difficulty in procuring horses on hire, to go to the places of their
destination. The inhabitants there, as well as at Shippensburgh, take
this undue advantage, in order to sell them at an {117} enormous
price. As I intended staying some time at Lexinton, which would
greatly enhance my expenses, I resolved to travel there on foot; upon
which I left my portmanteau with the landlord of the inn where I
stopped, which he undertook for a piaster to send me to Lexinton, and
I set off the same day. It is reckoned from Limestone to Lexinton to
be sixty-five miles, which I went in two days and a half. The first
town we came to was Washington, which was only four miles off.[37] It
is much larger than Limestone, and contains about two hundred houses,
all of wood, and built on both sides of the road. Trade is very brisk
there; it consists principally in corn, which is exported to New
Orleans. There are several very fine plantations in the environs, the
land of which is as well cultivated and the enclosures as well
constructed, as at Virginia and Pennsylvania. I went seven miles the
first evening, and on the following day reached Springfield, composed
of five or six houses, among the number of which are two spacious
inns, well built, where the inhabitants of the environs assemble
together. Thence I passed through Mays-Lick, where there is a
salt-mine. I stopped there to examine the process pursued for the
extraction of salt. The {118} wells that supply the salt water are
about twenty feet in depth, and not more than fifty or sixty fathoms
from the river Salt-Lick, the waters of which are somewhat brackish in
summer time. For evaporation they make use of brazen pots, containing
about two hundred pints, and similar in form to those used in France
for making lye. They put ten or a dozen of them in a row on a pit four
feet in depth, and a breadth proportionate to their diameter, so that
the sides lay upon the edge of the pit, supported by a few handfuls of
white clay, which fill up but very imperfectly the spaces between the
vessels. The wood, which they cut in billets of about three feet, is
thrown in at the extremities of the pit. These sort of kilns are
extravagant, and consume a prodigious quantity of wood; I made an
observation of it to the people employed in the business, to which
they made answer, that they did not know there was any preferable
mode; and they should follow their own till some person or other from
the Old Country (meaning Europe) came and taught them to do better.
The scarcity of hands for the cutting down and conveyance of the wood,
and the few saline principles that the water contains when dissolved,
occasions the salt to be very dear; they sell it at from four to {119}
five piasters per hundred weight. It is that scarcity which induces
many of them to search for salt springs. They are usually found in
places described by the name of Licks where the bisons, elks, and
stags that existed in Kentucky before the arrival of the Europeans,
went by hundreds to lick the saline particles with which the soil is
impregnated. There are in this state and that of Tenessea a set of
quacks, who by means of a hazle wand pretend to discover springs of
salt and fresh water; but they are only consulted by the more ignorant
class of people, who never send for them but when they are induced by
some circumstance or other to search over a spot of ground where they
suspect one of those springs.
The country we traversed ten miles on this side Mays-Lick, and eight
miles beyond, did not afford the least vestige of a plantation. The
soil is dry and sandy; the road is covered with immense flat chalky
stones, of a bluish cast inside, the edges of which are round. The
only trees that we observed were the white oak, or _quercus alba_, and
nut-tree, or _juglans hickery_, but their stinted growth and wretched
appearance clearly indicated the sterility of the soil, occasioned,
doubtless, by the salt mines that it contains.
{120} From Mays-Lick I went to Millesburgh, composed of fifty houses;
I went there to visit Mr. Savary, who had been very intimately
acquainted with my father, and by his invitation I left my inn and
went to lodge at his house.[38] Mr. Savary is one of the greatest
proprietors in that part of the country; he possesses more than eighty
thousand acres of land in Virginia, Tenessea and Kentucky. The taxes
that he pays, although moderate, are notwithstanding very burthensome
to him; more so, as it is with the greatest difficulty he can find
purchasers for his land, as the emigrations of the eastern states,
having taken a different direction, incline but very feebly towards
Kentucky.
