a sickle, and threshed the same as in other parts of Europe. The corn
is of a beautiful colour, and I am convinced, through the excellence
of the soil, that the flour will be of a superior quality to that of
Philadelphia, which, as it is well known, surpasses in whiteness the
best that grows in France.
The plough which they make use of is light, {181} without wheels, and
drawn by horses. It is the same in all the southern states.
The blight, the blue flower, and the poppy, so common in our fields
among the corn, have not shewn themselves in North America.
The harvest of 1802 was so plentiful in Kentucky, that in the month of
August, the time that I was at Lexinton, corn did not bring more than
eighteen pence per bushel, (about two shillings per hundred weight).
It had never been known at so low a price. Still this fall was not
only attributed to the abundance of the harvest, but also on account
of the return of peace in Europe. They are convinced, in the country,
that at this price the culture of corn cannot support itself as an
object of commerce; and that in order for the inhabitants to cover
their expense the barrel of flour ought not to be sold at New Orleans
for less than four or five dollars.
In all the United States the flour that they export is put into slight
barrels made of oak, and of an uniform size. In Kentucky the price of
them is about three-eighths of a dollar, (fifteen pence). They ought
to contain ninety-six pounds of flour, which takes five bushels of
corn, including the expenses of grinding.
{182} The freightage of a boat to convey the flour to Low Louisiana
costs about a hundred dollars. They contain from two hundred and fifty
to three hundred barrels, and are navigated by five men, of whom the
chief receives a hundred dollars for the voyage, and the others fifty
each. They take, from Louisville, where nearly the whole embarkations
are made, from thirty to thirty-five days to go to New Orleans. They
reckon it four hundred and thirty-five miles from Louisville to the
_embouchure_ of the Ohio, and about a thousand miles thence to New
Orleans, which makes it, upon the whole, a passage of fourteen hundred
and thirty-five miles; and these boats have to navigate upon the river
a space of eight or nine hundred miles without meeting with any
plantations. A part of the crew return to Lexinton by land, which is
about eleven hundred miles, in forty or forty-five days. This journey
is extremely unpleasant, and those who dread the fatigues of it return
by sea. They embark at New Orleans for New York and Philadelphia,
whence they return to Pittsburgh, and thence go down the Ohio as far
as Kentucky.
An inspector belonging to the port of Louisville inserted in the
Kentucky Gazette of the 6th of August {183} 1802, that 85,570 barrels
of flour, from the 1st of January to the 30th of June following, went
out of that port to Low Louisiana. More than two thirds of this
quantity may be considered as coming from the state of Kentucky, and
the rest from Ohio and the settlements situated upon the rivers
Monongahela and Alleghany. The spring and autumn are principally the
seasons in which this exportation is made. It is almost null in
summer, an epoch at which almost all the mills are stopped for the
want of water. Rye and oats come up also extremely well in Kentucky.
The rye is nearly all made use of in the distilling of whiskey, and
the oats as food for horses, to which they give it frequently in
little bunches from two to three pounds, without being threshed.
The culture of tobacco has been greatly extended within these few
years. The temperature of the climate, and the extraordinary fertility
of the soil gives, in that respect, to this state, a very great
advantage over that of Virginia; in consequence of which tobacco and
corn form the principal branch of its commerce. It exports annually
several thousand hogsheads, from a thousand to twelve hundred pounds
each. The price of it is from two to three dollars per hundred weight.
{184} Hemp, both raw and manufactured, is also an article of
exportation. In the same year, 1802, there has been sent out of the
country, raw 42,048 pounds, and 2402 hundred weight, converted into
cables and various sorts of cordage.
Many of the inhabitants cultivate flax. The women manufacture linen of
it for their families, and exchange the surplus with the trades-people
for articles imported from Europe. These linens, though coarse, are of
a good quality; yet none but the inferior inhabitants use them, the
others giving a preference to Irish linens, which comprise a
considerable share of their commerce. Although whiter, they are not so
good as our linens of Bretagne. The latter would have found a great
sale in the western states, had it not been for yielding Louisiana;
since it is now clearly demonstrated that the expense of conveying
goods which go up the river again from New Orleans to Louisville is
not so great as that from Philadelphia to Limestone.
Although the temperature of the climate in Kentucky and other western
states is favourable to the culture of fruit trees, these parts have
not been populated long enough for them to be brought to any great
perfection. Beside, the Americans are by no means so industrious or
interested in this kind of {185} culture as the European states. They
have confined themselves, at present, to the planting of peach and
apple trees.
The former are very numerous, and come to the greatest perfection.
