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NOTES

JOURNEY IN AMERICA,

COAST OF VIRGINIA

TO THE

TERRITORY OF ILLINOIS.

By MORRIS BIRKBECK,
Author of" Notes on a Tour in France."

THE SECOND EDITION.

flontron :
Printed by Severn & Co., 1. Skinner Street, Bisbopsgate:
FOR JAMES R1DGWAY, PICCADILLY; AND TO BE
HAD OF ALL OTHER BOOKSELLERS.
1818.

PubHalted by the same Autlun;
NOTES on a Journey through Franee, from Dieppe, through
Paris and Lyons, to the Pyrennees, and back through Toulouse, m
July, August, and September, 1814, describing the Habits of the
People and the Agriculture of the Country. The 5th Edition. Priee
4*. U.

TO MY ENGLISH FRIENDS.

I HAVE amused myself during our
long, but by no means wearisome jour
ney, by keeping this short record of oc
currences and observations, of which I
have note finished the revisal.
It contains just the particulars which
I wish to communicate to my friends,
written, I think, with as much simplicity
of intention, as a private letter, but with
a little more care, seeing I had the fear
of the press before my eyes.
There are many for whom I entertain
a sincere affection who have not received
a line from me since our departure. I
have always had more to say than a let
ter could contain; and now, instead of
mutilated scraps, I beg they will accept
this little book, and consider it as par
ticularly addressed to them ; for it cer
tainly teas composed most particularly
for their information.
It may be collected from the tenor of
these notes, that I am as well satis/ted
a2

IV.

with this country as I had anticipated ,
and our friends will have sympathized
tvith us in the success of our enterprise ;
having found a good country , and secured
for ourselves a situation in it, so well
adapted to our wishes. Hut, as friends
are not used to gather each other's senti
ments, on interesting topics by inference
merely, they have a right to hear from
me in direct terms, that my expectations
and hopes are thus far more than sa
tisfied with regard to the objects of our
removal into this country.
There are advantages before us greater
than I 'had in contemplation; and ap
parently attainable with less difficulty
and sacrifices. Ihave, therefore nothing
to regret in the step I have taken ; and
in my present knowledge I should find
stronger motives for it. MB.
Sept. ], 1817.

NOTES

ON A

JOURNEY IN AMERICA

April 26, 1817—500 Miles E. of Cape Henry,
Virginia.

'a '

After twelve months spent in the arrange
ment, of my affairs I have embarked in comfort
with the greatest part of my family in quest of a
new settlement in the western wilderness.
We sailed on the 30th of March from Graves-
end, on board the good ship America, of 500
tons burthen, Captain Heth, for Richmond, Vir
ginia. Our party occupies both the cabin and
steerage, excepting two strangers in the latter,
who are well-behaved, unobtrusive persons.
The captain is an agreeable and most friendly
man, and our accommodations excellent: we
have had variety of winds and weather, but
mostly favourable: some of us have suffered from
sea-sickness, but we are now generally in good
health, and our spirits seem to partake of the
buoyancy of the noble vessel, which is convey*

6
ing us so cheerfully towards the place of our vo
luntary exile.
Having had the advantage of communicating
with many respectable and well-informed Ame
ricans during this year of preparation, I have
acquired some knowledge of the United States,
as well as great store of introductory letters. A
kind friend also put into my hands, just before
our departure, a series of Geographical Works,
lately published by Mr. Melish of Philadelphia.
With the information derived from these and
other sources, 1 feel qualified to enter with
the more confidence on the task before me ; and
I am in hopes that a journal of my proceedings
may prove useful to others, under similar cir
cumstances, by way of warning or encourage
ment, as the event may prove of my own expe
rience : and that my readers may accompany me
with greater satisfaction and advantage, 1 shall
premise something about myself, my motives
and plans, which will enable them to form a
more just estimate of my opinions : I hope, how
ever, in so doing, I shall not merit the imputa
tion of egotism.
In the first place, being neither well able nor
well disposed to combat the extremes of heat
and cold which prevail to the east of the Al
leghany mountains, I have pre-determined to
pitch my tent to the westward of that ridge,

and to the southward of Lake Erie, under a
climate recommended by the concurrent testi
mony of all travellers, as temperate, salubri
ous and delightful.
Again, — Slavery, " that broadest, foulest blot,"
which still prevails over so large a portion of
the United States, will circumscribe my choice
within still narrower limits ; for, if political
liberty be so precious, that to obtain it, I can
forego the well-earned comforts of an English
home, it must not be to degrade myself and
corrupt my children by the practice of slave-
keeping. This curse has taken fast hold, of Kentucky,
Tenessee, and all the new States to the south ;
therefore, my enquiries will be confined to the
western part of Pennsylvania, and the states
of Ohio, Indiana and the territory of Illinois :
thus, in the immense field before us, the object
of our search will be found, if found at all, within
a comparatively narrow space.
To this main object I shall apply myself im
mediately, and deferring to a future opportunity
the pleasure of travelling through the Atlantic
States, I intend, on my arrival, to repair west
ward with all convenient speed, in order to take
a deliberate survey of those western regions,
with the hope of fixing on the place of our final
settlement before the ensuing winter.

8
iBefore I enter on these new cares and toils, I
must take a parting glance at those I have left
behind; and they are of a nature unhappily too
familiar to a large proportion of my countrymen
to require description.
How many are there, who, having capitals
in business which would be equal to their sup
port at simple interest, are submitting lo priva
tions under the name of economy, which are near
a-kin to the sufferings of poverty; and denying
themselves the very comforts of life to escape
taxation ; and yet their difficulties increase, their
capitals moulder away, and the resources fail
on which they had relied for the future estab
lishment of their families.
A nation, with half its population supported
by alms, or poor-rates, and one fourth of its
income derived from taxes, many of which are
dried up in their sources, or speedily becoming
so, must teem with emigrants from one end to
the other : and, for such as myself, who have
had "nothing to do with the laws but to obey
them," it is quite reasonable and just to secure a
timely retreat from the approaching crisis- either
of anarchy or despotism.
An English farmer, to which class I had the
honour to belong, is in possession of the same
rights and privileges with the Villeins of old
time, and exhibits for the most part, a suitable

9
political character. He has no voice in the ap
pointment of the legislature unless he happen to
possess a freehold of forty shillings a year, and
he is then expected to vote in the interest of his
landlord. He has no concern with public af
fairs excepting as a tax-payer, a parish officer,
or a militia man. He has no right to appear at
a>county meeting, unless the word inhabitant
should find its way into the sheriff's invitation :
in this case he may shew his face among the no
bility, clergy, and freeholders: — a felicity which
once occurred to myself, when the inhabitants of
Surrey were invited to assist the gentry in crying
down the Income Tax.
Thus, having no elective franchise, an English
farmer can scarcely be said to have a political
existence, and political duties he has none, ex
cept such, as under existing circumstances,
would inevitably consign him to the special
guardianship of the Secretary of State for the
home department.
In exchanging the condition of an English
farmer for that of an American proprietor,
I expect to suffer many inconveniences; but
I am willing to make a great sacrifice of
present ease, were it merely for the sake of
obtaining in the decline of life, an exemption
from that wearisome solicitude about pecuniary
affairs, from which, even the affluent find no

10
refuge in England ; and for my children, a ca
reer of enterprize, and wholesome family connec
tions, in a society whose institutions are favour
able to virtue ; and at last the consolation of
leaving them efficient members of a flourishing,
public-spirited, energetic community, where
the insolence of wealth, and the servility of pau
perism, between which, in England, there -is
scarcely an interval remaining, are alike un
known. That institutions favourable to virtue, shall
produce effects correspondent to their character
upon the society blessed with them, is a conclu
sion so natural, that we should be inclined to
suspect an error in our estimate of the institu
tions themselves, if we found a vicious people
under a good government.
It is possible, however, that political virtue
may exist in considerable purity, where the
moral sense has been depraved by pre-existing
habits, still more powerful in their influence on
the general character than political principles ;
and such an effect I anticipate from the present
establishment of slavery in the Southern States,
and its former toleration in all.
But if we find these States rank higher in the
scale of morals than the West India Colonies,
where slavery prevails, but where political vir
tue can scarcely have an existence, and espe-

11
cially if they have improved with the improve
ment of their government, these States will af
ford a confirmation of the rule, that political vir
tue is a moral good ; whilst a superiority in the
morals of those States where slavery has been
abolished — shows, that slavery is, in truth, the
bane of society.
With these anticipations I prepare myself for
an introduction into the State of Virginia,
which takes so high a position in the politieal
scale, though under the deteriorating influence
of this calamity.
May 2. After a series of baffling winds and
boisterous weather, we find ourselves on the
Western, or inside of ihe Gulph Stream, and of
course not far from our destination. Yesterday
the temperature of the air was 65, and of the
water 71. To day the air remains at 65, but
the water has fallen to 50. We have, therefore,
crossed this warm ocean river, which flows from
the Gulph of Mexico with a northerly and
north-easterly course, until it meets the melting
ice to the south of the great Bank of Newfound
land. May 3. Last night we lay at anchor in
Hampton Roads, and this morning I accompa
nied the captain in the pilot-boat to Norfolk,
fourteen miles off to make entry of the ship at
the Custom House. This is a large town of

12
10,000 inhabitants, the streets are in right lines,
sufficiently spacious, with wide paved causeways
before the houses, which are good-looking and
cleanly. A large market-house in the centre of
the principal street, with negroes selling for
their masters, fine vegetables, and bad meat —
the worst I ever saw, and dearer than the best
in England. Veal, such as never was exposed
in an English market I0l2d. per lb. ; lamb of
similar quality and price. Most wretched horses
waiting, without food or shelter, to drag home
the carts which had brought in the provisions ;
— but, worst of all, the multitudes of neo-roes.
many of them miserable creatures, others cheer
ful enough; but on the whole, this first glimpse
of a slave population is extremely depressing.
And is it, thought I, to be a member of such a
society that I have quitted England !
Norfolk is fourteen miles from our anchorage
off Cape Comfort. The pilot-boat took us
thither in sixty-five minutes, and was about the
same time in returning. After dinner, we pro
ceeded about twenty miles up James River
towards City Point, which is our destination ;
about one hundred from its mouth, and fifty
below Richmond-
The river with its edging of pines and cedars,
of various tints, wliich seem to grow out of the
water, so low is the country,— is grand and

13
beautiful, beyond all that I had conceived of
American rivers. Although perfectly flat, the
indentures of its course relieve the scenery from
the dullness, that a continuance of pines on a
level surface would otherwise occasion.
May 4. Forty-three miles up Cape Henry,
where we passed the night, the river is still
fourteen miles in breadth This day we pro
ceeded fifty-three miles.
The improving character of the country, and
the indescribable beauty of the river, render our
voyage extremely pleasant. I was employed
with a telescope incessantly, exploring every
cultivated spot, and every habitation;, — so inte
resting is all that we behold on our first intro
duction to a foreign land. Plantations are more
numerous, and the buildings much more respec
table as we advance. The banks of the river
are no longer a mere fringe of pines, but soil of
a good quality, rising in some places many
feet above the surface, and covered with timber
of various sorts, locust, mulberry, walnut, syca
more, &c. A fondness for planting discovers
itself even in this wilderness of trees. The
Lombardy poplar, is a favourite accompaniment
to the best mansions, rising in gloomy columns
to a great height above the surrounding
forest. We passed Little Guinea, a tract given by

14
a planter to his negroes whom he liberated.
We saw many of their cabins, and small inclo-
sures, which appeared to be but indifferently
cultivated. This gentleman's proceeding was
not well relished by his neighbours ; and the
negroes have a bad character for thieving, —
deservedly I dare say, for slavery is a school of
depravity, and their equivocal or degraded
station among whites, is unfavourable to their
moral improvement.
There are along the river the ruins of many
houses, which I was told had been accidentally
burnt by the negroes, whose carelessness is
productive of infinite mischief.
May 6. Harrison's Bar. — This is a shoal of
mud, which greatly impedes the navigations
and in which we must be contented to lie until
the next tide, and we may easily content our
selves, as it is a bend of the river, which is
surrounded by all that is beautiful in woodland
scenery, in the gayest dress of spring. We are
fixed about the middle of the stream, which is
four miles wide. Several rich plantations and
substantial dwellings are in view. We made a
morning call on Mr.  and sat an hour with
the ladies. The well cultivated fields, and the
goodness and comfort of the entire establishment
gave us all great pleasure, and reminding us of
home, seemed to assure us of homes in
America.

15
As a security from fire, or to favour escape
from it, a ladder is fixed on the roof, reaching
from a garret window to the ridge, and down
the other side : — It is an expedient in many
houses, and denotes extraordinary fear, or
extraordinary danger. I was informed, that
the carelessness of the negroes rendered such:
precautions necessary.
May 7. Vessels at City Point, are under the
superintendance of the Custom House at
Petersburg, about 15 miles distant. It was
necessary for me to attest to the contents of my
baggage, and for the captain to enter his cargo :
so we hired a gig, of which I took the command,
and proceeded to Petersburg. As my baggage
was bulky enough to contain merchandize to a
large amount, which would have been liable
to a duty of nearly 30 per cent., I have to com
mend the liberality of the officers who suffered
it to pass on nay affidavit, without opening.
Petersburg is growing into a place of impor
tance, being the emporium of export and import
to a large district. Tobacco is the staple produce ;
and every article of British or German manu
facture, the return.
It is not quite two years since half the town was
destroyed by a fire, occasioned by some negroes
playing at cards in a stable, and it is already
nearly rebuilt in the most substantial manner.

16
Two hundred capital brick houses were built
last year. This vigorous revival under a cala
mity so general is a strong proof of general
prosperity. It was the time of the races at Petersburg,
which gave me the opportunity of seeing a
large assemblage of planters, and of being
introduced to a considerable number of well-
informed persons of that class.
A Virginian tavern resembles a French
one with its table d'hote, (though not in the
excellence of the cookery) but somewhat exceeds
it in filth, as it does an English one in charges.
The daily number of guests at the ordinary in
this tavern (and there are several large taverns
in Petersburg) is fifty, consisting of travellers
store-keepers, lawyers, and doctors.
A Virginian planter is a republican in
politics, and exhibits the high-spirited inde
pendence of that character. But he is a slave- ,
master, irascible, and too often lax in morals.
A dirk is said to be a common appendage to
the dress of a planter in this part of Virginia.
1 never saw in England an assemblage of
countrymen who would average so well as to
dress and manners : none of them reached any
thing like style; and very few descended to the
shabby. As it rained heavily, every body was confined

17
the whole day to the tavern, after the race,
which took place in the forenoon. The conver
sation which this afforded me an opportunity
of hearing, gave me a high opinion of the in
tellectual cultivation of these Virginian farmers.
Negro slavery was the prevailing topic — the
beginning, the middle and the end — an evil up
permost in every man's thoughts; which all de
plored, many were anxious to fly, but for which
no man can devise a remedy. One gentleman,
in a poor state of health, dared not encounter
the rain, but was wretched at the thought of his
family being for one night without his protection
— from his own slaves! He was suffering under
the effects of a poisonous potion, administered
by a negro, who was his personal servant, to
whom he had given indulgences and privileges
unknown to the most favoured valet of an
English gentleman. This happened in con
sequence of some slight unintentional affront on
the part of the indulgent master. It is stated as
a melancholy fact, that severe masters seldom
suffer from their slaves' resentment.
This day the captain paid off the crew, who,
almost to a man, immediately assembled round
the grog store of the village, and having es
caped from the restraints of discipline and
taken in a copious supply of whiskey, r they en
gaged in a general fight, and shewed themselves
B

18
to be little better than a ferocious banditti, with
whom we had been so long cooped up, within
the narrow limits of the vessel.
May 9. The steam-boat which plies between
Norfolk and Richmond received us about nine
o'clock in the morning ; and, with some feeling
of regret we took a final leave of the good ship
America, but not of our captain, who was to re
join us at Richmond.
The steam-boat is a floating hotel fitted up with
much taste and neatness, with accommodations
for both board and lodging. The ladies have
their separate apartment and a female to attend
them. Here we found ourselves at once in the
Society of about thirty persons, who appeared to
be as polite, well dressed, and well instructed
as if they bad been repairing to the capital of
Great Britain, instead of the capital of Virginia.
We had a delightful passage, and reached
Richmond about seven o'clock in the evening.
May 10, After delivering sundry letters of
introduction, we were anxious to secure a re
treat from the crowded tavern which received
us from the steam-boat last evening. The ele
gant and cool abodes of the agreeable people to
whom we had presented our recommendatory
letters, formed such a contrast with the heat
and bustle of an inn, that we were determined,
at all events, to make our escape before the

19
approach of another night. After searching the
town, through and through, we made our retreat
most gladly into two rooms in a lodging house,
where we were the more comfortable, from
having learnt on board ship, to find many con
veniences in a narrow space.
Richmond contains 13000 inhabitants, nearly
half of which are negroes. The hill, on which
stands the Capitol, a building of commanding
aspect, is inhabited by the more opulent mer
chants, and professional men, who have their
offices in the lower town. Their houses are
handsome, and elegantly furnished, and their
establishments and style of living display much
of the refinement of pplished society. The
town is generally well built, and increasing
rapidly, whilst but little provision seems to be
made in the country round for the accommoda
tion of its inhabitants. The market is badly
supplied: the common nepes.saries pf life are
excessively dear, and, excepting the article of
•bread, of bad quality. Eggs are 2^d. each; better,
3s. 6d. per lb.; meat, of the worst description,
Is. per lb.; milk 4\d. a pint,: hay is two dollars
(9s.) per 100 lb. It is worse supplied and at a
dearer rate than any other place of equal size in
the United States, or perhaps in the world.
The town is forced up by the stimulus qf qo,m-r
-merce, whilst the surrounding country is groaning
b2

20
under the torpid influence of slavery: the culti
vators are said to be jealous of its rising pros
perity, instead of availing themselves, as they
might, of the advantages it would afford as a
market for their produce.
House rent is high beyond example ; that
in which we have apartments, though in a back
street, and not very large or well finished, lets
at 1400 dollars, or 300 guineas, a-year: a
warehouse, or store, is commonly £200 a-year.
In short, the demand for town accommodations
of every kind, arising from the accession of
strangers, greatly exceeds the supply, though
building is going on in every direction. Ground
sells currently on building speculations, at 10,000
dollars per acre, and in some of the streets near
the river, at 200 dollars per foot in front.
The enterprizing people are mostly stran
gers; Scotch, Irish, and especially New England
men, or Yankees, as they are called, who fill
every house as soon as it is finished.
About 25,000 hogsheads of tobacco and
200,000 barrels of flour have been the yearly
export of the country through the hands of the
merchants of Richmond ; and probably a great
part of the proceeds may have returned througli
the same channel in articles of import. This,
added to the internal consumption of a large
town, and of the shipping employed in this

21
•commerce, forms an aggregate of great impor
tance. - The falls of James River, extending for
five miles above Richmond, afford admirable
mill seals. There are several fine flour mills-
some of them turn eight pair of stones, and can
grind and dress 1000 barrels of flour'per week.
To grind 95 bushels of wheat per day is reckon-.
ed the work of a pair of stones. A canal is
formed by lockage parallel with these rapids, by
which produce is brought down in long barges,
capable of containing twenty-five hogsheads
of tobacco.May 10. I saw two female slaves and their
children sold by auction in the street, — an inci
dent of common occurrence here, though horri
fying to myself and many other strangers. I
could hardly bear to see them handled and ex
amined like cattle ; and when I heard their
sobs, and saw the big tears roll down their
cheeks at the thought of being separated, I could
not refrain from weeping with them. In selling
these unhappy beings little regard is had to the
parting of the nearest relations. Virginia prides
itself on the comparative mildness of its treat
ment of the slaves ; and in fact they increase
in numbers, many being annually supplied from
this state to those farther south, where the treat
ment is said to be much more severe. There are
regular dealers, who buy them up and drive

22
them in gangs, chained together, to a southern
market. I am informed that few weeks pass
without some of them being marched through
this place. A traveller told me that he saw, two
weeks ago, one hundred and twenty sold by
atiction, in the streets of Richmond ; and that
they filled the air with their lamentations.
It has also been confidently alledged that the
condition of slaves in Virginia, under the mild
treatment they are said to experience, is pre
ferable to that of our English labourers. I know
and lament the degrading state of dependent
poverty, to which the latter have been gradually
reducedj by the operation of laws originally
designed for their comfort and protection. I
know also, that many slaves pass their lives in
comparative ease, and seem to be unconscious of
their bonds, and that the most wretched of
our paupers might envy the allotment of the
happy negro : this is not, however, instituting
a Fair comparison, to bring the opposite exr
tremes of the two classes into competition. Let
us take a view of some particulars which operate
generally. In England, exertion is not the result of per
sonal fear: in Virginia, it is the prevailing
•stimulus. The slave is punished for mere indolence,
at the discretion of an overseer: — The peasant

