often the name of town to a group of seven or eight houses, and that
the mode of constructing them is not the same everywhere. At {29}
Philadelphia the houses are built with brick. In the other towns and
country places that surround them, the half, and even frequently the
whole, is built with wood; but at places within seventy or eighty
miles of the sea, in the central and southern states, and again more
particularly in those situated to the Westward of the Alleghany
Mountains, one third of the inhabitants reside in _log houses_. These
dwellings are made with the trunks of trees, from twenty to thirty
feet in length, about five inches diameter, placed one upon another,
and kept up by notches cut at their extremities. The roof is formed
with pieces of similar length to those that compose the body of the
house, but not quite so thick, and gradually sloped on each side. Two
doors, which often supply the place of windows, are made by sawing
away a part of the trunks that form the body of the house; the
chimney, always placed at one of the extremities, is likewise made
with the trunks of trees of a suitable length; the back of the chimney
is made of clay, about six inches thick, which separates the fire from
the wooden walls. Notwithstanding this want of precaution, fires very
seldom happen in the country places. The space between these trunks of
trees is filled up with clay, but so very carelessly, that the {30}
light may be seen through in every part; in consequence of which these
huts are exceedingly cold in winter, notwithstanding the amazing
quantity of wood that is burnt. The doors move upon wooden hinges, and
the greater part of them have no locks. In the night time they only
push them to, or fasten them with a wooden peg. Four or five days are
sufficient for two men to finish one of these houses, in which not a
nail is used. Two great beds receive the whole family. It frequently
happens that in summer the children sleep upon the ground, in a kind
of rug. The floor is raised from one to two feet above the surface of
the ground, and boarded. They generally make use of feather beds, or
feathers alone, and not mattresses. Sheep being very scarce, the wool
is very dear; at the same time they reserve it to make stockings. The
clothes belonging to the family are hung up round the room, or
suspended upon a long pole.
At Columbia the Susquehannah is nearly a quarter of a mile in breadth.
We crossed it in a ferry-boat. At that time it had so little water in
it, that we could easily see the bottom. The banks of this river were
formed by lofty and majestic hills, and the bosom of it is strewed
with little islands, which {31} seem to divide it into several
streams. Some of them do not extend above five or six acres at most,
and still they are as lofty as the surrounding hills. Their
irregularity, and the singular forms that they present, render this
situation picturesque and truly remarkable, more especially at that
season of the year, when the trees were in full vegetation.
About a mile from Susquehannah I observed an _annona triloba_, the
fruit of which is tolerably good, although insipid. When arrived at
maturity it is nearly the size of a common egg. According to the
testimony of Mr. Mulhenberg this shrub grows in the environs of
Philadelphia.
About twelve miles from Columbia is a little town called York, the
houses of which are not so straggling as many others, and are
principally built with brick. The inhabitants are computed to be
upward of eighteen hundred, most of them of German origin, and none
speak English. About six miles from York we passed through Dover,
composed of twenty or thirty log-houses, erected here and there. The
stage stopped at the house of one M’Logan, who keeps a miserable inn
fifteen miles from York.[10] That day we travelled only thirty or
forty miles.
Inns are very numerous in the United States, and {32} especially in
the little towns; yet almost everywhere, except in the principal
towns, they are very bad, notwithstanding rum, brandy, and
whiskey[11] are in plenty. In fact, in houses of the above
description all kinds of spirits are considered the most material, as
they generally meet with great consumption. Travellers wait in common
till the family go to meals. At breakfast they make use of very
indifferent tea, and coffee still worse, with small slices of ham
fried in the stove, to which they sometimes add eggs and a broiled
chicken. At dinner they give a piece of salt beef and roasted fowls,
and rum and water as a beverage. In the evening, coffee, tea, and ham.
There are always several beds in the rooms where you sleep; seldom do
you meet with clean sheets. Fortunate is the traveller who arrives on
the day they happen to be changed; although an American would be quite
indifferent about it.
Early on the 28th of June we reached Carlisle, situated about
fifty-four miles from Lancaster. The town consists of about two
hundred houses, a few of them built with brick, but by far the
greatest part {33} with wood. Upon the whole it has a respectable
appearance, from a considerable number of large shops and warehouses.
