among its chief productions. Some of the inhabitants plant Indian corn
upon the summit of the mountains, but it does not succeed well, the
country being too cold. The sun is not {51} seen there for three
quarters of an hour after it has risen. They also cultivate hemp and
flax, and each gathers a sufficient quantity of it to supply his
domestic wants; and as all the women know how to spin and weave, they
supply themselves and family, by this means, with linen. The price of
land is from one to two piastres an acre. The taxes are very moderate,
and no complaints are ever made against them. In this part of the
United States, as well as in all mountainous countries, the air is
very wholesome. I have seen men there upward of seventy-five years of
age, which is very rare in the Atlantic states situated south of
Pennsylvania. During my travels in this country the measles were very
prevalent. At the invitation of my host I went to see several of his
relatives and friends that were attacked with it. I found them all
drinking whiskey, to excite perspiration. I advised them a decoction
of the leaves of the viscous elm, with the addition of a spoonful of
vinegar to a pint, and an ounce of sugar of maple. In consequence of
the country being poor, and the population not very numerous, there
are but few medical men there; and in cases of necessity they have to
go twenty or thirty miles to fetch them.
{52} On the 4th of July I left Archibald’s, and posted on toward
Greensburgh, which is about eleven miles from it. I had not gone far
before I had to cross Chesnut Ridge, a very steep hill, the summit of
which, for an extent of two miles, presents nothing but a dry and
chalky soil, abounding with oaks and chesnut trees, stunted in their
growth: but as I advanced toward Greensburgh the aspect of the country
changes, the soil becomes better. The plantations, although surrounded
with woods, are not so far apart as in the valley of Ligonier. The
houses are much larger, and most of them have two rooms. The land
better cultivated, the enclosures better formed, prove clearly it is a
German settlement. With them every thing announces ease, the fruit of
their assiduity to labour. They assist each other in their harvests,
live happy among themselves, always speak German, and preserve, as
much as possible, the customs of their ancestors, formerly from
Europe. They live much better than the American descendants of the
English, Scotch, and Irish. They are not so much addicted to
spirituous liquors, and have not that wandering mind which often, for
the slightest motive, prompts them to emigrate several {53} hundred
miles, in hopes of finding a more fertile soil.
Prior to my arrival at Greensburgh[16] I had an opportunity of
remarking several parts of the woods exclusively composed of white
oaks, or _quercus alba_, the foliage of which being a lightish green,
formed a beautiful contrast with other trees of a deeper colour. About
a mile from the town, and on the borders of a tremendous cavity I
perceived unequivocal signs of a coal mine. I learnt at Greensburgh
and Pittsburgh that this substance was so common and so easy to
procure, that many of the inhabitants burnt it from economical
motives. Not that there is a scarcity of wood, the whole country being
covered with it, but labour is very dear; so that there is not a
proprietor who would not consent to sell a cord of wood for half the
sum that coals would cost, provided a person would go a mile to fell
the trees, and take them home.
Greensburgh contains about a hundred houses. The town is built upon
the summit of a hill on the road from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. The
soil of the environs is fertile; the inhabitants, who are of German
origin, cultivate wheat, rye, and oats with great success. The flour
is exported at Pittsburgh.
{54} I lodged at the Seven Stars with one Erbach, who keeps a good
inn.[17] I there fell into company with a traveller who came from the
state of Vermont, and through necessity we were obliged to sleep in
one room. Without entering into any explanation relative to the
intention of our journey, we communicated to each other our remarks
upon the country that we had just travelled over. He had been upward
of six hundred miles since his departure from his place of residence,
and I had been four hundred since I left New York. He proposed
accompanying me to Pittsburgh. I observed to him that I was on foot,
and gave him my reasons for it, as it is very uncommon in America to
travel in that manner, the poorest inhabitant possessing always one,
and even several horses.
From Greensburgh to Pittsburgh it is computed to be about thirty-two
miles. The road that leads to it is very mountainous. To avoid the
heat, and to accelerate my journey, I set out at four in the morning.
