towards Jonesborough, about a hundred miles from Knoxville, and
situate at the foot of the lofty mountains that separate North
Carolina from the state of Tennessea. On leaving Knoxville the soil is
uneven, stony and very indifferent, of which it is an easy thing to
judge by the quantity of pines, or _pinus mitis_, that are in the
forests. We also found there an abundance of Chinquapin oaks, or
_quercus prinus Chinquapin_, that seldom grow above three feet high,
some of which were that year so loaded with acorns that they were bent
to the ground. The sorel-tree, or _andromeda arborea_, is also very
common. This tree, that rises about forty feet in the mountains, would
be one of the most splendid ornaments for our gardens, on account of
its opening clusters of white flowers. Its leaves are very acid, and
many of the inhabitants prefer them to shumac for dyeing cottons.
I crossed the river Holston at Macby, about fifteen miles from
Knoxville; here the soil grows better, {224} and the plantations are
nearer together, although not immediately within sight of each other.
At some distance from Macby the road, for the space of two miles, runs
by the side of a copse, extremely full of young suckers, the highest
of which was not above twenty feet. As I had never seen any part of a
forest so composed before, I made an observation of it to the
inhabitants of the country, who told me that this place was formerly
part of a barren, or meadow, which had naturally clothed itself again
with trees, that fifteen years since they had been totally destroyed
by fire, in order to clear the land, which is a common practice in all
the southern states. This example appears to demonstrate that the
spacious meadows in Kentucky and Tennessea owe their birth to some
great conflagration that has consumed the forests, and that they are
kept up as meadows by the custom that is still practised of annually
setting them on fire. In these conflagrations, when chance preserves
any part from the ravages of the flame, for a certain number of years
they are re-stocked with trees; but {225} as it is then extremely
thick, the fire burns them completely down, and reduces them again to
a sort of meadow. We may thence conclude, that in these parts of the
country the meadows encroach continually upon the forests. The same
has probably taken place in Upper Louisiana and New Mexico, which are
only immense plains, burnt annually by the natives, and where there is
not a tree to be found.
I stopped the first day at a place where most of the inhabitants are
Quakers, who came fifteen or eighteen years since from Pennsylvania.
The one with whom I lodged had an excellent plantation, and his
log-house was divided into two rooms, which is very uncommon in that
part of the country. Around the house magnificent apple-trees were
planted, which, although produced from pips, bore fruit of an
extraordinary size and luxuriance in taste, which proves how well this
country is adapted for the culture of fruit trees. Here, as well as in
Kentucky, they give the preference to the peach, on account of their
{226} making brandy with it. At the same house where I stopped there
were two emigrant families, forming together ten or twelve persons,
who were going to settle in Tennessea. Their ragged clothes, and the
miserable appearance of their children, who were bare-footed and in
their shirts, was a plain indication of their poverty, a circumstance
by no means uncommon in the United States. At the same time it is not
in the western country that the riches of the inhabitants consist in
specie; for I am persuaded that not one in ten of them are in
possession of a single dollar; still each enjoys himself at home with
the produce of his estate, and the money arising from the sale of a
horse or a few cows is always more than sufficient to procure him the
secondary articles that come from England.
The following day I passed by the iron-works, situate about thirty
miles from Knoxville, where I stopped some time to get a sample of the
native ore. The iron that proceeds from it they say is of an excellent
quality. The road at this place divides into {227} two branches, both
of which lead to Jonesborough; but as I wanted to survey the banks of
the river Nolachuky, so renowned in that part of the country for their
fertility, I took the right, although it was rather longer, and not so
much frequented. About six or seven miles from the iron-works we
found upon the road small rock crystals, two or three inches long, and
beautifully transparent. The facets of the pyramids that terminate the
two extremities of the prism are perfectly equal with respect to size,
they are loose, and disseminated in a reddish kind of earth, and
rather clayey. In less than ten minutes I picked up forty. Arrived on
the boundaries of the river Nolachuky, I did not observe any species
of trees or plants that I had not seen elsewhere, except a few poplars
and horse-chesnuts, which bore a yellow blossom. Some of these poplars
were five or six feet in diameter, perfectly straight, and free from
branches for thirty or forty feet from the earth.
On the 21st I arrived at Greenville, which contains scarcely forty
houses, constructed with square {228} beams something like the
log-houses. They reckon twenty-five miles from this place to
Jonesborough. In this space the country is slightly mountainous, the
soil more adapted to the culture of corn than that of Indian wheat,
and the plantations are situated upon the road, two or three miles
distant from each other.