Near Millesburgh flows a little river, from five to six fathoms broad,
upon which two saw-mills are erected. The stream was then so low that
I crossed it upon large chalky stones, which comprised a part of its
bottom, and which at that time were above water. In winter time, on
the contrary, it swells to such a degree that it can scarcely be
passed by means of a bridge twenty-five feet in height. The bridges
thrown over the small rivers, or creeks, that are met with frequently
in the interior of the country, more especially in the eastern states,
are all formed of the {121} trunks of trees placed transversely by
each other. These bridges have no railings; and whenever a person
travels on horseback, it is always prudent to alight in order to cross
them.
On this side Lexinton we passed through Paris, a manor-house for the
county of Bourbon. This small town, in the year 1796, consisted of no
more than eighteen houses, and now contains more than a hundred and
fifty, half of which are brick. It is situated on a delightful plain,
and watered by a small river, near which are several corn mills. Every
thing seems to announce the comfort of its inhabitants. Seven or eight
were drinking whiskey at a respectable inn where I stopped to refresh
myself on account of the excessive heat. After having replied to
different questions which they asked me concerning the intent of my
journey, one of them invited me to dine with him, wishing to introduce
me to one of my fellow-countrymen arrived lately from Bengal. I
yielded to his entreaties, and actually found a Frenchman who had left
Calcutta to go and reside at Kentucky. He was settled at Paris, where
he exercised the profession of a school-master.
{122} CHAP. XIV
_Lexinton.--Manufactories established there.--Commerce.--Dr.
Samuel Brown_
Lexinton, the manor-house for the county of Fayette, is situated in
the midst of a flat soil of about three hundred acres, like the rest
of the small towns of the United States that are not upon the borders
of the sea. This town is traced upon a regular plan, and its streets,
sufficiently broad, cut each other at right angles. The want of
pavement renders it very muddy in winter time, and rainy weather. The
houses, most of which are brick, are disseminated upon an extent of
eighty or a hundred acres, except those which form the main street,
where they are contiguous to each other. This town, founded in 1780,
is the oldest and most wealthy of the three new western states; it
contains about three thousand inhabitants. Frankfort, the seat of
government in Kentucky, which is upwards of twenty {123} miles distant
from it, is not so populous.[39] We may attribute the rapid increase
of Lexinton to its situation in the centre of one of the most fertile
parts of the country, comprised in a kind of semicircle, formed by the
Kentucky river.
There are two printing-offices at Lexinton, in each of which a
newspaper is published twice a week. Part of the paper is manufactured
in the country, and is dearer by one-third than in France.[40] That
which they use for writing, originally imported from England, comes by
the way of Philadelphia and Baltimore. Two extensive rope walks,
constantly in employ, supply the ships with rigging that are built
upon the Ohio. On the borders of the little river that runs very near
the town several tan-yards are established that supply the wants of
the inhabitants. I observed at the gates of these tan-yards strong
leathers of a yellowish cast, tanned with the black oak; in
consequence of which I saw that this tree grew in Kentucky, although I
had not observed it between Limestone and Lexinton; in fact, I had
seen nothing but land either parched up or extremely fertile; and, as
I have since observed, this tree grows in neither, it is an inhabitant
of the mountainous parts, where the soil is gravelly and rather moist.
{124} The want of hands excites the industry of the inhabitants of
this country. When I was at Lexinton one of them had just obtained a
patent for a nail machine, more complete and expeditious than the one
made use of in the prisons at New York and Philadelphia; and a second
announced one for the grinding and cleaning of hemp and sawing wood
and stones. This machine, moved by a horse or a current of water, is
capable, according to what the inventor said, to break and clean eight
thousand weight of hemp per day.
The articles manufactured at Lexinton are very passable, and the
speculators are ever said to make rapid fortunes, notwithstanding the
extreme scarcity of hands. This scarcity proceeds from the inhabitants
giving so decided a preference to agriculture, that there are very few
of them who put their children to any trade, wanting their services in
the field. The following comparison will more clearly prove this
scarcity of artificers in the western states: At Charleston in
Carolina, and at Savannah in Georgia, a cabinet-maker, carpenter,
mason, tinman, tailor, shoemaker, &c. earns two piastres a day, and
cannot live for less than six per week; at New York and Philadelphia
he has but one piaster, and it {125} costs him four per week. At
Marietta, Lexinton and Nasheville, in Tenessea, these workmen earn
from one piaster to one and a half a day, and can subsist a week with
the produce of one day’s labour. Another example may tend to give an
idea of the low price of provisions in the western states. The
boarding-house, where I lived during my stay at Lexinton, passes for
one of the best in the town, and we were profusely served at the rate
of two piastres per week. I am informed that living is equally cheap
in the states of New England, which comprise Connecticut,
Massachusets, and New Hampshire; but the price of labour is not so
high, and therefore more proportionate to the price of provisions.