I had no trouble in getting out of the house, the door being only on
the latch. At the inns in small towns, on the contrary, they are
extremely careful in locking the stables, as horse-stealers are by no
means uncommon in certain parts of the {55} United States; and this is
one of the accidents to which travellers are the most exposed, more
especially in the southern states and in the western countries, where
they are sometimes obliged to sleep in the woods. It also frequently
happens that they steal them from the inhabitants; at the same time
nothing is more easy, as the horses are, in one part of the year,
turned out in the forests, and in the spring they frequently stray
many miles from home; but on the slightest probability of the road the
thief has taken, the plundered inhabitant vigorously pursues him, and
frequently succeeds in taking him; upon which he confines him in the
county prison, or, which is not uncommon, kills him on the spot. In
the different states the laws against horse-stealing are very severe,
and this severity appears influenced by the great facility the country
presents for committing the crime.
I had travelled about fifteen miles when I was overtaken by an
American gentleman whom I had met the preceding evening at
Greensburgh. Although he was on horseback, he had the politeness to
slacken his pace, and I accompanied him to Pittsburgh. This second
interview made us more intimately acquainted. He informed me that his
intention {56} was to go by the side of the Ohio. Having the same
design, I entertained a wish to travel with him, and more so, as he
was not an amateur of whiskey; being compelled, by the heat of the
weather, frequently to halt at the inns, which are tolerably numerous,
I had observed that he drank very little of that liquor in water, and
that he gave a preference to sour milk, whenever it could be
procured.[18] In that respect he differed from the American officer
with whom I had travelled almost all the way from Shippensburgh.
About ten miles from Greensburgh, on the left, is a road that cuts off
more than three miles, but which is only passable for persons on foot
or on horseback. We took it, and in the course of half an hour
perceived the river Monongahela, which we coasted till within a short
distance of Pittsburgh. A tremendous shower obliged us to take shelter
in a house about a hundred fathoms from the river. The owner having
recognized us to be strangers, informed us that it was on that very
spot that the French, in the seven years’ war, had completely defeated
General Braddock; and he also showed us several trees that are still
damaged by the balls.[19]
We reached Pittsburgh at a very early hour, when {57} I took up my
residence with a Frenchman named Marie, who keeps a respectable inn.
What pleased me most was my having accomplished my journey, as I began
to be fatigued with travelling over so mountainous a country; for
during an extent of about a hundred and eighty miles, which I had
travelled almost entirely on foot, I do not think I walked fifty
fathoms without either ascending or descending.
{58} CHAP. VI
_Description of Pittsburgh.--Commerce of the Town and adjacent
Countries with New Orleans.--Construction of large Vessels.--
Description of the Rivers Monongahela and Alleghany.--Towns
situated on their Banks.--Agriculture.--Maple Sugar._
Pittsburgh is situated at the conflux of the rivers Monongahela and
Alleghany, the uniting of which forms the Ohio. The even soil upon
which it is built is not more than forty or fifty acres in extent. It
is in the form of an angle, the three sides of which are enclosed
either by the bed of the two rivers or by stupendous mountains. The
houses are principally brick, they are computed to be about four
hundred, most of which are built upon the Monongahela; that side is
considered the most commercial part of the town. As a great number of
the houses are separated from each other by large spaces, the {59}
whole surface of the angle is completely taken up. On the summit of
the angle the French built Fort Duquesne, which is now entirely
destroyed, and nothing more is seen than the vestige of the ditches
that surrounded it.[20] This spot affords the most pleasing view,
produced by the perspective of the rivers, overshadowed with forests,
and especially the Ohio, which flows in a strait line, and, to
appearance, loses itself in space.
The air is very salubrious at Pittsburgh and its environs;
intermittent fevers are unknown there, although so common in the
southern states, neither are they tormented in the summer with
musquitoes. A person may subsist there for one-third of what he pays
at Philadelphia. Two printing-offices have been long established
there, and, for the amusement of the curious, each publish a newspaper
weekly.[21]
Pittsburgh has been long considered by the Americans as the key to the
western country. Thence the federal forces were marched against the
Indians who opposed the former settlement of the Americans in
Kentucky, and on the banks of the Ohio. However, now the Indian
nations are repulsed to a considerable distance, and reduced to the
impossibility {60} of hurting the most remote settlers in the interior
of the states; besides, the western country has acquired a great mass
of population, insomuch that there is nothing now at Pittsburgh but a
feeble garrison, barracked in a fort belonging to the town, on the
banks of the river Allighany.[22]
However, though this town has lost its importance as a military post,
it has acquired a still greater one in respect to commerce. It serves
as a staple for the different sorts of merchandise that Philadelphia
and Baltimore send, in the beginning of spring and autumn, for
supplying the states of Ohio, Kentucky, and the settlement of Natches.