23
is only punished by the law when guilty of a
crime. In England, the labourer and his employer are
equal in the eye of the law. Here, the law
affords the slave no protection, unless a white
man gives testimony in his favour.
Here, any white man may insult a black with
impunity; whilst the English peasant, shouldbe
receive a blow from his employer, might and
would return it with interest, and afterwards
have his remedy at law for the aggression.
The testimony of a peasant weighs as much as
that of a lord in a court of justice; but the testi
mony bf a slave is never admitted at all, in a case
where a white man is opposed to him.
A few weeks ago, in the streets of'Richmond,
a friend of mine saw a white boy wantonly throw
quick-lime in the face of a negro-man. The
man shook the lime from his jacket, and some
of it accidentally reached the eyes of the young
brute. This casual retaliation excited the re
sentment of the brother of the boy, who com
plained to the. slave's owner, and actually had
him punished with thirty lashes. This would
not have happened to an English peasant.
I must, however, , do this justice to the slave-
master of Virginia: it was not from him that
J ever heard a defence of slavery ; some extenu
ation on the score of expediency, or necessity,

is the utmost range now taken by that descrip
tion of reasoners, who, in former times, would
have attempted to support the principle as well
as the practice.
Perhaps it is in its depraving influence on the
moral sense of both slave and master, that slavery
is most deplorable. Brutal cruelty, we may hope,
is a rare and transient mischief; but the degra
dation of soul is universal, and, as it should
seem, from the general character of free negroes,
indelible. All America is now suffering in morals
through the baneful influence of negro slavery,
^partially tolerated, corrupting justice at the
very source.
May 13. Here is a grand stir about a
monument to the memory of General Washing
ton, and about transferring his remains from
their own appropriate abode to the city of
Richmond; as though Washington could be
forgotten whilst America retains her indepen
dence ! Let republicans leave bones, and
relics, and costly monuments to monks and
kings : free America is the mausoleum of its
deliverers, who may say to posterity, " Si qutsris
monumentum circumspice."
It would be well, however, for the patriots of
Richmond to repair the mutilated bust of La
Fayette in their Capitol, which how stands

25
v
an object of horror and derision: — La Fayette,
the friend of their hero, and his faithful, disinter
ested, and zealous associate.
There is a common feeling, a political sympa
thy between the wealthy federalists of the
American cities, and the loyal anti-reformists of
Great Britain. Federalism seems to favour a
sort of whiggish aristocracy; but the spirit of
the people at large, and of the ruling part in the
government, is of a different complexion.
The society here is good, but not remarkable
for intellectual activity ; yet, if literary pursuits
are in no great request with the citizens of Richr
mond, they are eminent in urbanity and real
politeness. May 15. Accompanied Dr. A. with a party
of his friends to the Chickahoming river, to
view an improvement which he has conducted
on a new principle. He has cleared one
hundred and forty acres of marshy land, by
simply girdling the trees, hoeing the surface,
and sowing herb-grass ; (an agrostis, I fancy,
but could not find it in bloom :) this is the
second year, and he expects to mow two tons of
hay per aere, which will be worth at Richmond,
five or six miles off, eighteen pounds sterling,
This extraordinary profit is owing to the
strange state of things at this. place, where the
supply of the commonest articles is inadequate

26
to the demand; but I believe il to be the right
mode of management of land favourable for
grass, where grain is low and labour high.
May 16. Visited Mr. W.'sfarm, about twelve
miles up the river, above Richmond: on it
are three hundred acres of wheat, as clean
and good as 1 ever saw on one farm, in any
country, and a large breadth of good clover:
Indian corn to a great extent very effectually
cultivated with the horse and hand hoe; and, on
the whole, with the exception of live stock,
which is neglected, I saw as good husbandry as
would be expected in some well- managed dis
tricts in Great Britain.
A flat of rich alluvial soil, about a mile in
breadth accompanying the river, is the only
part of this country that appears to be worth
cultivating: the rest is for the most part a pine
forest, as poor nearly as our heaths, extending
from the sea coast to the high country, whicli
skirts the Alleghany, mountains. The soil of
these high lands is strong and fruitful, forming
the most agreeable portion of the state.
Something like the above character, I have
been informed, is applicable to the Atlantic
country generally.
May 19. In two hacks, which are light
coaches with two horses, and a Jersey waggon
and one horse for the baggage, we have had a

27
pleasant journey oftwodaysto this place: the
distance sixty-nine miles.
Expence of Carriages .... 70 Dollars
 on the Road .... 33

103

This, for nine persons, amounts to almost
fifty-two shillings sterling each ; — dear, but very
agreeable travelling.
The country, from Richmond to Fredericks
burg is a barren sandy level, relieved occasi
onally by a stripe of better soil, o.n the banks of
a rivulet, and near the latter place, by a little
undulation of surface, and a soil containing
reddish loam.
The road would be good, during great part
of the year, if a small degree of attention was
directed to particular spots, trifling in extent,
but very dangerous.
Neglect of the public convenience and safety,
where little more is wanting than attention, at
taches blame and disgrace somewhere. A few
dollars, properly applied to a fault or two on
the road to City Point from Petersburg, would
render it safe, and even delightful : — the same
of the road from Richmond to Fredericksburg.
Works of great extent and cost may not suit
the state of this country, where the scope for
improvement is so vast in porportion to the

28
means; but the neglect of these petty local im
provements! so essential to the comfort and
safety of travellers, appears unpardonable.
On taking leave of Virginia, I must observe,
that I found more misery in the condition of
the negroes, and a much higher tone of moral
feeling in their owners than I had anticipated;
and 1 depart confirmed in my detestation of
slavery, in principle and practice; but with
esteem for the general character of the Vir
ginians. From Fredericksburg we took the stage to the
River Potowmack, where we were received by
the Washington steam-boat. This country is
hilly and extremely pleasant, the soil not natu
rally rich, aud seems to be exhausted by severe
cropping. Our ride afforded new perils, which
might be prevented at a small expence, and
which now serves to evince the excellence of
the drivers and horses, and the wonderful
strength of their slight-looking vehicles.
The Potowmack, upwards, from our entering
the steam-boat, flows through a bold country,
and its banks are adorned with houses in fine
situations, among which stands conspicuous
Mount Vernon, the residence of the illustrious
Washington. The Federal City contains, including George
Town, which is only separated from it by the

29
river, about 20,000 inhabitants, scattered over
a vast space, like a number of petty hamlets in
a populous country. The intended streets,
radiating from the capital in right lines, are, for
the most part> only distinguishable from the
rugged waste by a slight trace, like that of a
newly-formed road, or in some instances, by
rows of Lombardy poplars, affording neither
ornament, Tior shade, but evincing the exotic
taste, of the designer.
The Capitol and the President's house are
tinder repair from the damage sustained in the
war. Ninety marble capitals have been imported
at vast cost from Italy, to crown the columns
of the Capitol, and shew how wra-American is
the whole plan. There is nothing in America to
which I can liken this affectation of splendor,
except the painted face, and gaudy head-dress
of a half-naked Indian.
This embryo metropolis, with its foreign
decorations, should have set a better example to
the young republic, by surrounding itself first
with good.foads and substantial bridges, in lieu
of those inconvenient wooden structures and
dangerous roads, over which the legislators
must now pass to their duty. I think too, that
good taste would have preferred native decora
tion for the seat of the legislature.
From Washington to Frederickfown, in Ma-

30
ryland (45 miles) the country is poor, rugged,
and badly cultivated, until we approach the
latter, where limestone first appears, and with
it an obvious improvement in soil and culture.
Here begins a most beautiful district, extending
through Hagar's Town to the Blue Ridge.
This is rather a hilly, than a mountainous coun
try, though approaching the character of moun
tain in its formation, which is mica, and clay-
slate alternating with limestone.
M'Connel's Town, 3 fay 23. The road we
have been travelling terminates at this place,
where it strikes the great turnpike from Phila
delphia to Pittsburg ; and, with the road, ends
the line of stages, by which we have been tra--
velling; a circumstance of which we knew
nothing, until our arrival here, having entered
ourselves passengers at George Town, for Pitts
burg, by the Pittsburg stage, as it professed
to be.
So here we are, nine in number, one hundred
and thirty miles of mountain country between us
and Pittsburg. We learn that the stages
which pass daily from Philadelphia and Balti
more are generally full, and that there are now
many persons at Baltimore waiting for places.
No vehicles of any kind are to be hired, aud
here we must either stay or toalk off: the latter
we prefer; and separating each our bundle,

31
from the little that we have of travelling stores,
we are about to undertake oar mountain pil
grimage; accepting t^e alternative most cheer
fully, after the dreadful shaking of the last
hundred miles by stage.
This is called the Alleghany Ridge, which
is loftier than the Blue Ridge, is apparently
newer in formation : its composition is chiefly
sand-stone, clay-slate, and limestone-slate; the
latter with lamina of petrosilex parallel to the
limestone. Maryland and Pennsylvania abound with
horses of the good old English breed; with
great bone, of beautiful form, and denoting a
strain of high blood. The old English hunter
raised to a stout coach-horse, but comprising
all degrees of strength and size down to hack-
neys of fourteen hands. None of those wretched
dog-horses, which disgrace Virginia, are to
be seen here.
We have now fairly turned our backs on the
old world, and find ourselves in the very stream
of emigration. Old America seems to be break
ing up, and moving westward. We are sel
dom out of sight, as we travel on this grand
track, towards the Ohio, , of family groups,
behind and before us, some with a view to a
particular spot; close to a brother perhaps, or a
friend, who has gone before, and reported well

32
of the country. Many like ourselves, when
they arrive in the wilderness, will find no lodge
prepared for them.
A small waggon (so light that you might al
most carry it, yet strong enough to bear a good
load of bedding, utensils and provisions, and a
swarm of young, citizens, — and to sustain mar
vellous shocks in its passage over these rocky
heights) with two small horses ; sometimes a
cow or two, comprises their all ; excepting a
little store of hard-earned cash for the land
office of the district; where they may obtain a
title for as many acres as they possess half-
dollars, being one fourth of the purchase money.
The waggon has a tilt, or cover, made of a
sheet, or perhaps a blanket. The family are
seen before, behind, tor within the vehicle,
according to the road or weather, or perhaps the
spirits of the party.
The New Englanders, they say, may be known
by the cheerful air of the women advancing in
front of the vehicle ; the Jersey people by their
being fixed steadily within it; whilst the Penn-
sylvanians creep lingering behind, as though re
gretting the homes they have left. A. cart and
single horse frequently afford the means of
transfer, sometimes a horse and pack-saddle
Often the back of the poor pilgrim bears all his

33
effects,, and his wife follows, naked-footed,
bending under the hopes of the family.
The mountain tract we have;passed is exceed
ingly romantic, as well as fertile, and is gene
rally cultivated in a good style excepting the
rudest parts. It would be a delightful country
to inhabit, but for the rigoyr of the winter. The
temperature of the spring is 50 :. at Richmond it
was 57.
A blacksmith here earns 20 dollars per month,
and board ; and he lives in a cabin of one room,
for which, with a garden, he pays 20 dollars a
year. Fire-wood is two dollars per cord :— the
price is merely the labour, as is, in -fact, a great
part of what you pay for every thing. Thus,
nothing but land is cheap in this country, except
ing British goods, and they are not cheap to the
consumer, because the store-keeper sells his own
labour at a dear rate. Land will long be at a
low price, but as produce hardly ke^ps pace with
the population the latter is proportionably dear.
Therefore agriculture is and will be a safe and
profitable occupation. As to manufactures, they
will rise as they are wanted, and if they rise
-spontaneously, they will-flourish without extra
neous aid.
There cannot, as yet be much capital to spare*
for any kind of manufacture ; and it appears to
be bad policy to encourage, as it is called, parti-
c

34
eular branches ; because the direct consequence
of this partial favour is, the diverting a portion
of the scanty capital from those which need no
encouragement, and to employ it where the
profits are precarious. By such officious inter
ference, a real good in possession, is sacrificed
for a doubtful speculation— substance for shadow.
May 26. We have completed our third day's
march to general satisfaction. We proceed
nearly as fast as our fellow-travellers in car
riages, and much more pleasantly, so that we
have almost forgotten our indignation against the
pitiful and fraudulent stage-master, of George
Town ; so apt are we to measure the conduct of
other people, by the standard of our convenience,
rather than its own merit.
This is a land of plenty, and we are proceed
ing to a land of abundance, as is proved by the
noble droves of oxen we me^et, on their way from
the western country, to the city of Philadelphia.
They are kindly, well-formed, and well-fed ani
mals, averaging about six cwt.
A flock of sheep, properly speaking, has not
met my eyes in America; nor a tract of good
sheep pasture. Twenty or thirty half-starved
creatures are seen n«w and then straggling about
in much wretchedness. These supply a liLtlc
wool for domestic use. Cattle are good and
plentiful, and horses excellent.

35
/ May 27. Stotler's Inn, summit of the Alle
ghany Ridge. Temperature of springs47, Faren-
heit: — air at noon, 73.
Cherries in blossom:
Kalmia latifolia in bud :
Laurustinus coming into bloom:
Trees in general bursting their buds, or shew
ing the tender leaf. ¦?¦>
At City Point, below Richmond, Virginia,
kalmia latifolia was in full bloom on the fifth of
May; and early cherries were ripe at Richmond
on May the tenth.
The Alleghany mountains are chiefly schis
tose. Clay-slate predominates, then. mica-slate,
limestone-slate, and sand-stone-slate. The
schistose character is interrupted in some places,
by tracts cf sand-stone in large blocks : the sand
stone appears to be a secondary formation from.
the disintegration of mica-slate.
This entire mountainous range is distin
guished from all others that I have seen, by its
being almost entirely covered by wood. The
slaty formation affords great facility to the growth
of trees, and may account for this peculiarity.
May 28. The condition of the people of
America is so different from aught that we in
Europe have an opportunity of observing, that it
would be difficult to convey an adequate notion
of their character. c.2

36
They are great travellers ; and in general,
better acquainted with the vast expanse of
country, spreading over their eighteen states,
(of which Virginia alone nearly equals Great
Britain in extent,) than the English with tlifeir
little island.
They are also a migrating people; and even
when in prosperous circumstances, can con
template a change of situation, which under
our old establishments and fixed habits, none,
but the most enterprising; would venture upon,
when urged by adversity.
To give an idea of the internal movements of
this vast hire, about 12,000 waggons passed
between Baltimore and Philadelphia, in the last
year, with from four to six horses, carrying
from thirty-five to forty cwt. The cost of car
riage is about seven dollars per cwt., from Phil
adelphia to Pittsburg, and the money paid for
the conveyance of goods on this road, exceeds
£300,000 sterling. Add to these the numerous
stages loaded to the utmost, and ihe innumerable
travellers, on horseback, on foot, and in lio-ht
waggons, and you have before you a scene of
bustle and business, extending over a space of
three hundred miles, which is truly wonderful.
When, on our voyage, we approached within
twenty leagues of the American coast, we were
cheered by the sight of ships in every direction.

37
Up James River, vessels of all sorts, and sizes,
from five hundred tons downwards, continually
passing ; and steam-boats crowded with pas
sengers. The same on the Potowmack : and
in the winter, when the navigation is interrup
ted by frost, stages, twelve or fourteen in file,
are seen posting along, to supply the want of
that luxurious accommodation.
But what is most at variance with English
notions of the American people, is the urbanity
and civilization that prevail in situations re
mote from large cities. In our journey from
Norfolk, on the coast of Virginia, to this' place,
in the heart of the Alleghany mountains, we
have not for a moment lost sight of tlie manners
of polished life. Refinement is unquestionably
far more rare, than in our mature and highly
cultivated state of society ; but so is extreme
vulgarity. In every department of common life,
we here see employed persons superior in habits
and education to the same class in England.
We received the first impression of this su
periority from the character of the pilot, whom
we welcomed on board off Cape Henry : he was
a well-informed and agreeable man ; as we
should have said, much above his station ; but
in this we should have erred, for we found his
comrades of a similar description. Next oc
curred the custom-house officer, who was a

38
gentlemanly youth, without a shade of the dis
agreeable character which prevails among his
European brethren. He staid with us several
days, and was succeeded by a second of the
same respectable stamp. These officers of reve
nue are better paid here than with us ; and are
considered as respectable persons, employed in
an honourable service, which they have no
temptation to abuse. They receive about £250
sterling per annum ; and one, with a competent
salary, performs, with fidelity, the part of three
in England,, who are employed as checks upon
each other.
The taverns in the great towns east of the
mountains which lay in onr route, afford nothing
in the least corresponding with our habits and
notions of convenient accommodation : the only
similarity is in the expence.
At these places all is performed on the gre
garious plan : every thing is public by day and
by night; — for even night in an American inn
affords no privacy. Whatever may be the num
ber of guests, they must receive their entertain
ment en masse, and they must sleep en masse.
Three times a-day the great bell rings, and a
hundred persons collect from all quarters to eat
a hurried meal, composed of almost as many
dishes. At breakfast you have fish, flesh, and
fowl, bread of every shape and kind, butter,,

39
eggs, coffee, tea — every thing, and more than
you can think of. Dinner is much like the break
fast, omitting the tea and coffee ; and supper is
the breakfast repeated. Soon after this meal,
you assemble once more, in rooms crowded with
beds, something like the wards of an hospital ;
where, after undressing in public, you are fortu
nate if you escape a partner in your bed, in ad
dition to the myriads of bugs, which you need
not hope to escape.
But the horrors of the kitchen, from whence
issue these shoals of dishes, how shall I describe,
though I have witnessed them. — It is a dark and
sooty hole, where the idea of cleanliness never
entered, swarming with negroes of all sexes and
ages, who seem as though they were bred there:
without floor, except the rude stones that sup
port a raging fire of pine logs, extending across
the entire place ; which forbids your approach,
and which no being but a negro could face.
In your reception at a western Pennsylvania
tavern, there is something of hospitality com-
biued with the mercantile feelings of your host.
He is generally a man of property, the head man
of the villag'e, perhaps, with the title of Colonel;
and feels that he confers, rather than receives, a
favour by the accommodation he affords ; and
rude as his establishment may be, he does not
perceive that you have a right to complain : what

40
he has you partake of, but he makes no apolo
gies ; and if you shew symptoms of dissatisfacr
tion or disgust, you will fare the worse ; whilst
a disposition to-be pleased and satisfied, will be
met by a wish to make you so.
At the last stage, our party of eight weary
pilgrims," dropping in as the evening closed,
alarmed the landlady, who asked the ladies if
we i were not English, and said, she would
rather not wait upon us,-— we should be " diffi
cult." However, she admitted us, and this
morning, at parting she said jshe liked to wait
on " such" English; aud begged we would write
to our friends and recommend her house. We
were often told that we were not " difficult," like
the English; and 1 am sure our entertainment
was the better, because they found us easy
to please.
May 29. Surrounded by all that is delight
ful, in the combination of the hilly woodlands
and river scenery. At the junction of the
Alleghany and Monongahala, forming \>y their
union the Ohio, stands the "city of Pittsburg,
the Birmingham of America." Here I expected
to have been enveloped in clouds of smoke,
issuing from a thousand furnaces, and stunned
with the din of ten thousand hammers.
There is a figure of rhetoric adopted by the
Americans, and much used in description ;

41
it simply consists in the use of the present
indicative, instead of the future subjunctive; it
is called anticipation. By its aid, what may be
is contemplated, as though it were in actual
existence. For want of being acquainted with
the power and application of this figure, I
confess 1 was much disappointed by Pittsburg.
A century and a half ago, possibly, the state
of Birmingham might have admitted of a com-
parison with Pittsburg. I conceive there are
many, very many, single manufacturing estab
lishments in Great Britain, of more present
importance than the aggregate of those in this
town : yet, taken as it is, without rhetorical
description, it is truly a very interesting and
important place. Steam engines of great effi
ciency are made here and applied to various
purposes, and it contains sundry works : — iron-
foundries, glass-houses, nail-cutting factories,
&c. ; establishments, which are as likely to
expand and multiply as the small acorn,
planted in a good soil and duly protected, is to
become the majestic oak, that " flings his giant
arms amid the sky."
At present the manufacturers are under great
difficulties, and many are on the eve of suspend
ing their operations, owing to the influx of
depreciated fabrics from Europe.
Pittsburg contains about 7000 inhabitants,

42
and is a place of great trade, as an entrepot for
the merchandize and manufactures supplied by
the eastern states, to the western. The inhabi
tants of Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois,
are their customers, and continually increasing
in their demands upon the merchants and the
artisans of Pittsburg.
Journeymen in various branches— shoe-makers,
tailors, <&c, earn two dollars a-day. Many of
them are improvident, and thus they remain
journeymen for life. It is not, however, in
absolute intemperance and profligacy, that they
in general waste their surplus earnings; it is in
excursions, or entertainments. Ten dollars
spent at a ball is no rare result of the gallantry
of a Pittsburg journeyman. Those who are
steady and prudent advance rapidly. 4 shoe
maker of my acquaintance, that is to say, whom
I employed, left Ireland, as poor as an Irish
emigrant, four years ago,— rstaid one year in
Philadelphia, then removed hither, and was
employed by a master practitioner of the same
calling, at twelve dollars per week. — He saved
his money, married, paid his master, who
retired on his fortune, three hundred dollars for
his business, and is now in a fair way of retiring
too: as he has a shop well stocked and a
thriving trade, wholesale and retail, with
vast profits.