These receptacles are supplied from the interior parts of the country
with large quantities of jewellery, mercery, spices, &c. The persons
who keep those shops purchase and also barter with the country people
for the produce of their farms, which they afterwards send off to the
seaport towns for exportation.
From M’Logan’s inn to Carlisle the country is barren and mountainous,
in consequence of which the houses are not so numerous on the road,
being at a distance of two or three miles from each other; and out of
the main road they are still more straggling. The white, red, and
black oaks, the chesnut, and maple trees are those most common in the
forests. Upon the summit of the hills we observed the _quercus
banisteri_. From Carlisle to Shippensburgh the country continues
mountainous, and is not much inhabited, being also barren and
uncultivated.
We found but very few huts upon the road, and those, from their
miserable picture, clearly announced that their inhabitants were in
but a wretched state; as from every appearance of their approaching
{34} harvest it could only afford them a scanty subsistence.
The coach stopped at an inn called the General Washington, at
Shippensburgh, kept by one Colonel Ripey, whose character is that of
being very obliging to all travellers that may happen to stop at his
house on their tour to the western countries. Shippensburgh has
scarcely seventy houses in it. The chief of its trade is dealing in
corn and flour. When I left this place, a barrel of flour, weighing
ninety-six pounds, was worth five piastres.
From Shippensburgh to Pittsburgh the distance is about an hundred and
seventy miles.[12] The stages going no farther, a person must either
travel the remainder of the road on foot, or purchase horses. There
are always some to be disposed of; but the natives, taking advantage
of travellers thus situated, make them pay more than double their
value; and when you arrive at Pittsburgh, on your return, you can only
sell them for one half of what they cost. I could have wished, for the
sake of economy, to travel the rest of the way on foot, but from the
observations I had heard I was induced to buy a horse, in conjunction
with an American officer with whom I came in the stage, and who was
also going to Pittsburgh. We agreed to ride alternately.
{35} CHAP. IV
_Departure from Shippensburgh to Strasburgh--Journey over the
Blue Ridges--New species of_ Rhododendrum--_Passage over
the river Juniata--Use of the Cones of the_ Magnolia
Acuminata--_Arrival at Bedford Court House--Excesses
to which the Natives of that part of the Country are
addicted--Departure from Bedford--Journey over Alleghany
Ridge and Laurel Hill--Arrival at West Liberty Town._
On the morning of the 30th of June we left Shippensburgh, and arrived
at twelve o’clock at Strasburgh, being a distance of ten miles. This
town consists of about forty log-houses, and is situated at the foot
of the first chain of Blue Ridges. The tract of country you have to
cross before you get there, although uneven, is much better; and you
have a view of several plantations tolerably well {36} cultivated.
After having taken a moment’s repose at Strasburgh, we pursued our
journey notwithstanding the heat, which was excessive, and ascended
the first ridge by an extremely steep and rocky path. We reached the
summit after three quarters of an hour’s difficult walking, and
crossed two other ridges of nearly the same height, and which follow
the same direction. These three ridges form two little valleys, the
first of which presents several small huts built on the declivity; in
the second, which is rather more extensive, is situated a town called
Fenetsburgh, composed of about thirty houses, which stand on both
sides of the road; the plantations that surround them are about twenty
in number, each of which is composed of from two to three hundred
acres of woody land, of which, from the scarcity of hands, there are
seldom more than a few acres cleared. In this part of Pensylvania
every individual is content with cultivating a sufficiency for himself
and family; and according as that is more or less numerous the parts
so cleared are more or less extensive; whence it follows, that the
larger family a man has capable of assisting him, the greater
independence he enjoys; this is one of the principal {37} causes of
the rapid progress that population makes in the United States.
This day we travelled only six-and-twenty miles, and slept at Fort
Littleton, about six miles from Strasburg, at the house of one Colonel
Bird, who keeps a good inn. From Shippensburgh the mountains are very
flinty, and the soil extremely bad; the trees of an indifferent
growth, and particularly the white oak that grows upon the summit, and
the _calmia latifolia_ on the other parts.