The conveyance of merchandise from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh is made
in large covered waggons, drawn by four horses two a-breast. The price
of carrying goods varies according to the season; but in general it
does not exceed six piastres the quintal. They reckon it to be three
hundred miles from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, and the carriers
generally make it a journey of from twenty to twenty-four days. The
price of conveyance would not be so high as it really is, were it not
that the waggons frequently return empty; notwithstanding they
sometimes bring back, on their return to Philadelphia or {61}
Baltimore, fur skins that come from Illinois or Ginseng, which is very
common in that part of Pensylvania.
Pittsburgh is not only the staple of the Philadelphia and Baltimore
trade with the western country, but of the numerous settlements that
are formed upon the Monongahela and Alleghany. The territorial produce
of that part of the country finds an easy and advantageous conveyance
by the Ohio and Mississippi. Corn, hams and dried pork are the
principal articles sent to New Orleans, whence they are re-exported
into the Carribbees. They also export for the consumption of
Louisiana, bar-iron, coarse linen, bottles manufactured at Pittsburgh,
whiskey, and salt butter. A great part of these provisions come from
Redstone, a small commercial town, situated upon the Monongahela,
about fifty miles beyond Pittsburgh.[23] All these advantages joined
together have, within these ten years, increased ten-fold the
population and price of articles in the town, and contribute to its
improvements, which daily grow more and more rapid.
The major part of the merchants settled at Pittsburgh, or in the
environs, are the partners, or else the factors, belonging to the
houses at Philadelphia. {62} Their brokers at New Orleans sell, as
much as they can, for ready money; or rather, take in exchange
cottons, indigo, raw sugar, the produce of Low Louisiana, which they
send off by sea to the houses at Philadelphia and Baltimore, and thus
cover their first advances. The bargemen return thus by sea to
Philadelphia or Baltimore, whence they go by land to Pittsburgh and
the environs, where the major part of them generally reside. Although
the passage from New Orleans to one of these two ports is twenty or
thirty days, and that they have to take a route by land of three
hundred miles to return to Pittsburgh, they prefer this way, being not
so difficult as the return by land from New Orleans to Pittsburgh,
this last distance being fourteen or fifteen hundred miles. However,
when the barges are only destined for Limeston, in Kentucky, or for
Cincinnati, in the state of Ohio, the bargemen return by land, and by
that means take a route of four or five hundred miles.
The navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi is so much improved of late
that they can tell almost to a certainty the distance from Pittsburgh
to New Orleans, which they compute to be two thousand one hundred
miles. The barges in the spring season {63} usually take forty or
fifty days to make the passage, which two or three persons in a
_pirogue_[24] make in five and twenty days.
What many, perhaps, are ignorant of in Europe is, that they build
large vessels on the Ohio, and at the town of Pittsburgh. One of the
principal ship yards is upon the Monongahela, about two hundred
fathoms beyond the last houses in the town. The timber they make use
of is the white oak, or _quercus alba_; the red oak, or _quercus
rubra_; the black oak, or _quercus tinctoria_; a kind of nut tree, or
_juglans minima_; the Virginia cherry-tree, or _cerasus Virginia_; and
a kind of pine, which they use for masting, as well as for the sides
of the vessels which require a slighter wood. The whole of this timber
being near at hand, the expense of building is not so great as in the
ports of the Atlantic states. The cordage is manufactured at Redstone
and Lexinton, where there are two extensive rope-walks, which also
supply ships with rigging that are built at Marietta and Louisville.