43
The low Irish, as they are called even here,
too often continue in their old habit of whiskey
drinking; and, as in London, they fill the lowest
departments of labour in the manufactures., or
serve the bricklayers, &c. They are rude and
abandoned, with ample means of comfort and
independence: such is the effect of habitual
degradation of character. The low Irish and,
the freed negro, stand at nearly the same degree
on the moral scale, being depressed equally by
early associations.
June 2. This evening, I heard delightful
music from a piano, made in this place, where a
few years ago stood a fort, from which a white
man durst not pass, without a military guarcj,
on account of the Indians, who were then the
hostile lords of this region. A few of that
people still reside at no great distance, and
have, in a great measure, settled into the habits
and maners of their new neighbours.
The simple produce of the soil, that is to
say, grain, is cheap in America, but every
other article of necessity and convenience is
dear, in comparison. Travelling east of the
mountains, indeed, to this place, is nearly as
expensive as in England; quite disproportioned
to the prices of provisions, and especially to the
accommodations afforded; and the store-keeper
Jays on a profit of 50 per cent, at least. This

44
is a modificatioh of the high rate of labour,
arising from the cheapness of land, which affords
the possession of independence and comfort
at so easy a rate, that strong inducements of
profit are required to retain men in the less
agreeable occupations of a town, or. under
the perplexity and hazard of trade .and ma
nufactures. ,lMv,
In this manner it is, that emigrants are
frequently exposed to difficulties before they
have obtained a settlement. In this cheap
country they expect to be able to live well upon
a little money; — but their little money is spent
before they begin to live as Americans.
Every service performed for one man by
another, must be purchased at a high rate,
much higher than in England: therefore, as
long as he is obliged to purchase more than he
sells of this service, or labour, he 'is worse off
than at home. But, the moment he begins to
perform his part as an American, the balance
will turn in his favour, and he will earn, in the
plainest occupation, double his subsistence.
I have this moment before me, two Germans,
widowers, with three young children each,
whose case is very appropriate. They are mere
labourers, and cannot speak English, and are
therefore, sufficiently destitute for the purpose of
illustration. These two -men were hired at

45
Philadelphia, by a respectable man (with
whom I have contracted an acquaintance,
througli a common friend) and they are now
together, master and men, on their way to his
farm, near Croydon, in the state of Indiana.
These men are engaged for two years, at
eighty dollarsper annum each, with all necessa
ries; viz., house, food, and cleathing, for them
selves, and children. Thus, at the expiration of
two years, they are possessed of thirty-six pounds
sterling each, and their children growing up to be
useful. With this they may pay the. first deposit
on farms of eighty or a hundred acres, build
themselves cabins, and become freeholders and
citizens. Mechanics, or artisans of the most
simple kind, earn half as much more, and those
of superior talents rise rapidly to wealth.
June 4. We have purchased horses for our
party at fifty to sixty dollars, and are making
preparations for proceeding through the state of
Ohio, to Cincinnati.
It is more usual for a party, or even for indi
viduals, who have no business on land, to pass
down the Ohio. " Arks," of which hundreds
are on the river, are procured of a size suitable
forthe number. They are long floating rooms,
built on a flat bottom, with rough boards, and
arranged within for sleeping and other accom
modations. You hire boatmen and lay in pro-

46
\ :;ions, and, on your arrival at the destined porl^
sell your vessel as well as you can, possibly at
half cost. On the whole, when the navigation
is good, this is pleasant and cheap travelling.
But we, putting health and information against
ease and saving of expence, have unanimously
given the preference to liorse-back. After a
fortnight's confinement under the heats of the
day, and the dews of the night, the habit, we
think, must be ill prepared for the effects of the
new climate and country ; but on our horses
taking the journey easily, we shall become gra
dually seasoned to it, and fortified by the health
ful exercise of both mind and body.
Pittsburg is a cheap market for horses, gene
rally rather more so than we found it: travellers
from the east, often quit their horses here, and
take the river for New Orleans, &c. ; and on
the contrary, those from the west proceed east
ward from this place, in stages. Thus, there
are constantly a number of useful hackneys on
sale.' ( The mode; of selling is by auction. The
auctioneer rides the animal through the streets,
proclaiming with a loud voice, the biddings
that are made as he passes along, and when they
reach the desired point, or when nobody bids
more, he closes the bargain.
A complete equipment is, in the first place,
a pacing horse, a blanket under the saddle,

47
another upon it, and a pair of saddle-bags, with
great-coat and umbrella strapped behind.
Women of advanced age, often take long
journeys in this manner, without inconvenience;
Yesterday I heard a lady mentioned familiarly
(with no mark of admiration) who is coming from
Tenessee, twelve hundred miles, to Pittsburg
with an infant ; preferring horseback to boating
up the river.
Tracing a line like that we have traced from
Cape Henry to Pittsburg, does not give a
qualification to describe a country ; of this no
man is more aware than myself. Yet the line
truly marked, though no picture, may serve as
a profile : and before 1 take my leave of Old
America, as I am now about to do, and enter
on the new regions of the west, I must strengthen
it a little by a few general remarks.
It is an observation familiar, I doubt not, to
every attentive traveller, that the soils of coun
tries lying at the feet of mountains, are formed
of disintegrated materials, similar to those
mountains, which may be traced pretty dis
tinctly, unless where the surface has been dis
turbed by rivers. The ridge, or rather series
of ridges, which passes from north to south,
covering a breadth of one hundred and fifty
miles, more or less, of the space between the
western rivers and the Atlantic, affords a grand

48
illustration of this fact, on the portion which we
traversed. On ascending this elevated region from the
CD O
east in Maryland, I saw, or supposed I saw, in
the quartz-rock and the mica-slate, the remains,
of the great magazine, from whence had been
derived the barren sands I had crossed, from the
sea-coast to the commencement of the clayey
district. And in the clay-slate of the moun
tains could be very distinctly traced, in their
various gradations of colour, from faint yellow
to deep red, the several tracts of clay soil, which
intervene between the sandy level of the sea-
coast, and the high country bordering on the
mountain. Similar evidences occur in the clays
and micaceous sands, to the west of the ridge,
in our descent to Pittsburg, where commences
a country which has long been under the sway
of the rivers, and has received from them a new
character. June 5. Well mounted and well furnished
with saddle-bags and blankets, we proceeded,
nine in file, on our westward course to Wash
ington. (Pennsylvania.)
Seventeen miles of our ride, to Cannonsburg,
was chiefly over clayey hills wonderfully adapted
to grass, but too stiff for profitable cultivation
under the plough, in the present circumstances
of the country. The difficult roads will long

49
render this beautiful district toilsome to its
inhabitants, unless they wisely convert it into
a grazing country.
From Cannonsburg to Washington, eight
miles, is a very desirable tract, containing
much excellent working, dry land, with fine
meadows and streams. A valuable district;—
full of coal and limestone.
June 7. Washington is a pretty thriving
town, of 2500 inhabitants. It has a college
with about a hundred students. From the
dirty condition of the schools, and the appear
ance of loitering habits among the young men
I should suspect it to be a coarsely conducted
institution. It must, however, be an unfavour
able period to judge of its character, as it has
just undergone a contest about the change
of presidents, and the session is only com
mencing. There is also a considerable concourse of
free negroes, a class of inhabitants peculiarly
ill suited to a seat of education;
Though this district is not without streams,
they are irregular, frequently dry, and again
overflowing. Recourse is therefore had to
steam mills, of which here is a capital one at
this place. A fine piece of machinery calcula
ted, like the mills in general, in America, to
perform the entire manufacture of flour, almost
D

50
without the intervention of hands, between its
reception in the form of wheat and its final
deposit in barrels in the shape of flour. A por
tion of machinery is also applied to wool-
carding, fpr the family manufactures of the
neighbourhood. As I am writing my journal, a respectable
couple, well mounted and equipped, alight at
our tavern: a farmer and his wife, from the
neighbourhood of Cincinnati, going to visit
their friends at New York and Philadelphia;
a distance of seven hundred miles. As travellers
in this sociable country are wont to do, we im
mediately communicate our several plans and
become mutually interested. He tells me of
a newly instituted spciety at Cincinnati, called
the Emigrant Society, designed to obtain correct
information, and communicate it to the poorer
order of emigrants; and to protect them- from
imposition. June 8. We were detained at Washington
by the indisposition of one of our party, and
to-day proceeded only twenty-two miles to
Ninian Beall's Tavern. We now_ consider
ourselves, though east of the Ohio, to have
made an inroad on the western territory : a
delightful region; — healthy, fertile, romantic.
( Our host has a small and simple establish
ment, which his civility renders truly comfort-

51
able. His little history may serve as an example
of the natural growth of property in this young
country. He is about thirty; has a wife and three fine
healthy children: his father is a farmer; that
is to say, a proprietor, living five miles distant.
From him he received five hundred dollars, and
" began the world," in true style of American
enterprize, by taking a cargo of flour to New-
Orleans, about two thousand miles, gaining
a little more than his expences, and a stock of
knowledge. Two years ago he had increased
his property to nine hundred dollars; purchased
this place ; a house, stable, &c. and two hundred
and fifty acres of land (sixty-five of which are
cleared and laid down to grass,) for three
thousand five hundred dollars, of which he
has already paid three thousand, and will
pay fhe remaining five hundred next year; <JJe
is now building a good stable, and going to
improve his house. His property is at present
worth seven thousand dollars; having gained, or
rather grown, five thousand five hundred dollars
in two years, with prospects of future accumula
tion to his utmost wishes. Thus it is that
people here grow wealthy without extraordinary
exertion, and without any anxiety.
June 10. Having crossed the Ohio, we have
now fairly set our foot on the land of promise.
nd2

52
Since we left the mountains, which seem to
be the first boundary line between Eastern and
Western America, many tempting situations
have presented themselvs to our notice ; but the
long and severe winters, in this climate and
elevation, form a weighty objection to settling
in the western part of Pennsylvania. Slavery
would exclude such settlers as ourselves from
Kentuckyj; and the complication of claims has
produced such confusion with regard to the
titles of estates, as to form, independent of that
insuperable bar, another strong objection to
Kentucky, as the place of our retreat.
Ou entering the state of Ohio from Wheeling,
we find a country beautiful and fertile, and
affording to a plain industrious and thriving
population, all that nature has decreed for the
comfort of man. It contains rich land, good
water, wholesome air; — lime, coal, mills, navi
gation. It is also fully appropriated and thickly
settled; and land is worth from twenty to thirty
dollars per acre. An advance of a thousand per
cent, in about ten years! Small estates of
about a hundred acres may be purchased, with
their buildings and improvements, at about
twenty-five dollars per acre. These " improve
ments," however, are of little value ; and look
ing forward for the interest of our families, and
around us to make room for our English friends,

53
who may wish to settle in our neighbourhood,
we must pass on, until we reach the country
where good land is to be purchased, at the
government price of two dollars per acre; and
which, in return for a few temporary privations,
increases iu value in a similar ratio.
A heavy fall of rain had rendered the roads
muddy, and the numerous crossings of the two
creeks between Beall's Tavern and Wheeling
rather troublesome. Wheeling is a considerable
but mean-looking town, of inns and stores, on
the banks of the Ohio. Here we baited our
horses, and took our noon's repast of bread and
milk; but had we crossed the river and made
our bait on the opposite side, we should have
escaped a drenching thunder-storm, which
caught us as we were ferrying over the second
channel. At this place the Ohio is divided into
two channels, of five hundred yards each, by an
island of three hundred acres.
We took shelter from the storm in a tavern
at the landing-place ; and, having dried our
clothes by a good fire, we cheerfully resumed
our course, in hopes of a fine evening for our
ride of ten miles to St. Clairsville ; but the
storm continuing, we rode nearly the whole of
the way under torrents. We had suhdry foaming
creeks to ford, and sundry log-bridges to pass,
which are a sort of commutation of danger. We

54
had a very muddy, road, over hills of clay, with
thunder and rain during nearly the whole of this
our first stage : — such thunder and such rain as
we hear of, but seldom witness, in England : —
and thus our party of nine cavaliers, five male
and four female, made our gallant entree into
the western territory. To see the cheerful con
fidence which our young people opposed to diffi
culties, so new to them, was, to me, a more
agreeable sight at that time, than the fairest
weather, the noblest bridges, and the best roads
could have afforded. It was truly a gallant
train, making their way in Indian file, through
the tempest, across those rocky creeks, swelled
with the fresh torrents that were pouring in on
every side.
We were detained some days at St. ClairsVille
by the continued indisposition of our friend ; a
circumstance which rendered the town more in
teresting to us than many t)thers of greater im
portance. It consists of about one hundred and
fifty houses ; stores, taverns, doctors' and law
yers' offices, with the dwellings of sundry arti
sans; as tay lors j shoemakers, hatters, smiths, &c.
Its chief street runs over one of the beauti
ful round fertile hills which form this country.
The Court House, a handsome brick structute
on the summit, has a cheerful and rather striking
appearance. If the streets were paved, it would

55
be a pretty town ; but it is just now mere mud
from the continued rains. An American town
is, however, on the whole, a disagreeable thing
to me ; and so indeed is an English one.
In the evening, a farmer (a man of fifteen
stone or upwards,) and his son, a lad of ten
years old, alighted at our tavern ; their horses
in high condition, looked as though they had
just come in from the neighbourhood ; but they
were, in fact, on their return from Philadelphia,
to their home, one hundred miles West of this
place. They had been eight days on their road
from Philadelphia, and had travelled at the rate
of forty-five miles per day. The gentleman and
lady with their son, whom we met at Washing
ton on their way to New York, were proceeding
at the same rate : they had been six days from
Cincinnati, two hundred and seventy-two miles,
and their horses fresh as if they were on their
first stage. From what I have seen and heard,
I conclude that this rate of travelling is usual,
and that it is performed without difficulty ; and
I mention it in proof of the excellence of the
horses of this country. They are generally about
fifteen hands high, clean made and shapely,
often very handsome. They generally pace, or
" rack," as it is called, being taught that mode
of going in their breaking. Five miles an hour
is as much as they calculate on. They feed well ;

56
four or five gallons of oats per day, besides hay,
with a good handful of salt, about twice a week.
A poor horse is as rare here, as a fat one among
the negroes of Virginia. A good six years old
horse, sells for a hundred to a hundred and
fifty, dollars.
The rich clay of this country is very favourable
to grass, and the pastures are extremely fine.
When the timber is destroyed, a beautiful turf
takes immediate possession of the surface; which
is at the present time an uniform sheet, or rather
fleece of white clover.
As I have passed along, the subject of emi^
gration from Great Britain to the United States,
has naturally been a primary object of my atten
tion; an important subject, on which I am
anxious to convey some information, and much
more anxious that, as far as it shall go, this in
formation shall produce no false impressions on
the minds of my countrymen.
From what I have seen, and heard from others
of America, east of the Alleghany mountains, I
judge that artisans in general, will succeed in
any part of it ; and that labourers of every de
scription will greatly improve their condition;
in so much, that they will, if saving and indus
trious, soon lay by enough to tempt them to
migrate still farther in quest of land, on which
they may establish themselves as proprietors ;

57
— That mercantile adventurers would be likely
to succeed as well, but not better than in Eng
land ; that clerks, lawyers, and doctors, would
gain nothing by the exchange of countries. The
same of master manufacturers in general.
The glimpse I have of these western regions,
gives me similar notions, but more decided,
whether favourable or unfavourable regarding
the emigration of the above descriptions of
persons. As to the condition of farmers in the eastern
states, I am not very particularly informed. (The
southern or slave states, I consider as without
the range of the present inquiry.) But from
what I have learnt, I entertain great doubts of
the exchange, on the whole, proving satisfac
tory to the British farmer ; and I am clear that
it would not be advisable for persons of any other
description than farmers to remove from Great
Britain lo the eastern states, in order to practice
agriculture. As to the removal of a British farmer to this
western country it would be premature to say
much, expecting soon to be enabled to record
my own proceedings : but 1 have no doubt of
its being greatly to the advantage of an indus
trious working family to exchange a rented farm
in England for a freehold, west of the Ohio.
The working farmer, by the amount of capital

58
required in England, as a renter, may en* and
cultivate a much better farm in this country.
Emigrants with small capitals are liable to
great inconvenience, unless they have a parti
cular situation provided for them by some pre
cursor on whom they can depend. Money is
powerful in this country in purchasing land, but
weak in providing the means of living, except as
to the bare necessaries of life. Thus the travel
ling expences of emigrants are heavy, in addi
tion to the waste of time in long peregrinations.
June 11. In my stroll among the lovely in-
closures of this neighbourhood, 1 called to en
quire my way at a small farm-house, belonging
to an old Hibernian, who was glad to invite me
in for the sake of a little conversation. He had
brought his wife with him from his native island,
and two children. The wife was at a neigh
bour's on a "wool-picking frolic," which is a
merry meeting of gossips at each other's houses,
to pick the year's wool and prepare it for carding.
The son and daughter were married, and well-
settled ; each having eight children. He came
to this place fourteen years ago, before an axe
had been lifted, except to make a blaze road, a
track across the wilderness, marked by the
hatchet.ou the trees, which passed over the spot
vvhere the town now stands. A free and inde
pendent American, and a warm politician, hfe

59
now discusses the interests of the state as one
concerned in its prosperity : — and so he is, for
he owns one hundred and eighteen acres of
excellent land, and has twenty descendants.
He has also a right to scrutinize the acts of the
government, for he has a share in its appoint
ment, and pays eight dollars a year in taxes :—
five to the general treasury, and three to his
own country : — in all about four-pence per acre.
He still inhabits a cabin, but it is not an Irish
cabin. As particular histories lead to correct general
notions, I shall give another little tale of early
difficulties, related to us by a cheerful intelligent
farmer, from the neighbourhood of Chill icothe,
who made one of our party at the inn this even
ing. Fourteen years ago, he also came into
this new settlement, and " unloaded his family
under a tree," on his present estate ; where he
has now two hundred acres of excellent lartd,
cleared and in good cultivation, capable of pr©:-
ducing from eighty to one hundred bushels of
Indian corn per acre.
The settlers in a country entirely new, are
generally of the poorer class, and are exposed lo
difficulties, independent of unhealthy situations,
which may account for the mortality that some
times prevails among them. The land, when
intended for sale, is laid out in the government

60
surveys' in quarter Sections of 160 acres, being
one fourth of a square mile. Tlie whole is then
offered to the public by auction, and that which
remains unsold, which is generally a very large
proportion, may be purchased at the land office
of the district, at two dollars per acre, one fourth
to be paid down, and the remaining three-fourths
at several instalments, to be completed in five
years. The poor emigrant, having collected the
eighty, dollars, repairs to the land office, and
enters his quarter section, then works his way
without another " cent" in his pocket, to the
solitary spot, which is to be his future abode,
in a two horse waggon, containing his family,
and his little all, consisting of a few blankets,
a skillet, his rifle, and his axe. Suppose him
arrived in the spring: after putting up a little
log cabin, he proceeds to clear, with intense
labour, a plot of ground for Indian corn, which
is to be their next year's support; but, for
the present, being without means of obtaining
a supply of flour, he depends on his gun for
subsistence. In pursuit of the game, he is com
pelled, after his day's work, to wade through the
evening dews, up to the waist, in long grass,
or bushes, and returning, finds nothing to lie on
but a bear's skin on the cold ground, exposed to
every blast through the sides, and every shower

61
through the open roof of his wretched dwelling,
which he does not 'even attempt to close,
till the approach of winter, and often not then.
Under these distresses of extreme toil and
exposure, debarred from every comfort, many
valuable lives, have sunk, which have been
charged to the climate.
The individual, whose case is included in
this seeming digression, escaped the ague, but
he lay three weeks delirious in a nervous fever,
of which he yet feels the remains, owing, no
doubt, to excessive fatigue. Casualties, doubly
calamitous in their forlorn estate, would some
times assail them. He, for instance, had the
misfortune to break his leg at a time when his
wife was confined by sickness, and for three
days they were only supplied with water, by a
child of two years old, having no means of
communicating with their neighbours (neigh
bours often miles off perhaps) until the fourth
day. He had to carry the little grain he could
procure twelve miles to be ground, and remem
bers once seeing at the mill, a man who
had brought his, sixty miles, and was compelled
to wait three days for his turn.
Such are the difficulties which these pioneers
have to encounter; but they diminish as settle
ments approach each other, and are only heard
of by their successors. The number of emi-

62
grants who passed this way, was greater last
year than in any preceding; and the present
spring they are still more numerous than the
last. Fourteen waggons yesterday, and thir
teen to-day, have gone through this town.
Myriads take their course down the Ohio. The
waggons swarm with children. I heard to-day
of three together, which contain forty-two of
these young citizens. The wildest solitudes
are to the taste of some people. General Boon,
who was chiefly instrumental in the first
settlement of Kentucky, is of this turn. It
is said, that he is now, at the age of seventy,
pursuing the daily chase, two hundred miles to
the westward of the last abode of civilized man.
He had retired to a chosen spot, beyond the
Missouri, which, after him is named Boon's
Lick, out of the reach, as he flattered himself, of
intrusion ; but white men, even there, incroached
upon him, and two years ago, he went back two
hundred miles further.
June 13. The soil does not improve as we
proceed westward, towards Zanesville. It is a
yellow clay, kindly for grass, but will be unpro
fitable for tillage, when exhausted by repeated
cropping. In some places, the clay is over
limestone, and exhibits marks of great and
durable fertility.
Many of the dwellings on the road-side have

63
an air of neatness," and th#roads themselves are
belter attended to than in Virginia, and the
western parts of Pennsylvania ; or even in the
neighbourhood of the federal city, where they are
so busily employed in ornamental architecture.
This morning we had the pleasure of meeting
a group of nymphs with their attendant swains,
ten in number, on horseback: (for no American
walks who can obtain a horse, and there are
few indeed, who cannot.) The young men
were carrying umbrellas over the heads of their
fair partners (fair by courtesy,) and as there
was no shew of Sundays' best about them, we
were the more pleased with their decent,
respectable appearance.
We had also the pleasure of meeting a drove
of very fat oxen on their way from the banks of
the Miami to Philadelphia. They might on the
average weigh six hundred pounds, cost about
thirty dollars, and sell at Philadelphia at about
fifty or fifty-five dollars per head.
June 14. Eighteen miles east of Zanesville,
taking shelter from a thunder storm, we were
joined by four industrious pedestrians, returning
eastward from a tour of observation through
this state, which is no unusual thing among
labourers and artisans, who travel about, and
stop occasionally to work at their callings,
when thpir finances require a supply.