There are five or six species of them, some forward, and others late,
of an oval form, and much larger than our garden peaches. All the
peaches grow in the open field, and proceed from kernels without being
either pruned or grafted. They shoot so vigorously, that at the age of
four years they begin to bear. The major part of the inhabitants plant
them round their houses, and others have great orchards of them
planted crosswise. They turn the hogs there for two months before the
fruit gets ripe. These animals search with avidity for the peaches
that fall in great numbers, and crack the stones of them for the
kernels.
The immense quantity of peaches which they gather are converted in
brandy, of which there is a great consumption in the country, and the
rest is exported. A few only of the inhabitants have stills; the
others carry their peaches to them, and bring back a quantity of
brandy proportionate to the number of peaches they carried, except a
part that is left for the expense of distilling. Peach brandy sells
{186} for a dollar a gallon, which is equal to four English quarts.
In Kentucky the taxes are assessed in the following manner: they pay a
sum equivalent to one shilling and eight-pence for every white
servant, six-pence halfpenny for every negro, three-pence for a horse,
two shillings per hundred acres of land of the first class, cultivated
or not, seventeen-pence per hundred of the second class, and sixpence
halfpenny per hundred of the third class. Although these taxes are, as
we must suppose, very moderate, and though nobody complains of them,
still a great number of those taxable are much in arrears. This is
what I perceived by the numerous advertisements of the collectors that
I have seen pasted up in different parts of the town of Lexinton.
Again, these delays are not peculiar to the state of Kentucky, as I
have made the same remark in those of the east.
{187} CHAP. XX
_Particulars relative to the manners of the inhabitants of
Kentucky.--Horses and Cattle.--Necessity of giving
them salt.--Wild Horses caught in the Plains of New
Mexico.--Exportation of salt provisions._
For some time past the inhabitants of Kentucky have taken to the
rearing and training horses;[50] and by this lucrative branch of
trade they derive considerable profit, on account of the superfluous
quantity of Indian corn, oats, and other forage, of which they are
deficient at New Orleans.
Of all the states belonging to the union, Virginia is said to have the
finest coach and saddle-horses, and those they have in this country
proceed originally from them, the greatest part of which was brought
by the emigrants who came from Virginia {188} to settle in this state.
The number of horses, now very considerable, increases daily. Almost
all the inhabitants employ themselves in training and meliorating the
breed of these animals; and so great a degree of importance is
attached to the melioration, that the owners of fine stallions charge
from fifteen to twenty dollars for the covering of a mare. These
stallions come from Virginia, and, as I have been told, some were at
different times imported from England. The horses that proceed from
them have slim legs, a well-proportioned head, and are elegantly
formed. With draught-horses it is quite different. The inhabitants pay
no attention with respect to improving this breed; in consequence of
which they are small, wretched in appearance, and similar to those
made use of by the peasantry in France. They appeared to me still
worse in Georgia and Upper Carolina. In short, I must say that
throughout the United States there is not a single draught-horse that
can be in any wise compared with the poorest race of horses that I
have seen in England. This is an assertion which many Americans may
probably not believe, but still it is correct.
Many individuals profess to treat sick horses, but none of them have
any regular notions of the veterinary {189} art; an art which would be
so necessary in a breeding country, and which has, within these few
years, acquired so high a degree of perfection in England and France.
In Kentucky, as well as in the southern states, the horses are
generally fed with Indian corn. Its nutritive quality is esteemed
double to that of oats; notwithstanding sometimes they are mixed
together. In this state horses are not limited as to food. In most of
the plantations the manger is filled with corn, they eat of it when
they please, leave the stable to go to grass, and return at pleasure
to feed on the Indian wheat. The stables are nothing but log-houses,
where the light penetrates on all sides, the interval that separates
the trunks of the trees with which they are constructed not being
filled up with clay.
The southern states, and in particular South Carolina, are the
principal places destined for the sale of Kentucky horses. They are
taken there in droves of fifteen, twenty and thirty at a time, in the
early part of winter, an epoch when the most business is transacted at
Carolina, and when the drivers are in no fear of the yellow fever, of
which the inhabitants of the interior have the greatest apprehension.
{190} They usually take eighteen or twenty days to go from Lexinton to
Charleston. This distance, which is about seven hundred miles, makes a
difference of twenty-five or thirty per cent in the price of horses. A
fine saddle-horse in Kentucky costs about a hundred and thirty to a
hundred and forty dollars.
During my sojourn in this state I had an opportunity of seeing those
wild horses that are caught in the plains of New Mexico, and which
descend from those that the Spaniards introduced there formerly. To
catch them they make use of tame horses that run much swifter, and
with which they approach them near enough to halter them. They take
them to New Orleans and Natches, where they fetch about fifty dollars.
The crews belonging to the boats that return by land to Kentucky
frequently purchase some of them. The two that I saw and made a trial
of were roan coloured, of a middling size, the head large, and not
proportionate with the neck, the limbs thick, and the mane rather full
and handsome. These horses have a very unpleasant gait, are
capricious, difficult to govern, and even frequently throw the rider
and take flight.