The next day we set out very early in the morning to go to Bedford
Court House. From Fort Littleton to the river Juniata we found very
few plantations; nothing but a succession of ridges, the spaces
between which were filled up with a number of little hills. Being on
the summit of one of these lofty ridges, the inequality of this group
of mountains, crowned with innumerable woods, and overshadowing the
earth, it afforded nearly the same picture that the troubled sea
presents after a dreadful storm.
Two miles before you come to the river Juniata, the road is divided
into two branches, which meet again at the river side. The right leads
across the mountains, and the left, which we took, appeared to {38}
have been, and may be still the bed of a deep torrent, the ground
being wet and marshy. The banks were covered with the _andromeda_,
_vaccinium_, and more particularly with a species of _rhododendrum_,
that bears a flower of the clearest white; the fibres of the stamina
are also white, and the leaves more obtuse, and not so large as the
_rhododendrum maximum_. This singular variation must of course admit
its being classed under a particular species. I discovered this
beautiful shrub a second time on the mountains of North Carolina. Its
seeds were at that time ripe, and I carried some of them over with me
to France, which came up exceedingly well. The river Juniata was not,
in that part, above thirty or forty fathoms broad, and in consequence
of the tide being very low, we forded it; still, the greatest part of
the year people cross it in a ferry-boat. Its banks are lofty and very
airy. The _magnolia acuminata_ is very common in the environs; it is
known in the country by the name of the _cucumber tree_. The
inhabitants of the remote parts of Pensylvania, Virginia, and even the
western countries, pick the cones when green to infuse in whiskey,
which gives it a pleasant bitter. This bitter is very much esteemed in
the country as a preventive against intermittent {39} fevers; but I
have my doubts whether it would be so generally used if it had the
same qualities when mixed with water.
From the crossing of the river Juniata to Bedford Court House, the
country, although mountainous, is still better, and more inhabited,
than that we travelled over from Shippensburgh. The plantations,
although seldom in sight of each other, are near enough to give a more
animated appearance to the country. We arrived at Bedford in the dusk
of the evening, and took lodgings at an inn, the landlord of which was
an acquaintance of the American officer with whom I was travelling.
His house was commodious, and elevated one story above the ground
floor, which is very rare in that part of the country. The day of our
arrival was a day of rejoicing for the country people, who had
assembled together in this little town to celebrate the suppression of
the tax laid upon the whiskey distilleries; rather an arbitrary tax,
that had disaffected the inhabitants of the interior against the late
president, Mr. Adams.[13] The public houses, inns, and more
especially the one where we lodged, were filled with the lower class
of people, who made the most dreadful riot, and committed such
horrible excesses, that {40} is almost impossible to form the least
idea of. The rooms, stairs, and yard were strewed with drunken men;
and those who had still the power of speech uttered nothing but the
accents of rage and fury. A passion for spirituous liquors is one of
the features that characterise the country people belonging to the
interior of the United States. This passion is so strong, that they
desert their homes every now and then to get drunk in public houses;
in fact, I do not conceive there are ten out of a hundred who have
resolution enough to desist from it a moment provided they had it by
them, notwithstanding their usual beverage in summer is nothing but
water, or sour milk. They care very little for cyder, which they find
too weak. Their dislike to this wholesome and pleasant beverage is the
more distressing as they might easily procure it at a very trifling
expense, for apple trees of every kind grow to wonderful perfection in
this country. This is a remark which I have made towards the east as
well as the west of the Alleghany Mountains, where I have known lofty
trees spring up from kernels, which bore apples from eight to nine
inches in circumference.
At Bedford there are scarce a hundred and twenty houses in the whole,
and those but of a miserable {41} appearance, most of them being built
of wood. This little town, like all the rest on that road, trades in
all kinds of corn, flour, &c. which, with salt provisions, are the
only articles they sell for exportation. During the war, in the time
of the French revolution, the inhabitants found it more to their
advantage to send their corn, &c. to Pittsburgh, there to be sent by
the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans, or embark them for the
Carribbees, than to send them to Philadelphia or Baltimore;
notwithstanding it is not computed to be more than two hundred miles
from Bedford to Philadelphia, and a hundred and fifty from Bedford to
Baltimore, whilst the distance from Bedford to New Orleans is about
two thousand two hundred miles; viz. a hundred miles by land to
Pittsburgh, and two thousand one hundred miles by water from
Pittsburgh to the mouth of the Mississippi. It is evident, according
to this calculation, that the navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi
is very easy, and by far less expensive, since it compensates for the
enormous difference that exists between those two distances. The
situation of New Orleans, with respect to the Carribbees, by this
rule, gives this town the most signal advantage over all the ports
eastward of the United States; and in proportion as {42} the new
western states increase in population, New Orleans will become the
centre of an immense commerce. Other facts will still rise up to the
support of this observation.