Independent of those manufactories which are established in Lexinton,
there are several common potteries, and one or two powder-mills, the
produce of which is consumed in the country or exported to Upper
Carolina and Low Louisiana. The sulphur is obtained from Philadelphia
and the saltpetre is manufactured in the country; the materials are
extracted from the grottos, or caverns, that are found on the
declivity of lofty hills in the most mountainous part of the state.
The soil there is extremely rich in nitrous particles, which is
evidently due to {126} the chalky rock, at the expense of which all
these excavations are formed, as well as for vegetable substances,
which are casually thrust into their interior. This appears to
demonstrate that the assimilation of animal matters is not absolutely
necessary, even in the formation of artificial nitrous veins, to
produce a higher degree of nitrification. Saltpetre of the first
preparation is sold at about sixpence halfpenny per pound. Among the
various samples I have seen, I never observed the least appearance of
marine salt. The process that is used is as defective as their
preparation of salt; I only speak relative to the extraction of the
saltpetre, not having seen the powder-mills. I shall conclude by
observing, that it is only in Kentucky and Tenessea that saltpetre is
manufactured, and not in the Atlantic States.
The majority of the inhabitants of Lexinton trade with Kentucky;[41]
they receive their merchandize from Philadelphia and Baltimore in
thirty-five or forty days, including the journey of two days and a
half from Limestone, where they land all the goods destined for
Kentucky. The price of carriage is from seven to eight piastres per
hundred weight. Seven-tenths of the manufactured articles consumed in
Kentucky, as well as in the other parts of the {127} United States,
are imported from England; they consist chiefly in coarse and fine
jewellery, cutlery, ironmongery, and tin ware; in short, drapery,
mercery, drugs, and fine earthenware, muslins, nankeens, tea, &c. are
imported directly from India to the United States by the American
vessels; and they get from the Carribbees coffee, and various kinds of
raw sugar, as none but the poorer class of the inhabitants make use of
maple sugar.
The French goods that are sent into this part of the country are
reduced to a few articles in the silk line, such as taffetas, silk
stockings, &c. also brandies and millstones, notwithstanding their
enormous weight, and the distance from the sea ports.
From Lexinton the different kinds of merchandize are despatched into
the interior of the state, and the overplus is sent by land into
Tenessea. It is an easy thing for merchants to make their fortunes; in
the first place, they usually have a twelvemonth’s credit from the
houses at Philadelphia and Baltimore, and in the next, as there are so
few, they are always able to fix in their favour the course of
colonial produce, which they take in exchange for their goods: as,
through the extreme scarcity of specie, most of these transactions are
done by way of barter; the merchants, {128} however, use every
exertion in their power to get into their possession the little specie
in circulation; it is only particular articles that are sold for
money, or in exchange for produce the sale of which is always certain,
such as the linen of the country, or hemp. Payments in money always
bear a difference of fifteen or twenty per cent to the merchant’s
profits. All the specie collected in the course of trade is sent by
land to Philadelphia; I have seen convoys of this kind that consisted
of fifteen or twenty horses.[42] The trouble of conveyance is so
great that they give the preference to Bank bills of the United
States, which bear a discount of two per cent. The merchants in all
parts take them, but the inhabitants of the country will not, through
fear of their being forged. I must again remark, that there is not a
single species of colonial produce in Kentucky, except _gensing_, that
will bear the expense of carriage by land from that state to
Philadelphia; as it is demonstrated that twenty-five pounds weight
{129} would cost more expediting that way, even going up the Ohio,
than a thousand by that river, without reckoning the passage by sea,
although we have had repeated examples that the passage from New
Orleans to Philadelphia or New York is sometimes as long as that from
France to the United States.
