m a I E> hahy OF THE U N IVLRS ITY Of ILLINOIS ^_ itUMU HKfOtKRL- SUinV 2 '*£* , • - . ■ • * I * WINTER IN THE WEST. BY A NEW-YORKER. Where can I journey to your secret springs, Eternal Nature ? Onward still I press, Follow thy windings still, yet sigh for more. GOETHK. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. NEW-YORK: PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NO. 8 2 CLIFF-STREET. 18 35. [Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1835, by Charles F. Hoffman, in the Office of the Clerk of the Southern District of New-York.] re . ?/7.7 CJ PREFACE. Several of these letters have already appeared in the New- York American; — the favourable reception they have met with has induced the writer to complete the series and publish them in the present form. In preparing them for publication, he has thought proper to illustrate some of the facts contained in them, by observations de- rived from other sources or made subsequent to their date. These additions the author has preferred to place in an appendix, rather than imbody them with the ori- ginal matter, as he feared that whatever attraction his sketches of scenery and manners might possess would evaporate upon throwing them into a different form, and their chief merit as first and faithful impressions would be lost. The eloquent writings of Mr. Flint, the graphic sketches of Judge Hall, and the valuable scientific re- searches of Mr. Schoolcraft, Professor Keating, and the lamented Say, have already made the regions described in these pages well known to the public ; but there is an ever-salient freshness in the theme of " The Far West," which prevents its becoming trite or tiresome ; and as the author believes himself to be the first tourist who has taken a winter view of scenes upon the Indian frontier, he trusts that this circumstance will impart some degree of novelty to his descriptions in that quarter, while the romantic beauty of the region described nearer home will bear its own recommendation with it. WINTER IN THE WEST. LETTER I. Easton, Pennsylvania, Oct. 17. My dear My journey has not as yet furnished an incident worthy of being entered into the diary of the most unambitious tourist. Still I take the first oppor- tunity of fulfilling the promise given, when starting on the wide excursion I meditate, of writing to my friends from the different stages of the route, and describing its features with sufficient minuteness for those who take an interest in my letters to ac- company their writer in his wanderings. With which of my friends, with whom breathing, my dearest , can I better commence my little nar- rative than with one who will onlv regard its details with the eye of affection — unmindful alike of their want of intrinsic interest, and the unattractive form in which they may be conveyed, so they be but a faithful record of my wayfaring. VOL. I. A S Z A WINTER IN THE WEST. Our route hither from New-Brunswick (or Rougemont, as some one proposes calling it from the colour of the soil) was as uninviting as a rainy, disagreeable day, bad roads, and a country neither fertile nor picturesque could make it. Occasion- ally, indeed, glimpses of the Raritan gave anima- tion to the scene, as, sparkling restlessly between its cold brown banks, it rushes like an ill-matched bride from their dreary embrace to sully its pure waters in the marsh through which it passes to the sea. These glimpses, however, are but transient, and for the remainder of the drive but few natural objects presented themselves to induce one to dis- pute that quaint Indian tradition which avers, that when the Manitou had finished making the rest of this mighty continent, he slapped from his fingers the mud and gravel which form this part of New- Jersey. We reached a straggling village, called Jackson- ville, about nightfall, at a low-roofed unpretending looking stone inn, where we had a capital supper — of which buckwheat-cakes, not quite so large as a New-York grass-plat, formed no mean ingredient — and slept in sheets of snow. To this auspicious characteristic their properties in other respects bore a resemblance, as I afterward discovered, which might readily be dispensed with. I awoke A WINTER IN THE WEST. 3 at dawn, with rheumatic pains in every part of my bones, and found, what had escaped me the night before, that every particle of the covering of my bed was as wet as if it had been transferred at once from the hands of the laundress to my' k bed, with- out undergoing the dilatory process of drying. I was glad to get at once into the saddle, and mount- ing one of the led horses, it took a warm trot of a dozen miles to relax my aching muscles, and make me anticipate my breakfast with any thing like satisfaction. The morning, though cloudy, broke beautifully. The country, as we approached the borders of Pennsylvania, increased in interest. Richly wooded hills, with here and there a fertile slope evincing a high state of cultivation, shone out beneath the fitful sky. The streams from the uplands were more frequent, and their currents flowed with heightened animation. The farm-houses, too, became more substantial in appearance ; and their gray-stone fronts, standing sometimes in a clump of sycamores aloof from the road, betokened the quiet com- fort of their inhabitants. The roads indeed were worse than indifferent — but that, though a sudden rain soon set in, did not prevent our enjoying the clouded but still beautiful landscape. We crossed the bridge over the Delaware to 4 A WINTER IN THE WEST. Easton at about two o'clock, and driving to the famous inn of Mr. White, the Cruttenden of these parts, were soon safely housed in his hospit- able establishment. Having breakfasted at eleven, we ordered dinner at five, and strolled out to see the lions of the place. The roar of a waterfall was the first thing which attracted my notice, and fol- lowing the sound I soon found myself near the great dam over the Lehigh, where, at its junction with the Delaware, back water is created for the sake of supplying the Lehigh Canal. The pond thus formed, which, with its abrupt banks, and frowning limestone cliffs wooded to the top, might almost pass for a small natural lake, is filled with small craft, — the lubberly-looking ark, and sharp clean-built Durham boat, lying moored by the shore, with numerous light skiffs drawn up near them. I easily procured one of the latter, and shooting under the chainbridge which spans the Lehigh, the wind and current carried me in a moment past stone wharves heaped with anthracite coal to the brink of the dam. The sudden slope of the water here had an awkward look about it which reminded me vividly of a peep I once took from a row-boat into " the Pot" at Hell-gate, when its screwing eddies carried the eye with a strange fascination deep into the boiling caldron. Bending heartily to my A WINTER IN THE WEST. 5 oars, I was glad to leave the glassy brim that sloped so smoothly to destruction. The operations of a keel-boat working up against the rapid current of the Delaware next caught my attention. She had four men to manage her — the roughest, hardiest looking set of fellows I ever saw, broad-shouldered and brawny, with complexions like copper, and having no covering to their heads but coarse curly hair, matted so thick that it looked as if the stroke of a sabre might almost be turned by it. The strength and agility of these fellows is very striking, as they stride along the gunwale with their long poles, and twist themselves into all sorts of positions while urging their unwilling craft against the foaming current. After they had gained and passed the lock, and floated into the basin where my boat was lying, I could not help rowing near theirs to examine their iron frames more nar- rowly. I was just making up my mind that such a collection of bold, reckless, impudent faces as were borne bv these worthies, I had never before seen, when my surmises in physiognomy were fully confirmed by a volley of billingsgate which one of them let fly at me. It being perfectly in character I was of course much amused at it, and by gently lying on my oars and looking at him, incensed my amiable acquaintance to a a2 b A WINTER IN THE WEST. degree that was irresistibly ludicrous. I waited till he was exhausted ; and when he wound up by " damning my spectacles," I reflected with Dr. Franklin, that it was not the first time they had saved my eyes ; and mentally consigning the fel- low to the tender mercies of Hall and Trollope, pulled for the berth of my little shallop, and soon after regained my quarters. I think you would be much pleased with Easton. The situation of the village itself is eminently happy — almost picturesque — and the country around it delightful. Imagine a lap of land, not quite a mile square, embosomed among green hills, bounded by two fine rivers and a pretty mill-stream — the straight rectangular streets now terminating with a bold bluff, descending so immediately to their very pavements that its rocky sides, skirted with copsewood, seem to overhang the place, and again either washed by one of the streams that de- termine the site of the town, or facing some narrow ravine which leads the eye off through a wild vista to the open country ; and the remarkably flourish- ing and well-built appearance of the village itself, with its two bridges, and the extensive works of the Morris and the Lehigh Canals adjacent, — and you have almost as favourable a combination of A WINTER IN THE WEST. 7 rural objects and city improvements as could well be effected on one spot. The chief buildings are the County Court-house, situated in a fine square in the centre of the place, and the Lafayette College, which, from a command- ing position over the Bushkill, faces one of the prin- cipal streets. The latter is a Manual labour institu- tion (a term I need hardly explain to you), recently incorporated, and likely to flourish under the ener- getic superintendence of the Rev. Mr. Junkin, its able principal. Easton, as you are probably aware, is celebrated for the rich mineralogical specimens found in its vicinity. The salubrity of the place, as I am informed by an eminent phy- sician, is remarkable ; and one can readily believe in its exemption from most of the fevers of the country, from the fact of there being no woodcock ground within five miles of the Court-house. The site was chosen and the town-plat laid out by Penn, a town-monger who, if he did cut his plans with a scissors from paper, as a recent foreign traveller has hinted was the case with regard to Philadelphia, had certainly a happy knack in adapting the model to the locality. The de- scendants of the great colonizer are still said to own property in Easton, while the peaceful mem- bers of his brotherhood, in our day, bless his S A WINTER IN THE WEST. memory when turning up the jasper arrow-head within the precincts of the village ; and thank Heaven for the teacher whose gentle counsels withdrew for ever from this lovely valley the red archers that shot them. Eagerly as I am now treading on the steps of that fated race to their fleeting home in the far west, with what emotions of pleasure shall I not count every returning mile that will bring me near vou. A WINTER IN THE WEST. LETTER II. Rodrocksville, Pa., Oct. 19. The last red hues of sunset were just dying over the western extremity of the road we had long been following, when a herd of cattle, under the guidance of a woolly-headed urchin, collecting in- dolently around an extensive farm-yard, reminded us alike that it was time to seek shelter, and that one was at hand. A few paces farther brought us to the door of a large stone building, displaying, with the usual insignia of an inn, an unwonted neatness in all its out-door arrangements : un- harnessing our four-footed fellow-travellers, we proceeded, in spite of the threatening outcry of a huge bandog chained at its entrance, to bestow them comfortably in a stable near at hand. . A Canadian pony, with a couple of goats, the com- panionable occupants, seemed hardly to notice the intrusion ; and leaving an active mulatto ostler to reconcile any difficulties which might arise be- tween our pampered steeds and a sorry-looking jade which just then entered to claim a share of 10 A. WINTER IN THE WEST. the comforts at hand, we soon ensconced ourselves before a crackling wood-iire in the comfortable apartment where I am now writing. Every mile of our route to-day has given some new occasion to admire the scale upon which farming is conducted in Pennsylvania. The fences, indeed, are not remarkable for the order in which they are kept ; but while the enclosures themselves are tilled with a nicety which preserves the utmost verge of a field from shooting up into weeds or brushwood, the barns into which their harvests are gathered are so spaciously and solidly built, that they want only architectural design to rival in appearance the most ambitious private mansions. Stone is almost the only material used here in building; and the massive profusion in which not only the barns, but the smallest outhouses upon the premises of these sturdy husbandmen, are piled upon their fertile acres, is such as would astonish and delight the agriculturist accustomed only to the few and frail structures with which the farmers of most other sections of our country content them- selves. The establishment of our host is admirably supplied with these lordly appurtenances in which a true tiller of the soil may so justly show his pride. The huge cathedral-looking edifice which towers above his farm-yard would make as proud a temple A. WINTER IN THE WEST. 11 as could be well reared to Ceres, even by Tripto- Iemus himself. The most picturesque country we have yet seen is that immediately around Easton. Indeed, the first view that opened upon us when gaining the brow of a wooded hill, about half a mile from the town, was so fine as to make us forget the regret with which we had a few moments before bid adieu to our prince of landlords and his blooming daughters. The Lehigh, for about half a mile in extent, lay in the form of a crescent beneath us — a wooded ravine striking down to either horn, and undulating fields, some ruddy with buckwheat stubble, and some green from the newly-sprouting wheat, filled up the curves. A gray stone-barn stood here and there on an eminence