The number of horned cattle is very considerable in Kentucky; those
who deal in them purchase them {191} lean, and drive them in droves of
from two to three hundred to Virginia, along the river Potomack, where
they sell them to graziers, who fatten them in order to supply the
markets of Baltimore and Philadelphia. The price of a good milch cow
is, at Kentucky, from ten to twelve dollars. The milk in a great
measure comprises the chief sustenance of the inhabitants. The butter
that is not consumed in the country is put into barrels, and exported
by the river to the Carribbees.
They bring up very few sheep in these parts; for, although I went
upwards of two hundred miles in this state, I saw them only in four
plantations. Their flesh is not much esteemed, and their wool is of
the same quality as that of the sheep in the eastern states. The most
that I ever observed was in Rhode Island.
Of all domestic animals hogs are the most numerous; they are kept by
all the inhabitants, several of them feed a hundred and fifty or two
hundred. These animals never leave the woods, where they always find a
sufficiency of food, especially in autumn and winter. They grow
extremely wild, and generally go in herds. Whenever they are
surprised, or attacked by a dog or any other animal, they either {192}
make their escape, or flock together in the form of a circle to defend
themselves. They are of a bulky shape, middling size, and straight
eared. Every inhabitant recognizes those that belong to him by the
particular manner in which their ears are cut. They stray sometimes in
the forests, and do not make their appearance again for several
months; they accustom them, notwithstanding, to return every now and
then to the plantation, by throwing them Indian corn once or twice a
week. It is surprising that in so vast a country, covered with
forests, so thinly populated, comparatively to its immense extent, and
where there are so few destructive animals, pigs have not increased so
far as to grow completely wild.
In all the western states, and even to the east of the Alleghanies,
two hundred miles of the sea coast, they are obliged to give salt to
the cattle. Were it not for that, the food they give them would never
make them look well; in fact, they are so fond of it that they go of
their own accord to implore it at the doors of the houses every week
or ten days, and spend hours together in licking the trough into which
they have scattered a small quantity for them. This want manifests
itself most among the horses; {193} but it may be on account of their
having it given them more frequently.
Salt provisions form another important article of the Kentucky trade.
The quantity exported in the first six months of the year 1802 was
seventy-two thousand barrels of dried pork, and two thousand four
hundred and eighty-five of salt.
Notwithstanding the superfluity of corn that grows in this part of the
country, there is scarcely any of the inhabitants that keep poultry.
This branch of domestic economy would not increase their expense, but
add a pleasing variety in their food. Two reasons may be assigned for
this neglect; the first is, that the use of salt provisions, (a use to
which the prevalence of the scurvy among them may be attributed,)
renders these delicacies too insipid; the second, that the fields of
Indian corn contiguous to the plantations would be exposed to
considerable damage, the fences with which they are inclosed being
only sufficient to prevent the cattle and pigs from trespassing.
The inhabitants of Kentucky, as we have before stated, are nearly all
natives of Virginia, and particularly the remotest parts of that
state; and exclusive of the gentlemen of the law, physicians, and a
small {194} number of citizens who have received an education suitable
to their professions in the Atlantic states, they have preserved the
manners of the Virginians. With them the passion for gaming and
spirituous liquors is carried to excess, which frequently terminates
in quarrels degrading to human nature. The public-houses are always
crowded, more especially during the sittings of the courts of justice.
Horses and law-suits comprise the usual topic of their conversation.
If a traveller happens to pass by, his horse is appreciated; if he
stops, he is presented with a glass of whiskey, and then asked a
thousand questions, such as, Where do you come from? where are you
going? what is your name? where do you live? what profession? were
there any fevers in the different parts of the country you came
through? These questions, which are frequently repeated in the course
of a journey, become tedious, but it is easy to give a check to their
inquiries by a little address; their only object being the
gratification of that curiosity so natural to people who live isolated
in the woods, and seldom see a stranger. They are never dictated by
mistrust; for from whatever part of the globe a person comes, he may
visit all the ports and principal towns of the United States, stay
{195} there as long as he pleases, and travel in any part of the
country without ever being interrogated by a public officer.
The inhabitants of Kentucky eagerly recommend to strangers the country
they inhabit as the best part of the United States, as that where the
soil is most fertile, the climate most salubrious, and where all the
inhabitants were brought through the love of liberty and independence!
In the interior of their houses they are generally very neat; which
induced me, whenever an opportunity offered, to prefer lodging in a
private family rather than at a public house, where the accommodation
is inferior, although the charges are considerably higher.
The women seldom assist in the labours of the field; they are very
attentive to their domestic concerns, and the spinning of hemp or
cotton, which they convert into linen for the use of their family.
This employment alone is truly laborious, as there are few houses
which contain less than four or five children.
