela's death, contracted, in 1808, to carry the mail on foot from Cleveland to Maumee, Ohio. In those days a swamp -- the Great Black Swamp -- stretched from northwest Ohio to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and down to Findlay, Ohio and up into southern Michigan. In the History of Lorain County, the story is told: The only habitations of white men on his route were those of Nathan Perry, at the mouth of Black river, and a Frenchman at Milan. Two weeks were usually consumed in making the trip. He lost his way on one occasion, and failed of reaching the end of his journey within the required time, and his pay was withheld for that trip. Sometimes the streams were swollen to such a degree that he was compelled either to travel a long distance to find a place through which he could wade, or to construct a raft with which to cross. His route lay through the Black Swamp, the passage of which, from its extent, could not be made in a single day, and he was obliged to spend a night in the woods, usually making his bed on the trunk of a fallen tree. Says Dr. Bronson, whose mother subsequently became the wife of Mr. Adams, "I have heard him say he has traveled the swamp when the water was half-way to the knee, and he was obliged to break the ice the whole forty miles."

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