On the following day (the 1st of July) we left Bedford very early in
the morning. The heat was excessive; the ridges that we had
perpetually to climb, and the little mountains that rise between these
ridges, rendered the journey extremely difficult; we travelled no more
than six-and-twenty miles this day. About four miles from Bedford the
road divides into two different directions; we took the left, and
stopped to breakfast with a miller who keeps a public house. We found
a man there lying upon the ground, wrapt up in a blanket, who on the
preceding evening had been bitten by a rattle-snake. The first
symptoms that appeared, about an hour after the accident, were violent
vomitings, which was succeeded by a raging fever. When I saw him first
his leg and thigh were very much swelled, his respiration very
laborious, and his countenance turgescent, and similar to that of a
person attacked with the hydrophobia whom I had an opportunity of
seeing at Charité. I put several questions to him; but he was so
absorbed that it was impossible to obtain {43} the least answer from
him. I learnt from some persons in the house that immediately after
the bite, the juice of certain plants had been applied to the wound,
waiting the doctor’s arrival, who lived fifteen or twenty miles off.
Those who do not die with it are always very sickly, and sensible to
the changes of the atmosphere. The plants made use of against the bite
are very numerous, and almost all succulent. There are a great many
rattle-snakes in these mountainous parts of Pensylvania; we found a
great number of them killed upon the road. In the warm and dry season
of the year they come out from beneath the rocks, and inhabit those
places where there is water.
On that same day we crossed the ridge which takes more particularly
the name of Alleghany Ridges. The road we took was extremely rugged,
and covered with enormous stones. We attained the summit after two
hours painful journey. It is truly astonishing how the vehicles of
conveyance pass over so easily, and with so few accidents this
multitude of steep hills or ridges, that uninterruptedly follow in
succession from Shippensburgh to Pittsburgh, and where the spaces
between each are filled up with an infinity of small mountains of a
less elevation.
{44} Alleghany Ridge is the most elevated link in Pensylvania; on its
summit are two log-houses, very indifferently constructed, about three
miles distant from each other, which serve as public houses. These
were the only habitations we met with on the road from Bedford; the
remaining part of the country is uninhabited. We stopped at the
second, kept by one Chatlers, tolerably well supplied with provisions
for the country, as they served us up for dinner slices of ham and
venison fried on the hearth, with a kind of muffins made of flour,
which they baked before the fire upon a little board.
Notwithstanding a very heavy fall of rain, we went to sleep that day
at Stanley Town, a small place, which, like all those in that part of
Pensylvania, is built upon a hill. It is composed of about fifty
houses, the half of which are log-houses; among the rest are a few
inns, and two or three shops, supplied from Philadelphia; the distance
is about seven miles from Chatler’s; the country that separates them
is very fertile, and abounds with trees of the highest elevation;
those most prevalent in the woods are the white, red, and black oaks,
the beech, tulip, and _magnolia acuminata_.