against the bright morning sky, while sheltered below on the alluvial flats formed by the river, a white-walled cottage might be seen reposing by its cheerful current. The Lehigh Canal, winding through the valley, side by side with the river, like a younger sister bent on the same errand, added not a little, when viewed at such a distance, to the beauties of the scene. We took our breakfast at Bethlehem, and avail- ing myself of an hour's delay while the horses were feeding, I left my friend puzzling himself over 12 A WINTER IN THE WEST. x a German newspaper, and strolled off to look at the village. It is a place of considerable interest, not less on account of its ancient and peculiar appearance than the Moravian institutions which have rendered it so celebrated. I was fortunate enough to meet with Mr. Seidel, the principal of the female seminary, who, upon my asking him some trivial question about that excellent establishment, offered, in the most polite manner, though I was wholly unknown to him, to show me through the building. It is a plain stone structure, of some eighty feet in length, subdivided internally into lecture-rooms and dormitories like some of our colleges ; one range of small apartments being used entirely as washing rooms by the pupils, and having all the necessary furniture for that purpose neatly arranged about each. These, like every other part of the establishment, have their peculiar superin- tendent, and standing thus distinctly by themselves, form an essential feature in the economy of the in- stitution, and with the extensive play-grounds in the rear of the building, evince the attention which is paid to the health and personal habits, as well as the intellectual improvement of its inmates. I was shown into the school-rooms of the several classes, and had ample opportunity, as the ruddy bright- eyed occupants rose to receive my conductor, to A WINTER IN THE WEST. 13 observe the happy effect of the life they led upon their personal appearance. A fresher, fairer as- semblage of youthful beauty has rarely greeted my eyes. Several of the apartments were fur- nished with pianos, and my curious entrance into these smiling domains startled more than one young musician from her morning's practising. I was, as you may suppose, a little, a very little, confused at being thus exposed to the full broadside gaze of a hundred " boarding-school misses." This, though, however it might forbid my examining their fea- tures in detail, did not prevent me from observing that their general expression was happy and natural — two sources of attraction not so very common in the sex, but that they will still strike one even when displayed, as was the case in this instance, in mere children. I subsequently visited the burial-ground of the place, which I contemplated with no slight interest. The disposal of the dead is as true a test of civiliza- tion in a community as the social relations of the living. The taste which embellishes life passes with the arts attendant upon it, from one nation to an- other, like a merchantable commodity ; but the sentiment that would veil the dreariness of the grave, and throw a charm even around the se- pulchre, that would hide the forbidding features of VOL. I. — B 14 A WINTER IN THE WEST. that formal mound, and shelter the ashes beneath it from contumely — this is a characteristic spring- ing from some peculiar tone of national feeling, and radically distinctive of the community that pos- sesses it. The philosopher, it is true, may sneer at our care of this bodily machine when the principle that gave it motion has ceased to actuate it ; but how stolid is he who can look upon the ruin of a noble edifice, even though made irretiievably deso- late, with apathy : or who would not fence up from intrusive dilapidation halls hallowed, whether by the recollection of our own personal enjoyments or the memory of the great and good of other times. It is one and the same feeling which arrests our steps beneath a mouldering fortress, and which induces a pilgrimage to the tomb of a departed poet: which kindles our indignation against the plunderer of the Parthenon, that "titled pilferer of what Time and Turks had spared ;" and which makes it ready to consume the wretches who tore the bones of Milton from his sepulchre. The calm sequestered privacy of the Bethlehem burial-ground would have satisfied even the partic- ularity of Sir Lucius O'Trigger, whose encourag- ing suggestion to his non-combative friend Acres, "that there was good lying in the Abbey," shows that he had an eye to his comfort in these matters. It A WINTER IN THE WEST. 15 stands aloof from the bustling part of the village, near a noble church, which still faces on one of the principal streets. The approach from the church, which has grounds of its own, in the form of an ornamented terrace around it, is through a narrow green lane. At the entrance of this, shaded by a clump of willows, stands a small stone building called, I believe, from the purposes to which it is applied, " The Dead House." Here the bodies of the dead are deposited for many hours previous to interment. The head is left uncovered, and life, if by any possibility it be yet remaining, has a chance of renewing its energies before the jaws of the tomb close for ever over its victim. I looked through the grated windows, but saw nothing except an empty bier in the centre, and several shells adapted to coffins of different sizes leaning against the wall. With the usual perversity of human nature, I half regretted that the solemn chamber was at the mo- ment untenanted, and passed on to the place of which it is the threshold. There my eye was met by the same neat ap- pearances and severe taste which seem to prevail throughout the economy of the Moravians. The graves, arranged in rows, with an avenue through the centre dividing the males from the females, are in the form of an oblong square, flattened on the 16 A WINTER IN THE WEST. top, with a small slab reposing in the centre. On this are cut simply the name of the deceased, and the dates of his birth and death — a meager memo- rial — but enough : and I could not help — after deciphering a number of these moss-covered^stones, upon which the dews of more than a century had wept — turning with distaste from a few flaring marble slabs at the farther end of the yard, upon which the virtues of those beneath were emblazoned in the most approved modern forms. I left the spot, thinking it a pity that a greater number of trees did not, by shading the grounds, complete their beauty, and felt willing that the young locusts which skirt them round should have time to fling their branches farther towards the centre, before I should have occasion to claim the hospitality of the place. Need I say how truly, until then, I am Yours. A WINTER IN THE WEST. l*f LETTER III. Harrisburgh, Pa., Oct. 22. I write to you from the banks of the Susque- hannah. A dull steady rain prevails out of doors, and after wading through the mud about the pur- lieus of this place for an hour, I am glad to be housed at last for the rest of the day. I see the capital of Pennsylvania under every disadvantage, but still am pleased with it. Although a city in miniature (and this contains only four or five thou- sand inhabitants) is generally odious to one who has resided in a metropolis — reminding him per- haps of Goose Gibbie in jack-boots, at the Review of Tillietudlem — there is much in the appearance of Harrisburgh to reconcile the most captious to its assumption of civic honours. The manner in which the place is laid out and built, the substan- tial improvements going forward, and the degree of wealth and enterprise manifested in those already made, and above all, its beautiful site, make it an exception to the generally uninteresting character of country towns. b2 18 A WINTER IN THE WEST. The chief part of the town lies on a piece of champaign land, about 40 feet above the level of the Susquehannah ; the handsomest street in the place, though occupied chiefly by petty tradesmen and mechanics, verging on the waters of that lovely stream. The other streets run at right-angles to, and parallel with, the river, which is nearly straight, except where it washes the town with a graceful bend near the suburbs of either end. Facingthe Sus- quehannah at the upper part of the town, and only a few hundred yards from the river, is a sudden ele- vation rising into a level platform, about 60 feet above the surrounding plain. Upon this eminence, fronting the river through a broad street, stands the capitol and state buildings, containing the chief public offices. The centre edifice, and one stand- inc detached on either side, are all ornamented with Grecian porticoes, and their size, their simple design, and just architectural proportions, would make an imposing display, and impress a stranger favourably until he ascertained the paltry material of which they are built. But I defy any one, un- less he may have written sonnets to Time in the ruins of Babel, to have one respectful association with a structure of brick. Putting the perishable nature of the material entirely out of the question, although a sufficient objection to its use in a public A WINTER IN THE WEST. 19 building, its size alone is fatal to effect in a structure of any pretension. For it is massiveness in the details as well as in combination, which delights the beholder in architectural forms : and the pyra- mids of Egypt themselves, if reared of boyish marbles, though they might be so ingeniously put together as to awaken curiosity, could never inspire awe. The disciple of Malthus perhaps might busy himself in calculating how many urchins it took — supposing every one in the dominions of Cheops to have contributed his mite to complete the fabric — but where would have been all those ingenious surmises with which antiquarians, since the days of old Herodotus, and who knows how many cen- turies before, have puzzled the brains of their readers ? Where would be that reverence with which mankind in every known age have regarded these monuments of the power of their race in the early vigour of its creation ? Where would be the awe with which we now regard these artificial mountains that rear their stupendous forms in pro- portions that mock at modern art ; and, rivalling in their heaped-up rocky masses the masonry of Nature herself, speak of the labours of a race for whom the Mastodon of our own continent would have been a fitting beast of burden ? What a singular perversion of taste is that exist- 20 A WINTER IN THE WEST. ing in the towns and villages through which I am passing, which induces the inhabitants to make their barns and cow-sheds of solid stone, and their orna- mental buildings of brick and stucco. I sometimes see Gothic churches of the first, and Grecian fronts of the last; and these not unfrequently planted in the midst of a cluster of gray mansions, whose towering gables, huge stone-buttresses, and deep- cut narrow windows make the former show like some pert poplar thrusting his dandy figure among a clump of hoary oaks. Still one cannot but ad- mire the air of comfort — I might almost say of opulence — which prevails throughout the country I am traversing. This, in the village of Reading, through which we passed yesterday, is particularly the case. It has a population of about 7,000 inhabi- tants ; and the numerous coaches rilled with passen- gers which pass daily through it, the wagons loaded with produce that throng the streets of the place, and the rich display of goods and fancy articles in the shops, give Reading a most nourishing appear- ance. It is prettily situated on the Schuylkill, with a range of high rocky hills in the rear ; but its position wants the picturesque beauty of Harris- burgh. Here the Susquehannah is, I should think, full half a mile wide. It is studded with wooded islets, and flows between banks which, though not A WINTER IN THE WEST. 21 very bold in themselves, yet rise with sufficient dignity from the margin, and blend with the undu- lating country, until the arable slopes and sunny orchards are bounded by a distant range of moun- tains. The prospect from the capitol is, I am told, un- commonly fine ; but the thick mist which limited my view to a very narrow compass while walking along the banks of the river an hour ago, has hitherto prevented me from trying the view. I shall visit the spot from which it is to be had in the morning. Yecterday I had, for the first time, the gratifica- tion of hearing a sermon pronounced in German — the common language of this part of the country. I walked some distance through a pelting shower to the church in Womelsdorf; and though the preacher was prevented by sudden indisposition from giving more than the exordium of his dis- course, I was sufficiently delighted with his clear, mellow enunciation, and the noble sound and volume of the language which he spoke in all its purity, to regret most deeply an often-deferred resolution of mastering that manly tongue. One must think more strongly in such a muscular language. I have frequently had occasion to admire the expres- siveness of the German in poetry, when Goethe or 22 A WINTER IN THE WEST. Schiller were quoted by others, but I had not till now a conception of the effect in oratory of that language which gave energy to the torrent of Luther's denunciations, and richness to the flow of Melancthon's eloquence. I listened, it is true, not understanding^, but like one who admires the compass of an instrument, though ignorant of the air that is produced from it. I conceived, how- ever, that I could follow the preacher in his pre- liminary address; and, indeed, the tone of fervid feeling and unaffected solemnity in which it was made would have impressed, if it did not bear along, the most ignorant listener. The congrega- tion, owing to the weather, was but small. The two sexes sat apart from each other, and had a separate entrance to the building We were not aware of this at our entrance ; and as a matter of good taste, my friend and I took our seat among the ladies, when an active master of ceremonies, probably the sexton, insisted upon showing us to another place, and with difficulty induced us to change our situation, after we had once or twice declined with thanks what we conceived to be an officious act of politeness on