in the ports of the United States. New York is the chief mart in this
way. Merchants from the country, attend sometimes these {34} sales for
many days, and even for weeks together. Public sales, and the present
low prices, are very injurious to the merchants and manufacturers of
England.
Probably the market of Philadelphia displays the greatest quantity
of fruits and vegetables in the world. Boat loads are brought by the
Delaware, and numerous waggons come loaded from the interior. Peaches,
apples, pears, melons, cucumbers, pine apples, sweet potatoes, onions,
&c. are plentiful beyond example.
The cleanliness and the civil address of persons who vend provisions in
the market, are truly gratifying: if a speck is to be seen on the white
apron of the butcher, it may be inferred that it came there on the same
morning. Girls arrive on horseback, or driving light waggons, to sell
vegetables, or the produce of the dairy. Many of these females, I am
told, are the daughters of farmers who are in good circumstances. Here
are none of the lazzaroni hucksters of fruit and sweet-meats, that form
such a deplorable spectacle in the finest cities of Britain; nor of
the miserables who rise earlier than the sun, to pick from amongst the
ashes, the charred offal of their neighbour’s fire.
_September 3._ To-day I have seen a man sprawling on the ground in a
state of intoxication; he is a native of Ireland. This is the first
instance of the kind which I have seen in America. From this incident,
I do not mean to represent that the people here do not drink spirituous
liquors. The truth is, that many drink of them almost the moment after
they get out of bed, and also at frequent intervals during the day; but
though this fact has been noticed, the first conclusion is nevertheless
true, that excessive drinking is rare.
{37} The saw for cross-cutting timber for fuel, is a tool which, for
superior expedition, recommends itself to joiners and others. The
following figure is a representation of it.
AB is the blade, about thirty inches long, and about two inches broad.
It is very thin, and its teeth are very slightly bent to the right and
left, so that it makes a narrow cut, through which the slender blade
moves with little friction,--hence its facilities. The crooked stick
ECA is the handle, FDB is another crooked stick, into which the blade
is fixed at B. The wooden bar CD serves for fulcra, over which the
blade is stretched by twisting the small rope EF, by means of the peg
GH.
[Illustration]
The sawing of firewood, and many other sorts of hard labour, are
chiefly performed by black people. Happily, very few of these are
now slaves in Pennsylvania. Free blacks, it is understood, have no
difficulty in earning the means of subsistence, but the circumstance
of their being despised and degraded, has had bad effects on their
character. Even the Quakers, who have so honourably promoted negro
emancipation, allot a separate part of the church to people of colour.
In the state prison, too, they are separated from whites. These odious
distinctions should be abolished in a free country.
Negroes are stigmatized as an inferior race; indolent, dishonest,
and vindictive in the extreme. {38} There can be no doubt that, in
many instances, these characteristics are too just, but it cannot be
otherwise, while moral culture is, in a great measure, withheld from
them, while they are excluded from the society of the wise and the
good, and while the hope of applause gives no stimulus to the coloured
man. Moral or immoral, he is a negro. This, of itself, is enough to
keep him down. If Africans were placed on a similar footing, and with
the same opportunities, as their white neighbours, and if they still
kept behind, we might then begin to suspect a radical defect in their
nature. But, as they are, it cannot be pretended that the experiment
has been made.
For some time past, the democratic party have been nominating
candidates for their general support in the ensuing election. No doubt
is entertained of a democratic preponderance in the next session of
Congress. The Federalist cabal is now disconcerted in this part of the
Union. The mercenary avarice that would barter the independence of
America for English goods, was never less formidable than now.
Here, as at New York, boarding houses are to be found, varying from
the simplest accommodations, to elegance and luxury. The person who
lives in a house where a high price is paid for board, is separated
from the poorer class, and his acquaintances and associates are people
in affluent circumstances and polished education; he is as free in
the choice of his society as he possibly can be. Without doors,
however, persons of lesser note are not treated with _hauteur_, and in
transacting business the utmost affability prevails.