64
All agree in one* sentiment, that there is
no part of the union, in the new settlements
or the old, where an industrious man need be at
a loss for the comforts of a good livelihood.
One of them, a hatter, resolves to remain in his
old position, in Philadelphia. There are, in
this western country, he says, more artisans
than materials. Shoemakers are standing still
for want of leather, and tanners, for want
of hides.The land continues of the same character, — a
weak yellow clay, under a thin covering of
vegetable mould ; profitable to cultivate, merely
because it is new. Timber, chiefly oak. Little
farms from eighty to one hundred and sixty acres,
with simple erections, a cabin and a stable, may
be purchased at from five to twenty dollars per
acre; the price being in proportion to the quan
tity of cleared land. This is a hilly, romantic
country, and affords many very pleasant situ
ations. Sand-stone is frequent ; limestone more rare ;
but clay-slate appears to be the common basis.
The inhabitants are friendly and homely, not
to say coarse, but well-informed, surprisingly
more so than the English peasantry. An agree
able, contented-looking cheerful man, who par
took of our shelter, told us that he cultivated a
little land to supply his family with eatables;

65
but mostly employed himself in making -shingles
(wooden tiles) at which he earned a dollar and
a half per day. He had been here eleven years.
We must not judge of these respectable citizens
from the tribe of loungers that haunt the taverns
on the road side, to the annoyance of travellers.
Few's Tavern. We have penetrated about
seventy miles into the state of Ohio. As we
proceed, our astonishment increases at seeing
so much done in so short a period. A gentle
man who is now our companion of the way,
travelled twelve years ago on this same-track.
It was then little more than an Indian path
through the wilderness ; though now ft is a
string of plantations, with but little intermission
of uncleared tracts.
To-day we passed various groups of emigrants
proceeding westward : one. waggon, in particu
lar, was the moving habitation of twenty souls. .
June 15. Zanesville is a thriving town on
the beautiful river Muskingum, which is at all
times navigable downwards. The country
around it is hilly, and very pleasant ; not rich,
but dry, and tolerably fertile. It abounds in
coal and lime, and water-power for machinery ;
— a grand station for manufactures at a future
period. Somerset. A town of no great promise. Our
landlord, a German, experienced the toils of the
K

,66
earliest settlement, being the first who lifted the
'aXe in this neighbourhood. He went to the dis
tance of fifty-four miles for flour, four times in
the first "sum mer. He could get venison in plenty,.
with his rifle; but nothing else even for money.
The most perfect cordiality prevails between
the Americans ©f German and those of English
extraction, in every part of the United States, if
the assertions of all with whom I have conversed
on this interesting topic, are to be relied on.
National antipathies are the result of bad politi
cal institutions;, and not of human nature.
Here, whatever their original, whether English,
Scotch, Irish, German, or French — all are,
¦Americans: and of all the imputations on the
American character, jealousy of strangers is
surely the most absurd and groundless. The
Americans are sufficiently alive to their own in
terest, but they wish well to strangers ; and are
not always satisfied with wishing, if they can
promote their success by active services.
Land with some " improvements" (land clear
ed) is Worth from twenty to thirty dollars per
acre., Thus the poor man who entered his quarter
section of one hundred and sixty acres twelve
years ago, and had paid three hundred and
twenty dollars for it at the end of five, has sup
ported his family, during this lime, and now

67
finds himself worth from three to four thousand
dollars, besides his moveable property. Such is
the natural progress of an Ohio settler.
In this proportion an increase of real wealth
has taken place within the last twenty years,
over a space greatly exceeding Great Britain in
extent. Yet so new is the governnient of- this
new world in the art and mystery pf finance,
that the revenue derived from all this wealth,
hardly exceeds forty shillings sterling, per square
mile, The simple land tax is one dollar per
hundred acres of first quality, and three fourths*
of a dollar per hundred for that of second quality.
June 16. Rushville. An American break
fast is in much the same style on the eastern
coast of Virginia, and in the centre of the, Ohio
State : a multifarious collection of discordant
dishes fatiguing to the mistress of the house,
in its preparation, and occasioning much
unpleasant delay to the traveller.
A gentleman, myself, and three children sat
down this morning to a repast, consisting of. the
following articles :-^-coffee, rolls, biscuits, dry
toast, waffles, (a soft hot cake, of German
extraction, covered with butter) pickerell salted
(a fish from Lake Huron) veal cutlets, broiled
ham, gooseberry pie, stewed currants, preserved
cranberries, butter and cheese :— for all this,
for myself, aud three children, and four gallons
e2

, 68
of oats, and hay for four horses, we were
charged six shillings and nine-pence sterling.
Chillicothe. June 17. South West of Zanes-
ville : instead of the steep hills of yellow clay,
the country assumes a more gently undulating
surface, but sufficiently varied for health and
ornament, with an absorbent, gravelly, or sandy
soil, of moderate fertility.
Lancaster is on the very edge of a marsh, or
fen, a future meadow, whicli at present should
seem to be a fruitful source of disease, though
its bad effects on the inhabitants of that town
are not by any means obvious.
These prairies which are constantly wet, are
npt understood to be so prejudicial to health,
as the little marshy bottoms, on the borders of
creeks, which are dried up, and again inundated
by every succeeding freshet.
The three towns, Zanesville, Lancaster, and
Chillicothe, were founded by a sagacious man of
the name of Zane, one of the earliest of the
settlers*- They are admirably placed, geogra
phically, but with little regard to the health
of their future inhabitants. The local advan
tages of Zanesville might have been secured
equally, had the scite of the town been on the
higher rather than the lower bank of the
Muskingum.; and the Sciota might have afforded
equal facilities to the commerce of the inha-

69
bitants of Chillicothe, had they viewed it
flowing beneath them, from those lovely eminen
ces whicli adorn its opposite banks. Chillicothe
is surrounded by the most charming elevations,
but is itself in a bottom. And Lancaster, as
observed in passing it, is on the brink of an
extensive marsh.
Gain! Gain! Gain! is the beginning, the
middle and the end, the alpha and omega of the
founders of American towns, who after all are
bad calculators, when they omit the important
element of salubrity in their choice of situations.
Seven miles N. W. of Chillicothe we enter
on a tract of river bottom, the first-rate rich
land, for which this state, and indeed the whole
western country is so justly famous. It is cool
sand, sufficiently, but not too dry, easy of tillage,
and, as far as is yet experienced, inexhaustibly
fertile. It is agreeably varied in surface, rising
into hills occasionally, and never flaL An allu
vial sand, with calcareous and silicious gravel.
June 18. At Chillicothe is the office for the
several transactions regarding the disposal of
the public lands, of this district, which is a
large tract, bounded on tne west by the river
Scieta. This business is conducted with great
exactness, on a principle of checks, which are
said to prevent the abuses formerly prevailing
among the land-jobbers and surveyor. The

70
following, if I ariirightly informed, is an outline
of the measures now adopted, in the sale of
government lands.
The tract of country, which is to be disposed
of, 'is surveyed, and laid out in sections of a
mile square, containing six hundred and forty
acres, and these are subdivided into quarters,
and, in particular situations, half-quarters.
The country is also laid out in counties of about
twenty miles square, and townships of six miles
square, in some instances, and in others eight.
The townships are numbered in ranges, from
north to south, and the ranges are numbered
from west tp east; and lastly, the sections
in each township are marked numerically. All
these lines are well-defined in the woods, by
marks on the trees. This done, at a period
of which public notice is given, the lands in
question are put up to auction, excepting the
sixteenth section in every township, which is
reserved for the support of schools, and the
maintenance of the poor. There are also sundry
reserves of entire townships, as funds for the
support of seminaries on a more extensive scale;
and sometimes for other purposes of general
interest. No government lands are sold under
two dollars per acre; and I believe they are put
UP at this price in quarter sections, at the
auction, and if there be no bidding they pass

71
on. The best lands and most favourable situa?
tions are sometimes run "up to tep or twelve
dollars, and in some late instances much
higher. The lots which remain v?nspld are, from
that time, open to the public, at the price
of two dollars per acre; one, fourth to be paid
down, and the remaining three-fourths to be paid
by instalments in five years; at which tjine, if
the payments are not completed, the lands
revert to the state, and the prior advances are
forfeited. '•
When a purchaser has made his election
of one, or any number of vacant quarters, he
repairs to the land office, pays eighty dollars, pr
as many times that sum as he purchases quar
ters, and receives a certificate, which is the basis
of the complete title, which will be given him
when he pays all ; this he may do immediately,
and receive eight per cent, interest for prompt
payment. The sections thus sold are marked
immediately on the general plan, which" is air
ways open at the land office to public inspection,
with the letters A.P." advance paid." There
is a receiver and a register at each land office,
who are checks on each other, and are remu
nerated by a per centage on the receipts.
June 19. On my arrival at Chillicothe, I re
paired to the land office, to inspect the map of
the district, and found a large amount of unen-

72
tered lands, comprehending several entire town
ships of eight miles square, lying about twenty
miles south of the town , and in several parts
abutting on the Sciota. Though, it appeared
morally certain, that substantial objections have
deterred purchasers from this extensive tract
in a country so much settled: the distance
being moderate, I determined to visit it, and am
now with my son, resting at the cabin of a poor
widow on the way. We have rode over twenty
miles of very fertile country on the Sciota, and
shall cross that river a few miles forward at
Pike's Town ; not far from which place is the
land we are seeking.
I hear much of the agues and bilious fever, by
which strangers are said to be generally natu
ralized or seasoned to these new countries; but
the accounts are so contradictory, though equally
authentic, that I conclude much of this disease
is rather the effect of particular situations or
circumstances, than of any general cause ex
isting in the country or climate. There are
a few facts in which all agree : — that the
country becomes more healthy as it is more
cleared and cultivated. That the neighbour
hoods of rivers and creeks, subject to overflow,
are the most unhealthy; and wet prairies the
next: that dry soils and elevated situations are
more healthy than those that are low or wet ;

73
and that mill-ponds are frequently noxious to
settlers in their vicinity. It is also universally
allowed, that most of the diseases which attack
new settlers .may be justly attributed to their
own poverty or imprudence. I have been con
versing on this subject with our experienced
old landlady, which led to these observations.
As we sat at breakfast we heard a report like
the discharge of cannon. It was a sycamore,
one of the largest and most ancient of the forest,
which had just then arrived at its' term, and
fallen under the weight of age. It formed one
of a venerable group, about a quarter of a mile
from our cabin, and our hostess missed it in
stantly. Trees are very interesting objects to the Ame
rican traveller : they are always beautiful ; and
in the rich bottoms they sometimes exhibit a
grand assemblage of gigantic beings which carry
the imagination back to other times, before the
foot cf a white man had touched the American
shore. Yesterday I measured a walnut tree al
most seven feet in diameter, clean and straight
as an arrow ; and just by, were rotting, side by
side, two sycamores of nearly equal dimensions.
The sycamore grows, in bottoms liable to be
overflowed, to an unwieldly bulk; but the white
oak is the glory of the upland forest.
Trees, to the judicious and experienced ob-

74
server, form an excellent criterion of the quality
of soils, by their species as well as, bulk : but
in the American forests they have rarely an op
portunity of swelling out to a large diameter,
owing to thejr Crowded growth. They are, for
the same reason, very lofty, straight, and clear
in their stems ; sometimes eighty or ninety feet
without a branch. I measured a white oak,
by the road side, which, at four feet from the
grftiYnd, was six feet in diameter, and at seventy-
five feet, it measured nine feet round, or three
feet in diameter.
White oak is valued for a great variety of
uses; particularly where toughness is required ;
in proof of its possessing this quality in an ex
traordinary degree, it forms the material of an
American waggoner's very flexible whip. A
tapering piece of this wood is cleft in nine, from
the small end to within a foot of the other end,
which remains solid for the hand. The nine
spleets are then twisted by threes, and the threes
again twisted together : the whole is then sewed
in a case of black leather, and a silken thong
added, which completes the whip. This oak is
also excellent for keels of ships, and shingles for
covering houses, and a thousand other purposes ;
particularly for the wheels and poles of carri
ages ; and enables the workman to unite strength

75
and lightness, to a degree greatly excelling the,
justly admired carriages of England.
Near Pike Town is a small cultivated prairie,
the first I have seen: it contains about two hun
dred acres, as I estimate it, of rich river bottom:
it is divided by a road which runs through the
middle, between two fehces, and nearly the
whole is covered by the finest Indian corn, neatly
cultivated. The surrounding hillsj crowned
with their native woods, take their tone from
the garden-like appearance of this ihclosure, and
the scene retains nothing of wildness, except in
the untameable luxuriance of vegetation. No
thing I had before seen in America at all re
sembles this delightful spot : but it has been
unhealthy, and continues so, though in a less
decree than at its first settlement, frptti its low
situation near the Sciota.
The growth of timber round this prairie, and
the under-growth of papaw, &c. is so thick, that
not a blade of grass is to be found, and the sur
face is covered by persicaria. The cattle being-
left to provide for themselves, look miserable
amid this exuberant fertility : but the settlers
are mostly from Virginia ; where I saw so much
wretchedness among the cattle that I suppose it
is familiar to the inhabitants.
June 19. Pike Town. This town was laid
out and received its name two years ago. It

' 7.6
now contains a tavern, a store, and about
twenty other dwellings. Being on the banks
of the Sciota, half way between Chillicothe,
and Portsmouth, which' is at the junction of
that river with the Ohio, it will probably grow
into a place of importance.
The unentered land we came in quest of is,
as I supposed, of inferior quality. That which
abuttg on the river, consists of sand-stone hills,
without any portion of the rich alluvial bottom.
The interior sections contain lands which might
be useful as an appendage to better.
I found a cabin on a sandy brow, which had
been inhabited eleven years, by the present fa
mily; It is in the neighbourhood of the small
prairie, where there had been so much sick
ness ; but they had always escaped, never ex
periencing the least inconvenience. An elevated
situation on an absorbent soil, not buried too
deeply in heavy timber, seems to afford the
best security for health.
Though we find no land fit for our purpose,
we are repaid by the pleasure of our ride
through a fine portion of country ; and espe
cially by the information we pick up as we pass
along. It is by multiplied observations that we
must qualify ourselves to make a good final
choice. Greenfield, June 20. We are now again on

77
our way towards Cincinnati. In leaving Chil
licothe, we pass through about seven miles of
rich alluvial land, and then rise to fertile up
lands. But as we proceed, the country be
comes level, with a cold heavy soil, better
adapted [to grass than tillage. Much, of this
tract remains in an unimproved state.
Before we entered on this flat country, were
some hills covered with the grandest white oak
timber, I suppose, in America : (should I meet
with any thing to compare with this hereafter,
I shall not fail to note it.) There are thousands,
I think, of these magnificent trees within view
of the road for miles, measuring fourteen or
fifteen feet in circumference : their straight stems
rising without a branch, to the height of seventy
or eighty feet, not tapering and slender, but
surmounted by full luxuriant heads.
For the space of a mile in breadth, a hurri
cane, which traversed the entire western coun
try in a north-east direction, about seven years
ago, had opened itself a passage through this
region of giants, and has left a scene of extra
ordinary desolation. We pass immediately on,
after viewing those massive trunks, the emblems
of strength and durability, to where they lie
tumbled over each other like scattered stubble,
some torn up by the roots, others broken off
at different heights, or splintered only, and their

78
lops bent over, and touching the ground: — such
is the irresistable force of these impetuous airy
torrents. These hurricane tracts afford strong holds for
game, and all animals of savage kind. There is
a panther, the only one remaining, it is said, in
this country, which makes this spot its haunt,
and eludes the hunters.
1 am told that the town of Greenfield has
wholly escaped the sickness, so frequently at
tending new settlements. It stands on a hill,
and, on a dry soil.
,June 21. Last night we lodged at Leesburg>
a healthy, comfortable little colony of quakers, of
four years standing-. The soil is sandy, of mid
dling quality, over limestone.
No instance of ague, or bilious fever, has yet
occurred inthis settlement. One of the friends
informed me that he had carried his wife, who -
was an invalid, to the sulphur springs in MacH-
son county, by the advice of a physician. The
creek there frequently overflowed, and the coun- ,
try being flat, a considerable breadth was in
undated. When that dried up, an offensive
vapour rose, which might be perceived to a
considerable distance. They both grew sick,
and were in great danger, but he ordered his
waggon, and had his wife and himself laid in it,

79
and carried directly home to Leesburg: — they
recovered immediately.
These are important cases, and I have no
doubt of their authenticity. Greenfield never
knew the sickness : Leesburg never knew it ;
but was even medicine forthe ills occasioned by
another situation, near an unwholesome over
flowing creek. Neither of these places stand
high ; that is particularly so, but they are remote
from floods ; and the soil lies over limestone,
and is dry enough for the plough in half a day
after heavy rain.
The first settlers, needy people, and ignorant
of the dangers they were incurring, found good
land along the course of the rivers ; and there
they naturally fixed their cabins ; near enough
to the stream to dip out of it with a bowl, pro-
. vided they could escape the flood. The foun
ders of towns seem to, have generally chosen
their situations on similar principles ; preferring
convenience or profit to salubrity: and thus
diseases, which, strictly speaking, are local,
come to be considered universal-and unavoidable.
June 22. As we approach the Little Miami
river, the country becomes more broken, and
much more fertile, and better settled. After
crossing this rapid and clear stream we had
a pleasant ride to Lebanon, which is not a
mountain of cedars, but a valley, so beautiful

80
and fertile, that, it seemed on its first opening on
our view, enriched as it was by the tints of
evening, rather a region of fancy than a real
backwood scene.
Lebanon is itself, one of those wonders which
are the natural growth of these backwoods. In
fourteen years, from two or three cabins of
half-savage hunters, it has grown to be the resi
dence of a thousand persons, with habits, and
looks no way differing from their brethren of the
east. Before we entered the town, we heard
the supper bells of the taverns, and arrived
just in time to take our seats at the table,
among just such a set as I should have expected
to meet at the ordinary in Richmond ; — travel
lers like ourselves, with a number of store
keepers, lawyers, and doctors;-— men who board
at the taverns, and make up a standing compa
ny for the daily public table.
This morning we made our escape from this
busy scene, in defiance of the threatening rain.
A crowded tavern in an American town, though
managed as is that we have just quitted, with
great attention and civility, is a place from
which you are always willing to depart. After
all, the wonder is, that so many comforts are
provided fpr you, at so- early a period.
Cincinnati, like most American towns, stands
too low; it is built on the banks of the Ohio,

81
and the lower part is not out of the reach "of
spring-floods. As if " life was not more than meat, and the
body than raiment," every consideration of
health and enjoyment yields to views of mer
cantile convenience. Short-sighted and narrow
economy! by which the lives of thousands are
shortened, and the comfort of all sacrificed
to .mistaken notions of private interest.
Cincinnati is, however, a most thriving place,
and backed as it is already by a great popula
tion and a most fruitful country, bids fair to b
one of the first cities of the west. We are
told, and we cannot doubt the fact, that the
chief of what we see is the work of four years.
The hundreds of commodious, well-finished
brick houses, the spacious and busy markets, ,
the substantial public buildings, the thousands
of prosperous well-dressed, industrious inhabi
tants ,* the numerous waggons and drays, the
gay carriages and elegant females ; — the shoals
of craft on the river, the busy stir prevailing
every where ; houses building, boat building,
paving and levelling streets; the numbers of
country people, constantly coming and going;
with the spacious taverns, crowded with travel
lers from a distance.
All this is so much more than I could compre
hend, from a description of a new town, just
S ' F

82
risen from the. woods, that I despair of convey
ing an adequate idea of it to my English friends.
It is enchantment, and Liberty is the fair
enchantress. I was assured by a respectable gentleman,
one of the first settlers, and now a man of
wealth and influence, that he remembers when
there was only one poor cabin where this noble
town now stands. The county of Hamiliton is
something under the regular dimensions of
twenty miles square, and it already contains
30,000 inhabitants. Twenty years ago, the
vast region comprising the states of Ohio and
Indiana, and the territory of Illinois and Michi
gan, only counted 30,000 inhabitants; the num
ber that are now living, and living happily, in
the little county of Hamilton, in which stands
Cincinnati. Why do not the governments of Europe
afford such an asylum, in their vast and gloomy
forests, for their increasing myriads of paupers.
This would be an object worthy a convention of
sovereigns, if sovereigns were really the fathers
of their people : but jealous as they are of emi
gration to America, this simple and sure mode
of preventing it will never occur to them.
Land is rising rapidly in price, in all wellr
settled neighbourhoods. Fifty dollars per acre
for improved land, is spoken of familiarly: I