his part. The young Vrounties appeared to regard our interchange of civilities with particular interest ; and I am half persuaded that had we not struck our flag to the A WINTER IN THE WEST. 23 gentleman-usher just when we did, the womankind (as Jonathan Oldbuck presumes to call the suze- raines of the lords of creation) would have risen to a man (Hiberniee) in our favour, and insisted upon keeping us among them. I shall keep open this letter till to-morrow even- ing, and add every thing I have to say on this side of the Alleghanies — for the present, good-night. October 23. — The rain still continued when I left Harrisburgh this morning, and the view I prom- ised myself from the capitol was not to be had. My disappointment at not having seen more of the Susquehannah is not slight, and the feeling is enhanced by a delicious glance I caught of its waters in the sunlight, as the clouds parted for a moment, just as a turning of the road shut out the view behind us. I almost grew melancholy while recalling with a sort of home feeling the delight with which, years ago, I first beheld its sources, to remember now that it was the last stream running eastward, that I should see for a long time to come. And then those calm, gentle waters, which flow as. smoothly as the verse of him who has immortalized them, once seen are never to be forgotten nor passed again without interest. The Susquehannah has its birth in one of the loveliest of lakes, and bears with it the impress of its parentage where- 24 A WINTER IN THE WEST. ever it wanders — the bright green surface and transparent depths below, the winding current which, unbroken by cascade or rapids, whether it steals through the rich fields and beautiful glens of Otsego, or smiles on the storied vale of Wyoming, loiters alike beside its fertile banks, as if reluctant to pass them on its long journey to the ocean. For grandeur of scenery, indeed, the Hudson far sur- passes it ; and where is the stream that can match that lordly river ! But there is a gentle beauty about the Susquehannah which touches without striking, and wins while vou are unawed. The one, like a fair face lit up with glorious intellect, commands and exacts your homage; with the other, as with features softened with tenderness, you leave your heart as an offering. We are now, you will observe, on the main road from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, and as our stopping- places, instead of being in those mongrel establish- ments, half inn, half farm-house, will probably be at the stage-coach offices along the route, but little opportunity will offer for observing the manners of the residents. Thus far I have no reason to complain of the want of civility of the people among whom I have passed the last week ; with the exception of the amusing little incident detailed in my first letter, not a circumstance has occurred to qualify A WINTER IN THE WEST. 25 this remark. The general appearance of the coun- try east of the mountains, you have already gathered from the two previous letters. Latterly we have travelled so continually in the rain that I have had no opportunity of seeing it to advantage. But the only change I observe in the face of the country is that, instead of being broken up into small hills, where forest and cultivation are most happily mingled— as around Bethlehem — the vales here spread out into plains, and the high grounds reced- ing, swell off till they show like mountains in the distance. I miss, too, those fine barns upon which I have dwelt w T ith so much pleasure; nor do the better fencing and spruce-looking dwelling-houses compensate for the loss of the imposing appearance of such huge granaries in an agricultural country. I thought, when first observing the change, and marking the herds of cattle and droves of sheep that sometimes throng the roads, that we had got at last completely into a grazing region. But the delicious wheat-bread met with at the humblest inns, with the little stock to be seen in the fields seems to indicate that such is not the case. It seems odd in a country so thickly settled, where one meets a hamlet at every two or three miles, with scattering houses at frequent intervals be- tween them, that wild animals should be yet abun- VOL. I. C 26 A WINTER IN THE WEST dant. But I was told at Bethlehem that it was not uncommon to kill bears upon the neighbouring hills ; and a gentleman informed me this morning that they frequently drove deer into the Susque- hannah, within a few miles of Harrisburgh. I can account for it only by the fine forests which are everywhere left standing isolated in the midst of cultivated tracts, making so many links in the chain of woodland from mountain to mountain across the country, and tempting the wild animals, while it extends their range, to venture near to the settle- ments. You may be aware that, in New- York, owing to the wholesale manner in which clearings are made, the deer are swept off with the forests that shel- tered them, and retreating into the mountain fast- nesses of the northern counties, or the rude wilds of the southern tier, are there crowded so thickly as to be butchered for their skins. In the former region, while fishing, within a few weeks since, among the picturesque lakes which stud the sur- face of the country, I have seen the deer grazing like tamed cattle on the banks. It was a beautiful sight to behold a noble buck calmly raising his head as the skiff from which we trolled approached the margin ; and then, after standing a moment at A WINTER IN THE WEST. 27 gaze, toss his antlers high in air, and with a snort of defiance bound into the forest. Farewell. You shall hear from me again so soon as we pass the Alleghanies, the first purple ridge of which I can already see limning the sky in the distance. In the mean time, I will note down any thing of interest which catches my eye, and endea- vour to give you hereafter some idea of the lofty land-mark which, before you read this, will be placed between us. 28 A WINTER IN THE WEST. LETTER IV. Bedford, Pa., Oct. 24th, 1833. We have commenced ascending the Alleghanies* A cold, difficult ride among the hills has brought us at last to an excellent inn in the little town from which I write. A blazing fire of seasoned oak in a large open stove, sputters and crackles before me ; and, after having warmed my fingers, and spent some twenty minutes in examining an extensive collection of Indian arms and equipments, arranged around the room with a degree of taste that would not have disgraced the study of Sir Walter Scott, I sit down quietly to give you my first impressions of this mountain region. We entered these highlands yesterday ; S., who values himself upon being a great whip, driving his ponies up the ascent, and I, as usual, on horseback. It was about an hour before sunset that we com- menced ascending a mountain ridge, whose deep blue outline, visible for many a long mile before we reached the base, might be mistaken in the distance for the loftier rampart of which it is only the out- post. The elevation, which showed afar off like a A WINTER IN THE WEST. 29 straight line along the horizon, became broken in appearance as the eye, at a nearer view, measured its ragged eminences ; but it was not till we were winding up a broad hollow, scooped out of the hill- side, and through which the beams of the declining sun played upon the fields and farm-houses beyond, that the true character of the adjacent region opened upon us. The ridge we were ascending still rose like a huge wall before us, but the peaks, which had seemed to lean against the clear October sky, like loftier summits of the same elevation, now stood apart from the frowning barrier, towering up each from its own base — the bastions of the vast rampart we were scaling. Each step of our ascent seemed to bring out some new beauty, as, at the suc- cessive turns of the road, the view eastward was widened or contracted by the wooded glen up which it led. But all of these charming glimpses, though any of them would have made a fine cabinet picture, were forgotten in the varied prospect that opened upon us at the summit of the ridge. Behind, towards the east, evening seemed almost to have closed in upon the hamlet from which we had commenced our ascent, at the base of the mountain ; but beyond its deepening shadow, the warm sunset smiled over a thousand orchards and cultivated c 2 30 A WINTER IN THE WEST. fields, dotted with farm-houses, and relieved by patches of woodland, whose gorgeous autumnal tints made them show like the flower-beds of one broad garden. Southwardly , the sweeping upland which here heaved at once from the arable grounds beneath us, while it swelled higher, rose less sud- denly from the plain. At one point the brown fields seemed to be climbing its slopes, while here and there a smooth meadow ran like the frith of a sea within its yawning glens ; and now again peak after peak of this part of the range could be traced for leagues away, till the last blue summit melted into the sky, and was finally lost in the mellow distance. Such, while our horses' heads were turned to the north-west, was the rich and varied view behind us — the prospect from the Catskills is the only one I can recollect that rivals it in magnifi- cence. But another scene, more striking, though not so imposing, was also at hand, — a ridge like that we had just crossed rose before us ; but be- neath our very feet, and apparently so near that it seemed as if one might drop a stone into its bosom, lay one of the loveliest little valleys that the sun ever shone into. It was not a mile in width, beau- tifully cultivated, and with one small village re- posing in its very centre ; the southern extremity A WINTER IN THE WEST. 31 ■ seemed to wind among the lofty hills I have already attempted to describe, but its confines towards the north were at once determined bv a cluster of high- * CD lands, whose unequal summits waved boldly forth in the purple light of evening. The sun, which had now withdrawn his beams from the scene behind us, still lingered near this lovely spot, and his last glances, before they reached the hill-side we were descending, flashed upon the windows of the village church, and, creeping unwillingly up its spire, touched with glory the gilded vane ; then from the sweeping cone of a pine above us, smiling wistfully back on the landscape he was leaving, yielded it at last to coining night. The descent of the mountain, from its multiplied windings, consumed more time than 1 had antici- pated. The faint rays of a young moon were just beginning to compete successfully with the fading tints of day, before we had neared the village suf- ficiently to hear the lowing of cattle, and the shrill shout of the cow-boy, driving his charge home- ward ; and her maturer beams were softened by the thin haze which rose imperceptibly from a brook winding through the valley, before we reached our destination for the night. The occasional jin- gling of a wagoner's bells in the distance, and the merriment of a group of children playing by the 32 A WINTER IN THE WEST. moonlight in a grassy field near the stream, were the only sounds that broke the stillness of the scene as we drove up to the door. I thought of the happy valley of Rasselas, and wondered whe- ther the inhabitants of this secluded spot could really ever wish to wander beyond its beautiful precincts. The gradual, successive, and delicious blending of lights, as I have attempted to describe them, under which I first beheld the little valley of M'Connelsville, will, doubtless, account for much of my admiration of it ; and indeed some of its features were changed, and not for the better, when viewed under a different aspect the next morning. A sharp north-easter, in spite of the barriers which had seemed to shelter it, drove down the valley ; a cold drizzling rain, with its attendant mist, shut from view the mountain tops around ; and the village dwellings, lining one long narrow street, and now no longer gilded with the hues of sunset, nor standing clearly out in the silver light of the moon, showed like the miserable hovels they were ; the snug stone-house where I had passed the night seemed to be almost the only tolerable building in the village, and I was not sorry to pass its last straggling enclosure, and commence ascending the arduous height beyond. A WINTER IN THE WEST. 33 The summit of this attained, another valley, about double the width of that just passed, lay before us ; and as the rain subsided at noon, leaving a gloomy lowering day, we could discover through the cold gray atmosphere ridge succeeding to ridge, leaning like successive layers against the western sky. A half day's rough ride among these wild ravines brought us at last to the banks of the Juniata, along which an excellent road is cut for some distance. The stream, though in the midst of scenery of the boldest description, keeps its way so calmly between its rocky banks, that the dead leaf upon its bosom floats many a mile before a ripple curls over its crisped sides, and sinks the little shallop to the bottom. We dined near night- fall at a small hamlet, known, from a brook that runs through it, as " The Bloody Run." The stream which bears this startling name is a rill so small that its existence is barely perceptible, as it creeps through the pebbles across the road, and hastens to hide its slender current in the long grass of an orchard beyond; but its waters will be pointed out by the villager with interest, so long as they dampen the channel where they once flowed in all the pride and fulness of a mountain torrent. It was several years before the Revolution, ac- cording to the statement given to me by one of 34 A WINTER IN THE WEST. those distinguished persons who in country towns always figure after a great storm or freshet, as the " oldest inhabitant of the place," that a large party of colonists, on their march towards Fort Du Quesne, were here cut off by the Indians. The ambushed foe had allowed the main body to pass the brook and surmount the heights beyond ; and the rear-guard, with the cattle they had in leading for the use of the troops, were drinking from the stream, when the onslaught was made. The Indians rushed from their covert, and burst upon their victims so suddenly that fifty whites were massacred almost before