The Irony Lurking in Bush's Official Portrait (What a Moran)

[yellowcanine]

8. But is Bush's story true (Methodist Circuit Rider Preacher crossing the Alleghenies)?

From the style of dress of the rider and the way he is riding I don't think so.

Crossing the Alleghenies would have been late 18th - early 19th century. One crossed the Alleghenies to get to to the Ohio Valley, which was then considered "The West." The rider in the picture looks more in the style of "The West" of the later 19th century after the Civil War.

Also the circuit riding preachers likely didn't cross the Alleghenies on horseback. They more likely went the way of most of the other early nineteenth century settlers - by wagon across the Alleghenies and on flatboats down the Ohio River. The rider in the painting clearly cannot be traveling on a long journey as one would be doing crossing the Alleghenies.

It would only be once settled in the Ohio River Valley and places further west that a circuit riding preacher would have been riding his circuit on a horse. And he wouldn't have been dressed like a cowboy and riding his horse at a gallop as is depicted in the painting. A circuit riding preacher generally had about a 6 week circuit, riding nearly every day except Sundays. One didn't gallop with that kind of riding unless you wanted to kill your horse the first day.