On my journey to Pittsburgh in the month of July 1802, there was a
three-mast vessel[25] of two {64} hundred and fifty tons, and a
smaller one of ninety, which was on the point of being finished. These
ships were to go, in the spring following, to New Orleans, loaded with
the produce of the country, after having made a passage of two
thousand two hundred miles before they got into the ocean. There is no
doubt but they can, by the same rule, build ships two hundred leagues
beyond the mouth of the Missouri, fifty from that of the river
Illinois, and even in the Mississippi, two hundred beyond the place
whence these rivers flow; that is to say, six hundred and fifty
leagues from the sea; as their bed in the appointed space is as deep
as that of the Ohio at Pittsburgh; in consequence of which it must be
a wrong conjecture to suppose that the immense tract of country
watered by these rivers cannot be populous enough to execute such
undertakings. The rapid population of the three new western states,
under less favourable circumstances, proves this assertion to be
true.[26] Those states, where thirty years ago there was scarcely
three hundred inhabitants, are now computed to contain upwards of a
hundred thousand; and although the plantations on the roads are
scarcely four miles distant from each other, it is very rare to find
one, even among {65} the most flourishing, where one cannot with
confidence ask the owner, whence he has emigrated; or, according to
the trivial manner of the Americans, “What part of the world do you
come from?” as if these immense and fertile regions were to be the
asylum common to all the inhabitants of the globe. Now if we consider
these astonishing and rapid ameliorations, what ideas must we not form
of the height of prosperity to which the western country is rising,
and of the recent spring that the commerce, population and culture of
the country is taking by uniting Louisiana to the American territory.
The river Monongahela derives its source in Virginia, at the foot of
Laurel Mountain, which comprises a part of the chain of the
Alleghanies; bending its course toward the west, it runs into
Pennsylvania, and before it reaches Alleghany it receives in its
current the rivers Chéat and Youghiogheny, which proceed from the
south west. The territory watered by this river is extremely fertile;
and the settlements formed upon the banks are not very far apart. It
begins to be navigable at Morgan Town, which is composed of about
sixty houses, and is situated upon the right, within a hundred miles
of its _embouchure_.[27] Of all the little towns built upon {66} the
Monongahela, New Geneva and Redstone have the most active commerce.
The former has a glass-house in it, the produce of which is exported
chiefly into the western country; the latter has shoe and paper
manufactories, several flour mills, and contains about five hundred
inhabitants. At this town a great number of those who emigrate from
the eastern states embark to go into the west. It is also famous for
building large boats, called _Kentucky boats_, used in the Kentucky
trade; numbers are also built at Elizabeth Town,[28] situated on the
same river, about twenty-three miles from Pittsburgh--the _Monongahela
Farmer_ was launched there, a sailing vessel of two hundred tons.
Alleghany takes its source fifteen or twenty miles from lake Eria; its
current is enlarged by the French Creek, and various small rivers of
less importance. The Alleghany begins to be navigable within two
hundred miles of Pittsburgh. The banks of this river are fertile; the
inhabitants who have formed settlements there export, as well as those
of Monongahela, the produce of their culture by the way of the Ohio
and Mississippi. On the banks of this river they begin to form a few
small towns; among the most considerable are Meadville, situated two
{67} hundred and thirty miles from Pittsburgh; Franklin, about two
hundred; and Freeport, scarcely one; each of which does not contain
above forty or fifty houses.
Let the weather be what it will, the stream of the Alleghany is clear
and limped; that of the Monongahela, on the contrary, grows rather
muddy with a few days incessant rain in that part of the Alleghany
Mountains where it derives its source.
The sugar-maple is very common in every part of Pennsylvania which the
Monongahela and Alleghany water. This tree thrives most in cold, wet,
and mountainous countries, and its seed is always more abundant when
the winter is most severe. The sugar extracted from it is generally
very coarse, and is sold, after having been prepared in loaves of six,
eight, and ten pounds each, at the rate of seven-pence per pound. The
inhabitants manufacture none but for their own use; the greater part
of them drink tea and coffee daily, but they use it just as it has
passed the first evaporation, and never take the trouble to refine it,
on account of the great waste occasioned by the operation.
{68}CHAP. VII
_Description of the Ohio.--Navigation of that river.--Mr. S.