resistance was attempted. Those who were standing were dropped like deer at gaze by the forest marksmen; and those who were stooping over the stream, before they even heard the charging yell of their assailants, received the blow from the tomahawk which mingled their life's blood with the current from which they were drinking. The retribution of the whites is said to have been furious and terrible. The body of men in advance returned upon their tracks, encamped upon the spot, and after duly fortifying themselves, divided into parties, and scoured the forest for leagues. My informant, who gave me only the traditionary account of the village, could not tell how long this A WINTER IN THE WEST. 35 wild chase lasted ; but that it must have been fear- fully successful is proved, not only by the oral record of the place, but by the loose bones and Indian weapons which are at this day continually found amid piles of stone in the adjacent woods ; the Indians probably returning to the valley after the storm had passed over, and heaping their customary cairn over the bodies of their dead kindred. What a contrast was the peaceful scene I now beheld to that which the place witnessed some seventy years ago ! A train of huge Pennsylvania wagons were standing variously drawn up, upon the very spot where the conflict was deadliest ; the smoking teams of some were just being unharnessed, a few jaded beasts stood lazily drinking from the shallow stream that gurgled around their fetlocks, while others, more animated at the near prospect of food and rest, jingled the bells appended to the collars in unison with their iron traces, which clanked over the stones as they stalked off to the stable. To these signs of quiet and security were added those true village appearances which struck me so pleasingly on my approach to M'Connels- ville. A buxom country-girl or two could be seen moving through the enclosures, bearing the milk- pail to meet the cows which were coming in 36 A WINTER IN THE WEST. lowing along the highway, while the shouts and laughter of a troop of boys just let loose from school came merrily on the ear as they frolicked on a little green hard by. My companion stood in the midst of them, holding a piece of silver in his fingers, while a dozen little chaps around him were trying who could win the bright guerdon by stand- ing on one leg the longest. The ridiculous postures of the little crew, with the not less ludicrous gravity of my friend, who was thus diverting him- self, of course, put an end to my sober musings ; but I could not help, while advancing to the scene of the sport, fancying for a moment the effect of the war-whoop breaking suddenly, as ere now it often has, upon a scene apparently so safe, shel- tered, and happy. — Good-night. P.S. — Somerset, Oct. 2Glh. — You have read in the newspapers of the recent destruction of this place by fire ; it must have been large and flourish- ing, judging by the extensive ruins which I have just been trying to trace by the frosty light of the moon now shining over them. The appearances of desolation here are really melancholy ; the inn where we put up is the only one left stand- ing, out of five or six, and it is so crowded with the A WINTER IN THE WEST. 37 houseless inhabitants that I find it difficult to get a place to write in. We are now in the bosom of the Alleghanies : the scenery passed to-day is beautiful, most beauti- ful. The mountains are loftier, as well as more imposing in form, than those which skirt these wild regions eastwardly ; whichever way the eye directs itself, they are piled upon each other in masses, which blend at last with the clouds above them. At one point they lie in confused heaps together ; at another they lap each other with. outlines as dis- tinct as if the crest of each were of chiselled stone : some, while the breeze quivers through their dense forests, rear their round backs, like the hump of a camel, boldly near ; and some, swelling more gradually from the vales below, show in the blue distance like waves caught on the curl by some mighty hand, and arrested ere they broke on the misty region beyond. Then for their foliage ! the glorious hues of autumn are here displayed in all their fulness, and brilliancy, and power — volume upon volume, like the rolling masses of sunset clouds, the leafy summits fold against the sky — calm at one moment as the bow of peace, whose tints they borrow ; and at another flam- ing like the banners of a thousand battles in the breeze. vol. i. — D 38 A WINTER IN THE WEST. But why should I attempt to describe what baffles all description ? The humblest grove of our country is, at this season, arrayed in colours such as the Italian masters never dreamed of; and woods like these assume a pomp which awes the pencil into weakness. Such forests, such foliage were unknown when our language was invented. Let those who named the noble-sounding rivers that reflect their glories supply words to describe them. Farewell. I shall write to you next from Wheeling, Virginia ; and if you do not think me tedious, will touch again upon the beauties of the region through which I am now passing. A WINTER IN THE WEST. 39 LETTER V. Wheeling, Virginia, October 29th. I used to think our sea-board climate as ca- pricious as it could well be ; but the changing skies under which we have travelled for the last three days convince me that nowhere is the office of weather-cock less of a sinecure than in the region through which I have just travelled. Yet I do not complain of the weather — far from it ; I consider myself peculiarly fortunate in having, during a three days' ride over the Alleghanies, seen that fine mountain-district under every vicissitude of climate; and though the cold has at times been severe — the harsh rains any thing but agreeable for the time — the Indian summer heat almost sultry, and, lastly, the snow most unseasonable, I could not, if I had made my own private arrange- ments with the clerk of the weather, have fixed it upon the whole more to my satisfaction. The still cold frosty mornings gave a vigour and boldness of outline to the mountain-scenery, that extended its limits and heightened its effect. The rains which an hour afterward washed the chan£in£ leaves brightened their tints for the noonday sun which 40 A WINTER IN THE WEST. followed ; and the warm mist of evening imbued the landscape with a Claude-like mellowness that suited the rich repose of evening among the hills. As for the snow, nothing could be more beautiful than the effect of it at this season in the woods. We had two flurries on successive days, each of which, after covering the ground about an inch in depth, was succeeded by a bright glowing sky. The appearance the woods then presented it would be almost impossible to describe to you. Call up in your mind the brilliant and animated effect produced by a January sun shining through a leafless grove, over the fresh white carpet that has been wound among the trees during the pre- ceding night. How do the dead branches smile in the frosty sunbeams ; how joyously does every thing sparkle in the refracted light ! Now imagine the tinted leaves of autumn blushing over those rigid limbs, and reflecting warmth upon the dazzling mantle beneath them — green, gold, and purple, scarlet, saffron, and vermilion; the dolphin hues of our dying woods glistening in the silver shower, and relieved against a surface of virgin whiteness. Let the scene lie, if you choose, among mountains clothed with forests as far as the eye can reach — their billowy forms now sweeping off in vast curves along the sky, and now broken by ravines, through A WINTER IN THE WEST. 41 which a dozen conflicting lights climb their shaggy- sides; or, not less striking, let it be a majestic river, whose fertile islands, rich alluvial bottoms, and wooded bluffs beyond are thus dressed at once in Autumn's pomp and Winter's robe of pride, and you can hardly conceive a more beautiful combina- tion. Such was the aspect under which I crossed the last summit of the Alleghanies yesterday, and such under which I viewed the Ohio this morning. The fine undulating country between the moun- tains and this place, especially after passing the post-town of Washington, on the borders of Penn- sylvania, left me nothing to regret in the way of scenery after crossing the last ridge this side of Somerset. And yet nothing can be more exhila- rating than a canter over those heights on a bracing October day. The sudden breaks and turns of the mountain road open new views upon you at every moment, and the clear, pure atmosphere one breathes, with the motion of a spirited horse, would " create a soul beneath the ribs of death," and re- juvenate Methuselah himself. One must once have been a dyspeptic to estimate to the full that feeling of exulting health. For my own part, however philosophers may preach up the sublimity of intel- lectual pleasures, or poets dilate upon the delights of etherealizing sentiment, I confess that I hold one d2 42 A WINTER IN THE WEST. good burst of pure animal spirits far above them all. On horseback, especially, when life quickens in every vein, when there is life in the breeze that plays upon your cheek, and life in each bound of the noble creature beneath you ; who that has felt his pulses gladden, and youth, glorious indomitable youth, swelling high above manhood's colder tide in his bosom — who would give the rush of spirits, the breathing poetry of that moment, for all the lays that lyrist ever sung — for all the joys philoso- phy e'er proved? This, I know, must appear a shocking doctrine to " the march of mind" people ; but as they are presumed to go on foot, they are no authority on the subject. Apropos of pedes- trians, though your true western man generally journeys on horseback, yet one meets numbers of the former on this side of the Alleghanies. They generally have a tow-cloth knapsack, or light leathern valise, hung across their backs, and are often very decently dressed in a blue coat, gray trousers, and round hat. They travel about forty miles a day. The horsemen almost invariably wear a drab great-coat, fur cap, and green cloth leggins ; and in addition to a pair of well-filled saddle-bags, very often have strapped to their crupper a con- venience the last you would expect to find in A WINTER IN THE WEST. 43 the wardrobe of a backwoodsman, videlicet, an umbrella. The females of every rank, in this mountainous country, ride in short dresses. They are generally wholly unattended, and sometimes in large parties of their own sex. The sad- dles and housings of their horses are very gay ; and I have repeatedly seen a party of four or five buxom damsels, mounted on sorry-looking beasts, whose rough hides, unconscious of a currycomb, contrasted oddly enough with saddles of purple velvet, reposing on scarlet saddle-cloths, worked with orange-coloured borders. I have examined the manufacture of these gorgeous trappings at the saddleries in some of the towns in passing. They much resemble those which are prepared in New- York for the South American market, and are of a much cheaper make, and far less durable, than those which a plainer taste would prefer. Still the effect of these gay colours, as you catch a glimpse of them afar off, fluttering through the woods, is by no means bad. They would show well in a pic- ture, and be readily seized by a painter in relieving the shadows of a sombre landscape. But by far the greatest portion of travellers one meets with, not to mention the ordinary stage- coach passengers, consists of teamsters and the emi- grants. The former generally drive six horses be- 44 A WINTER IN THE WEST. fore their enormous wagons — stout, heavy-looking beasts, descended, it is said, from the famous draught horses of Normandy. They go about twenty miles a day. The leading horses are often ornamented with a number of bells suspended from a square raised frame -work over their collars, originally adopted to warn these lumbering ma- chines of each other's approach, and prevent their being brought up all standing in the narrow parts of the road. As for the emigrants, it would astonish you to witness how they get along. A covered one-horse wagon generally contains the whole worldly sub- stance of a family consisting not unfrequently of a dozen members. The tolls are so high along this western turnpike, and horses are comparatively so cheap in the region whither the emigrant is bound, that he rarely provides more than one miserable Rosinante to transport his whole family to the far west. The strength of the poor animal is of course half the time unequal to the demand upon it, and you will, therefore, unless it be raining very hard, rarely see any one in the wagon, except perhaps some child overtaken by sickness, or a mother nursing a young infant. The head of the family walks by the horse, cheering and encourag- ing him on his way. The good woman, when not A WINTER IN THE WEST. 45 engaged as hinted above, either trudges along with her husband, or, leading some weary little traveller by the hand far behind, endeavours to keep the rest of her charge from loitering by the wayside. The old house-dog — if not chained beneath the wagon to prevent the half-starved brute from foraging too freely in a friendly country — brings up the rear. I made acquaintance with more than one of these faithful followers in passing, by throw- ing him a biscuit as I rode by, and my canine friend, when we met at an inn occasionally afterward, was sure to cultivate the intimacy. Sometimes these invaluable companions give out on the road, and in their broken-down condition are sold for a trifle by their masters. I saw sev- eral fine setters which I had reason to suspect came into the country in this way ; and the owner of a superb brindled greyhound which I met among the mountains, told me that he had bought him from an English emigrant for a dollar. He used the animal with great success upon deer, and had already been offered fifty dollars for him. The hardships of such a tour must form no bad preparatory school for the arduous life which the new settler has afterward to enter upon. Their horses, of course, frequently give out on the road ; and in companies so numerous, sickness must fre- 46 A. WINTER IN THE WEST. quently overtake some of the members. Nor should I wonder at serious accidents