When this uprising was suppressed, as in less than a year it was, an exodus of the dissatisfied classes began and continued as people could get ready for their passage over the Hudson and into the wilderness of what was then the Far West, reaching by way of the Mohawk Valley even to Lake Erie itself, and up the eastern shore of Lake Ontario to the St. Lawrence. Washington Irving was evidently familiar with the appear ance of such migrations from early boyhood, and gives a lively picture in his K nickerbocker's H ist ory of N ew York (though somewhat distorted for purposes of burlesque entertainment), of the way in which the Yankees moved westward, ac companied by their families, and with all their belongings packed away in covered wagons drawn by jaded horses or toiling oxen.