The horse we bought at Shippensburgh, and which {45} we rode
alternately, was very much fatigued, in consequence of which we
travelled but very little farther than if we had been on foot; in the
mean time the American officer, my companion, was in haste to arrive
at Pittsburgh, to be present at the fête of the 4th of July in
commemoration of the American independence. In order to gain a day, he
hired a horse at Stanley Town, with which we crossed Laurel Hill, a
distance of four miles. The direction of this ridge is parallel with
those we had left behind us; the woods which cover it are more tufted,
and the vegetation appears more lively. The name given to this
mountain I have no doubt proceeds from the great quantity of _calmia
latifolia_, from eight to ten feet high, which grows exclusively in
all the vacant places, and that of the _rhododendrum maximum_, which
enamel the borders of the torrents; for the inhabitants call the
_rhododendrum_ laurel as frequently as the _calmia latifolia_. Some
describe the latter shrub by the name of the colico-tree, the leaves
of which, they say, are a very subtle poison to sheep, who die almost
instantaneously after eating them. At the foot of Laurel Hill begins
the valley of Ligonier, in which is situated, about a quarter of a
mile from the mountain, West Liberty Town, composed {46} of eighteen
or twenty log-houses. The soil of this valley appears extremely
fertile. It is very near this place that the French, formerly masters
of Canada, built Fort Ligonier, as every part of the United States
west of the Alleghany Mountains depended on Canada or Louisiana.[14]
{47} CHAP. V
_Departure from West Liberty Town to go among the Mountains in
search of a Shrub supposed to give good Oil, a new Species
of Azalea.--Ligonier Valley.--Coal Mines.--Greensburgh.--
Arrival at Pittsburgh._
On my journey to Lancaster Mr. W. Hamilton had informed me that at a
short distance from West Liberty Town, and near the plantation of Mr.
Patrick Archibald, there grew a shrub, the fruit of which he had been
told produced excellent oil. Several persons at New York and
Philadelphia had heard the same, and entertained a hope that,
cultivated largely, it might turn to general advantage. In fact, it
would have been a treasure to find a shrub which, to the valuable
qualities of the olive-tree, united that of enduring the cold of the
most northern countries. Induced by these motives, I left my {48}
travelling companion to go amongst the mountains in quest of the
shrub. About two miles from West Liberty Town I passed by Probes’s
Furnace, a foundry established by a Frenchman from Alsace, who
manufactures all kinds of vessels in brass and copper; the largest
contain about two hundred pints, which are sent into Kentucky and
Tennessea, where they use them for the preparation of salt by
evaporation; the smaller ones are destined for domestic uses. They
directed me at the foundry which road I was to take, notwithstanding I
frequently missed my way on account of the roads being more or less
cut, which lead to different plantations scattered about the woods;
still I met with the greatest civility from the inhabitants, who very
obligingly put me in my road, and on the same evening I reached
Patrick Archibald’s, where I was kindly received after having imparted
the subject of my visit. One would think that this man, who has a
mill and other valuables of his own, might live in the greatest
comfort; yet he resides in a miserable log-house about twenty feet
long, subject to the inclemency of the weather. Four large beds, two
of which are very low, are placed underneath the others in the
day-time, and drawn out of an evening {49} into the middle of the
room, receive the whole family, composed of ten persons, and at times
strangers, who casually entreat to have a bed. This mode of living,
which would announce poverty in Europe, is by no means the sign of it
with them; for in an extent of two thousand miles and upward that I
have travelled, there is not a single family but has milk, butter,
salted or dried meat, and Indian corn generally in the house; the
poorest man has always one or more horses, and an inhabitant very
rarely goes on foot to see his neighbour.
The day after my arrival I went into the woods, and in my first
excursion I found the shrub which was at that moment the object of my
researches. I knew it to be the same that my father had discovered
fifteen years before in the mountains of South Carolina, and which, in
despite of all the attention he bestowed, he could not bring to any
perfection in his garden.[15] Mr. W. Hamilton, who had received a few
seeds and plants of it from that part of Pensylvania where I then was,
had not been more successful. The seeds grow so soon rancid, that in
the course of a few days they lose their germinative faculty, and
contract an uncommon sharpness. This shrub, which seldom rises above
five feet in {50} height is diocal. It grows exclusively on the
mountains, and is only found in cool and shady places, and where the
soil is very fertile. Its roots, of a citron colour, do not divide,
but extend horizontally to a great distance, and give birth to several
shoots, which very seldom grow more than eighteen inches high. The
roots and the bark rubbed together, produce an unpleasant smell. I
commissioned my landlord to gather half a bushel of seed, and send it
to Mr. William Hamilton, giving him the necessary precaution to keep
it fresh.--On the banks of the creek where Mr. Archibald’s mill is
erected, and along the rivulets in the environs, grows a species of
the azalea, which was then in full blossom. It rises from twelve to
fifteen feet. Its flowers, of a beautiful white, and larger than those
of the other known species, exhale the most delicious perfume. The
_azalea coccinea_, on the contrary, grows on the summit of the
mountains, is of a nasturtium colour, and blows two months before.