often occur- ring with those crank conveyances among the precipices and ravines of the mountains. At one place I saw a horse, but recently dead, lying be- neath a steep, along the top of which the road led ; and a little farther in advance, I picked up a pocket- book with some loose leaves floating near the edge of the precipice. It recalled the story of Car- denio in Don Quixote, with the dead mule and the rifled portmanteau lying a few yards apart, among the rocks of the Sierra Morena ; and we almost expected to see the grotesque figure which so ex- cited the noble emulation of the worthy knight, leaping from rock to rock in the same guise that the admirable pencil of Cervantes has assigned to him. The apparition did not show itself, however ; and we left the pocket-book at the nearest inn, to be disposed of according to the claimants that might appear. These mountains, though occa- sionally thus cut up by precipitous glens, are still by no means rocky — as would appear from the fact of the inhabitants hunting deer on horseback, through woods which would be almost impervious to a pair of city-bred legs. The modus operandi is very simple. The hunters collect in a troop — drive the deer in a circle — and then shoot from the A WINTER IN THE WEST. 47 saddle. You may remember something of the same kind described in Waverley. The soil must in general be indifferent, according to what was told us by the keeper of a turnpike-gate, who claimed to be the father of twenty-seven children ! I asked this worthy paterfamilias if the country was healthy. "Healthy, sir!" he replied, "that it is — healthy and poor — ten people run away where one dies in it." The soil improves much after leaving the mountains ; and we crossed some rich bottom lands when fording the Youghi- oghany and Monongahela Rivers, — the former a branch of the latter, and both fine pebbly streams, navigable at certain seasons of the year. About thirty miles from Wheeling we first struck the national road. It appears to have been origi- nally constructed of large round stones, thrown without much arrangement on the surface of the soil, after the road was first levelled. These are now being ploughed up, and a thin layer of broken stones is in many places spread over the renovated surface. I hope the roadmakers have not the con- science to call this Macadamizing. It yields like snow-drift to the heavy wheels which traverse it, and the very best parts of the road that I saw are not to be compared with a Long Island turnpike. Two- thirds indeed of the extent we traversed 48 A WINTER IN THE WEST. were worse than any artificial road I ever travelled, except perhaps the log causeways among the new settlements in northern New-York. The ruts are worn so broad and deep by heavy travel, that an army of pigmies might march into the bosom of the country under the cover they would afford ; and old Ixion himself could hardly trundle his wheel over such awful furrows. Perhaps I was the more struck with the appearance of this celebrated high- way from the fact of much of the road over the mountains having been in excellent condition. — There is one feature, however, in this national work which is truly fine, — I allude to the massive stone bridges which form a part of it. They occur, as the road crosses a winding creek, a dozen times within twice as many miles. They consist either of one, two, or three arches ; the centre arch being sprung a foot or two higher than those on either side. Their thick walls projecting above the road, their round stone buttresses, and carved key-stones combine to give them an air of Roman solidity and strength. They are monuments of taste and power that will speak well for the country when the brick towns they bind together shall have crumbled in the dust. These frequently recurring bridges are striking objects in the landscape, where the road winds for A WINTER IN THE WEST. 49 many miles through a narrow valley. They may be seen at almost every turn spanning the deep bosom of the defile, and reflected with all their sombre beauty in the stream below. The valley widens within a few miles of Wheel- ing, and the road strikes into the hill-side, whose crooked base it has long been following. It soon begins to be cut out of the solid rock, and the ascent is rapidly accelerated. Above, on the right, the trees impend from a lofty hill over your path, and far below you see the stream, so long your companion, gleaming through a small cultivated bottom, which shows like a garden to the eye; It is girdled by steep hills, and seems, with its single mill and one or two farm-houses, to be shut out from all the w < rid. Advance but a pistol-shot, and you look into the chimneys of Wheeling. The Ohio is beneath your feet. The town lies in so narrow a strip along the river, that, from the ridge on which you stand, you will hardly notice its crowded buildings ; — that first view of the lovely river of the west is worth a journey of a thousand miles. The clear majestic tide, the fertile islands on its bosom, the bold and towering heights opposite, with the green esplanade of alluvion in front, and the forest-crowned headlands above and below, round which the river sweeps away, to VOL. I. E 50 A WINTER IN THE WEST. bless and gladden the fruitful regions that drink its limpid waters, — these, with the recollections of deeds done upon its banks — the wild incidents and savage encounters of border story, so immediately contrasted with all the luxuries of civilization that now float securely upon that peaceful current, — these make up a moral picture whose colours are laid in the heart, never to be effaced : — no man will ever forget his first view of the Ohio. I descended with regret from the elevation which afforded this noble prospect, and plunging into the smoky town below, am now comfortably quartered in the best tavern in the place. I shall remain here only till a steamboat comes along, and will write to you next from Pittsburg. A WINTER IN THE WEST. 51 LETTER VI. Pittsburg, November 3d. I passed an evening most agreeably at Wheeling, with two or three prominent members of the Bar, who were distinguished by that courtesy and cordial frankness which mark the western Vir- ginian. A venison steak and flask of old Tus- caloosa (the relish and flavour of which would have been tocsin to the soul of Apicius, and made Anacreon uneasy in his grave) gave cordiality to the meeting. It was my first introduction into western society, and I could hardly have been initiated undeT better auspices, as I went under the wing of an Ohio gentleman, whose warm hospitality and endearing social qualities, united as they are to distinguished professional talents, seem to make him a universal favourite in this region. The conversation, animated, various, and instructive, would supply material for a dozen let- ters. But the nervous expressions, and almost startling boldness, of western phraseology would lose half its vividness and power when transferred to paper. I found myself, however, catching oc- UBRARY UNIVERSITY OF Ittfffe 52 A WINTER IN THE WEST. casionally something of the characteristic tone of those around me, and my new friends gave so encouraging a reception to each fresh fledged sally, that I live in the humble hope of being able to ex- press myself with sufficient propriety by the time I reach the really outer west, to prevent people from detecting at once the early disadvantages I have laboured under, in living so long in a land where every lip lisps homage to mincing Walker, and each tongue trembles in terrorem of terrible John- son. In that event I may have both scenes and characters to describe, when we meet, such as would now split my pen in telling. Wheeling is one of the most flourishing places on the Ohio. The immense quantity of bituminous coal in the adjacent region, which may be had merely for the dgging, gives it great advantages as a manufacturing place, while the rich back country and favourable position on the river, espe- cially in low water, when steamboats find Pitts- burgh difficult of access, make the town a place of active trade. It lies in two parallel streets, beneath a hill extending along the river, and its smoky pur- lieus, when viewed from within, except to the eye of the man of business, are any thing but attractive. The principal tavern of the place, wherein I lodged, is well supplied with bedchambers, and parlours, A WINTER IN THE WEST. 53 and a comfortable reading-room, where the leading papers in the Union are taken. The attendance too, all the servants being blacks, is very good. Among them, a perfect treasure, in the shape of a genuine old Virginian negro, must not be forgotten. The features of Billy (for that is the name of my sable friend) are an exact copy of those generally introduced into Washington's picture when he is painted with his favourite groom in attendance. I piqued myself considerably upon having discovered the likeness, when I afterward found that the worthy Ethiop had actually been " raised," as he expressed it, in the Washington family. He is a professing member of the Baptist church, and I was much interested, while talking with the newly converted heathen (for such he called himself prior to the "change"), to find how the precepts with which he had lately become indoctrinated assorted with the ideas he had been brought up in as a slave ; re- ligion seemed only to have strengthened the bonds which held him to his master. " This new light," he said, " showed the old nigger" (I give his exact words) " that to whatever station God pleased to call him, there it was good for the old nigger to be." I was told that he was rigidly attentive to his spiritual duties, and as for his worldly ones, I never met with a more thorough-bred and respect- e 2 54 A WINTER IN THE WEST. ful servant. He is amon^ the last of a race once numerous in the Old Dominion* but now fading from the face of the earth. Sero in caslum redeas, and when thy dusky soul takes flight, thy name be im- mortal Billy, let thy statue, carved in ebony, be set up in Hudson's door-way, and a memoir of thy life flare in each intelligence-office in the Union. It was with no slight regret that I parted with my friend S., when stepping on board a pretty steam- boat, called the Gazelle, to take my passage up the river; his foreign travel, and various opportunities, have given him habits of observation which, with a dash of humour and ready flow of fine spirits, constitute a capital travelling companion. His literary tastes are well known to you ; and I should not be surprised if, at a future day, he should dis- tinguish himself as another member of his family has so happily done, by committing to the press a few notes of his wanderings.* I left him waiting for the downward boat, and we parted, promising to meet again in a few months at New-Orleans — each of us in the mean time traversing regions from which the kingdoms and principalities of Europe might be carved out and never missed. The snow of yesterday yet covered the ground, * This expectation has not been defeated, as " Notes on Spain, by a citizen of Louisiana," are among the new publica- tions announced in England. A WINTER IN THE WEST. 55 as we rubbed along the shores of the Ohio ; and those pictured woods, with the morning sun gleam- ing through their tall stems, and glistening on the powdered tree-tops, were indescribably beautiful. The islets, particularly where the hues of the foliage were most vivid, shone like shields of silver bla- zoned with no mortal heraldry. Before noon, how- ever, the sun absorbed every particle of earth's fragile covering. The warm mist of Indian sum- mer succeeded, the river became like glass, every island floated double upon its bosom, and each headland seemed to drop its cliffs against a nether sky. The harsh panting of our high-pressure engine, or the sudden flapping of a duck's wing, as he rose abruptly from under the bow of the boat, were the only sounds abroad. The day so still, so soft, and summery, seemed like the sabbath of the dying year. The evening came on calm and mellow, and the broad disc of the moon slept as quietly on the fair bosom of the Ohio, as if her slumbers there had never been broken by the war-whoop, or reveille, from the shadowy banks around. Having always been a faithful seeker after border legends and traditions of the old Indian wars, I could not help calling to mind a few of those with which my memory was stored, and en- 56 A WINTER IN THE WEST. deavouring to lay their proper venue in the scenes around me. Unfortunately, however, there was no one aboard of the boat who could enlighten me in this respect ; and though particularly anxious to see the spot where the doughty Adam Poe, like another Jack the Giant-killer, vanquished a Wy- andot large enough to swallow him at a mouthful, I could only, by asking the distances, from time to time, along the river, guess at the point, among others similarly associated with romantic adven- ture.