Jonesborough, the last town in Tennessea, is composed of about a
hundred and fifty houses, built of wood, and disposed on both sides
the road. Four or five respectable shops are established there, and
the tradespeople who keep them have their goods from Richmond and
Baltimore. All kinds of English-manufactured goods are as dear here as
at Knoxville. A newspaper in folio is published at this town twice a
week. Periodical sheets are the only works that have ever been printed
in the towns or villages situate west of the Alleghanies.
{229} CHAP. XXV
_General observations on the State of Tennessea.--Rivers
Cumberland and Tennessea.--What is meant by East Tennessea
or Holston, and West Tennessea or Cumberland.--First
settlements in West Tennessea.--Trees natives of that
country._
The state of Tennessea is situated between 35 and 36 deg. 30 min.
latitude, and 80 and 90 deg. 30 min. longitude. It is bounded north by
Kentucky, south by the territories belonging to the Indian Cherokees
and Chactaws, west by the Ohio, and east by the Alleghany Mountains,
which separate it from Virginia and North Carolina. Its extent in
breadth is nearly a hundred and three miles {230} by three hundred and
sixty in length. Prior to the year 1796, the epoch of its being
admitted into the Union, this country comprised a part of North
Carolina. The two principal rivers are the Cumberland and Tennessea,
which flow into the Ohio eleven miles distant from each other, and are
separated by the chain of mountains in Cumberland.
The river Cumberland, known to the French Canadians by the name of the
river Shavanon, derives its source in Kentucky, amidst the mountains
that separate it from Virginia. Its course is about four hundred and
fifty miles. It is navigable, in winter and spring, for three hundred
and fifty miles from its _embouchure_; but in summer, not above fifty
miles from Nasheville. The river Tennessea, named by the French
Canadians the Cherokee River, is the most considerable of all those
that empty themselves into the Ohio. It begins at West Point, where it
is formed by the junction of the rivers Clinch and Holston, which
derive their source in that part of the Alleghany Mountains situated
in Virginia, each of {231} which are more than a hundred fathoms broad
at their _embouchure_. Both are navigable to an immense distance, and
particularly the Holston, which is so for two hundred miles. The river
French Broad, one of the principal branches of the Holston, receives
its waters from the Nolachuky, is about twenty fathoms broad, and is
navigable in the spring. Thus the Tennessea, with the Holston, has, in
the whole, a navigable course for near eight hundred miles: but this
navigation is interrupted six months in the year by the muscle shoals,
a kind of shallows interspersed with rocks, which are met with in its
bed two hundred miles from its _embouchure_ in the Ohio. From West
Point the borders of this great river are yet almost entirely
uninhabited. The signification of the name of Tennessea, which it
bears, is unknown to the Cherokees and Chactaws that occupied this
country before the whites. Mr. Fisk, who has had several conversations
with these Indians, never heard any precise account; in consequence of
which it is most likely that this name has {232} been given to it by
the nation that the Cherokees succeeded.[56]
The Cumberland Mountains are but a continuation of Laurel Mountain,
which itself is one of the principal links of the Alleghanies. These
mountains, on the confines of Virginia, incline more toward the west,
and by the direction which they take, cut obliquely in two the state
of Tennessea, which, in consequence, divides East and West Tennessea
into two parts, both primitively known by the names of the Holston and
Cumberland settlements, and which afford each a different aspect,
both by the nature of the country, and by the productions that grow
there.
West Tennessea comprises two-thirds of this state. The greater part of
it reposes upon a bank of chalky substance of the same nature, the
beds of which are horizontal. The stratum of vegetable earth with
which it is covered appears generally not so thick as in Kentucky, and
participates less of the clayey nature. It is usually, in point of
colour, of {233} a dark brown, without the least mixture of stony
substances. The forests that cover the country clearly indicate how
favourable the soil is for vegetation, as most of the trees acquire a
very large diameter. Iron mines are also as scarce there as in
Kentucky; and provided any new ones were discovered, they would have
been worked immediately, since the iron that is imported from
Pennsylvania is at such an enormous price.
The secondary rivers which in this part of Tennessea run into
Cumberland are almost completely dry during the summer; and it is
probable enough, that when the population grows more numerous, and the
plantations are formed farther from their banks, the want of water
will be more severely felt in this part than in Kentucky. There are,
notwithstanding, several large rivulets or creeks that issue from
excavations that are found at the foot of the mountains, in different
parts of the country: at the same time it has been remarked that these
kind of sources never fail, although the water is not so deep in
summer. {234} Just at the mouth of these subterraneous passages they
are sometimes accompanied with a current of air strong enough to
extinguish a light. I observed this particularly myself at the spring
of the rivulet called Dixon’s Spring, and of another situated about
four miles from Nasheville.