83
have been asked thirty for a large tract, without
improvements, on the Great Miami, fifty miles
from Cincinnati,' and similar prices in other
quarters. An estate of a thousand acres, parti
ally cleared, is spoken of, on the road to
Louisville, at twenty dollars. Many offers
OGCur, all at a very great advance of price. It
now becomes a question, whether to fix in this
comparatively populous state of Ohio, or join the
vast tide of emigration, that is flowing farther
west, where we may obtain lands of equal
value, at the government price of two dollars
per acre, and enjoy the advantage of choice of
situation. Though I feel some temptation to linger here,
where society is attaining a maturity truly
astonishing, when we consider its early date,
I cannot be satisfied without seeing that remoter
country, before we fix in this; still enquiring
and observing as we proceed. If we leave
behind us eligible situations, it is like securing
a retreat to which we may return with good
prospects, if we think it advisable.
The probability is that, in those more remote
regions, the accumulation of settlers will shortly
render land as valuable as it is here at present;
and, in the interim, this accession of inhabitants
will create a demand for the produce of the new
country, equal to the supply. It is possible too.,
f2

84
that we may find otirselves in as gopd society
there as here. Well-educated persons are not
rare amongst the emigrants who are moving
farther west; for the spirit of emigration has
reached a class somewhat higher in the scale of
society than formerly., Some too may be aiming
at the same point with ourselves ; and others, if
we prosper, will be likely to follow our example.
We are also less reluctant at extending our
views westward, on considering that the time is
fast approaching, when the grand intercourse
with Europe will not be, as at present, through
eastern America, but through the great rivers
which communicate by the Mississipi with the
ocean, at New Orleans. In this view we
approximate to Europe, as we proceed to the
west. The upward navigation of these streams is al
ready coming under the controul of steam , an
invention which promises to be of incalculable
importance to this new world.
Such is the reasoning which impels us still
forward ; and In a few days we propose setting
out to explore the state of Indiana, and probably
the Illinois. With so long a journey before us,
we are not comfortable under the prospect of
separation. Our plan had been to lodge our
main party at Cincinnati, until we had fixed on
our final abode : but this was before our prospects

85
had taken so wide a range. We now talk
of Vincennes, as we did before of this place,
and I trust we shall shortly be again under
weigh. June 27. Cincinnati. — All is alive here as
soon as the day breaks. The stores are open,
the markets thronged, and business is in full
career by five o'clock m the moning ; and nine
o'clock is the common hour for retiring to rest.
As yet I have felt nothing oppressive in the
heat of this climate. Melting, oppressive, sultry
nights, succeeding broiling days, and forbidding
rest, which are said to wear out the frames of
the languid inhabitants of the eastern cities, are
unknown here. A cool breeze always renders
the night refreshing, and generally moderates
the heat of the day.
June28. The numerous creeks in this country,
which are apt to be swelled suddenly by heavy
rains, render travelling perplexing, and even
perilous to strangers, in a showery season like
the present. On my way this morning from an
excursion of about fifteen miles, to view an estate,
a man who was mowing at some distance from
the road, hailed me with the common, but to us
quaint appellation of " stranger:" — I stopped
to learn his wishes. " Are you going to ride the
creek ?" " I know of no creek," said I ; " but
I am going to Cincinnati." — "I guess it wilj

86 '
swim your horse.'' "How must I avoid it?"
" Turn on your left, and go up to the mill, and
you Will find a bridge." Now if this kind man
had rested on his scythe, and detained the
" stranger" a few minutes, to learn his country,
his name, and the object of his journey, as he
probably would, had he been nearer to the road;
he would but have evinced another trait of the
friendly character of these good Americans.
In this land of plenty, young people first
marry, and then look out for the means of a
livelihood, without fear or cause for it. The
ceremony of marriage is performed in a simple
family way, in my opinion more delicate, and
corresponding to the nature of the contract, than
the glaring publicity adopted by some, or the
secrecy, not so respectable, affected, by others.
The near relations assemble at the house of
the bride's parents. The minister or magis
trate is in attendance, and when the candidates
make their appearanee, he asks them severally
the usual questions, and having called on the
company to declare if there be any objections,
he confirms the union by a short religious for
mula ;— the bridegroom salutes the bride, and
the ceremony is over. Tea and refreshments
follow. Next day the bridegroom holds his levee,
his numerous friends, and sympathy makes them
numerous on these happy occasions, pour in to

87
offer their congratulations. Abundance of re
freshments of the most substantial kind, are
placed on side-tables, which are taken, not as
a formal meal, but as they walk up and down
the apartments, in cheerful conversation. This
running-meal continues from noon till the close
of the evening, the bride never making her
appearance on the occasion ; an example of
delicacy worthy the imitation of more refined
societies. June 28. Cincinnati. The Merino mania seems
to have prevailed in America to a degree ex
ceeding its highest pitch in England.. In Ken
tucky, where even the negroes would no more
eat mutton than they would horse-flesh, there
were great Merino breeders. There was and
is, 1 believe, a sheep society here, to encourage
the growth of fine wool, on land as rich as the
deepest, fattest vallies of our island, and in a
country still overwhelmed with timber of the
heaviest growth. As strange and incomprehen
sible an infatuation this, and as inconsistent
with plain common sense, as the determined
rejection of the fine-woolled race, by the English
breeders of short-woolled sheep : but that
there should ever have been a rage for sheep
of any kind in any part of this country that I
have seen, must be owing to general ignorance
of the constitution and habits of this animal.

88
There is not a district, scarcely a spot that I
have travelled over, where a flock of fine-woolled
sheep could be kept with any prospect of advan
tage, provided there were even a market for the
carcase. Yet by the ragged remains of the Me
rino family, which may be recognized iu many
places, I perceive that the attempt has been very
general. Mutton is almost as abhorrent to an
American palate, or fancy, as the flesh of swine
to an Israelite ; and the state of the manufac
tures does not give great encouragement to the
growth of wool of any kind ; — of Merino wool
less," perhaps, than any other. Mutton is sold,
in the markets of Philadelphia, at about half the
price of beef; and the Kentuckian, who would
have given a thousand dollars for a Merino ram,
would dine upon dry bread, rather than taste
his own mutton ! A few sheep on every farm,
to supply coarse wool for domestic manufacture,
seems to be all that ought at present to be at
tempted, in any part of America that I have yet
seen.' I have heard, that in the western part of Vir
ginia, sheep are judiciously treated, and kept
to advantage, and that there exists in that coun
try no prejudice against the meat: also that
the north-eastern states have good sheep pas
tures, and a moderate dislike of mutton : to

89
these, of course, my remarks on sheep-husban
dry, are not applicable. Deep woods are not
the proper abodes of sheep.
When America shall have cleared away her
forests, and opened her uplands to the breezes,
they will soon be covered with fine turf, and
flocks will be seen ranging over them here, as
in other parts of the world. Anticipation often
retards improvement, by giving birth to preju
dice. There are about two thousand people regu
larly employed as boatmen on the Ohio, and they
are proverbially ferocious and abandoned in their
habits, though with many exceptions, as I have
good grounds for believing. People who settle
along the line of this grand navigation, gene
rally possess or acquire similar habits ; and
thus, profligacy of manners seems inseparable
from the population on the banks of these great
rivers. It is remarked, indeed, every where,
that inland navigators are worse than sailors.
This forms a material objection to a residence
on the Ohio ; outweighing all the beauty and
local advantages of such a situation.
July 6. We are now at the town of Madison,
on our way through the State of Indiana towards
Vincennes. This place is on the banks of the
Ohio, about seventy-five miles from Cincinnati.
Our road has been mostly from three to six

90
miles from the river, passing over fertile hills,
and alluvial bottoms.
The whole is appropriated ; but although
settletnents multiply daily, many large intervals
remain between the clearings.
Indiana is evidently newer than the state of
Ohio ; and if I mistake not, the character of the
settlers is different, and superior to that of the
first settlers in Ohio, who were generally very
indigent people : those who are now fixing
themselves in Indiana, bring with them habits
of comfort, and the means of procuring the con
veniences of life : I observe this in the construc
tion of their cabins, and the neatness surround
ing them, and especially in their well-stocked
gardens, so frequent here, and so rare in the
state of Ohio, where their earlier and longer
settlement would have afforded them better op
portunities of making this great provision for
domestic comfort.
I have also had the pleasure of seeing many
families of healthy children; and from my own
continued observation, confirmed by the testi
mony of every competent evidence that has
fallen in my way, I repeat with still more con
fidence, that the diseases so alarming to all emi
grants, and which have been fatal to so many, are
not attached to the climate, but to local situ
ation. Repetitions will be excused on this im-

91
portant subject. Hills on a dry soil are healthy,
after some progress has been made in clearing ;
for deep and close woods are not salubrious
either to new comers or old settlers. The
neighbourhood of overflowing streams, and all
wet, marshy soils, are productive of agues and
bilious fevers in the autumn.
Such is the influx of strangers into this state,
that the industry of the settlers is severely taxed
to provide food for themselves, and a superfluity
for new comers: and thus it is probable there
will be a market for all the spare produce ;
for a series of years, owing to the accession
of strangers, as well as the rapid internal
growth of population. This is a favourable
condition of a new colony, which has not been
calculated on by those, who take a distinct view
of the subject. This year Kentucky has sent
a supply in aid of this hungry infant state.
July 7. I have good authority for contradic
ting a supposition that I have met with in
England, respecting the inhabitants of Indiania;
— that they are lawless, semi-barbarous vaga
bonds, dangerous to live among. On the con
trary, the laws are respected, and are effectual ;
and the manners of the people are kind and
gentle, to each other, and to strangers.
An unsettled country, lying contiguous to one
that is settled, is always a place of retreat

92
for rude and even abandoned characters, who
find the regulations of society intolerable ; and
such, no doubt, had taken up their unfixed
abode in Indiana. These people retire, with
the wolves, from the regular colonists, keeping
always to the outside of civilized settlements.
They rely fortheir subsistence on their rifle, and
a scanty cultivation of corn, and live in great
poverty and privation, a degree only short of
the savage state of Indians.
Of the present settlers, as I have passed
along, from house to house, I could not avoid
receiving a most favourable impression. I
would willingly remain among them, but pre
occupation sends us still forward in the steps
of the roaming hunters I have just described,
some of whom we shall probably dislodge,
when we make our settlement, which, like theirs,
will probably be in the confines of society.
As to the inhabitants of towns, the Ameri
cans are much alike, as far as we have had an
opportunity of judging. We look, in vain, for
any striking difference in the general deport
ment and appearance of the great bulk of Ame
ricans, from Norfolk on the eastern coast, to the
town of Madison in Indiana. The same good-
looking, well-dressed (not what we call gentle
manly) men appear every where. Nine out of
ten, native Americans, are tall and long-limbed,

93
approaching, or even exceeding six feet; in
pantaloons and Wellington boots, either march
ing up and down with their hands in their
pockets, or seated on chairs poised on the hind-
feet, and the backs rested against the walls.
If a hundred Americans of any class were to
seat themselves, ninety-nine would shuffle their
chairs to the true distance, and then throw
themselves back against the nearest prop. The
women exhibit a great similarity of tall relaxed
forms, with consistent dress and demeanour;
and are not remarkable for sprightliness of
manners. Intellectual culture has not yet made
much progress among the generality of either
sex where I have travelled ; but the men have
greatly the advantage in the means of acquiring
information, from their habits of travelling, and
intercourse with strangers : — sources of im
provement from which the other sex is unhap
pily too much secluded.
Lexington. This town is only three years
old. Madison dates its origin two years farther
back. Yet, much as has been done during this
short period, and much as there remains to do,
we see in every village and town, as we pass .
along, groups of young able-bodied men, who
seem to be as perfectly at leisure as the loungers
of ancient Europe. This love of idleness where
labour is so profitable and effective, is a strange

94
affection. I have no notion of life as a pleasur
able thing, except where connected with action.
Rest is certainly a delightful sensation, but it
implies previous labour : there is^no rest for the
indolent, any more than for the wicked : " They.
yawn and stretch, but find no rest." — I suspect,
that indolence is the epidemic evil of the Ame-r
ricans. If you enquire of hale young fellows,
why they remain in this listless state — " We
live in freedom," they say, " we need not work
like the English." Thus they consider it their
privilege to do nothing. But the trees of the
forest are still more highly privileged in this sort
of passive existence ; this living to do nothing ;
for they are fed and exercised without any toil
at all; the trees, " sua si bona norint," did they
but know their bliss, might be objects of envy
to many a tall young American.
July 12. Hawkins's Tavern, sixteen miles
east of Vincennes. On traversing the state of
Indiana to this place, I retain the same idea as
to the character of the settlers that struck me on
our entrance. They are an order of colonists
somewhat higher than the first settlers of their
sister state. There remains, however, a con
siderable number of backwoods' men, somewhat
savage in character, and who look on new comers
as intruders. The accommodation for travellers
will soon be greatly superior to those in the

95
*
Ohio state, as are those of the Ohio to the taverns
of Pennsylvania, west of the mountains.
The country, from the town of Madison, to
the Camp Tavern, is not interesting, and great
part of it is but of medium quality. At the
latter place commences a broken country, ap
proaching to mountainous, which, if well
watered, would form a fine grazing district;
but the little streams are now dried up, notwith
standing the late copious rains. This beautiful
country continues as far as Sholt's Tavern, on
White River, thirty-six miles east of Vincennes.
Most of this hilly district is unentered, and re
mains open to the public at two dollars per acre.
Our rear party, consisting of one of the ladies,
a servant boy, and myself, were benighted, in
consequence of accidental detention, at the foot
of one of these rugged hills ; and, without being
well provided, were compelled to make our first
experiment of" camping out.".
A traveller in the woods should always carry
flint, steel, tinder, and matches, — a few biscuits,
a half-pint phial of spirits, and a tin cup — a
large knife or tomahawk; then with his two
blankets, and his great coat, and umbrella, he
need not be uneasy, should any unforeseen delay
require his sleeping under a tree.
Our party having separated, the important
articles of tinder and matches were in the bag-

96
gage of the division which had proceeded, and
as the night was rainy and excessively dark, we
were for some time under some anxiety least we
should have been deprived of the comfort and
security of a fire. Fortunately, my powder-
flask was in my saddle-bags, and we succeeded
in supplying the place of tinder, by moistening
a piece of paper, and rubbing it with gun
powder. We placed our touch-paper on an
old cambric handkerchief, as the most readily
combustible article jn our stores. On this we
scattered gunpowder pretty copiously, and our
flint and steel soon enabled us to raise a flame,
and collecting dry wood, we made a noble
fire. There was a mattrass for the lady, a bear
skin for myself, and the load of the packhorse
as a pallet for the boy. Thus, by means of
great coats, and blankets, and our umbrellas
spread over our heads, we made our quarters
comfortable, and placing ourselves to the lee
ward of the fire, with our feet towards it, we
lay more at ease than in the generality of taverns.
Our horses fared rather worse, but we took care
to tie them where they could browse a little,
and occasionally shifted their quarters. We had
a few biscuits, a small bottle of spirits, and a"
phial of oil: with the latter we contrived, by
twisting some twine very hard, and dipping it in
the oil, to make torches ; and after several

97
fruitless attempts we succeeded in finding water;
we also collected plenty of dry wpod. "Camp
ing out" when the tents are pitched by day
light, and the party is ready furnished with the
articles which we were obliged to supply by
expedients, is quite pleasant, in fine weather:
my companion was exceedingly ill, which was
in fact, fhe cause of our being benighted; and
never was the night's charge of a sick friend
undertaken with more dismal forebodings,
especially during our ineffectual efforts to obtain
fire, the first blaze of which was unspeakably
delightful : after this, the rain ceased, and the
invalid passed the night in safety; so that the
morning found us more comfortable than we
could have anticipated.
It has struck me as we have passed along
from one poor hut to another among the rude in-.
habitants of this infant state, that travellers in
general, who judge by comparison, are not
qualified to form a fair estimate of these lonely
settlers. Let a stranger make his way through
England, in a course remote from the great
roads, and going to no inns, take such enter
tainment only as he might find in the cottages of
labourers, he would have as much cause to
complain of tlie rudeness of the people, and-far
more of their drunkenness and profligacy than
in these back woods, although in England the
G

' 98
poor are a part of a society where institutions are
matured by the experience of two thousand years.
The bulk of the inhabitants of this vast wilder
ness may be fairly considered as of the class of the
lowest English peasantry, or just emerging from
it : but in their manners and morals, and espe
cially in their knowledge and proud indepen
dence of mind, they exhibit a contrast so stri
king, that he must indeed be a petit maitre
traveller, or ill-informed of the character and
circumstances of his poor countrymen, or de
ficient in good and manly sentiment, who would
not rejoice to transplant, into these boundless
regions of freedom, the millions whom he has
^ left behind him, grovelling in ignorance and
want. Vincennes, July 13. The town is. scattered
over a plain, lying some feet lower than the
banks of the Wabash : — a situation seemingly
unfavourable to health; and in fact, agues and
bilious fevers are frequent in the autumn.
The road from Sholt's Tavern to this place,
thirty-six miles, is partly across " barrens," that
is, land of middling quality, thinly set with
timber, or covered with long grass and shrubby
underwood; generally level and dry, and gaudy
with marigolds, sunflowers, martagon lilies, and
many other brilliant flowers; small " prairies,"
wliich are grass lands, ^free from underwood,

99
and generally somewhat marshy; and rich
bottom land: on the whole, "the country is
tame, poorly watered, and not desirable as a
place of settlement: but it is pleasant to travel
over from its varied character.
Vincennes exhibits a motley assemblage of in
habitants as well as visitors. The inhabitants
are Americans, French, Canadians, Negroes ;
the visitors, among whom our party is conspicu
ous as English, (who are seldom seen in these
parts,) Americans from various states, and
Indians of various nations, — Shawnees, Dela
wares, and Miamies, who live about a hundred
miles fo the northward, and who are come here
to trade for skins. The Indians are encamped
in considerable numbers round the town, and
are continually riding in, to the stores and the
whiskey shops. Their horses and accoutrements
are generally mean, and their persons disagree
able. Their faces are painted in various ways,
which mostly gives a ferocity to their aspects.
One of them, a Shawnee, whom we met a few
miles east of Vincennes, had his eyes, or rather
his eyelids, and surrounding parts, daubed with
Vermillion, looking hideous enough at a dis
tance, but on a nearer view, he has good fea
tures, and is a fine, stout, fierce looking man,
well remembered at Vincennes for the trouble
he gave during the late war. This man ex-
g2

100
hibits a respectable beard; enough for a Ger
manized British officer of dragoons. Some of
them are well dressed and good-looking people :
one young man in particular, of the Miami
nation, had a clear light blue cotton vest with
sleeves, and his head ornamented with black
feathers. They all wear pantaloons, or rather long
mocassins of buckskin;, covering the foot and
legand reaching half way up the thigh which is
bare : a covering of cloth, passing between
the thighs and hanging behind, like an apron ,
of a foot square. Their complexion is various,
some dark, others not so swarthy as myself ; but
I saw none of the copper colour which I had
imagined to be their universal distinctive mark.
They are addicted to spirits and often intox
icated, but even then generally civil and good
humoured. The Indians are said to be partial to
the French traders ; thinking them fairer than
the English or Americans. They use much
action in their discourse, and laugh immode
rately. Their hair is straight and black, and their
eyes dark., The women arej many ©f them,, de
cently dressed and good-looking; they ride
sometimes like the men, but side-saddles are
not uncommon among them. Few of them of
either sex speak English ; but many of the
people here speak a variety of the Indian lan
guages.