Among the various sects that exist in Kentucky, those of the
Methodists and Anabaptists are the most numerous. The spirit of
religion has acquired a fresh degree of strength within these seven or
eight {196} years among the country inhabitants, since, independent of
Sundays, which are scrupulously observed, they assemble, during the
summer, in the course of the week, to hear sermons. These meetings,
which frequently consist of two or three thousand persons who come
from all parts of the country within fifteen or twenty miles, take
place in the woods, and continue for several days. Each brings his
provisions, and spends the night round a fire. The clergymen are very
vehement in their discourses. Often in the midst of the sermons the
heads are lifted up, the imaginations exalted, and the inspired fall
backwards, exclaiming, “Glory! glory!” This species of infatuation
happens chiefly among the women, who are carried out of the crowd, and
put under a tree, where they lie a long time extended, heaving the
most lamentable sighs.
There have been instances of two or three hundred of the congregation
being thus affected during the performance of divine service; so that
one-third of the hearers were engaged in recovering the rest. Whilst I
was at Lexinton I was present at one of these meetings. The better
informed people do not share the opinion of the multitude with regard
to this state of ecstacy, and on this account they are {197} branded
with the appellation of _bad folks_. Except during the continuance of
this preaching, religion is very seldom the topic of conversation.
Although divided into several sects, they live in the greatest
harmony; and whenever there is an alliance between the families, the
difference of religion is never considered as an obstacle; the husband
and wife pursue whatever kind of worship they like best, and their
children, when they grow up, do just the same, without the
interference of their parents.
Throughout the western country the children are kept punctually at
school, where they learn reading, writing, and the elements of
arithmetic. These schools are supported at the expense of the
inhabitants, who send for masters as soon as the population and their
circumstances permit; in consequence of which it is very rare to find
an American who does not know how to read and write. Upon the Ohio,
and in the Barrens, where the settlements are farther apart, the
inhabitants have not yet been able to procure this advantage, which is
the object of solicitude in every family.
{198} CHAP. XXI
_Nasheville.--Commercial details.--Settlement of the Natches_.
Nasheville, the principal and the oldest town in this part of
Tennessea, is situate upon the river Cumberland, the borders of which,
in this part, are formed by a mass of chalky stone upwards of sixty
feet in height. Except seven or eight houses that are built of brick,
the rest, to the number of about a hundred and twenty, are constructed
of wood, and distributed upon a surface of twenty-five or thirty
acres, where the rock appears almost bare in every part. They cannot
procure water in the town without going a considerable way about to
reach the banks of the river, or descending by a deep and dangerous
path. When I was at Nasheville one of the inhabitants was endeavouring
to pierce the rock, in order to make a well; but at that time he {199}
had only dug a few feet, on account of the stone being so amazingly
hard.
This little town, although built upwards of fifteen years, contains no
kind of manufactory or public establishment; but there is a
printing-office which publishes a newspaper once a week. They have
also began to found a college, which has been presented with several
benefactions for its endowment, but this establishment was only in its
infancy, having but seven or eight students and one professor.[51]
The price of labour is higher in this town than at Lexinton, and the
same disproportion exists between this price and that of provisions.
There appeared to be from fifteen to twenty shops, which are supplied
from Philadelphia and Baltimore, but they did not seem so well stocked
as those at Lexinton, and the articles, though dearer, are of an
inferior quality. The cause of their being so dear may be in some
measure attributed to the expense of carriage, which is much greater
on account of the amazing distance the boats destined for Tennessea
have to go up the Ohio. In fact, after having passed by Limestone, the
place where they unload for Kentucky, and which is four hundred and
twenty miles from Pittsburgh, they have still to make a passage up the
river of six {200} hundred and nineteen miles to reach the mouth of
the river Cumberland, and a hundred and eighty miles to arrive at
Nasheville, which, in the whole, comprises a space of one thousand
five hundred and twenty-one miles from Philadelphia, of which twelve
hundred are by water. Some merchants get their goods also from New
Orleans, whence the boats go up the Mississippi, the Ohio, and
Cumberland. This last distance is about twelve hundred and forty-three
miles; viz. a thousand miles from New Orleans to the _embouchure_ of
the Ohio, sixty-three miles from thence to Cumberland, and a hundred
and eighty from this river to Nasheville.
There are very few cultivators who take upon themselves to export the
produce of their labour, consisting chiefly of cotton; the major part
of them sell it to the tradespeople at Nasheville, who send it by the
river to New Orleans, where it is expedited to New York and
Philadelphia, or exported direct to Europe. These tradesmen, like
those of Lexinton, do not pay always in cash for the cotton they
purchase, but make the cultivators take goods in exchange, which adds
considerably to their profit. A great quantity of it is also sent by
land to Kentucky, where each family is supplied with it to manufacture
articles for their domestic wants.