The dress worn in temperate weather is the same as in Britain, with
this difference only, that pantaloons {39} are almost universal: the
shorter small-clothes are used only by Quakers. On Sundays it would be
difficult to discriminate betwixt the hired girl and the daughter in a
genteel family, were drapery the sole criterion. Attentive observation
of the people on the streets, would convince any one of the general
diffusion of comfort and competence.
The symptoms of republican equality are visible in all the members
of the community. I have seen several curious instances of this,
which would surprise those accustomed only to the manners of the
old world. For example, the Mayor is a respectable-looking, plainly
dressed gentleman, and apparently a penetrating and efficient police
magistrate. On a late occasion the court was crowded, and the weather
hot; he desired a person in attendance to bring cold water. It was
brought in a brown jug, not accompanied with a glass. A person within
the railing (probably a lawyer or clerk, more thirsty than his honour)
intercepted the vessel, drank, and then handed it to the Judge.
On the Sabbath, we do not witness all the stillness and solemnity that
usually characterize a presbyterian town. On the _morning_ of that
day, I have seen loaded waggons start in the market street, for the
westward. A grocer, opposite to the house where I board, has two shops,
one of them he keeps open for the sale of liquor, segars, &c. In a
late newspaper, a complaint appeared against bringing cattle into the
street for sale on Sunday _afternoon_. If this complaint was founded
on truth, it is at least evident that it was addressed to citizens
who, it was believed, would suppress the evil. I am inclined to think
that a very great proportion of the people spend the day in the duties
of {40} religion; but some here, as in other places, employ it purely
as a day of rest; some as a day of amusement; and others in visiting
friends, or other convivial meetings. On a Sunday afternoon I have
heard many reports of guns, in the neighbouring woods or swamps. You
will consider all this as a foul blot on the fair character of the City
of Brethren; but I trust that your liberality will not impute to the
jurisprudence of America, pre-existing customs, that, at every stage
of the settlement, must have been imported from England; even from a
country which pays tithes, for the support of a priesthood.
Every day numbers of European emigrants are to be seen in the streets.
The ingress is greater than at any former time. I have never heard of
another feeling than good wishes to them. For my own part, I have met
with several receptions kinder than I ever could have anticipated;
and have become acquainted with a number of excellent citizens, whose
approbation will always be sufficient to convey a high gratification to
my mind.
FOOTNOTES:
[17] The author’s route from New York to Philadelphia was by boat to
New Brunswick, thence by stage to Trenton on the Delaware, where boat
was taken for Philadelphia. Stages, by this time, had practically
ceased running between New York and Philadelphia.--ED.
[18] James Witherspoon, born in Haddingtonshore, Scotland, in 1722, was
a descendant of John Knox. Graduating from Edinburgh University, and
receiving ordination as a Presbyterian minister, in 1768 he accepted
an invitation to become president of Princeton College, and brought
with him a considerable addition to the college library. From the first
he took an active part in the Revolutionary War; as member of the
provincial assembly, he assisted in overthrowing the royal governor;
as member of the continental congress he signed the Declaration of
Independence, and aided in initiating several important legislative
measures. After the close of the war, he retired to his farm near
Princeton, dying there in September, 1794.--ED.
[19] Washington’s Letters, vol. ii, page 4, Lond. 1795.--FLINT.
[20] John Mease, a wealthy and philanthropic Philadelphian, was born
in 1771. Although a graduate of the Medical College of the University
of Pennsylvania, he did not practice regularly, but devoted himself to
literary and scientific pursuits. In association with David Rittenhouse
and other members of the Philosophical Society, he was engaged in
numerous undertakings for the betterment of the city. His _Picture
of Philadelphia_, published in 1811, was for many years the best
travellers’ guide thereof.--ED.
[21] The American Philosophical Society, the oldest scientific
association in America, was organized by Franklin in 1743. In 1769 it
was combined with the American Society for Promoting Useful Knowledge,
and from that date (except for a few years during the Revolutionary
War) has never failed to meet regularly. Among its presidents may be
noted Franklin, Jefferson, Rittenhouse, and Caspar Wistar.