* The peculiar scenery of the Ohio has been so graphically described by Flint and Hall, in their various writings upon the West, that I will not detain you by dwelling minutely upon its features. The prominent characteristics of the river, are a clear winding current, studded with alluvial islands, and flowing between banks, which now lie in a level esplanade of several hundred acres, elevated perhaps fifty feet above the water, and again swell boldly from the margin to the height of three or four hundred feet in headlands, which, when the mists of evening settle upon the landscape, wear the appearance of distant mountains ; when I add that an occasional farm-house, with its luxuriant orchards and other enclosures, may be found along • See note A. A WINTER IN THE WEST. 57 the sma" er " bottoms," while the larger ones are frequently enlivened by a bustling village, reposing in their ample bosoms, you have the main features of the Ohio, as I have seen it between Wheeling and Pittsburg. The windings of the river present, at every turn, some of the most beautiful views in the world; but the regular alternations of "bluff" and "bottom" give such a sameness to the land- scape, that unless familiar with the points of the country around, one might be dropped in a dozen different places along the river, and not be aware of a change in his situation. Nature seems to have delighted in repeating again and again the same lovely forms, which she first moulded in this favourite region. We passed Rapp's flourishing settlement, called Economy, during the day, but only near enough to see the regular arrangement of the square brick dwellings, standing about twenty feet apart, on broad streets which intersect each other at right angles ; the factories with their high cupolas, and the thriving orchards, and young vineyards, which stretch along the banks of the river beyond the suburbs. I may hereafter, if I have time to visit it, give you some account of the present condition of this settlement, which belongs to a society organized, I believe, partially upon Mr. Owen's 58 A WINTER IN THE WEST. plan. The site of the town was formerly a fa- vourite rallying- point for the Delaware Indians, under their chief Monahatoocha, whose council-fires once blazed where now the smoke of a dozen fac- tories rolls from the chimneys of the German emi- grant. What a contrast between the toilsome race, whose clanking machinery is now the only sound that greets the ear as you near the shore, and the indolent savage, or laughter-loving French- man, who once stalked along the borders, or danced over the bosom of the beautiful river. "How changed the scene since merry Jean Baptiste Paddled his pirogue on La Belle Riviere, And from its banks some lone Loyola priest Echoed the night song of the voyageur." The afternoon sun shone warmly on the eastern bank of the river, where the increasing number of farm-houses, and occasionally a handsome seat tastefully planted among them, with its hanging garden, not unfrequently kissed by the current of the river, indicated our approach to the city of Pittsburg, — the eastern head of the Mississippi Valley, and the key to the broad region bathed by its waters. Our course lay for a few moments among islands, that seemed to bloom in never- dying verdure, and then, as we escaped from their A WINTER IN THE WEST. 59 green cincture, the tall cliffs of the Monongahela, blackened by the numerous furnaces that smoke along their base, and pierced in various points with the deep coal shafts that feed their fires, frowned over the placid water. It was just sunset, and the triangular city, with its steeples peering through a cloud of dense smoke, and its two rivers, spanned each by a noble bridge, that seem, when thus viewed, a reflection of each other, lay before us. On the right, the calm and full tide of the Monon- gahela, flowing beneath rocky banks, some three hundred feet in elevation, was shaded bv the im- pending height, and reflected the blaze of a dozen furnaces in its sable bosom. On the left, the golden tints of sunset still played over the clear pebbly wave of the Alleghany, and freshened the white outline of a long, low-built nunnery, standing on a sudden elevation back from the river. The dusty city lay in the midst, the bridges springing from its centre terminating the view up both rivers ; while the mists of evening were rapidly closing in upon the undulating country that formed the back- ground of the picture. Truly, the waters have here chosen a lovely spot for their meeting, and it was but natural that such a stream as the Ohio should spring from such a union. Looking backward now I could see that 60 A WINTER IN THE WEST. river, like a young giant rejoicing in its birth, sweeping suddenly on its course, but turning every moment among its green islands, as if to look back till the last upon the home of its infancy. We entered the Monongahela, and disembarked a few hundred yards from the site of the old fort Du Quesne. The river was some twenty-jive feet lower than usual, and giving my baggage to a dray- man in attendance, I ascended the bank, and soon found my way through streets, which, though neither broad nor cheerful-looking, are still well- built, to the Exchange Hotel on the opposite side of the town. Here I am now housed, and, after delivering my letters and looking further about the place, you shall have the result of my observa- tions. A WINTER IN THE WEST. 61 LETTER VII. Pittsburg, November 10th. It was a bright, bracing autumnal morning, as I rode out of Pittsburg with a party of gentlemen, for "Braddock's Field." Our route followed the course of the river ; sometimes keeping the rich bottom on its borders, sometimes ascending a hilly ridge. The height commanded a wide view of the river, now winding between steep hills, whose shadows met as they slept upon its quiet bo- som, now expanding into a small lake, so com- pletely landlocked that it seemed to have no con- nection with the bright stream seen flashing through the meadows farther on. After catching more than one glimpse like this of the landscape behind us, whose sunny fields contrasted beautifully with the dense smoke of Pittsburg in the back-ground, we struck into a ravine cutting the road hitherto pursued at right angles. Winding now through a deep dingle, where the path- side was festooned with vines, we crossed a small brook, and reached the shore of the Monongahela opposite to a broad VOL. I. P 62 A WINTER IN THE WEST. alluvial flat, whose high cultivation and sunny aspect contrasted vividly with the wild and se- cluded dell from the mouth of which we beheld it. The road next led for some distance through a wood on the immediate bank of the river, and then gaining the more public highway, we found our- selves, after passing several comfortable farm- houses, immediately in front of the battle-ground. It is cut up now by three or four enclosures, — the field upon which the fight was hottest lying nearly in the centre, bounded on one side by the road, and having its opposite extremity about a quarter of a mile from the river, with a wooded flat intervening. Beyond this flat is the ford over which Braddock passed. The ground about two hundred yards from the ford rises in a gradual slope for some two hundred yards more, and then swells suddenly into a tolerably steep hill, the sum- mit of which may be half a mile from the river. On the middle slope lies the central field of action, to which I have already alluded. It is seamed with two shallow ravines, or gullies,* which run parallel with each other towards the river, and arc about gunshot apart. '; * These gullies, from having been long subjected to the action of the plough, are now but little more than mere swales, three or four yards in breadth, and as many feet in depth. A WINTER IN THE WEST. 63 In these ravines, concealed by the underwood, and protected by the trunks of trees felled for the purpose, lay the French and Indian force. It amounted, according to the best accounts, to only 500 men,* and was commanded by a subaltern officer, who suggested this ambuscade as a despe- rate expedient to save Fort Du Quesne from the overwhelming force that was about to invest it. The road of Braddock lay immediately between these enfilading parties. It was about midday when he passed his troops over the river in detachments of two hundred and five hundred, followed by the column of artillery, the baggage, and the main body of the army, com- manded by himself in person. The latter had hardly time to form upon the flat below, when a quick fire in front told them that the two detach- ments which had gained the first slope were already engaged. They advanced in double quick step to sustain them ; but the whole seven hundred gave way, and falling back upon the ad- vancing troops, struck panic and dismay through- out the ranks in a moment. The confusion seemed for a while irremediable. Some fired offtheir am- munition without aim or object, and others, deaf to * See note B. 64 A WINTER IN THE WEST. the commands and exhortations of their officers, flung away their arms, and gave themselves up to despair. Burning with the disgrace, and eager to shame their soldiers into better conduct, the British of- ficers advanced singly and in squads among the bullets of the enemy. They were slaughtered in- deed like sheep ; but their men, whose retreat had been partially cut off by the river, rallied at the galling sight. The cool determination of young Washington, who had already had two horses shot under him, and his clothes pierced with bullets, imparted some steadiness to their feelings, and they seemed ready to protract the fight to the best advantage. The madness of Braddock, how- ever, whose weak mind took fire at the idea of receiving a lesson from a provincial youth of three- and-twenty, destroyed every remaining chance of success. He insisted upon his men forming on the spot, and advancing in regular platoon against an enemy which none of them could see. Line after line, they would hardly attain a pace between the fatal ravines before they would be mowed down like grass. But their courage was now up, and though broken, and in some disorder, they at- tempted with courageous pertinacity, to secure each step they gained, by protecting themselves A WINTER 1$ THE WEST. 65 1 behind the trees, and returning the murderous fire of the foe after his own fashion. The military coxcomb who commanded this ill-fated band would not hear of this. He stamped, raved, and swore, called his men cowards, and struck them with his sword. In the mean time, an evolution was being executed in another part of the field which might yet have turned the fate of the day. Capt. Wag- goner, of the Virginia forces, pushed his fine corps, consisting of eighty men, beyond the voice of his besotted commander, to the summit of the hill, with the loss of only three men, in running the fearful gauntlet to attain that position. A fallen tree here protected his brave little force, and en- abled him to rake the ravines, which lay at right angles to his natural breastwork, to great advan- tage. But the Virginians were mistaken by their English friends below for a new enemy, and fired upon so furiously that they were compelled to retreat from their position with the loss of two- thirds of the corps, killed by their misguided com- rades. Thus was the strife protracted for nearly three hours, when the fall of Braddock, after losing 700 men and forty officers, put an end to the blind conflict. Fifteen hundred men, being thrice the number of the enemy, escaped to tell the havoc p2 66 A. WINTER IN THE WEST. of the day, and spread consternation and horror throughout the province. The military chest of the British, containing 25,000 pounds, fell into the hands of the enemy, as did likewise an extensive train of artillery, with ammunition and provisions to a large amount. Among those who perished on this disastrous oc- casion were Sir William Shirley, a son of the Governor of New- York, and Sir Peter Halket,' with one of his sons, and other officers of distinction or promise. Sir John St. Clair and Lieut. Colonel Gage, afterward well known in our revolutionary history, were among the wounded. Many of the officers fell at the first onset ; but Braddock him- self had advanced some distance up the hill when he received the mortal wound, of which he died a day or two afterward. The stump of the tree against which he leaned after being struck is still pointed out in a wheat-field above the high- way. He was carried off by the flying troops, and dying with many others on the march, was buried beneath the road over which his men were retreating. The Letters of Horace Walpole, recently pub- lished, have thrown a light upon Braddoek's char- acter that should put an end at once to all A WINTER IN THE WEST. 67 the forbearance hitherto exercised in comment- ing upon his share in this bloody transaction The misfortunes of the hot and misguided, but high-bred and gallant soldier were to be touched upon with lenity : the selfish rashness and utter destitution of military capacity of the broken-down gambler should be stigmatized as they deserve. Yet it is not from Walpole alone that we learn what a presumptuous blockhead England sent hither to mend his ruined fortunes, at the risk of the best blood in the country ; for, though history has dealt so leniently with his character, the re- cords of those times paint the man in his true colours ; and so gross was his ignorance, and so offensive his pride, that he seems to have been hated and despised from the moment he assumed the command of the forces destined hither. The interest with which I viewed the battle-ground has kept me all the morning looking over a mass of documents relating to those times, and, as they are still before me, I am tempted to make more than one extract. " We have a general," writes the brave and accomplished Sir William Shirley, from the camp at Cumberland, to his friend Governor Morris, at Philadelphia — " we have a general most judiciously chosen for being disqualified for the service he is employed in, in almost every respect. 68 A WINTER IN THE WEST. I am greatly disgusted at seeing an expedition (as it is called) so ill-concerted originally in England, so ill-appointed, and so improperly conducted since in America. I shall be very happy to have to re- tract hereafter what I have said, and submit to be censured as moody and apprehensive. I hope, my dear Morris, to spend a tolerable winter with you at Philadelphia." Poor Shirley ! He never saw that winter. He was shot through the brain at the very commencement of the battle. There is a lively comment on this letter in the well-known reply of Braddock to the prudent sug- gestions of Washington, previous to the battle, when he urged his commanding officer to push an advanced guard into the wood before his main body : — " By G — d, sir, these are high times, when a British general is to take counsel from a Vir- ginia buckskin !" The speech of an Indian chief before the council of Pennsylvania, preserved among the State records at Harrisburg, offers an illustration still more striking. " Brothers," said the sagacious ally of the colonists, " it is well known to you how unhappily we have been defeated by the French on Monongahela : we must let you know that it was all of the pride and ignorance of that great general that came from England. He is now dead ; but . • A WINTER IN THE WEST. 69 he was a bad man when he was alive. He looked upon us as dogs, and would never hear any thing that was said to him. We often endeavoured to advise him, and to tell him of the danger he was in with his soldiers ; but he never appeared pleased with us, and that was the reason that a great many of our warriors left him, and would not be under his command. Brothers, we advise you not to give up the point, though we have in a measure been chastised from above. But let us unite our strength. You are very numerous, and all the governors along your eastern shores can raise men enough. Don't let those that come over the great seas be concerned any more. They are unfit to fight in the woods. Let us go by ourselves — we that come out of this ground. We may be assured to conquer the French." The military counsel and support of this intrepid and high-souled chief- tain would have been heard at least, even if it did not prevail, in the camp of Napoleon. Does it not make you indignant to think how it was trampled upon and insulted by such a creature as Braddock ? One would have thought that the insolent spirit of the London debauchee would have felt rebuked into nothingness before the genius of the warrior of the woods. But let the man rest ; he had that one virtue to which all weak minds bow — courage. 