It was in 1780 that the whites first made the attempt to travel over
the Cumberland Mountains, and to settle in the environs of Nasheville;
but the emigrants were not very numerous there till the year 1789.
They had to support, for several years, a bloody war against the
Indian Cherokees, and till 1795 the settlements at Holston and
Kentucky communicated with those in Cumberland by caravans, for the
sake of travelling in safety over so extensive a tract of uninhabited
country that separated them; but for these five or six years past,
since peace has been made with the natives, the communications formed
between the countries are perfectly established; and although not much
frequented, they travel there with as much safety as in any other part
of the Atlantic states.
{235} This country having been populated after that of Kentucky, every
measure was taken at the commencement to avoid the great confusion
that exists concerning the right of property in the latter state; at
the same time the titles are looked upon as more valid, and not so
subject to dispute. This reason, the extraordinary fertility of the
soil, and a more healthy climate, are such great inducements to the
emigrants of the Atlantic states, that most of them prefer settling in
West Tennessea than in Kentucky. They reckon there, at present, thirty
thousand inhabitants, and five or six thousand negro slaves.
With a few exceptions the various species of trees and shrubs that
form the mass of the forests are the same as those that I observed in
the most fertile parts of Kentucky. The _gleditsia triacanthos_ is
still more common there.[57] Of this wood the Indians made their
bows, before they adopted the use of fire-arms.
We found particularly, in these forests, a tree which, by the shape of
its fruit and the disposition of its leaves, appears to have great
affinity with the {236} _sophora japonica_, the wood of which is used
by the Chinese for dyeing yellow. My father, who discovered this tree
in 1796, thought that it might be employed for the same use, and
become an important object of traffic for the country. He imparted his
conjectures to Mr. Blount, then governor of this state, and his letter
was inserted in the Gazette at Knoxville on the 15th of March 1796.
Several persons in the country having a great desire to know whether
it were possible to fix the beautiful yellow which the wood of this
tree communicated to the water by the simple infusion, cold, I
profited by my stay at Nasheville to send twenty pounds of it to New
York, the half of which was remitted to Dr. Mitchell, professor of
chemistry, and the other addressed to Paris, to the Board of
Agriculture, attached to the Minister of the Interior, in order to
verify the degree of utility that might be derived from it. This tree
very seldom rises above forty feet, and grows, in preference, on the
knobs, species of little hills, where the soil is very rich. Several
of the inhabitants have {237} remarked that there is not in the
country a single species of tree that produces so great an abundance
of sap. The quantity that it supplies exceeds even that of the sugar
maple, although the latter is twice its bulk. The epoch of my stay at
Nasheville being that when the seeds of this tree were ripe, I
gathered a small quantity of them, which I brought over with me, and
which have all come up. Several of the plants are at the present
moment ten or fifteen inches high. It is very probable that this tree
may be reared in France, and that it will endure the cold of our
winters, and more so, as, according to what I have been told, the
winters are as severe in Tennessea as in any parts of France.
West Tennessea is not so salubrious as Holston and Kentucky. A warmer
and damper climate is the cause of intermittent fevers being more
common there. Emigrants, for the first year of their settling there,
and even travellers, are, during that season, subject to an
exanthemetic affection similar to the itch. This malady, with which I
began to be attacked {238} before I reached Fort Blount, yielded to a
cooling regimen, and repeated bathings in the rivers Cumberland and
Roaring. This disorder is very appropriately called in the country the
Tennessean itch.
{239} CHAP. XXVI
_Different kinds of produce of West Tennessea.--Domestic
manufactories for cottons encouraged by the legislature of
this state.--Mode of letting out estates by some of the
emigrants._
WEST Tennessea, or Cumberland, being situated under a more southerly
latitude than Kentucky, is particularly favourable to the growth of
cotton; in consequence of which the inhabitants give themselves up
almost entirely to it, and cultivate but little more corn, hemp, and
tobacco than what is necessary for their own consumption.
The soil, which is fat and clayey, appears to be a recent dissolving
of vegetable substances, and seems, {240} till now, less adapted for
the culture of corn than that of Indian wheat. The harvests of this
grain are as plentiful as in Kentucky; the blades run up ten or twelve
feet high; and the ears, which grow six or seven feet from the earth,
are from nine to ten inches in length, and proportionate in size. It
is cultivated in the same manner as in other parts of the western
country.