The Society of Artists, formed in 1810, to establish a school of
drawing and hold an annual exhibition of foreign and American
paintings, was dissolved soon after Flint’s visit to Philadelphia.
The Academy of Fine Arts was organized in 1805, largely through the
efforts of Charles Wilson Peale. The following year a building was
occupied, and the first exhibition opened in 1811, in conjunction with
the Society of Artists. The Academy has ceased to hold exhibitions, but
maintains a good permanent collection.
The Museum, opened by Peale at his residence in 1784, contained for
the most part portraits of Revolutionary heroes painted by himself.
When transferred to Independence Hall (1802), it included a large
collection of birds, insects, and the implements of primitive men.
The Philadelphia Museum Company acquired it in 1821; but later the
collection was sold and dispersed.--ED.
[22] Dr. Mease’s Picture of Philadelphia.--FLINT.
[23] Thomas Cooper, born in London in 1759, was eminent both as a
lawyer and a scientist. Educated at Oxford, he practiced law, first
in England, and after 1795 in Northumberland, Pennsylvania. Upon a
visit to France (about 1792), he studied chemistry, and continued his
researches in that science after coming to America. Upon being removed,
for arbitrary conduct, from a judgeship (1811), he was appointed
professor of chemistry at Dickinson College, later at the University
of Pennsylvania, and in 1820 became president of the college of South
Carolina. At the time of his death (1840) he was engaged in revising
the statutes of the latter state, and in writing pamphlets in favor of
state rights.--ED.
[24] For a brief biography of David Rittenhouse, see A. Michaux’s
_Travels_, volume iii of our series, note 75.--ED.
[25] Alexander Wilson was for many years a weaver and poet in Paisley,
Scotland. Trouble breaking out between the weavers and masters,
he emigrated to Philadelphia in 1794, becoming in turn weaver,
school-teacher, and peddler. In 1802 the scientist John Bartram became
interested in Wilson’s talents, and gave systematic direction to his
natural taste for ornithology, to which he devoted the remainder of his
life. He published his first volume of _American Ornithology_ in 1808,
and had nearly completed nine volumes before his death, in 1813.--ED.
[26] A public reading-room called the Atheneum was established by
private subscription in 1814. Ten years later it contained 3,300
volumes, including prominent foreign and American reviews. Rooms were
rented from the American Philosophical Society until 1847, when the
Atheneum building was erected.--ED.
[27] For a sketch of John Melish, see Bradbury’s _Travels_, volume v of
our series, note 129.--ED.
[28] For a brief description of the National Road, see Harris’s
_Journal_, volume iii of our series, note 45.--ED.
{41} LETTER IV[29]
Journey from Philadelphia to Pittsburg--Lancaster--Elizabeth
Town--The River Susquehana--Harrisburg--Carlisle--Chambersburg--Cove
Mountain--Macconnel’s Town--Sidelong-hill--The
river Juniata--Bedford--The Allegany
Ridge--Stoystown--Laurel-hill--Lauchlinstown--Chesnut
Ridge--Greensburg--Adamsburg--Pittsburg--Interspersed remarks on the
Country, Taverns, &c.--Notices of Emigrants, and occurrences by the
way.
_Pittsburg, 28th September._
The contents of this will be composed of notes taken on my journey from
Philadelphia to Pittsburg.[30]
On the morning of the 20th of September, I went to the Coach-Office in
Philadelphia to take my seat. Such is the number of travellers that I
found it necessary to take out a ticket two days previously.
The mail-coach is a large clumsy vehicle, carrying twelve passengers.
It is greatly encumbered by large bags, which are enormously swollen by
the bulk of newspapers. As a substitute for glass windows, a large roll
of leather is let down on each side in bad weather.
During the greater part of the day our route was through a part of the
country of a clayey soil, moderately fertile, and of a flat insipid
surface. Late in the afternoon, we passed some land of a finer mould,
and more elegant structure, with fruit trees bending under their load.
The Indian {42} corn is nearly ripe, and is a great crop this year.
The stalks are generally about eight feet high. The people have been
picking the leaves off this sort of crop, and setting them up between
the rows in conical bunches, to be preserved as winter food for the
cattle.
