I was driving on some sloppy, muddy dirt roads after we got some snow melt this weekend, and it occurred to me that snow sled travel may have been easier under certain circumstances as compared to wagon wheels. Was there any sentiment of this among travelers before automotives, that the snow was a welcomed sight because of the ability to travel smoothly by horse and sled over it, as opposed to a bumpy trail by wheel?
Were there any routes that were impassable by wagon in the summer, or too difficult, that became passable by horse and sled in the winter?
A couple of months ago a local historian presented a talk on the "Good Roads" movement - this topic was covered in the talk.
Roads in early America were pretty awful. Throughout most of the 18th and 19th centuries, local roads were managed by local individuals, not by any central authority (they were called "pathfinders" in some areas of the country, in others they were called "road overseers"). For the most part, these were appointed positions. Roads were seen as an "agricultural" problem - they fell under the purview of the farmers that owned the land that bordered them.
When land was initially platted out, it was divided into sections - these form the basis for the US plat system today. Farms were laid out along these section lines, and a 25 or 30 foot swath was cleared alongside the lines - stumps were cut to below wagon axle height, brush and rocks were cleared away. Farmers would travel along these swaths, and eventually they'd be a wagon trail and then a road.
Farmers made terrible road builders and maintainers: they tended to be very territorial about them (since they considered the roads to be on "their land"), they had no knowledge of underlayment or roadbuilding techniques, water drainage, or what materials to use.
Precipitation (of just about any type) turned roads into mud pits. Farmers "repairing" the roads usually just filled in the pits and ruts with dirt - which is a mud pit waiting to happen at the next rain.
It wasn't uncommon for horses to get mired in mud up to their chests at some points in the year. Warnings were often given to travelers to stay away from roads that had been recently repaired... because they were usually worse than roads that hadn't.
So the roads were pretty bad. Here in Michigan farmers just didn't go anywhere in March - the roads were impassable, the fields were wet, and there wasn't a good way to get to a destination easily.
So, during the winter months - absolutely yes, farmers and travelers would use sleighs or cutters to get to town and back, usually avoiding the roads altogether, crossing fields, lakes and rivers to get to town in the most expeditious way they could.