101
In the interior of the Illinois, the Indians are
said sometimes to be troublesome, by giving
abusive language to travellers, and stealing
their horses when they encamp in the woods;
but they never commit personal outrage. —
Watchful dogs anda rifle, are the best security:
but I believe we shall have no reason to fear
interruption in the quarter to which we are
going. At this remote place we find ourselves in
a comfortable tavern and surrounded by genteel
and agreeable people. Our company at supper
was about thirty.
The health of our party has been a source of
some anxiety, increasing as the summer ad
vances : as yet we have entirely escaped the
diseases to which the country or climate, or
both, are said to be liable; but our approach to
the Wabash has not been without some painful
forebodings. We have remarked, en passant, that people
generally speak favourably of their own country,
and exaggerate every objection or evil, when
speaking of those to which we are going : thus it
may be that the accounts we have received of
the unhealthiness of this river and its vicinity,
have been too deeply coloured. We are ac
cordingly greatly relieved by the information
we have received here on this subject. The

102
Wabash has not overflowed its banks this sum
mer, and no apprehensions are now entertained,
as to the sickly season of August and Sep
tember. ,'¦
July 18. Princeton. — We, in Great Britain,
are so circumscribed in our movements that
miles with us seem equal to tens in America. I
believe that travellers here, will start on an ex
pedition of three thousand miles by boats, on
horseback or on foot, with as little deliberation
or anxiety, as we should set out on a journey of
three hundred.
Five hundred persons every summer pass down
the Ohio from Cincinnati to New Orleans, as
traders or boatmen, and return on foot. By
water, the distance is seventeen hundred miles,
and the walk back a thousand. Many go down
to New Orleans from Pittsburg, which adds
five hundred miles to the distance by water, and
three hundred by land. The store-keepers,
(country shopkeepers we should call them) of
these western towns, visit the eastern ports of
Baltimore, New York and Philadelphia, once a
year, to lay in their stock of goods: an evidence
it might seem of want of confidence in the mer
chants of those places; but the great variety of
articles, and the risk attending their carriage
to so great a distance, by land and water,
render it necessary that the store-keepers

103
should attend both to their purchase and
conveyance. I think the time is at hand when these peri
odical transmontane journeys are to give place
to expeditions down the Ohio and Mississippi
to New Orleans. The vast and increasing
produce of these states, in grain, flour, cotton,
sugar, tobacco, peltry, timber, &o. &c. which
finds a ready vent at New Orleans, will be re
turned, through the same channel in the manu
factures of Europe and the luxuries of the east,
to supply the growing demands of this western
world. How rapidly this demand actually in
creases, it is utterly impossible to estimate ;
but some idea of it may be formed from a gene
ral view of the cause and manners of its growth.
In round numbers there are probably half a
million of inhabitants in Ohio, Indiana and Illi
nois. Immigration (if I may be allowed to
borrow a new but good word,) and births,
will probably double this number in about six
years; and in the mean time, the prosperous
circumstances of almost every family, are daily
creating new wants, and awakening fresh ne
cessities.. On any spot where a few settlers cluster to^
gether, attracted by ancient neighbourhood, or
by the goodness of the soil, or vicinity to a mill,
or by whatever cause, some enterprising pror

104
prietor finds in his section what he deems a
good scite for a town : he has it surveyed and
laid out in lots, wliich he sells, or offers for sale
by auction.
The new town then assumes the name of its
founder : — a store-keeper builds a little framed
store, and sends for a few cases of goods ; and
then a tavern starts up, which becomes the re
sidence of a doctor and a lawyer, and the board
ing-house of the store-keeper, as well as the
resort of the weary traveller : soon follow a
blacksmith and other handicraftsmen in useful
succession : a schoolmaster, who is also the
minister of religion, becomes an important ac
cession to this rising community. Thus the
town proceeds, if it proceeds at all, with accu
mulating force, until it becomes the metropolis
of the neighbourhood. Hundreds of these specu
lations may have failed, but hundreds prosper ;
and thus trade begins and thrives, as population
grows around these lucky spots ; imports and
exports maintaining their just proportion. One
year ago the neighbourhood of this very town of
Princeton, was clad in " buckskin;" now the
men appear at church in good blue cloth, and
the women in fine calicoes and straw bonnets.
The town being fairly established, a cluster
of inhabitants, small as it may be, acts as a sti
mulus on the cultivation of the neighbourhood :

105
redundancy of supply is the consequence,' and
this demands a vent. Water mills, or in de
fect of water power, steam mills rise on the
nearest navigable stream, and thus an effectual
and constant market is secured for the increas
ing surplus of produce. Such are the elements
of that accumulating mass of commerce, in ex
ports, and consequent imports, which will ren
der the Mississippi the greatest thoroughfare in
the world.
At Vincennes, the foundation is just laid of
a large establishment of mills to be worked by
steam. Water mills of great power are now
building on the Wabash, near Harmony, and
undertakings of a similar kind will be called for
and executed all along this river, which, with
its tributary rivers, seVeral of which are also
navigable, from the east and the west, is the
outlet of a very rich and thickly settling country,
comprising the prime of Indiana, and a valuable
portion of the Illinois, over the space of about
one hundred thousand square miles,
There is nothing in Vincennes, on its first ap
pearance to make a favourable impression on a
stranger ; but it improves on acquaintance, for
it contains agreeable people: and there is a
spirit of cleanliness, and even neatness in their
houses and manner of living : there is also a
strain of politeness, which marks the origin of

106
this settlement in a way which is very flattering
to the French.
It is a phenomenon in national character
which I cannot explain ; but the fact will not be
disputed, that the urbanity of manners which
distinguishes that nation from all others, is never
entirely lost ; but that French politeness remains
until every trace of French origin is obliterated.
A Canadian Frenchman who, after having
spent twenty years of his prime among the
Indians, settles in the back woods of the United
States, still retains a strong impression of French
good breeding.
Is it by this attractive qualification that the
French have obtained such sway among the
Indians 1 I think it may be attributed with as"
much probability to their conciliating manner, as
to superior integrity ; though the latter has been
the cause generally assigned.
This tenaciousness of natjonal character, under
all changes of climate and circumstances, of
which the French afford many remarkable in
stances, is the more curious, as it is not univer
sal among nations, though the Germans afford,
I am told, examples equally strong. This
country gives favourable opportunities for ob
servation on this interesting subject.
What is it that distinguishes an Englishman
from other men 1 or is there any mark of national

107
character, which neither time, climate, nor
circumstance can obliterate? An anglo-Ame-
rican is not English, but a German is a German,
and a Frenchman French, to the fourth, perhaps
to the tenth generation.
The Americans have no central focus of fa
shion, or local standard of politeness ; therefore
remoteness can never be held as an apology for
sordid dress or coarse demeanour. They are
strangers to rural simplicity: the embarrassed
air of an awkward rustic/ so frequent in Eng
land, is rarely seen in the United States. This,
no doubt, is the effect of political equality, the
consciousness of which accompanies all their
intercourse, and may be supposed to operate
most powerfully on the manners of the lowest
class. For high and low there are, and will be,
even here, and in every society, from causes
moral and physical, which no political regular
tions can or ought to controul.
In- viewing the Americans, and sketching, in
a rude manner, as I pass along, their striking
characteristics, I have seen a deformity so ge
neral that I cannot help esteeming it .national;,
though I know it admits of very many individual
exceptions. I have written it and then erased
it, wishing to pass it by : but it wont do : — it
is the truth, and to the truth I must adhere.
Cleanliness in houses, and too often in person,

108
is neglected to a degree which is very revolting
to an Englishman.
America was bred in a cabin : this is not a
reproach ; for the origin is most honourable :
but as she -has exchanged her hovel of unhewn
logs for a framed building, and that again for
a mansion of brick, some of her cabin habits
have been unconsciously retained. . Many have
already been quitted ; and, one by one, they
will all be cleared away, as I am told they are
now in the cities of the eastern states.
There are, I believe, court-houses, which are
also made use of as places pf worship, in which
filth of all kinds has been accumulating ever
since they were Jauilt. What reverence can
be felt for the majesty of religion, or of the laws,
in such sties of abomination? The people who
are content to assemble in them can scarcely
respect each other. — Here is a bad public ex
ample. It is said, that to clean these places is
the office of no one. — But why is no person
appointed? Might it not be inferred that a
disregard to the decencies of life prevails
through such a community?
July 19. We are at Princeton, in a log
tavern, where neatness is as well observed
as at many taverns in the city of Bath, or any
city. The town will soon be three years old ;
the people belong to old America in dress and

109
manners, and would not disgrace old England
in the general decorum of their deportment.
But I lament here, as every where, the small
account that is had of time. Subsistence is
secured so easily, and liberal pursuits being yet
too rare to operate as a general stimulus to
exertion, life is whiled away in a painful state of
yawning lassitude.
July 20. The object of our pursuit, like
the visions of fancy, has hitherto seemed to recede
from our approach: we are, however, at length,
arrived at the point where reality is likely to
reward our labours.
Twenty or thirty miles west of this place,
in the Illinois territory, is a large country where
settlements are just now beginning; and where
there is abundant choice of unentered lands of a
description which will satisfy our wishes, if the
statements of travellers and surveyors can be
relied on, after great abatements.
This is a critical season of the year and we
feel some anxiety for the health of our party,
consisting of ten individuals. July and the two
succeeding months, are trying to the constitu
tions of new-comers, and this danger must be
incurred by us; we hope, however, under cir
cumstances of great mitigation. In the first
place, the country is at present, free from sick
ness, and the floods were too early in the spring,

110
to occasion any apprehensions of an unhealthy
autumn to the inhabitants. In the next place,
we have an opportunity of choice of situation for
our temporary sojourn. Unfortunately, this
opportunity of choice is limited by the scarcity
of houses, and the indifference evinced by settlers
to the important object of health, in the fixing
their own habitations. The vicinity of rivers
from the advantages of navigation and machi
nery, as well as the fertility of soil having
generally suspended a proper solicitude about
health. Prince Town affords a situation for a tempo
rary abode, more encouraging than any place
we have before visited in this neighbourhood :
it stands on an elevated spot, in an uneven or
rolling country, ten miles from the Wabash, and
two from the navigable stream of the Patok :
but the country is very rich, and the timber
vast in bulk and height, so that though healthy
at present, to its inhabitants, they can hardly
encourage us with the hope of escaping the sea
soning to which they say all new comers are
subject. There is a very convenient house to
be let for nine months, for which we are in
treaty. This will accommodate us until our
own be prepared for our reception in the spring,
and may be rented, with a garden well stocked
for about £20. 1 think we shall engage it, and,

m
should a sickly season come on, recede for a
time into the high country, about a hundred
miles back, returning here to winter, when the'
danger is past.
As to travelling in the backwoods of Ame
rica, I think there is none so agreeable, after,
you have used yourself to repose in^your own
pallet, either on the floor of a cabin, or under
the canopy of the woods, with an umbrella over
your head, and a noble fire at your feet : you
will then escape the only serious nuisance of
American travelling — viz. hot rooms and swarm
ing beds, exceeding, instead of repairing, the
fatigues of the day. Some difficulties occur
from ferries, awkward fords, and rude bridges,
with occasional swamps; but such is the sa
gacity and sure-footedness of the horses, that
accidents happen very rarely.
July 21. This is an efficient government. It-
seems that some irregularities exist, or are sus
pected in the proceedings of certain of the
offices which are established for the sale of
public lands. Whilst we were at Vincennes, a
confidential individual from the federal city
made his appearance at the land office there,
with authority to inspect and examine on the
spot. Last night the same gentleman lodged
'here, on his way to the land office at Shawnee
Town, at which we propose to make our en-

112
tries, where he is equally unexpected as he
had been at Vincennes, and where his visit is
somewhat mal-a-propos as to our convenience.
One of the efficient officers, the register, had
been left by us sick, about seventy miles from
Cincinnati, and the other, the receiver, passed
this place for Vincennes yesterday, and fixed to
return on Sunday, in order to proceed with me
through the woods, on Monday, on an exploring
expedition to the Illinois. The republican
delegate informed me immediately on his arri
val, that he had left an absolute injunction for
the instant return of the receiver to his office,
expressing regret at deranging my plans, at
the same time making ample amends by his own
arrangement for my accommodation.
The effect produced at Vincennes under my
observation, and the decided manner of this
gentleman, convince me that this mode of
treatment is fully as effectual as that by "motion
for the production of papers and committees
for their examination," by which deliberate pro
cedure the inconvenience of surprize is politely
obviated. July 23. The small-pox is likely to be ex
cluded from this state, vaccination being very
generally adopted, and inoculation for the
small-pox prohibited altogether, — not by law,
but by common consent. If it should be known

113
that an individual had undergone the operation,
the inhabitants would compel him to withdraw
entirely from society. — If he lived in a town, he
must absent himself, or he would be driven off.
Mental derangement is nearly unknown in
these new countries. There is no instance of
insanity at present in this state, which probably,
now contains 100,000 inhabitants. A middle-
aged man, of liberal attainments and obser-
vation, who has )ived much of his life in Ken
tucky, and has travelled a good deal over the
western country, remarked, as an incident of
extraordinary occurrence, that he once knew a
lady afflicted with this malady.
The simple maxim, that a man has a right to
do any thing but injure his neighbour, is very
broadly adopted into the practical as well as
political code of this country.
A good citizen is the common designation
of respect, when a man speaks of his neighbour
as a virtuous man — " he is a very good citizen."
Drunkenness is rare, and quarrelling rare in
proportion. Personal resistance to personal ag
gression, or designed affront, holds a high place
in the class of duties with the citizens of Indiana.
It seems that the Baptists, (who are the pre
vailing sect in this country,) by their religious
tenets, would restrain this summary mode of
redressing injuries among the brethren of their
H

114
church : a respectable but knotty member ot
that community was lately arraigned before
their spiritual tribunal for supporting heterodox
opinions on this subject. After hearing the argu
ments derived from the texts of scripture, which
favour the doctrine of non-resistance, he rose,
and with energy of action suited to his words,
declared that he should not wish to live longer
than he had the right to knock down the man
who told him he lied.
July 24 Regretting, as I must, my perpetual
separation from many with whom I was in
habits of agreeable intercourse in old England,
I am much at my ease on the score of society.
We shall possess this one thing needful, which
it was supposed the wilderness could not sup
ply, in the families of our own establishment,
and a circle of citizen neighbours, such as this
little town, affords already. There prevails so
much good sense and useful knowledge, joined
to a genuine warmth of friendly feeling, a dis
position to promote the happiness of each other,
that the man who is lonely among them is not
formed for society. Such are the citizens of these
new states, and my unaffected and well consi
dered wish is to spend among them the remain*
derofmydays. The social compact here is not the confe
deracy of a few to reduce the many into subjec-

115
tion ;' but is indeed, and in truth among these
simple republicans, a combination of talents,
moral and physical, by which the good of all is
promoted in perfect accordance with individual
interest. It is, in fact, a better, because a more
simple state than was ever pourtrayed by an
Utopian theorist.
But the people, like their fellow men, have
their irregular and rude passions, and their gross
propensities and follies; suited to their condi
tion, as weeds to a particular soil : so that this,
after all, is the real world, and no poetical
Arcadia. One agreeable fact, characteristic of these
young associations, presses more and more
upon my attention : — there is a great amount of
social feeling, much real society in new coun
tries, compared with the number of inhabitants.
Their importance to each other on many in
teresting occasions creates kind sentiments.
They have fellow-feeling in hope and fear, in
difficulty and success, and they make ten-fold
more of each other than the crowded inhabitants
of populous countries.
July 25. Harmony. Yesterday we explored
the country from this place to the Ohio, about
eighteen miles, and returned to-day by a differ-*
ent route. There is a great breadth of valuable
land vacant; not the extremely rich river-bottom
h2

116
land, but close, cool sand of excellent quality-
It is, however, not so well watered, nor so much
varied in surface as is desirable ; and we are so
taken, with the prairies we have seen, and with
the accounts we have heard of those before us in
the Illinois, that no "timbered" land can satisfy
our present views.
We lodged last night in a cabin at a very new
town, called Mount Vernon, on the banks of the
Ohio. Here we found the people of a cast
confirming my aversion to a settlement in the
immediate vicinity' of a large navigable river.
Every hamlet is demoralized, and every planta
tion is liable to outrage, within a short distance
of such a thoroughfare.
Yet, the view of that noble expanse was like
the opening of bright day upon the gloom of
night, to us who had been so long buried in deep
forests. It is a feeling of confinement, which
begins to damp the spirits, from this complete
exclusion of distant objects. To travel day after
day, among trees of a hundred feet high, without
a glimpse of the surrounding country, is oppres
sive to a degree which those cannot conceive
who have not experienced it ; and it must depress
the spirits of the solitary settler to pass years in
this state. His visible horizon extends no farther
than the tops of the trees which bound his plan
tation — perhaps, five hundred yards. Upwards

117
3i« sees the sun and sky, and stars, but around him
an eternal forest, from which he can never hope
to' emerge : — not so in a thickly settled district ;
he cannot there enjoy any freedom of prospect^
yet there is variety, and some scope for the im
prisoned vision. In a hilly country a little more
range of view may occasionally be obtained; and .
a river is a stream of light as well as of water,
which feasts the eye with a delight inconcei
vable to the inhabitants of open countries.
Under these impressions a prairie country
increases in attraction ; and to-morrow we shall
commence a round in the Illinois, which we
hope will enable us to take some steps towards
our final establishment.
July 26. Left Harmony after breakfast, and
¦crossing the Wabash at the ferry, three miles
below, we proceeded to the Big-Prairie, where,
to our astonishment, we beheld a fertile plain of
grass and arable, and some thousand acres
covered with corn, more luxuriant than any we
had before seen. The scene reminded us of
some open, well cultivated vale in Europe*
surrounded by wooded uplands ; and forgetting
that we were, in fact, on the very frontiers^
beyond which fe v settlers had penetrated, we
were transported in idea to the fully peopled
regions we had left so far behind us.
On our arrival at Mr. Williams' habitation,

118
the illusion vanished : though the owner of an
estate in this prairie, on which at this time are
nearly three hundred acres of beautiful corn in
one field, he lives in a way, apparently, as remote
from comfort, as the settler of one year, who
thinks only of the means of supporting ex
istence. We had also. an opportunity of seeing the
youth of the neighbourhood, as the muster of the
militia took place this day at his house. The
company amounts to about thirty, of whom
about twenty attended with their rifles. In per
forming the exercise, which was confined to the
handling their arms, they were little adroit ; but
in the use of them against an invading foe, woe
tp their antagonists ! ;
The soil of the Big-Prairie, which is of no
great extent, notwithstanding its name, is a
rich cool sand ; that is to say, one of the most
desirable description. It extends about five
miles by four, bounded by an irregular outline of
lofty timber, like a lake of verdure, most cheering
to our eyes, just emerging from the dark woods
pf Indiana : this prairie is somewhat marshy, and
there is much swampy ground between it and
the Wabash, which is distant seven miles : the
settlers have, in consequence, suffered from
ague and other bilious complaints, but they are
now much more healthy than they were on the

119
first settlement. Cultivation seems to alter the
character of the soil: where the plough goes it
is no longer a marsh, but dry sandy arable-
About thirty miles to the north of this, which,.
was among the earliest prairie settlements of the
district (having been done four or five years)
there are prairies of higher aspect, and uneven
surface, to which onr attention is directed, we
found a few settlers round one of these, who are
now watching their first crop.
These people are healthy, and the females
and children better complexioned than their
neighbours of the timbered country. It is evi
dent that they breathe better air : but they are
in a low state of civilization, about half-Indian
in their mode of life : they also seem to have
less cordiality towards a " land hunter," as they
with some expression of contempt, call the
stranger who explores their country in quest of
a home. Their habits of life do not accord with those
of a thickly settled neighbourhood : they are
hunters by profession, and they would have
the whole range of the forests for themselves
and their cattle. — Thus strangers appear among
them as invaders of their privileges ; as they
have intruded on the better founded, exclusive
privileges of their Indian predecessors.
But there are agreeable exceptions to the

120
coarse part of this general character. I have.
met with pleasant intelligent people who were
a perfect contrast to their semi-Indian neigh
bours ; cleanly, industrious, and orderly; whilst
ignorance, indolence, and disorder, with a total
disregard of cleanliness in their houses and
persons are too characteristic of the hunter tribe.
August 1. Dagiey's, twenty miles north of
Shawnee Town. After viewing several beauti
ful prairies, so beautiful with their surrounding
woods as to seem like, the creation of fancy, gar
dens of delight in a dreary wilderness ; and
after losing our horses and Spending two days
Jn recovering them, we took a hunter as our
guide, and proceeded across the Little Wa
bash, to explore the country between that river
and the Skillet-fork.
Since we left the Fox settlement, about fifteen
miles north of the Big Prairie, cultivation has
been very scanty, many miles intervening be
tween the little " clearings." This may there
fore be truly called, a new country.
These lonely settlers are poorly off ; — their
bread corn must be ground thirty miles off, re
quiring three days to carry to the mill, and bring
back, the small horse-load of three bushels;
Articles of family manufacture are very scanty,
and what they purchase is of the meanest qua
lity and excessively dear : yet they are friendly

121
and willing to share their simple fare with you.
It is surprising how comfortable they seem,
wanting every thing. To struggle with priva
tions has now become the habit of their lives,
most of them having made several successive
plunges into the wilderness : and they begin al
ready to talk of selling their " improvements,"
and getting farther " back," on finding that
emigrants of another description are thickening
about them.
Our journey across the Little Wabash was a
complete departure from all mark of civilization.
We saw no bears, as they are now buried in
the thickets, and seldom appear by day ; but,
at every few yards, we saw recent marks of
their doings, " wallowing" in the long grass,
or turning over the decayed logs in quest of
.beetles or worms, in which work the strength
of this animal is equal to that of four men. Wan
dering without track, where even the sagacity
of our hunter-guide had nearly failed us, we at
length arrived at the cabin of another hunter,
where we lodged.
This man and his family are remarkable in
stances of the effect on the complexion, pro
duced by the perpetual incarceration of a tho
rough woodland life. Incarceration may seem
to be a term less applicable to the condition of
a roving back-woodsman than to any other, and

122
especially unsuitable to the habits of this indi
vidual and his family ; for the cabin in which
he entertained us, is the third dwelling he has
built within the last twelve months ; and a very
slender motive would place him in a fourth be
fore the ensuing winter. In his general habits,
the hunter ranges as freely as the beasts he pur
sues : labouring under no restraint, his activity
is only bounded by his own physical powers :
still he is incarcerated* — " Shut from the com
mon air." Buried in the depth of a boundless
forest, the breeze of health never reaches these
poor wanderers ; the bright prospect of distant
hills fading away into the semblance of clouds,.
never cheered their sight : they are tall and
pale, like vegetables that grow in a vault, pining
for light,
The man, his pregnant wife, his eldest son,
a tall half-naked youth, just initiated in the
hunters' arts, his three daughters, growing up
into great rude girls, 'and a squalling tribe of
dirty brats of both sexes, are of one pale yel
low, without the slightest tint of healthful bloom.
In passing through a vast expanse of the
backwoods, I have been so much struck with
this effect, that I fancy I could determine the
colour of the inhabitants, if I was apprised of
the depth of their immersion ; and, vice versa,
Icould judge of the extent of the "clearing' if