We passed several family waggons moving westward. The young and the
strong walking, the aged and infants riding. Waggons for removing
families, and those for carrying goods to Pittsburg, have a canvass
cover, stretched over hoops that pass from one side of the waggon to
the other, in the form of an arch. The front is left open, to give the
passengers within the vehicle the benefit of a free circulation of cool
air.
Lancaster is a large town, well known for the manufacture of
rifle-guns. We were too late in the evening for having a distinct sight
of the place, or of the country towards Elizabeth Town, which is much
commended.
_September 21._ The coach stopped at Elizabeth Town, last night, for
three hours, and started again before three o’clock. We were near
Middletown (eight miles on our way) before the light disclosed to our
eyes a pleasant and fertile country.
It was near Middletown that we got the first peep of the river
Susquehana, which is here about a mile in breadth. The trees on the
east bank, confining the view to the right and left, produced an
illusory effect, almost imposing on the mind a lake instead of the
river. The highly transparent state of the air, and the placid surface
of the water, united in producing a most distinct reflexion of the bold
banks on the opposite side. Cliffs, partially concealed by a luxuriant
growth of trees, sprung from the detritus below, and by smaller {43}
ones rooted in the rifted rocks. Over these a rising back ground is
laid out in cultivated fields. The eye is not soon tired of looking on
a scene so richly furnished, and so gay.
Harrisburg, the seat of legislature of Pennsylvania, is a small town
which stands on a low bottom by the river; a pleasant, but apparently
an unhealthy situation. Opposite to the town is a small island in the
river, connected with the eastern and western shores by very long
wooden bridges. The waters of the Susquehana are limpid, but shallow at
this place, and ill adapted to navigation, except in times of flood.
The country immediately west of the Susquehana is truly delightful.
The soil, whether occupied by the natural woods, orchards, or crops,
is covered with a profuse vegetation; and the superficial aspect
altogether agreeable. The best sort of houses are of limestone; they
shew nothing of fine taste or neat workmanship, but are far superior in
durability and appearance to the wooden erections so common here. Barns
are much larger, and frequently neater than the adjoining dwellings.
Towards Carlisle, the road passes through lands inferior to the lower
country, seen in the forenoon. The surface of limestone rocks, and
large detached blocks of the same mineral, interrupt the plough in the
field, and the wheeled carriage on the road.
Carlisle, though in a newly settled country, has an appearance somewhat
antiquated. With so much grass growing in the streets, a suspicion
arises that there is not much traffic here.
Shippensburg is a place more recently founded than the last, but has,
notwithstanding, contracted something like the rust of time. Wooden
{44} erections soon acquire a weather-beaten appearance. The subsidence
of log houses discloses chinks, shewing that they are well ventilated
in summer, but not the most comfortable lodgments for the winter.
At Chambersburg the coach halted during the night. The rough roads
already surmounted, and the report of worse still before us, determined
two of the passengers, besides myself, to walk, as an easier mode
of travelling over the mountains. Chambersburg is 143 miles from
Philadelphia, and 155 from Pittsburg; and lies in the intersection of
the roads from York, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. Several branches of
what has been very properly called the current of emigration, being
here united, strangers from the eastern country, and from Europe,
are passing in an unceasing train. An intelligent gentleman, at this
place, informed me, that this stream of emigration has flowed more
copiously this year, than at any former period; and that the people
now moving westward, are ten times more numerous than they were, ten
years ago. His computation is founded on the comparative amount of the
stage-coach business, and on careful observation. This astonishing
statement is, in some degree, countenanced by a late notice in a New
York newspaper, that stated the number of emigrants which arrived in
that port during the week, ending the 31st of August last, to be 2050.
The gentleman alluded to, says, that shades of character, sensibly
different from one another, are forming in the western States. He
represents the Kentuckians to be a high-toned people, who frequently
announce their country, as if afraid of being mistaken for inhabitants
of Ohio State; and the Ohians, as having less pride of country, being
less assuming in their {45} demeanour, but not less agreeable in
conversation, nor less punctual in business transactions. Were it not
for the intelligence of my penetrating informant, and for his great
intercourse with travellers, I would certainly not have remarked the
supposed distinction of these provincial characters. If the difference
really exists, it will be difficult to assign any moral cause that is
adequate; unless it be the keeping slaves in Kentucky, a species of
stock not permitted by the constitution of Ohio.