70 A WINTER IN THE WEST. And so had the Hessians that in a subsequent war were bought to fight against us for sixpence a day. May we rather meet, again and again, such brave mercenaries in battle, than be mar- shalled once to the fight by a leader whom even valour cannot shelter from deserved contempt. The field of this celebrated action presents, of course, a very different appearance from what it did when Braddock's followers were here hunted through the forest. It is, however, but a few years since the wood was cut from the side-hill, and traces of the conflict are still occasionallv discovered in the grove along the margin of the river below. I was told, too, that bones and bullets, with rusted knives, hatchets, and bayonets, were sometimes even yet turned up by the plough on the spot where the fight was hottest. The central enclosure was cleared about seventeen years since. It was heavily tim- bered at the time, and they tell in the neighbour- hood that the teeth of the saws in the mills adja- cent were continually broken upon the balls im- bedded in the ancient trees. Quantities of human bones and rust-eaten weapons are said to have been found beneath the surface of the soil, when the plough first invaded this memorable wood. I picked up a bone myself, which my horse's hoof disengaged from the soil; but my A WINTER IN THE WEST. 71 skill in anatomy not being sufficient to determine whether it was even human or not, I returned the mouldering relic to the dust, of which it was rap- idly becoming a part. It was an animated and in- teresting hour's amusement, after our party had taken down the intermediate fences, which were too high to clear, to gallop over the whole battle- ground, and survey it from every point. A prettier spot to fight on never greeted the eye of a soldier. The undulations of the field are just sufficient to exercise a nice military discrimination in the choice of position, while the ground is yet so little broken that cavalry might act on any part of it to advan- tage. The centre of the battle-field would com- mand a fine view of the river, were but a vista or two cut in the wood below ; and even now it offers a beautiful site for a private residence, and would, with the lands adjacent, make a noble park. There are a few superb oaks still standing at the foot of the slope, which might constitute a lawn, and — what must enhance the value of the place with all faithful ghost-believers and pious lovers of the marvellous — the dim form of the red savage, with the ghastly spectre of his pallid victim shrinking before it, it is said, may be seen gliding at times among these hoary trunks. The exorcising light of noon most perversely shone down among them 72 A WINTER IN THE WEST. while I lingered near the spot, but I could fancy that the November wind which sighed among their branches was charged at times with a wailing sound, such — such in fact as an orthodox tree in a perfect state of health would never make of its own accord. Returning home, one of the party proposed stopping at a gentleman's house in the vicinity, where a number of articles picked up from the field were said to be collected. Not a soul of us knew the proprietor of the establishment, and it would have amused you to see the effect produced upon its inmates, — whom I soon ascertained to be a large collection of boarding-school young ladies, — by our formidable descent upon the premises. We were asked into a handsome parlour, and in about fifteen minutes our host appeared. A gentle- man of our number, whose western frankness of manner made him the most suitable spokesman at such an awkward meeting, opened the prelimi- naries, and apologizing for our unceremonious in- trusion, revealed our character as relic hunters. The stranger host, overlooking the absence of u sandal shoon and scallop shell," welcomed us at once with the same politeness that pilgrims have ever received in civilized countries, and regretting that he had not even a remnant to swear by — not A WINTER IN THE WEST. 73 an atom of a relic — sent us home to our supper with appetites considerably sharpened by the dis- appointment. Returning, I diverged with one of the company from the direct road a little, to take a look at the United States' arsenal. It lies on the banks of the Alleghany, and consists, together with the officers' quarters, of a number of handsome brick-buildings, painted cream colour, and so arranged with re- gard to each other as that, in connection with the improved grounds adjacent, they make quite a handsome appearance. It was nearly dark when we got fairly into town, where the dust and smoke, with the rattling of drays along the streets, returning from their day's work to the suburbs, reminded me not a little of my own bustling city at night-fall. There is one sound, however, in the streets of Pittsburg whicA utterly forbids a stranger mistaking them for those of anv other town on the continent — it is the cease- less din of the steam-engines. Every mechanic here, of any pretension, has one of these tremendous journeymen at work in his establishment. They may be purchased for what would be the price of a pair of horses in New-York ; and it costs a mere trifle to keep them in fuel. These machines must do the work of a great many thousand men VOL. I. G 74 A WINTER IN THE WEST. at Pittsburg ; and though I am hardly such a friend of universal suffrage as to think that these substi- tutes for men ought to be represented in the legis- lature, yet, upon my word, they should always be taken into consideration when estimating the popu- lation of the place, which their industrious labour renders so flourishing. " Proud deeds these iron-men have done." A WINTER IN THE WE8T. 75 LETTER VIII. Pittsburg, Nov. 8. There is no place in the Western country, as Judge Baldwin observed, in his address before the Mechanics' Institution of Pittsburg, " which can more justly boast of its small beginnings, its rapid but solid growth, and its future greatness," than this. It is about seventy years since General Washington, then a young man of two-and- twenty, was despatched by Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia to the French commander on Le Baeuf (near Erie), to demand that he should desist from aggression upon the British frontier. The young officer, on his return down the Alleghany, upon a raft made with tomahawks, was wrecked with a single Indian attendant, on an island near the present city of Pittsburg. The situation of the point of land formed by " the forks of the Ohio" at once caught his military eye ; and crossing on the ice in the morning, he examined the position with sufficient minuteness to impress his com- mander with its importance. The spot was soon 76 A WINTER IN THE WEST. after taken possession of by a small colonial force, which in 1754 was easily dispersed by the formid- able descent of the French under Contrecoeur. He came with a thousand men at his back, and floated various munitions of war, among which were eighteen pieces of cannon, in three hundred and sixty canoes, down the Alleghany. The first blow was struck of the old French war, which lost France all her possessions east of the Mississippi. Contrecoeur intrenched himself upon the spot, and the bloody annals of Fort Du Quesne received their first notoriety from this bold in- vader. Thirty years afterward the place, now become known as Fort Pitt began to assume commercial importance from the Indian fur-trade then carried on with vigour from this point. An increase of population ensued ; the extensive coal-beds in the vicinity began to be appreciated ; they indicated the prodigious manufacturing resources of the rising town of Pittsburg. The adjacent country became rapidly peopled, and it was soon the agricultural depot for the rich region on this side of the Alleghanies. The genius of Fulton ma- tured at once the rising fortunes of Pittsburg, and gave her a market for her overflowing pro- ductions. ▲ WINTER IN THE WEST. 77 Situated two thousand miles from New-Orleans, by the aid of steam she supplies the whole of the intermediate region with hardware, machinery and cutlery.* But it is not for this manufacture alone that Pittsburg, though often called the " Birmingham of America," is celebrated. Her extensive glass-works are well known even beyond the Alleghanies ; and this fragile production of her workshops finds its way alike to the borders of Lake Erie and of the Atlantic, and may be met in the elegant mansions of Baltimore and the remote shantees of the Arkansaw. The timber-trade is another great feature in the business relations of Pittsburg ; the boards and scantling measured within the city in 1830 amounted to more than five millions of feet ; of this a great deal was floated down the branches of the Alleghany River from the south-western coun- ties of New- York. The romantic hills of Cha- tauque county supply not a few of the stately trunks which, after being hewn into shape at Pitts- burg, subsequently float the varied products of Northern industry through many a stranger cli- * Bloom-iron, I am told, is brought hither for manufacture from the forges on the Juniata, from Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri ; and contracts are frequently made for $38 per ton to take the blooms at St. Louis, and return them rolled iron. G 2 78 A WINTER IN THE WEST* mate to the rich markets of Louisiana. You will not wonder, therefore, that the freight exported from Pittsburg in 1830 amounted to upwards of 18,000 tons, its imports for the same year being more than 14,000 tons. The city is now, with the adjacent villages of Alleghany-townand Lawrence- ville on the Alleghany, and Birmingham and Man- chester on the Monongahela,the third town in popu- lation, wealth, and importance in the Mississippi valley. Next to its admirable situation, the flourish- ing condition of the place is no doubt to be mainly attributed to the inexhaustible quantities of fine bituminous coal which may be had for the digging in all the adjacent hills. Pittsburg is, however, indebted to the character of her early settlers for her present eminence; they were chiefly me- chanics, enterprising, industrious, practical men ; the improvements they commenced were based upon utility, and every path of trade they struck out led to some immediate and tangible good. The result shows itself in one of the most substantial and flourishing, but least elegant, cities on the conti- nent. The site of the town I have already de- scribed to you as one of the most beautiful that can be imagined. The want of beauty in the place itself is to be attributed entirely to the manner in which it is laid out, for the streets, though by no A WINTER IN THE WEST. 79 means wide, are well and substantially built upon with brick ; and a species of yellow freestone found in the vicinity is coming into use, which, for ele- gance as a building-material, is not surpassed by marble itself. The great defect in the town is the total want of public squares, and, indeed, of an agreeable promenade of any kind ; this is the more remarkable, I might almost say provoking, as Pitts- burg boasts of one spot which, if converted into a public place, would, from the view it commands, be unrivalled by any thing of the kind in the Union, unless it be the Battery of New- York. I allude to a triangular piece of ground, at the con- fluence of the two rivers, at the end of the town. It is the site of the old forts, and commands the first view of the Ohio, and the finest of its waters I have yet seen ; the prospect I have described to you in a former letter. Had but the ancient fortifi- cations been preserved, this would have been one of the most interesting spots upon the continent ; of Fort Du Quesne there remains now but a small mound, containing, perhaps, a couple of loads of earth ; Fort Pitt may be more easily traced, part of three bastions, about breast-high, stand within different private enclosures, and a piece of the curtain, which, within a few years, was in complete preservation, may still be discovered among the 80 A WINTER IN THE WEST. piles of lumber in a steam saw-mill yard. The commandant's quarters, a steep-roofed brick dwell- ing, in the form of a pentagon, is, however, the only perfect remnant of these old military struc- tures. I expected to have seen the magazine of the fort, which I was told was an admirable piece of masonry, and still endured in the shape of a porter-cellar ; but upon arriving at the spot where it had stood but a few weeks before, a pile of rough stones was all that we could discover. In a coun- try like ours, where so few antiquities meet the eye, it is melancholy to see these interesting remnants thus destroyed, and the very landmarks where they stood effaced for ever. Occasionally, too, the works of which every vestige is thus painfully obliterated were, especially when erected by the French, of a peculiarly striking character. The French engineers, who first introduced the art of fortification into this country, were of the school of Vauban, and the enduring monuments they raised were not less noble proofs of their skill than were the sites selected of their high military dis- cernment. There is yet another place in Pittsburg which at some future day should be appropriated as a public square ; a triangular bluff about one hun- dred