123
I saw the people. The blood, I fancy, is not
supplied with its proper dose of oxygen from
their gloomy atmosphere, crowded with vege
tables growing almost in the dark, or decom
posing ; and, in either case, abstracting from
the air this vital principle.
Our stock of provisions being nearly exhausted,
we were anxious to provide ourselves with
a supper by means of our guns ; but we could
meet with neither deer nor turkey ; however, in
our utmost need, we shot three racoons, an old
one to be roasted for our dogs, and the two
young ones to be stewed up daintily for our
selves. We soon lighted a fire, and cooked the
old racoon for the dogs ; but, famished as they
were, they would not touch it, and their squeam-
ishness so far abated our relish for the promised
stew, that we did not press our complaining
landlady to prepare it : and thus our sUpper
consisted of the residue of our " corn" bread,
and no. racoon. However, we laid our bear
skins on the filthy earth, (floor there was none,)
which they assured us was " too damp for fleas,"
and wrapped in our blankets, slept soundly
enough ; though the collops of venison, hanging
in comely rows in the smoky fire-place, and even
the shoulders, put by for the dogs, and which
were suspended over our heads, would have
been an acceptable prelude to our night's rest,

124
had we been invited to partake of them ; but
our hunter and our host were too deeply en
gaged in conversation to think of supper. In
the morning the latter kindly invited us to
cook some of the collops, which we did by
toasting them on a stick ; and he also divided
some shoulders among the dogs : — so we all
fared sumptuously.
The cabin, which may serve as a specimen of
these rudiments of houses, was formed of round
logs, with apertures of three or four inches be
tween : no chimney, but large intervals be
tween the " clapboards," for the escape of the
smoke. The roof was however, a more effectual
covering than we have generally experienced, as
it protected us very tolerably from a drenching
night. Two bedsteads of unhewn logs, and
cleft boards laid across ; — two chairs, one of
them without a bottom, and a low stool, were all
the furniture required by this numerous family.
A string of buffalo hide stretched across the
hovel, was a wardrobe for their rags ; and their
utensils, consisting of a large iron pot, some
baskets, the effective rifle and two that were su
perannuated, stood about in corners, and the
fiddle, which was only silent when we were
asleep, hung by them.
Our racoons, though lost to us and our hun
gry dogs, furnished a new set of strings for this

125
favourite instrument. Early in the morning the
youth had made good progress in their prepar
ation, as they were cleaned and stretched on a
tree to dry.
Many were the tales of dangerous adventures.
in their hunting expeditions, which kept us from
our pallets till a late hour; and the gloomy
morning allowed our hunters to resume their
discourse, which no doubt would have been pro
tracted to the evening, had not our impatience
to depart caused us to interrupt it, which we
effected, with some difficulty, by eleven in the
forenoon. These hunters are as persevering as savages,
and as indolent. They cultivate indolence as a
privilege : — " You English are very industrious,
but we have freedom." And thus they exist in
yawningindifference, surrounded with nuisances,
and petty wants, the first to be removed, and the
latter supplied by a tenth of the time loitered
away in their innumerable idle days.
Indolence, under various modifications, seems
to be the easily besetting sin of the Americans,
where I have travelled. The Indian probably
stands highest on the scale, as an example; the
backwoods' man the next ; the new settler, who
declines hunting takes a lower degree, and
so on. I have seen interesting exceptions even
among the hunting tribe ; but the malady is

126
a prevailing one in all classes : — I note it again,
and again, not in the spirit of satire, biit as a
hint for reformation :
" To know ourselves diseased is. half a cure."
The little Wabash, which we crossed in
search of some prairies, which had been de
scribed to us in glowing colours, is a sluggish
and scanty stream at this season, but for three
months of the latter part of winter and spring,
it covers a great space by the overflow of waters
collected in its long course. The Skillet-fork is
also a river of similar character ; and the country
lying between them must labour under the in
convenience of absolute seclusion for many
months every year, until bridges and ferries are
established : this would be a bar to our set
tling within the " Fork," as it is called: we
therefore separated this morning, without losing
the time that it would require to explore this
part thoroughly. I proceed to Shawnee Town
land office, to make some entries which we had
, determined on, between the Little aud the Big
Wabash. Mr. Flower spends a day or two in
looking about, and returns to our families at
Princeton. Having, made my way through this
wildest of wildernesses to the Skillet-fork, I
crossed it at a shoal, which affords a notable
instance out of a thousand, of the utter worth-

127
lessness of reports about remote objects in this
country, even from soi-disant eye-witnesses.
A grave old hunter, wh© had the air of much
sagacity, declared to me, that he had visited
this shoal, that it is a bed of limestone, a sub
stance greatly wanting in this country. The
son confirmed the father's account, adding, that
he had seen the stone burnt into lime. It is mi
caceous sandstone slate, without the least affi
nity to lime-stone !
it is a dreadful country on each side of the
Skillet-fork ; flat and swampy ; so that the
water in many places, even at this season,
renders travelling disagreeable ; yet here and
there, at ten miles distance perhaps, the very
solitude tempts some one of the family of Esau
lo pitch his tent for a season.
At one of these lone dwellings we found a
neat, respectable-looking female, spinning un
der the little piazza at one side of the cabin,
which shaded her from the sun : her husband
was absent on business, which would detain
him some weeks : she had no family, and no
companion but her husband's faithful dog, which
usually attended him in his bear hunting in the
winter : she was quite overcome with ".?>we"
she said, and hoped we would tie our horses in
the wood, and sit awhile with her, during the
heat of the day, We did so, and she rewarded

128
us with a basin of coffee. Her husband was
kind and good to her, and never left her with
out necessity, but a true lover of bear hunting ;
which he pursued alone, taking only his dog
with him, though it is common for hunters to
go in parties to attack this dangerous animal.
He had killed a great number last winter ; five,
I think in one week. The cabin of this hunter
was neatly arranged, and the garden well
stocked. August 2. We lodged last night at another
cabin, where similar neatness prevailed within
and without. The woman neat, and the chil
dren clean in skin, and whole in their clothes.
The man possessed of good sense and sound
notions, ingenious and industrious, a contrast to
backwoods' men in general. He Uvea on the
edge of the seven miles' prairie, a spot char*
ming to the eye, but deficient in surface-
water, and they say the well-water is not
good, : J suppose they have not dug deeper than
twenty five feet, which is no criterion of the
purity of springs in a soil absorbent from the
surface to that depth.
Shawnee Town. This place I account as a
phenomenon evincing the pertinacious adhesion
of the human animal to the spot where it has
once fixed itself. As the lava of Mount Etna
cannot dislodge this strange being from the

129
cities which have been repeatedly ravaged by
its eruptions, so the Ohio with, its annual over
flowings is unable to wash away the inhabitants
of Shawnee Town. — Once a year, for a series of
successive springs, it has carried away the fences
from their cleared lands, till at length they have
surrendered, and ceased to cultivate them.
Once a year, the inhabitants either make their
escape to higher lands, or take refuge in their
upper stories, until the waters subside, when
they recover their position on this desolate sand
bank. Here is the land office for the south-east
district of Illinois, where I have just constituted
myself a land-owner by paying seven hundred
and twenty dollars, as one fourth of the purchase
money of fourteen hundred and forty acres:
this, with a similar purchase made by Mr.
Flower, is part of a beautiful and rich prairie,
about six miles distant from the Big, and the
same from the Little Wabash.
The land is rich natural meadow, bounded
by timbered land, within reach of two navi
gable rivers, and may be rendered immediately
productive at a small expence. The success
ful cultivation of several prairies has awakened
the attention of the public, and the value of
this description of land is now known; so that
the /smaller portions, which, are surrounded
i

i*y timber, will probably be settled so rapidly
as to absorb, in a few months, all that is to be
oMsrtfied at the government rate, of two dollars
pet acre.
Sand predominates in the soil of the south
eastern quarter of the Illinois territory: — the
basis of the country is sand-stone, lying, I be
lieve, on clay-slate. The bed of the Ohio, at
Shawnee Town is sand-stone: forty miles north
east, near Harmony, is a quarry of the same
stone, on the banks of the Big Wabash. The
shoals of the Little Wabash and the Skillet-
fork, twenty, forty, and sixty miles up, are of the
same formation. No lime-stone has yet been
discovered in the district. I have heard of
eoal in several places, but have not seen a
specimen of it. Little however, is yet known
•With precision of the surface of many parts of the
country ; and the wells, though numerous, rarely
reach the depth of thirty feet, below which,
I presume, the earth has in no instance been
explored. The geographical position of this portion
of territory promises favourable for its fu
ture importance. The Big Wabash, a noble
stream, forming its eastern boundary, runs a
course of about four hundred miles, through one
©f the most fertile portions of this most fertile
region. It has a communication well known to

131
the Indian traders, with lake Huron and all the
navigation of the north, by means of a portage of
eight miles to the Miami of the lakes. This
portage will, probably, be made navigable in a
few years. Population is already very consider
able along this river, and upon White River,
another beautiful and navigable stream, which
falls into the Wabash from the east. The
Little Wabash, though a sluggish stream, is, or
may become a navigable communication extend
ing far north, I am informed four hundred miles.
The prairies have been represented as marshes,
and many of them are so. This is not how
ever, the case with all. Our prairie rises at
its northern extremity to a commanding height,
being one of the most elevated portions of the
country, surmounting and overlooking the
woodlands to the south and west, to a great
distance. There are also many others to the
northward on lands of the same eligible cha
racter, high and fertile, and surrounded by
timbered lands. These are unsurveyed, and of
course are not yet offered to the public.
Nothing but fencing and providing water for
stock is wanted to reduce a prairie into the con
dition of useful grass land ; ahd from that state,
we all know, the transition to arable is through a
, simple process, easy to perform, and profitable
as it goes on. Thus no addition, except the
i2

132
above on the score of improvement, is to be
made to the first cost, as regards the land*'
Buildings, proportioned to the owner's inclina
tion or purse, are of course requisite on every
estate. The dividing a section (six hundred and forty
acres) into inclosures of twenty-five acres each,
with proper avenues of communication, each
mclosure being supplied with water, in the
most convenient manner, and live hedges plan
ted, or sown, will cost less than two dollars
per acre. This added to the purchase money,
when the whole is paid, will amount to eighteen
shillings sterling, per acre, or five hundred and
seventy six pounds for six hundred and forty
acres. Calculations on the capital to be employed,
or expended on buildings, and stock alive and
dead, would be futile, as this would be in pro
portion to the means. The larger the amount,
within the limits of utility, the greater the
profit : , but, as the necessary outgoings are
trifling, a small sum will do. Two thousand
pounds sterling for these purposes would place
the owner in a state of comfort, and even
affluence. I conclude from these data, that an English
farmer possessing three thousand pounds, be
sides the charges of removal may establish

133
himself well as a proprietor and occupier of such
an estate. The folly or the wisdom of the under
taking 1 leave among the propositions which are
too plain to admit of illustration.
In their irregular outline of woodland and
their undulating surface, these tracts of natural
meadow exhibit every beauty, fresh from the
hand of nature, which art often labours in vain
to produce ; but there are no organs of percep
tion, no faculties as yet prepared in this country,
for the enjoyment of these exquisite combinations.
The grand in scenery 1 have been shocked to
hear, by American lips, called disgusting, be
cause the surface would be too rude for the
plough ; and the epithet of elegant is used on
every occasion of commendation but that to
which il is appropriate in the English language.
An elegant improvement, is a cabin of rude logs,
and a few acres with the trees cut down to the
height of three feet, and surrounded by a
worm-fence, or zig-zag railing. You hear of an
elegant mill, an elegant orchard, an elegant tan-
yard, &c. and familiarly of elegant roads, — >
meaning such as you may pass without ex
treme peril. The word implies eligibility or use
fulness in America, but has nothing to do
with taste ; which is a term as strange to the
.American language, where I have heard it
spoken, as comfort is said to be to the French,

134
and for a similar reason : — -the idea has not yet
reached them. Nature has not yet displayed
to them those charms of distant and various
prospect, which will delight the future inhabi
tants of this noble country.
Scientific pursuits are also, generally speak
ing, unknown where I have travelled. Reading
is very much confined to politics, history and
poetry. 3$ojence is not, as in England, cultiva
ted for its own sake. This is to be lamented
the more, on account of the many heavy hours
of indolence under which most people are
doomed to toil, through every day of their
existence. What yawning and stretching, and
painful restlessness they would be spared, if
their time were occupied in the acquisition of
useful knowledge !
There is a sort of covetousness which would be
the greatest of blessings, to those. Americans
whose* circumstances excuse them from constant
occupation for a subsistence, — that is, to the
grpat majority of the people, — the covetousness
of time, from a knowledge of its value.
The life and habits of the great Franklin,
whose name, I am sorry to say, is not often
heard here, would be a most profitable study.
He ppssessed the true Philosopher's stone ; for
whatever he touched became gold under his
hand, through the magical power of a scientific

135
mind. This lamentable deficiency in science
and taste, two such, abundant sources, of enjsPy*
ment, must not be attributed to a want of
energy in the American character: — witness
the spirit and good sense with wliich men of
all ranks are seen to engage in discussions on
politics, history, or religion ; subjects which
have attracted, more or less, the attention of
every one. Nature has done much for them,
and they leave much to Nature : but they have
made themselves free ; — this may account; fpr
their indifference to science, and their zeal in
politics. August 3. Harmony. — We j left Shawnefe
Town this morning under more agreeable im
pressions regarding its inhabitants, than we had
entertained before we entered it We found
something, certainly, of river barbarism, the
genuine Ohio x character ; hut we met with a
greater number than we expected of agreeable
individuals : these, and the kind and hospitable
treatment we experienced at our tavern, formed
a good contrast to the rude society and wretched
fare we had left behind us at the Skillet-fork.
At this, our third visit, Harmony becomes more
enigmatical. This day, being Sunday, afforded
us an opportunity of seeing grouped and in
their best attire, a large part of the members
of this wonderful community; It was evening

136
when we arrivedj and we saw no human crea
ture about the streets : — we had even to call
the landlord of the inn out of church to take
charge of our horses. The cows were waiting
round the little dwellings, to supply the inha
bitants with their evening's meal. Soon the
entire body of people, which. is about seven
hundred, poured out of the church, and exhi
bited so much health, and peace, and neatness
in their persons, that we could not but exclaim,
surely the institutions which produce so much
happiness must have more of good than of evil
in them ; and here i rest, not lowered in my
abhorrence of the hypocrisy, if it be such, which
governs the ignorant by nursing them in super
stition ; but inclined in charity to believe that
the leaders are sincere. Certain it is, that
living in such plenty, and a total abstraction
from care about the future provision for a
family, it must be some overbearing thraldom
that prevents an increase of their numbers by
the natural laws of population.
I had rather attribute this phenomenon to
bigotry pervading the mass, than charge a few
with the base policy of chaining a multitude,
by means of superstition. It is, however, diffi
cult to separate the idea of policy from a con
trivance which is so highly political. The
number of Mr. Rapp's associates would increase

137
so rapidly, without some artificial restraint, as
soon to become unmanageable.
This colony is useful to the neighbourhood, a
term which includes a large space here: it
furnishes from its store many articles of great
value, not so well supplied elsewhere ; and it is
a market for all spare produce. There are also
valuable culinary plants and fruit trees, for
which the neighbourhood is indebted to the
Harmonites ; and they set a good example of
neatness and industry : but they are despised
as ignorant; and men are not apt to imitate
what they scorn. Ignorant as the mass of Har
monites may be, when we contrast their neat
ness and order, with the slovenly habits of their
neighbours, we see the good arising from mere
association, which advances these poor people
a century, probably much more, on the social
scale, beyond the solitary beings who build
their huts in the v. ilderness. For my reflections
on the principles which may be supposed to
actuate the rulers of this highly prosperous
community, having no personal knowledge of
the parties who govern, nor intimacy with any
of the governed, 1 have no data, except the
simple and, possibly, superficial observations of
a traveller. Should I in this character have
under-rated or mistaken them, I shall, when
their neighbour, gladly repair my error.

138
From our entrance into the state of Ohio, at
Wheeling, to the southern boundary of the
Illinois, there is, properly speaking, no capital
employed in agriculture, as far as our observa-?
tions extended.
The little that exists, over and above the
value of the soil, is to be seen in towns, in the
stores, and in mills.
The whole stock of the first settlers generally
consisted in their two hands : and the property
they now possess— the fruit of the labour of
these hands — can hardly be considered as ca
pital employed in agriculture, as the sum of the
best improvements yet effected, only consists in
a few more of the necessaries of life ; and when
the little money that is obtained for produce is
expended in further improvements, the culti
vator merely suspends his right to, partake of
its comforts. He has no capital, properly speak
ing, employed in agriculture, whilst he remains
unfurnished with the means of comfortable
living. As exceptions to the universal bareness and
poverty of the country in regard of capital,
there are a few instances in which its associa
tion with the physical power of numbers, has
produced effects so marvellous, that it seems to
be equally marvellous that such striking advan-

139
tages should not have produced more under
takings of a similar nature.
The instances I allude to, are the two settle
ments of the Shakers, one near Lebanon, in the
state of Ohio, and the other on the Wabash,
fifteen miles north of Vincennes, in the state ef
"Indiana : — also the original establishment of
Mr. Rapp and his followers in Pennsylvania,
and their present wonderful colony of Har
mony, on the Wabash, thirty miles south ©f
this place.
In the institution of these societies, the
Shakers aad the Harmonites,— religion, or, if
you will, fanaticism, seems to be an agent so
powerful:, and in fact is so powerful in its
operation on the conduct of their members, that
we are apt to attribute all the wonders that
arise within the influence of this principle to its
agency alone : for what may not be effected,
by a sentiment which can bear down and abro
gate entirely, in the instance of the Shakers;,
and nearly so in that of the Harmonites, the first
great and fundamental law of human, or rather
of all, nature ? I allude to the tenet which is
avowed in the former, and more obscurely in
culcated in the latter, that the gospel of Christ
is offered to them under the injunction of ab*
stinence from sexual intercourse.
I have had repeated opportunities of perianal

140
observation; on the effects of the united efforts
of the Harmonites. The result of a similar
union of powers among the Shakers, has been
described to me by a faithful witness ; and I
am quite convinced that the association of num
bers, in the,; application of a good capital, is
sufficient to account for all that has been done :
and that the unnatural restraint, which forms
so prominent and revolting a feature of these
institutions, is prospective, rather than imme
diate in its object.
It has, however, as I before remarked, the
mischievous tendency to render their example,
so excellent in other respects, altogether un
availing. Strangers visit their establishments,
and retire from them full of admiration ; but, a
slavish acquiescence under a disgusting super
stition, is so remarkable an ingredient in their
character, that it checks all desire of imitation.
I wish to see capital and population concen
trated, with no bond of cohesion, but common.
interest arising out of vicinity : the true ele
ments, as I conceive, of a prosperous community.
The effects of this simple association would
not be so immediately striking as those above
mentioned, because the entire physical strength
of the society could not be directed to one
point, but would be apparent after a little time.
Such a society needs only room to prosper,

141
No emancipation or breaking up would be
feared or thought of.
There is a plan before us, not yet sufficiently
matured for publication, which I hope may, at
no distant time, afford to some of our country
men the means of proving, that capital, skill,
and industry, are capable of changing " a wil
derness into a fruitful field," without the stimulus
of fanaticism, or the restraints of superstition.
The leading features of this scheme are, that
men of capital who shall embark in it may, by
affording to the poor the means pf escaping
from their sufferings, secure to themselves those
enjoyments and habits of life to which their
station in society has accustomed them ; and
obviating in respect to both classes the chief
-inconveniences of emigration.
The great want of capital in this country is
evinced by this circumstance : the growers of
" corn" (Indian corn) and other grain, sell at
this season regularly, under the knowledge that
it will as regularly advance to double the price
before the next harvest. We now have an
offer of two hundred barrels of " corn," five
bushels to the barrel, at a dollar per barrel,
when the seller is quite aware that it will be
worth two • dollars per barrel at Midsummer.
Thus store-keepers, or other capitalists, receive
as much for the crop, clear of expences, as the

142
grower himself, who clears the land, ploughs,
sows, and reaps it. We may judge from this
consideration how much the farmer is kept
back for want of spare capital ; and what will
be the advantages of the settler who commands
it. The same remark applies to bacon, and
every article of produce.
We must not suppose, that the poor farmer
who is obliged to sell under such a disad
vantage, is absolutely poor. He is, on the con
trary, a thriving man. Probably, the person
who now spares us from his heap, two hundred
barrels of corn, possessed three years ago,
nothing but his wife and family, his hands, and
his title to a farm where an axe had never been
lifted. He now, in addition, has a cabin, a
barn, stable, horses, cows, and hogs ; imple
ments, furniture, grain, and other provision ;
thirty or forty acres of cleared land, and more in
preparation, and well fenced ; and his quarter
section in its present state, worth four times its
cost. He is growing rich, but he would pro
ceed at a double speed, if he had the value of
one year's crop beforehand : such is the general
condition of new settlers.
A good cow and calf is worth from twelve to
twenty dollars ; a two year old heifer, six dol
lars ; sheep are scarce ; ewes are worth about
three dollars a head ; a sow three dollars ; a

143
stout horse for drawing, sixty dollars or up
wards. . „.,
' Wheat sells at 3s. 4\d. sterling, per bushel,
Winchester measure.
Oats, Is. 4d.
Indian corn, llrf.
Hay, about 35s. per ton.
Flour, per barrel, 36s: 1961b. nett.
Fowls, 4\d. each.
Eggs, \d.
Butter, 6d, per pound. w
Cheese, rarely seen, I3ld, per lb.
Meat, 2d. per lb.
A buck, 4s. 6d. without the skin.
Salt, 3s. 4d. per bushel.
Milk, given away.
Tobacco 3d. per pound.
Our design was to commence housekeeping,
but, being near the tavern, we continued to
board there. This is more convenient to us, as
there is but a poor market in this little town,
and the tavern charges are reasonable. Our
board is two dollars per week, each person, for
which we receive twenty one meals. Excellent
coffee and tea, with broiled chickens, bacon, &c.
for breakfast and supper; and variety of
good but simple fare at dinner; about five-
pence sterling a meal. No liquor but water is