_September 22._ We found a waggoner who agreed to carry our travelling
necessaries to Pittsburg. For my portmanteau, weighing about fourteen
pounds, he charged three dollars, alleging the trouble that attends
putting small articles within doors every night. This is an instance
of one man measuring his demand by the urgent situation of another.
The jolting that waggons undergo in this rugged country, render it
indispensable that baggage be packed with the utmost care.
The two young gentlemen with whom I started, are Americans, good
walkers, and cheerful companions.
One mile to the north of Chambersburg the road ascends a steep hill of
slate clay, the first stratified substance that I have seen overlaying
the limestone. The soil on the summit is so excessively poor, that I am
surprised to see such ground cultivated in this country.
Several taverns by the road are log-houses constructed by laying
squared trees horizontally, in a quadrangular position, in a way
similar to that in which house-joiners pile up boards to be dried. As
the erection advances, the last laid or uppermost log is notched on the
upper side, near both ends, for the reception of the next cross pieces.
{46} The interstices are filled up with lime or clay, and the roofs are
of shingles, or thin boards. Frame houses consist of erect posts, set
in sills or horizontal foundation beams. Over the tops of the posts
other horizontal pieces are laid, forming the summit of the wall.
The outside of the posts are covered over with thin boards, ranged
horizontally, the upper one uniformly overlaying the edge of that
immediately under it. The inside is most commonly lined with lathing
and plaster, but the last piece of finery is frequently dispensed with.
Near Baker’s tavern, six miles from Chambersburg, the waggon wheels
have uncovered a fine slate clay, fit to be used as slate pencils. The
same kind of substance is to be seen in the adjoining stream.
Around Campbell’s Town, seven miles from Chambersburg, the land is
bleak, and apparently poor; to the north-west an extended high ridge
exposes to view a large tract of romantic wood scenery.
At thirteen miles from Chambersburg is Loudon, a few houses only, two
of them taverns, situated at the foot of the ridge just mentioned,
which is called the Cove Mountain. A new road is formed over it. The
ascent is winding and gradual, so that seven miles are occupied in
surmounting the formidable barrier. The darkness of the night, and
the great quantity of timber on both sides, rendered this part of
our journey very gloomy. Not a sound was to be heard but that of the
Catadid, a large green insect, whose note resembles its name, as nearly
as it can any articulate sound. Near the top of the hill stands a
miserable log tavern filled with _movers_, a name for settlers removing
to the western country. At the summit, we were accosted in the Irish
accent. The individual {47} told us that he was so much exhausted, that
he could not proceed farther, and that he had laid himself down among
the trees.[31]
At Macconnel’s Town, we knocked at the door of a tavern, heard a noise
within, which convinced us that the people were astir, but not willing
to hear us. On making louder applications, the landlord saluted us,
“_Who’s there?_” With some reluctance he let us in, grumbling at
the lateness of our arrival, it being ten minutes past ten o’clock.
He affected to be unwilling to let us have supper; but while he was
refusing, a female commenced cooking for us.
_September 23._ From beds which we last night saw on the floor of the
bar-room, a numerous group of Swiss emigrants had arisen. One of them,
an old man with a long beard, has a truly patriarchal appearance. The
females wear hats, and are of a hardy and masculine form.
About a mile from Macconnel’s Town, is the foot of another steep
ridge; a new road over it is nearly finished. Here we met with a
foot traveller, who told us that he had settled in Illinois, by the
Wabash, about fifty miles above Vincennes. The ground, he said, “is as
good as ever man set foot on.”[32] He had not heard of Mr. Birkbeck’s
settlement: this, together with his appearance, convinced us that he is
a hunter of the woods. He was on his way to remove his family from New
York state, a journey of 1400 miles.