Craft.--The object of his travels.--Remarks upon the State
of Vermont._
The Ohio, formed by the union of the Monongahela and Alleghany rivers,
appears to be rather a continuance of the former than the latter,
which only happens obliquely at the conflux. The Ohio may be, at
Pittsburgh, two hundred fathoms broad. The current of this immense and
magnificent river inclines at first north west for about twenty miles,
then bends gradually west south west. It follows that direction for
about the space of five hundred miles; turns thence south west a
hundred and sixty miles; then west two hundred and seventy-five; at
length runs into the Mississippi in a southwesterly direction, in the
latitude of 36 deg. 46 min. about eleven hundred miles from
Pittsburgh, and nearly {69} the same distance from Orleans. This river
runs so extremely serpentine, that in going down it, you appear
following a track directly opposite to the one you mean to take. Its
breadth varies from two hundred to a thousand fathoms. The islands
that are met with in its current are very numerous. We counted upward
of fifty in the space of three hundred and eighty miles. Some contain
but a few acres, and others more than a thousand in length. Their
banks are very low, and must be subject to inundations. These islands
are a great impediment to the navigation in the summer. The sands that
the river drives up form, at the head of some of them, a number of
little shoals; and in this season of the year the channel is so narrow
from the want of water, that the few boats, even of a middling size,
that venture to go down, are frequently run aground, and it is with
great difficulty that they are got afloat; notwithstanding which there
is at all times a sufficiency of water for a skiff or a canoe. As
these little boats are very light when they strike upon the sands, it
is very easy to push them off into a deeper part. In consequence of
this, it is only in the spring and autumn that the Ohio is navigable,
at least as far as Limestone, about a hundred and twenty {70} miles
from Pittsburgh. During those two seasons the water rises to such a
height, that vessels of three hundred tons, piloted by men who are
acquainted with the river, may go down in the greatest safety. The
spring season begins at the end of February, and lasts three months;
the autumn begins in October, and only lasts till the first of
December. In the mean time these two epochs fall sooner or later, as
the winter is more or less rainy, or the rivers are a shorter or a
longer time thawing. Again, it so happens, that in the course of the
summer heavy and incessant rains fall in the Alheghany Mountains,
which suddenly swell the Ohio: at that time persons may go down it
with the greatest safety; but such circumstances are not always to be
depended on.
The banks of the Ohio are high and solid; its current is free from a
thousand obstacles that render the navigation of the Mississippi
difficult, and often dangerous, when they have not skilful conductors.
On the Ohio persons may travel all night without the smallest danger;
instead of which, on the Mississippi prudence requires them to stop
every evening, at least from the mouth of the Ohio to Naches, a space
of nearly seven hundred and fifty miles.
{71} The rapidity of the Ohio’s current is extreme in spring; at the
same time in this season there is no necessity for rowing. The
excessive swiftness it would give, by that means, to the boat would be
more dangerous than useful, by turning it out of the current, and
running it upon some island or other, where it might get entangled
among a heap of dead trees that are half under water, and from which
it would be very difficult to extricate them; for which reason they
generally go with the current, which is always strong enough to
advance with great celerity, and is always more rapid in the middle of
the stream. The amazing rapidity of the Ohio has an influence on the
shape of the boats that navigate upon it, and that shape is not
calculated to accelerate their progress, but to stem the current of
the stream. All the boats or barges, whether those in the Kentucky or
Mississippi trade, or those which convey the families that go into the
eastern or western states, are built in the same manner. They are of a
square form, some longer than others; their sides are raised four feet
and a half above the water; their length is from fifteen to fifty
feet; the two extremities are square, upon one of which is a kind of
awning, under which the passengers shelter themselves {72} when it
rains. I was alone upon the banks of the Monongahela, when I
perceived, at a distance, five or six of these barges, which were
going down the river. I could not conceive what these great square
boxes were, which, left to the stream, presented alternately their
ends, sides, and even their angles. As they advanced, I heard a
confused noise, but without distinguishing any thing, on account of
their sides being so very high. However, on ascending the banks of the
river, I perceived in these barges several families, carrying with
them their horses, cows, poultry, waggons, ploughs, harness, beds,
instruments of agriculture, in fine, every thing necessary to
cultivate the land, and also for domestic use. These people were
abandoning themselves to the mercy of the stream, without knowing the
place where they should stop, to exercise their industry, and enjoy
peaceably the fruit of their labour under one of the best governments
that exists in the world.