144
thought^ of at meals in this country, besides
coffee, tea, or milk.
Travelling expences are very regular and
moderate, amounting to a dollar per day, for
man and horse, — viz. —
Breakfast and feed for horse  37j Cents
Feed for horse at noon  12*
Supper, and lodgiDg, man and horse 50
lOOthatisl dollar
The power of capital in this newly settled or set
tling reigon, is not thoroughly understood in the
eastern states, or emigration would not be con
fined to the indigent or laborious classes. These
seem to be all in motion ; for the tide sets far
more strongly from these states towards the
west, than from all Europe together. Trade
follows of course ; and it is not suprising that
old America no longer affords a sure asylum for
the distressed of other countries.
I am fully convinced, that those Who are not
screwed up to the full pitch of enterprize had
better remain in old England, than attempt agri
culture pr business of any kind (manual opera
tions excepted) in the Atlantic states. Emi
grants from Europe are too apt to linger in the
eastern cities, wasting their time, their money,
and their resolution, They should push out

J45
westward without delay, where they can live
cheaply until, they fix themselves. Two dollars,
saved in Pennsylvania, will purchase an acre of
good land in the Illinois.
The land carriage from Philadelphia, to
Pittsburg, is from seven to ten dollars per cwt,
(100 lb.) Clothing, razors, pocket-knives, pen
cils, mathematical instruments, and light arti
cles in general, of constant usefulness, ought to
be carried even at this expence, and books,
which are scarce, and much wanted in the west.
Good gun-loCks are rare and difficult to pro
cure. No heavy implements will pay carriage.'
A pocket compass is indispensable for every
stranger who ventures alone into the woods pf
America; and he should always carry the means
of lighting a fire : for the traveller, when he
starts in the morning on a wilderness journey,
little knows where next he may lay his head. —
Tow, rubbed with gunpowder is good tinder :
—a few biscuits, a phial of spirits., a tomahawk,
and a good blanket, are necessary articles.
Overtaken by night, or bewildered, if thus pro
vided, you may be really comfortable by- your
blazing fire ; when without them, you would
feel dismal and disconsolate. A dog is a. plea
sant and useful fellow-traveller in the back-t
woods. You should make your fire with a fallen
tree for a back-log, and lie to leeward, with

I#3
y#ac feet towards it. The smoke fly ing- over,
will preserve you from the damp air, and
musquitoes. Tie your horse with a long rein,
to the end of a bough, or the top of a young1
hackery- tree, which will .allow him to graze or
Btfbwse ; and change his position if yoH awake
itt the night.
Ity'iHeet&n; AugnsbA. When the back- coun
try^ of America is mentioned iii England, mus-
quitoes by night, and rattlesnakes by day, never
fy$ toalarm- the i magination ; to say nothing1 of
woiVeii- atfd bears, and panthers, andj Indians
still more ferocious. Our course of travelling1
frdm the mouth of James River, and over the
mountains, up to Pittsburg, about five hun
dred miles ; then three hundred miles through
tlie woods of the state of Ohio, down to Gin-
cinnMi ; next across the entire* wilderness of
Indiana, and to tfie extreme south of the Mfi-
hoi&-;«*--This lon^ and deliberate journey* one
would suppose, might have introduced our
partjr to an intimate acquaintance with some of
these pests of America. We have, it is true,
killed iteveral of the serpent tribe ; black snakes, 9
garter snakes, &c. ; and have seen one rattle
snake of extraordinary size. We have had
mosquitoes in a few damp spots, just as we
should have had gnats in England. In our late
expeditions- in the Illinois, where we have led

147
the lives of thorough backwood's men, if we
have been so unfortunate as to pitch i our tent
on the edge of a creek, or near aswamp, and
have mismanaged our fire, we have been teazed
with musquitoes, as we might have been in the
fens of Cambridgeshire ; this is the sum total
of our experience of these reported plagues.
But, for this forbearance, ample amends are
made by the innumerable tormentors which
assail you in almost every dwelling, till at
. leftgth you are glad, as evening approaches, to
avoid the abodes of matt, and spread your pallet
under the trees.
This in-doors calamity is so universal in the
backwoods that it seems to be UnavoidaMe, and
is submitted to as such with Wondrous equani
mity : by degrees, however, as the present
Wretched and crowded hovels shall give place
to roomy, and convenient habitations, the Spirit
of cleanliness will gain adrhission, and the
miseries which always accompany filth and
disorder will be brushed away, as the plagues
of Egypt were charmed by Aaron's rod.
Wolves and bears are extremely' numerous',
and (especially the latter) very injurious'to the
newly-settled districts. Hogs, which are a inain*
dependance for food as well as prolSt, are' their
constant prey ; and their holds are so strong,
that the hunters are unable lo keep down their
K2

148
numbers. There is a swamp of several miles
in length, to the north of Shawnee Town, (and,
I am told, there are many other such places)
which is only passable for man over the dams
made by beavers ; here the bears are absolute :
the swamp affords abundance of food for hogs
also, and they will resort to it. Yesterday, as
I was riding along the side of this swamp, a
farmer told me he had lost eight large hogs
there this summer.
The wolves are very destructive tp both hogs
and sheep ; but they seldom attack sheep till a
few years after a settlement has been made,
when accident or hunger induces them to make
trial of mutton ; and when they have once
tasted it they are not easily deterred. Bears
are lean in summer and very swift of foot, so
that dogs can hardly overtake them ; but in
winter they grow excessively fat on hickery
nuts and other kinds of mast, and are unable to
run for want of breath ; and this is the season
of bear-hunting. The flesh of bears is in high
estimation, and the skin is worth from three to
five dollars, according to the size. — Neither of
these marauders attack man' unless when they
are ' wounded, when they turn on the hunter
with great fury.
August 5. The heat of this climate is not so
oppressive to my feelings in the open prairies as

erect:

149
in the deep woods, nor in either so much so as I
expected. I have been using strong exercise
through three of the hottest days that have been,;
experienced for years, as say the people who
talk of the weather, in the prairies — at Shawnee
Town, on the Ohio, and here at Princeton —
" How did you stand the heat of Sunday,
Monday, and Tuesday ?" The fact was, that,
on one of those days, I walked with my gun in
the prairie, exposed to the sun's rays, in quest
of turkies, and travelled on horseback the other
two, without great inconvenience. There is
the comfort of a breeze every day ; and the
only breezeless sultry night I have experienced,
proved the prelude to a thunder storm the suc
ceeding day.
I think it may be attributed to these frequent
thunder storms, that the summers of this cli
mate are so pleasant and salubrious. When the
fervency of the season becomes oppressive,
suddenly the clouds collect, and a few rattling
peals are- heard ; if near, accompanied by a
soaking shower ; if at a distance, you have no
rain ; but the cooling invigorating effect is soon
perceived in the atmosphere.
August 7. We are now domiciliated in
Princeton. Though at the farthest limits of
Indiana, but two years old, and containing
about fifty houses, this little town affords re-

150
spectable society: it is the county-town, aud
can boast as many well-informed genteel people,
in proportion to the number of inhabitants, as
any county-town I am acquainted with. I think
there are half as many individuals who are, enti
tled to that distinction as there are houses, and
not one decidedly vicious character, nor one that
is not able and willing to maintain himself.
August 9- In my note of June 22, in which 1
attempted to give an outline of our views, re
garding the settlement we were in quest of, is a
remark on the increasing facility of accomplish
ing the upward navigation of the Mississipi and
Ohio, by means of steam ; from which it was in
ferred, that the grand intercourse between this
western world, and Europe, would be through
the Mississipi ; and that consequently, the low
er down the Ohio would eventually be the
nigher to Europe.
. We have, at length, dropped our anchor
where we communicate with that river five
hundred miles nearer to New Orleans than
Cincinnati, where that note was written ; and
the following extract from the log book of the
steam boat Etna, in the Louisville Courier,
which we have just received, comes very sea
sonably in confirmation of that opinion : it is
curious in itself, and a specimen of the locwl

IU
intelligence, which furnishes materials for oar
western journalists.
The average of speed against stream, of a
steam-vessel heavily laden, is about sixty miles
a-day. Th.ir loading upwards, consists of dry
goods, pottery, cotton, sugar, wines, liquors,
salted fishi &c besides passengers: downwards,
of graiD, flour, tolacco, bacon, &c. A consider
able number of these vessels, I believe, about
twenty-five, measuring from fifty to four hun
dred tons burthen, are now plying on these
rivers; generally built at Pittsburg, or their
machinery prepared there.
Extract from the Log 'Book of the Steam-
Moat, Etna, de Hart, from Neio Orleans,
to Louisville.
1817, June 6. Left New Orleans.
1 2. Arrived at Natchez. -Left 15th.
18. Passed the barge, Mary Ann,,
bound up above the gulph.
19. Passed the barge, Cincinnati,
above the Yazoo river.
20. Passed the barge* ©eneral
Washington, below the
Crow's-nest.
24. Ib the morning, below the Ax-
kaasas, met the Franklin.

152
1817; June 26. Passed the steam-boat Buffalo,
Captain Sturges, bound' up,
thirty miles below the river
St. Francis. At three P. M.
met the steam-boat, Ken
tucky, seven days from the
Falls.
28. Passed the steam-boat, Harriet,
above the Grand Cut-off,
with a leaky boiler. One
P. M. met the steam-boat,
Washington, Captain Shrove,
thirty miles below Chicke-
saw Bluffs, four days from
the Falls. Four P. M. met
the steam-boat, Vesuvius, de
Hart, eighteen miles below
the Bluffs ; three days and
a half from the Falls.
July 1. Passed the barge Independance,
, • ... fifty-five days, from New
. v'< Orleans, above the Devil's
( v;" Race Ground. Also passed
.;- ;.-- ¦:•, 'i a sloop barge.
July 6. About New Madrid passed a
sloop barge.
8. In the Ohio, below the Three,
Sisters, passed the barge,
Expedition.

153
1817, July 10. Stopped and discharged cargo
at Shawnee Town.
11. Stopped and discharged cargo
at Henderson.
13. Passed the Triton Baum, in the
Mouth of Sinking Creek,
discharging cargo.
14. At four, A. M. passed a sloop
barge at Big Blue River. —
Arrived at Louisville.
On this voyage she passed, or met, five other
steam-boats, besides the Franklin and Triton,
which I Suspect were also steam-boats. Nine-
tenths of the trade is yet carried on in the
usual craft ; flat-boats, barges, piragues, &c.
Shawnee Town is 1,200 miles from New Or
leans, which distance may be performed in
twenty days, provided there are no delays.
This is the nearest point on the Ohio to our
intended residence, (45 miles distance,) and
may therefore be considered as our shipping
port, from which we have navigable commu
nication, by the Wabash, into our immediate
vicinity. Thus situated, in the interior of a vast conti
nent, we may have communication with Europe
either for the export of produce or the intro
duction of merchandise, calculating on the ad
dition of a month to the voyage across the At
lantic.

J54
August 10. It is even so. Seeoote of July
7. We are on the confines of society, among
the true backwood's men. We have been much
among them — .have lodged in their cabins, and
partaken of their wretched and scanty fare :
they have been our pilots to .explore situations
still more remote, aud which only hunters visit.
From a nearer view of these people, some
thing must be withdrawn from the picture
which is given of their moral character, in the
note above referred to.
It is rather an ill-chosen or unfortunate at
tachment to tlie hunters' life, than an unprin
cipled aversion to the regulations of society,
which keeps them aloof from . the abodes of
more civilized men.
They must live where tliere is plenty of " bear
and deer, and wild honey." Be@ir-hua<tia.g is
their supreme delight: to enjoy this they are
content to live in all manner of wretchedness
and poverty : yet they are not savage in dispo
sition, but honest and kind; ready to forward
our wishes and even to labour for us, though
our coming will compel them to remove to the
" outside" again.
Not a settlement in this country is of a years
standing- — no harvest has yet rewarded their
toil ; but our approach, as I anticipated, will
dislodge many of them, unless they should be

155
tempted by our dollars to try the effect of la
bour, instead of the precarious supply derived
from their beloved rifle. Half-a-dozen of these
people, who had placed themselves round a
beautiful prairie, have, in fact, come forward
to sell us their all,— fat cattle, hogs, and this
their first crop of corn, ¦ now just maturing:
if we purchase they will go to some deeper re
cess, and build other cabins, and prepare cat
tle and corn, to be again quitted at the ap
proach of some succeeding adventurers like
ourselves ; who may be considered, in this
view, as the next grade in society.
But, that our friends in England, who majr
read these notes, may have an idea of our real
position, let them consider our two families,
viz. that of my friend Mr. George Flower, late
of Marden, in England, and my own, about
to be fixed upon eligible sites on our two
adjoining estates, of fifteen hundred acres each,
which we have carved for ourselves from a
beautiful prairie and the adjoining woods.
Here we are preparing to raise buildings :
carpenters and builders have offered them-
- selves ; estimates are made, and materials are
at hand. We are also providing for gardens
and orchards, that we may literally " sit under
our own vines and our own fig trees." We
might now mow many hundred acres of va-

156
luable'grass if we had a good stock of cattle to
require it.
The fee simple of each of these estates
amounts to three thousand dollars, £675 ster
ling ; they are liable to a land tax of thirty
dollars a-year to the general government, and
about the same to the county, together some
thing more than one penny per acre.
We shall have a certain and good market
for produce from the growing population ; or by
export down the Ohio.
Cattle and hogs thrive well, and even fatten,
especially the latter, to a great size on the food
they find ; and there is no bound to the number
that may be raised, but in the ability of the
breeder : they require little care, except to pro
tect them from bears and wolves — keeping them
tame, by giving them salt frequently.
On these estates we hope to live much as we
have been accustomed to live in England : but
this is not the country for fine gentlemen or fine
ladies of any class or description, especially for
those who love state, and require abundance of
attendants. To be easy and comfortable here, a man
should know how to wait upon himself, and
practise it, much more, indeed, than is common
among the Americans themselves, on whom the
accursed practice of slave-keeping has, I think,

157
entailed habits of indolence, even where it has
been abolished : it has also produced among
those, who have no objection to earning their
subsistence by labour in any other way, a bi-
gotted aversion to domestic service. House-
slaves are called " servants," and the word
" slave" and " servant," are in many places
synonymous, meaning " slave." Thus abhor
ring the name of domestic service, as implying
slavery, they keep their young people at home
in indolence, and often in rags, when they
might be improved in every way, by the easy
employment offered them in the farms of their
more affluent neighbours.
This prejudice against a name, I should think
might gradually be surmounted by good man
agement, and the powerful co-peration of self-
interest. But however this may be, families,
who remove into western America, either from
Europe, or the Atlantic states, should bring
with them the power and the inclination to
dispense in a great degree, with domestic
servants. How far this may be carried, consis
tently with real comfort, is yet to be proved ;
but I believe, very far, by the aid of various
mechanical and economical contrivances, which
money may procure where it cannot procure
servants ; and these aided by a simple system of
living.

ISS
After a!!, some real conveniencef and some
agreeable reflections, arise out of the scarcity of
domestics :— parade entertainments are dis
couraged by it ; and, if altogether relinquished,
so much the better : hospitality need not suffer.
There is also compensation for some priva
tions, in reflecting that you are not here sur
rounded by crowds of indigent fellow-creatures,
who would gladly pick the crumbs that fell
from your table: with more of these, the rich
might better supply their domestic establish
ments: but who is the American who desires
such a state of things ?
The inconvenience sustained by a few may be
cheerfully borne when we consider that it arises
orrt of the general prosperity.
August 31. On revising these notes, I find
some passages which will not suit the taste of
such of my former or my present countrymen,
(for I now consider myself an American) as
have a relish for national flattery :— but as truth
h&s be6n my sole object, I deserve their, confi
dence; and' shall obtain it, though it may be
with some degree of reluctance : and thus my
end will be accomplished, which was to in
form, rather than, to please.
The world we have left at so remote a dis
tance, and of which we hear so little, seems, to
my imagination, like a past scene, and its trans-

15fc
actions, as matter rather of history, than of pre
sent interest: but there are times, when the
recollection of individuals, dear to us, and whonv
we cannot lippe to meet again on earth, might
be too painful : but the occupations which sur
round us, soon demand our attention, and af
ford, — not a cure— for this, which is the only
serious ill which we experience from our change,
but a sure alleviation.
The report of our intended establishment in
the Illinois spreads far and wide ; and such is
the attraction of population to capital, that many
entries are already made by new settlers in our
intended neighbourhood, and applications occur
daily from many who are desirous of moving to
us, as we may be in a condition to provide them
with employment.
Our design is to commence operations by
building a number of cabins with indosures of
.two acres and a half each, along the sides of a
section, which is to be reserved1 as their cow
pasture. These cottages, and indosures, with a well
between two, may be rented by persons who
will resort to us for the sake of good earnings.
If they were ready I think they would be occu
pied by handicraftsmen immediately ; that is,
as soon as the transport of their families could
be effected.

160
The proposals, which have been already made,
anticipating our views, warrant this conclusion.
Here then, is a town about to rise before us ;
of no equivocal origin, but the necessary result
pf capital applied to cultivation under these
favourable circumstances.
I alluded, some pages back, to a larger plan,
which we had in contemplation, not then suffi
ciently matured to be laid fully before our friends.
Since the writing of that note, our scheme
hasacquired so much consistency, that we think
it safe to make some addition to that general
sketch. It is. the intention of my friend, Mr. Flower,
and myself, to purchase, on terms as favourable
as can be obtained from the government, one, or
more, entire townships in the Illinois territory,
where the country is partly prairie, and partly
woodland. A township comprises thirty-six square miles,
or sections of six hundred and forty acres each ;
in all, twenty-three thousand and forty acres.
These lands we propose to offer (on terms
proportionably favourable) to a number of our
countrymen, whose views may so far accord
with our own, as to render proximity of settle
ment desirable.
In the sale of public lands, there is a regu
lation, which I have before mentioned, that the

161
sixteenth section, which is nearly the centre of
every township, shall not be sold. It is called
the reserved section ; and is, accordingly, re
served for public uses in that township, for the
support of the poor, and for purposes of edu
cation. This section, being of course, at the disposal
of the purchasers of the entire township, we
shall, by judicious arrangements, provide out of
it, not only for the objects which the wisdom of
the legislature had in view, but for the present
accommodation of the more indigent, but. not
the least valued members of our proposed com
munity. To obviate the sufferings to which
emigrants of this class are exposed on their
arrival, it is a material part of our plan to have
in readiness for every poor family, a cabin, an
iuelosed garden, a cow, and a hog, with an
appropriation of land, for summer and winter
food for cows, proportioned to their number.
With regard to the disposal of the lands in
general, we shall probably offer them in sections,
half-sections, quarters, and eighths ; that is, in
allotments of six hundred and forty;, three hun
dred and twenty, one hundred and sixty, and
eighty acres, making other reservations of por
tions for public uses, as circumstances may
require. ' We wish it to be clearly understood, that vve

162
have no design of fprnjing a society of English,
to be governed by any laws or regulations of our
own framing. We would not bind others, nor
be ourselyes bound by any ties but those of
mutual interest, and good neighbourhood ; rim-
be subject to any law, but the law of the land.
Yet, as concentration of capital, as well as of
population, will be essential to the rapid pros
perity of our colony, we shall make a stipulation,
which we hope will be generally approved : —
That no person may be tempted, by the low
price at which our kinds shall be offered to
possess themselves, of it as a mere object of
speculation, a declaration will be required on
the part of the purchaser, of his intention to
reside on the spot.
We would, at the same time, impress upoij
him the necessity of not purchasing more than
he can fairly manage.
Our opinion is, that it would, be more advan
tageous to the resident proprietor to possess a
capital of four or five pounds sterling an acre,
than to incapaciate himself for carrying on his
improvements for want of adequate means.
I repeat, that we have not fallen on this
scheme from a wish to form a society exclu
sively English, or, indeed, aavy society as dis
tinct frotaa the people at large. We would
most willingly extend our proposals to Ameri-

.*£*--

103
cans or emigrants of any nation, with the requi
site capital, could our plan embrace them.
Concentration of capital and numbers is the
only refuge from many privations, and even suf
ferings in these remote regions: — but, the main,
advantage of preparing, as we propose, for the
reception of our brethren, will be to save them a
wearisome and expensive travel, in quest of a
settlement, but too often ending in despair.
Twelve long months spent in roaming over this
wilderness, has broken the spirits, and drained
the purses of many who would have done well,
had they proceeded at once to a place provided *
¦¦ — also, to afford immediate protection and em
ployment to poor emigrants.
Having proceeded thus far in the develope-
ment of our plan, it may materially forward its
completion to take one step farther; — that is,
to open a channel of communication with those
who may be so well pleased with it, as to wish
to join in its execution.
Such persons, if they cannot otherwise obtain
satisfactory information, will please to direct
their inquiries, to myself, at Princeton, Gibson
County, Indiana. THE END..

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FLOWER'S POLITICAL REVIEW for the Years 1807, 1808,1809, 1810, a*d 181 1 ;
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J'njIN BULL'S BIBLE; or Memoirs of the Stewardship, and Stewards of John
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