feet high stretches like a huge promontory A WINTER IN THE WEST. 81 far into the town, and overlooks the whole place. The Pittsburgers, however, I fear, are more bent upon increasing their "fathers' store" than on beautifying the favoured spot in which they dwell ; and it requires all the cordial hospitality of the place to reconcile a stranger to the few city im- provements he sees going forward, in a community so pre-eminent for its individual enterprise. I wish we could lend them our "improving" corpo- ration for a few weeks, — they would be really of service here, and could easily be spared at home ; they might, too, learn more than one thing of the Pittsburgers, and especially how to supply the city with pure water ; we have it here in the greatest abundance. The water is pumped up from the Alleghany by a steam-engine, into a large open basin, situated on an eminence known as Grant's Hill, from the signal defeat of that rash but gallant officer at its base, during the old French war. From this ample reservoir pipes conduct the fluid to every part of the city. A large Gothic cathedral is now about to be erected near the water-works. You remember Grant's fight, as described by Hall, in his beautiful Western Sketches. Grant bivouacked beneath the hill now called after him, and ordering his reveille to beat at dawn; the 82 A WINTER IN THE WEST. French and Indians charged upon him to the sound of his own trumpets, and cut his troops to pieces. His force, I believe, consisted chiefly of High- landers. The skeleton of a young officer, with gold in his pocket and marks of rank about his per- son, was turned up in a field not far distant, a few years since. A western poet, of whose existence I first became aware through a file of the Pitts- burg Gazette (for the use of which, with many interesting facts relating to the adjacent country, I am indebted to the politeness of Mr. Craig, the editor), has commemorated the incident in some verses, among which are the following simple lines: — " One Highland officer that bloody day Retreated up the Alleghany side ; Wounded and faint, he missed his tangled way, And near its waters laid him down and died. 'Twas in a furrow of a sandy swell Which overlooks the clear and pebbled wave ; Shrouded in leaves, none found him where he fell, And mouldering nature gave the youth a grave. Last year a plough passed o'er the quiet spot, And brought to light frail vestiges of him, Whose unknown fate perhaps is not forgot, And fills with horror yet a sister's dream." A WINTER IN THE WEST. 83 On the side of the hill is a place still pointed out as " Grant's grave." I know not why it should be thus designated, however ; for I believe that the worthy colonel, who afterward served in the British armv during the Revolution, never returned to lay his bones in a spot where the spirits of his rashly sacrificed soldiers might have made him un- easy in his grave. There is a more authentic tomb on the western bank of the Alleghany : it is the last resting-place of an Indian, who, as tradition avers, seeing " Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt," shot himself for love ! — an instance of intense re- gard — of passionate devotion to woman which most writers upon Indian character would have us believe could never exhibit itself in " The stoic of the woods." The walks and rides in the environs of Pitts- burg are rendered interesting by a variety of ob- jects, besides the fine scenery through which they lead. A description of the Pennsylvania Canal, which flows on an aqueduct over the Alleghany, and passing through a tunnel of a few yards in length, locks into the Monongahela, on the opposite side of the city, would furnish you with no newer ideas than a description of any other canal. The Nunnery, which is also one of the lions of the neighbourhood, I have not hitherto had an oppor- 84 A WINTER IN THE WEST. tunity to visit, and " Braddock's field" you have already in a letter by itself; so, having now a toler- able idea of the town — with its compact brick dwellings, dingy with coal-smoke ; its natural wharves, where the Ohio rises 25 feet ; its gravelly banks, lined with steamboats and river-craft, and bustling with business operations upon the most extensive scale — you must follow me in my ride of this morning along the Monongahela. The fog and coal-smoke together rendered the atmosphere so thick, even after crossing the bridge over the river to a straggling village opposite, that I verily believe it was only the dazzling sparkle of a pair of queen-like eyes, marshalling me through the gloom, that enabled me to ascend the opposite height with safety. Leaving the rest of the party far behind, I followed their beautiful and high- spirited owner up a windng path, where our horses, after sinking to their fetlocks in the clayey soil, would slip half a pace backward at every step, and gained at last an elevation nearly five hundred feet above the level of the river, where, to my surprise, instead of a sudden descent upon the opposite side, the eminence continued rising in a succession of fertile fields, until the last green slope was ter- minated by a distant wood. We rode along the edge of the precipice for a mile or two, and from A WINTER IN THE WEST. 85 the state of the atmosphere on the side towards the town, you can conceive nothing more singular than the effect of the scene below. Imagine your- self standing on Weehawk Height, with your own city brought immediately beneath your feet, the whole landscape bright and clear above, and a cloud so impervious below that not an object can be discerned at five yards' distance. The gulf seems unfathomable. The hoarse jar of machinery comes upon the ear like the groans of a nether world ; and the lurid flame which ever and anon shoots from some furnace athwart the gloom shows like the penal element itself. But now the noon- day sun has pierced into that murky glen, — the fog begins to rise, — a gilded spire glances here and there in the broad sunshine, and some tall head- land stands greenly out from the silver veil that wraps its base ; the banner from yonder arsenal floats gayly forth in the warm air ; and as the flaky mist rolls more rapidly up the river, begins to stream upon the freshening breeze. The rivers themselves can now be traced far away, with many a dewy island stealing out, one by one, upon their bosom. Beneath, a bustling city seems as if it had sprung at once to life, while the quiet farm- houses slowly appear upon the sleeping fields beyond. VOL. I. H 86 A WINTER IN THE WEST. This single view is worth a journey to Pitts- burg. I took an opportunity, while a lady of the party stopped to visit a pensioner in a cottage by the road-side, to examine a coal-pit just beneath the brow of the hill. Dismounting on a small plat- form some two hundred feet above the river, from which a railway empties the coal into the coke- kilns upon its bank and the freight-boats upon the shore, I entered an aperture in the rock, about six feet in height and four in breadth. A guide pre- ceded me with a candle, and after penetrating under his escort a few hundred yards, I turned aside to explore some of the adjacent shafts : they lie like the streets of one main avenue, — the veins of a grand artery, which, after winding through the body of the hill, for the distance of half a mile, finds its way again to the light. In one of these cavernous passages, in a ledge of the rock, lay a sleeping man, the water trickling from the black walls around was the only sound to disturb his slumbers ; a long- wicked candle stuck in a crevice above his head, shining over thickly-matted locks, and features begrimmed with coal-dust, revealed a figure of gigantic mould. The mattock on which his ponderous arm reposed told that it was only a miner at his noonday nap ; but he might have been ▲ WINTER IN THE WEST. 87 mistaken, by one coming suddenly upon his singular place of repose, for a slumbering Titan, who, though pent within such narrow confines, might yet shake the mountain piled upon him to its base. Our route now, after leading still farther along the height, commanding at every step some new view of the town and the adjacent country, with the three rivers seaming its bosom, struck at last into a fine wood, and then descending suddenly into a romantic dell, followed a small stream which soon led us back to the Ohio. Here, again, might be traced a display of French taste, which, when the fabric was entire, must have been ex- ceedingly beautiful. It was the remains of a mill- dam constructed by the officers of Fort Du Quesne, according to the most approved rules of the time, like a perfect fortification ; a part of the curtain, with traces of some of the bastions, yet reward the eye of the curious. At the mouth of the glen we paused to look at a salt factory ; and then crossing a bridge over the brook, we passed by a steel factory, and several coke-kilns, situated along the base of the cliff, from the summit of which I had recently looked down upon and ad- mired the scene below. 99 A WINTER IN THE WEST. The embouchure of the Monongahela was at hand, and stepping on board of a small horse-boat at the point where that river loses itself in the Ohio, I soon terminated on the opposite side one oi the most delightful rides I can recollect to have taken, A. WINTER IN THE WEST. 89 LETTER IX. Cleaveland, Ohio, Nov. 15. I took my passage in the stage-coach for this place early in the evening three days since, and having at a late hour bade adieu to more than one whose friendship I trust will not be the less enduring that it was made in so brief a space of time, retired to my chamber to catch a nap before my morning's ride. The clock was striking three, when at the call of the porter I rose and descended to the bar-room. The attentive landlord, himself in waiting, was ruminating before a large coal-fire ; and stretched upon the floor in a corner lay the tired domestic, who, having just fulfilled a part of his duty, in awakening the various passengers, was catching a dog-nap before the stage-coach should drive to the door. The flavour of last night's pota- tions still hung around the scene of so many sym- posia, and the fragrance of more than one recently smoked segar stole, charged with the aroma of whis- key, upon the senses. Cold as it was, I was not sorry to snuff a less scented atmosphere, as each stage h2 90 A WINTER IN THE WEST. that passed the house in succession hurried me vainly to the door. My own proper vehicle came at last, and by the light of the stage lamps, — the only ones, by-the-by, which shone through the sleeping city, — I climbed to the coachman's box, and took the traveller's favourite seat by his side. It was as dark as Erebus when we crossed the bridge over the Alleghany, and looking back when we had passed the gate and were turning into the village, I could distinguish nothing of the city opposite but the red glare of a furnace which shot out from the bank of the river, and glowed an in- verted pyramid of light upon its waters. Keeping on our way, the massive walls of the state-prison, with their circular towers and octangular area, frowned like some old Moorish castle over our path, as we drove beneath their dun-coloured bat- tlements, and passed the last environs of Pittsburg. It was, I confess, with some soberness of spirit that I bade a last adieu to a spot where the polite- ness and hospitality of the inhabitants had made my time pass so pleasantly. I must, however, have been de trop among my new acquaintances, had I remained much longer : for in Pittsburg every one is so occupied with business, that the time bestowed in attentions to a stranger is a sacrifice of some importance. I have since been A WINTER IN THE WEST. 91 much vexed to find, in looking over my papers here, that a letter of introduction, from a most flattering source, to the U. S. officer now com- manding at Pittsburg, escaped me entirely. I was chagrined the more, inasmuch as I should have liked both to visit the arsenal, and to make the acquaint- ance of the valued officer who has charge of it. I had not, however, this reflection to annoy me as, wrapped up warmly, I rode along, watching the cheerful dawn, streaking the east with pen- cillings of light, and dappling with ruddy rays the broad bosom of the Ohio. As the morning gradu- ally broke, I discovered that the banks of the river presented a different appearance from what thev did when I sailed along them ten days before. The November winds had been at work in the woods. The gorgeous panoply of autumn no longer hung on the forest. The trees stood bare in the growing sunlight, and the thick-strewn leaves rustled to the tread of the gray squirrel that leaped from the naked boughs, by the road- side. We stopped to breakfast at a low log-built shantee, within a stone's throw of the river, and being asked into a narrow chamber, half-parlour, half-kitchen, I had for the first time an opportunity, as we collected around the breakfast table, to sur- 92 A WINTER IN THE WEST. vey my fellow-passengers. They were chiefly plain people, small farmers and graziers, returning perhaps from market, where they had been to part with their produce. Their manner, like most of our countrymen of the same class, was grave and decorous at table, to a degree approaching to solemnity, though they ate with the rapidity char- acteristic of Americans at their meals. The cere- mony of the board commenced by the oldest man in the company taking a beef-steak before him, and cutting it into small pieces with his own knife and fork. He then passed the dish around to each, and finally, when all were served, helped himself. The bread was in the same way circulated by the youngest of the company, and then, each having as fair a start as his neighbour, we all fell to work with a lustihood that would have done beef- eating Queen Bess good to witness. The ap- petites of those present were generally sharpened by the morning's ride ; and, maugre the huge piles of buckwheat-cakes that smoked along the board flanked each by a cold apple-pie, the beef-steak was decidedly the favourite dish ; and was meted out again and again, by the same knife and fork that played a private part the whiles for the stout veoman who thus plied them for the public good. Your bandbox-bred elegant, who was ignorant A WINTER IN THE WEST.