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A packhorse, pack horse, or sumpter refers to a horse, mule, donkey, or pony used to carry goods on its back, usually in sidebags or . Typically packhorses are used to cross difficult terrain, where the absence of roads prevents the use of wheeled vehicles. Use of packhorses dates back to the Neolithic period. Today, westernized nations primarily use packhorses for recreational pursuits, but they are still an important part of everyday transportation of goods throughout much of the developing world and have some military uses in rugged regions.
Some routes had self-describing names, such as Limersgate and the Long Causeway; others were named after landmarks, such as the Reddyshore Scoutgate ("gate" is Old English for a road or way) and the Rapes Highway (after Rapes Hill). The medieval paths were marked by wayside crosses along their routes. Mount Cross, above the hamlet of Shore in the Cliviger, shows signs of Vikings influence. As the Vikings moved eastwards from the Irish Sea in about 950 AD, it is likely that the pack horse routes were established from that time.Herbert C. Collins, above, chapters 6 and 9. Keith Parry Trans-Pennine Heritage: Hills, People and Transport (David & Charles, Newton Abbot, London & North Pomfret, Vermont) 1981, chapter 3
Most packhorses were Galloway pony, small, stocky horses named after the Scottish district where they were first bred. Those employed in the lime-carriage trade were known as "limegals".Herbert C Collins, above, p99 Each pony could carry about in weight, spread between two panniers. Typically a train of ponies would number between 12 and 20, but sometimes up to 40. They averaged about a day. The train's leader commonly wore a bell to warn of its approach, since contemporary accounts emphasised the risk packhorse trains presented to others.Gladys Sellers, above, p26. Andrew Bibby, above, p88 They were particularly useful as roads were muddy and often impassable by wagon or cart, and there were no bridges over some major rivers in the north of England.
About 1000 packhorses a day passed through Clitheroe before 1750,Sue Hogg Marsden & Delph to Howarth & Oxenhope-Bridleway Rides in the South Pennines (Pennine Packhorse Trails Trust, Todmorden) 1998 and "commonly 200 to 300 laden horses every day over the River Calder (at a ford) called Fennysford in the King's Highway between Clitheroe and Whalley".Report of Quarter Sessions, 1632, cited by Herbert Collins, above, p163 The importance of packhorse routes was reflected in jingles and rhymes, often mnemonic of the routes.Both Collins, at p.81, and Parry at p.31, above, quote in full the Long Causeway jingle, which starts Brunley (Burnley) for ready money
As the need for cross-Pennine transport increased, the main routes were improved, often by laying stone setts parallel to the horse track, at a distance of a cartwheel. They remained difficult in poor weather — the Reddyshore Scoutgate was "notoriously difficult" — and became insufficient for a developing commercial and industrial economy. In the 18th century the first canals were built in England and, following the Turnpike Act 1773, metalled roads. They made the ancient packhorse routes obsolete.See Parry, above, chapters 5-8 Away from main routes their use persisted into the 19th century, leaving a legacy of paths across wilderness areas called packhorse routes, roads or trails and distinctive narrow, low-sided stone-arched , for example at Marsden near Huddersfield. The Packhorse is a common public house name throughout England. During the 19th century, horses that transported officers' baggage during military campaigns were referred to as "bathorses", from the French bat, meaning packsaddle.
By the 1790s the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company was shipping Anthracite from Summit Hill, Pennsylvania, to cargo boats on the Lehigh River using pack trains in what may be the earliest commercial mining company in North America. Afterwards in 1818−1827 its new management built first the Lehigh Canal, then the Mauch Chunk & Summit Hill Railroad, North America's second oldest which used mule trains to return the five ton coal cars the four hour climb the nine miles back to the upper terminus. Mules rode the roller-coaster precursor on the down trip to the docks, stables and paddocks below. The same company, as did its many competitors made extensive use of sure footed pack mules and donkeys in coal mines, including in some cases measures to stable the animals below ground. These were often managed by 'mule boys', a pay-grade up and a step above a breaker boy in the society of the times.
As the nation expanded west, packhorses, singly or in a pack train of several animals, were used by early surveying and explorers, most notably by , "mountain men", and gold Prospecting who covered great distances by themselves or in small groups. Packhorses were used by Native American people when traveling from place to place, and were also used by traders to carry goods to both Indian and White settlements. During a few decades of the 19th Century, enormous pack trains carried goods on the Old Spanish Trail from Santa Fe, New Mexico, west to California.
On current United States Geological Survey maps, many such trails continue to be labeled pack trail.
In the third world packhorses, and donkeys to an even greater extent, still haul goods to market, carry supplies for workers and do many of the other jobs that have been performed for millennia.
In modern warfare, pack mules are used to bring supplies to areas where roads are poor and fuel supply is uncertain. For example they are a critical part of the supply chain for all sides of the conflict in remote parts of Afghanistan.
Loading of a packhorse requires care. Weight to be carried is the first factor to consider. The average horse can carry up to approximately 30% of its body weight. Thus a horse cannot carry more than . A load carried by a packhorse also has to be balanced, with weight even on both sides to the greatest degree possible.
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