The current coin in the states of Kentucky and Tennessea has the same
divisions as in Virginia. They reckon six shillings to the dollar or
piastre. The hundreds which nearly correspond with our halfpence,
although having a forced currency, do not appear in circulation. The
quarters, eighths, and sixteenths of a piastre form the small white
money. As it is extremely scarce, it is supplied by a very indifferent
method, but which appears necessary, and consists in cutting the
dollars into pieces. As every body is entitled to make this division,
there are people who do it for the sake of gain; at the same time in
the retail trade the seller will generally abate in his articles for a
whole dollar, than have their full worth in six or eight pieces.
I have heard from several persons very well informed, that during the
last war, corn being kept up at an exorbitant rate, it was computed
that the exportations from Kentucky had balanced the price {130} of
the importations of English goods from Philadelphia and Baltimore, by
the way of the Ohio: but since the peace, the demand for flour and
salt provisions having ceased in the Caribbees, corn has fallen
considerably; so that the balance of trade is wholly unfavourable to
the country.
During my stay at Lexinton I frequently saw Dr. Samuel Brown, from
Virginia, a physician of the college of Edinburgh, and member of the
Philosophical Society, to whom several members of that society had
given me letters of recommendation. A merited reputation undeniably
places Dr. S. Brown in the first rank of physicians settled in that
part of the country. Receiving regularly the scientific journals from
London, he is always in the channel of new discoveries, and turns them
to the advantage of his fellow-citizens. It is to him that they are
indebted for the introduction of the cow-pox. He had at that time
inoculated upward of five hundred persons in Kentucky, when they were
making their first attempts in New York and Philadelphia. Dr. Brown
also employs himself in collecting fossils and other natural
productions, which abound in this interesting country. I have seen at
his house several relics of very large unknown fish, caught in the
{131} Kentucky River, and which were remarkable for their singular
forms. The analysis of the mineral waters at Mud-Lick was to employ
the first leisure time he had. These waters are about sixty miles from
Lexinton; they are held in great esteem, and the most distinguished
personages in the country were drinking them when I was in the town.
The Philosophical Transactions and the Monthly Review, published at
New York by Dr. Mitchel, are the periodical works wherein Dr. Brown
inserts the fruit of his observation and research.[43]
I had also the pleasure of forming an acquaintance with several French
gentlemen settled in that part of the country: Mr. Robert, to whom I
was recommended by Mr. Marbois, jun. then in the United States; and
Messrs. Duhamel and Mentelle, sons of the members of the National
Institution of the same name. The two latter are settled in the
environs of Lexinton; the first as a physician, and the second as a
farmer. I received from them that marked attention and respect so
pleasing to a foreigner at a distance from his country and his
friends; in consequence of which I now feel myself happy in having
this means of publicly expressing my warmest gratitude.
{132} CHAP. XV
_Departure from Lexinton.--Culture of the vine at Kentucky.--
Passage over the Kentucky and Dick Rivers.--Departure for
Nasheville.--Mulder Hill.--Passage over Green River._
I set out on the 10th of August from Lexinton to Nasheville, in the
state of Tennessea; and as the establishment formed to naturalize the
vine in Kentucky was but a few miles out of my road, I resolved to go
and see it. There is no American but what takes the warmest interest
in attempts of that kind, and several persons in the Atlantic states
had spoken to me of the success which had crowned this undertaking.
French wines being one of the principal articles of our commerce with
the United States, I wished to be satisfied respecting the degree of
prosperity which this establishment might have acquired. {133} In the
mean time, from the indifferent manner which I had heard it spoken of
in the country I suspected beforehand that the first attempts had not
been very fortunate.
About fourteen miles from Lexinton I quitted the Hickman Ferry road,
turned on my left, and strolled into the woods, so that I did not
reach the vineyard till the evening, when I was handsomely received by
Mr. Dufour, who superintends the business. He gave me an invitation to
sleep, and spend the following day with him, which I accepted.
