Where and when?

There was a good bit of trade in the colonies- grain, timber to towns from farms, finished goods from towns to farms. A farmer traveling with a wagon load of grain from Springfield Massachusetts to Boston in 1740? Or from Easton Maryland to Salisbury? There would be little point to be armed in such a long-settled area.. But from Cresaptown Maryland to Hagerstown in 1755, at the start of the French and Indian War, there might well be a need to travel in an armed group. And there was always simple irrational human fear. In 1795 travelers expecting to claim lands in the new territories like Tennessee and Kentucky would often travel in large groups and carry guns, even swords for protection: even though there was, by that time, few robbers and little resistance by Native Nations.

But whether it was a musket, trade gun, rifle or fowler ( shotgun) any long arm would be somewhere between 8 and 10 pounds. A burden, but not a ridiculous one. Travel might be by foot, or horseback, or wagon. Colonial roads were notoriously terrible, so wagons and carriages and their passengers often had a hard time. One traveler on the Great Valley Road in the Shenandoah Valley had his carriage battered apart after a few days, sold the wreckage of parts to a blacksmith and continued on horseback, and almost all travelers would complain of the damage from being rattled around by the rocky, rutted roads..