There reigns in the United States a public spirit that makes them
greedily seize hold of every plan that tends to enrich the country by
agriculture and commerce. That of rearing the vine in Kentucky was
eagerly embraced. Several individuals united together, and formed a
society to put it in execution, and it was decreed that a fund should
be established of ten thousand dollars, divided into two hundred
shares of fifty dollars each. This fund was very soon accomplished.
Mr. Dufour, the chief of a small Swiss colony which seven or eight
years before had settled in Kentucky, and who had proposed this
undertaking, was deputed to search for a proper soil, to procure vine
plants, and to do every thing he {134} might think necessary to insure
success. The spot that he has chosen and cleared is on the Kentucky
river, about twenty miles from Lexinton. The soil is excellent and the
vineyard is planted upon the declivity of a hill exposed to the south,
and the base of which is about two hundred fathoms from the river.
Mr. Dufour intended to go to France to procure the vine plants, and
with that idea went to New York; but the war, or other causes that I
know not, prevented his setting out, and he contented himself with
collecting, in this town and Philadelphia, slips of every species that
he could find in the possession of individuals that had them in their
gardens. After unremitted labour he made a collection of twenty-five
different sorts, which he brought to Kentucky, where he employed
himself in cultivating them. However the success did not answer the
expectation; only four or five various kinds survived, among which
were those that he had described by the name of Burgundy and Madeira,
but the former is far from being healthy. The grape generally decays
before it is ripe. When I saw them the bunches were thin and poor, the
berries small, and every thing announced that the vintage of 1802
would not be more {135} abundant than that of the preceding years. The
Madeira vines appeared, on the contrary, to give some hopes. Out of a
hundred and fifty or two hundred, there was a third loaded with very
fine bunches. The whole of these vines do not occupy a space of more
than six acres. They are planted and fixed with props similar to those
in the environs of Paris.
Such was then the situation of this establishment, in which the
stockholders concerned themselves but very little. It was again about
to experience another check by the division of Mr. Dufour’s family,
one part of which was on the point of setting out to the banks of the
Ohio, there to form a settlement. These particulars are sufficient to
give, on the pretended flourishing state of the vines in Kentucky, an
idea very different to that which might be formed from the pompous
account of them which appeared some months since in our public papers.
I profited by my stay with Mr. Dufour, to ask him in what part of
Kentucky the numerous emigration of his countrymen had settled, which
had been so much spoken of in our newspapers in 1793 and 1794. His
reply was, that a great number of the Swiss had actually formed an
intention to settle there; but {136} just as they were setting out,
the major part had changed their mind, and that the colony was then
reduced to his family and a few friends, forming, in the whole, eleven
persons.
I did not set out from the vineyard till the second day after my
arrival. Mr. Dufour offered, in order to shorten my journey, to
conduct me through the wood where they cross the Kentucky river. I
accepted his proposal, and although the distance was only four miles
we took two hours to accomplish it, as we were obliged to alight
either to climb up or descend the mountains, or to leap our horses
over the trunks of old trees piled one upon another. The soil, as
fertile as in the environs of Lexinton, will be difficult to
cultivate, on account of the great inequality of the ground. Beech,
nut, and oak trees, form chiefly the mass of the forests. We crossed,
in the mean time, the shallows of the river, covered exclusively with
beautiful palms. A great number of people in the country dread the
proximity of these palms; they conceive that the down which grows on
the reverse of the leaves, in spring, and which falls off in the
course of the summer, brings on consumptions, by producing an
irritation of the lungs, almost insensible, but continued.
{137} In this season of the year the Kentucky River is so low at
Hickman Ferry that a person may ford it with the greatest ease.
I stopped a few minutes at the inn where the ferry-boat plies when the
water is high, and while they were giving my horse some corn I went on
the banks of the river to survey it more attentively. Its borders are
formed by an enormous mass of chalky stones, remarkably peaked, about
a hundred and fifty feet high, and which bear, from the bottom to the
top, evident traces of the action of the waters, which have washed
them away in several parts. A broad and long street, where the houses
are arranged in a right line, will give an idea of the channel of this
river at Hickman Ferry. It swells amazingly in spring and autumn, and
its waters rise at that time, in a few days, from sixty to seventy
feet.