The crows, which are a true plague in the Atlantic states, where they
ravage, at three different periods, the fields of Indian wheat, which
are obliged to be sown again as many times, have not yet made their
appearance in Tennessea; but it is very probable that this visit is
only deferred, as they do, annually, great damage in Kentucky.
I must also observe here that the grey European rats have not yet
penetrated into Cumberland, though they are very numerous in other
parts of the country, particularly in those settlements belonging to
the whites.
The culture of cotton, infinitely more lucrative {241} than that of
corn and tobacco, is, as before observed, the most adhered to in West
Tennessea. There is scarcely a single emigrant but what begins to
plant his estate with it the third year after his settling in the
country. Those who have no negroes cultivate it with the plough,
nearly in the same manner as Indian wheat, taking particular care to
weed and throw new earth upon it several times in the course of the
season. Others lay out their fields in parallel furrows, made with the
hoe, from twelve to fifteen inches high. It is computed that one man,
who employs himself with this alone, is sufficient to cultivate eight
or nine acres, but not to gather in the harvest. A man and a woman,
with two or three children, may, notwithstanding, cultivate four acres
with the greatest ease, independent of the Indian wheat necessary for
their subsistence; and calculating upon a harvest of three hundred and
fifty pounds weight per acre, which is very moderate according to the
extreme fertility of the soil, they will have, in four acres, a
produce of fourteen hundred pounds of {242} cotton. Valuing it at the
rate of eighteen dollars per hundred weight, the lowest price to which
it had fallen at the epoch of the last peace, when I was in the
country, gives two hundred and fifty-two dollars; from which deducting
forty dollars for the expenses of culture, they will have a net
produce of two hundred and twelve dollars; while the same number of
acres, planted with Indian wheat, or sown with corn, would only yield
at the rate of fifty bushels per acre; and twenty-five bushels of
corn, about fifty dollars, reckoning the Indian wheat at thirteen
pence, and the corn at two shillings and two pence per bushel; under
the supposition that they can sell it at that price, which is not
always the case. This light sketch demonstrates with what facility a
poor family may acquire speedily, in West Tennessea, a certain degree
of independence, particularly after having been settled five or six
years, as they procure the means of purchasing one or two negroes, and
of annually increasing their number.
The species of cotton which they cultivate here is {243} somewhat more
esteemed than that described by the name of green-seed cotton, in
which there is a trifling distinction in point of colour.
The cottons that are manufactured in West Tennessea are exceedingly
fine, and superior in quality to those I saw in the course of my
travels. The legislature of this state, appreciating the advantage of
encouraging this kind of industry, and of diminishing, by that means,
the importation of English goods of the same nature, has given, for
these two years past, a premium of ten dollars to the female
inhabitant who, in every county, presents the best manufactured piece;
for in this part, as well as in Kentucky, the higher circles wear, in
summer time, as much from patriotism as from economy, dresses made of
the cottons manufactured in the country. At the same time they are
convinced that it is the only means of preserving the little specie
that is in the country, and of preventing its going to England.
The price of the best land does not yet exceed five dollars per acre
in the environs of Nasheville, and {244} thirty or forty miles from
the town they are not even worth three dollars. They can at that price
purchase a plantation completely formed, composed of two to three
hundred acres, of which fifteen to twenty are cleared, and a
log-house. The taxes in this state are also not so high as in
Kentucky.
Among the emigrants that arrive annually from the eastern country at
Tennessea there are always some who have not the means of purchasing
estates; still there is no difficulty in procuring them at a certain
rent; for the speculators who possess many thousand acres are very
happy to get tenants for their land, as it induces others to come and
settle in the environs; since the speculation of estates in Kentucky
and Tennessea is so profitable to the owners, who reside upon the
spot, and who, on the arrival of the emigrants, know how to give
directions in cultivation, which speedily enhances the value of their
possessions.
The conditions imposed upon the renter are to clear and inclose eight
or nine acres, to build a log-house, and to pay to the owner eight or
ten bushels {245} of Indian wheat for every acre cleared. These
contracts are kept up for seven or eight years. The second year after
the price of two hundred acres of land belonging to a new settlement
of this kind increases nearly thirty per cent.; and this estate is
purchased in preference by a new emigrant, who is sure of gathering
corn enough for the supplies of his family and cattle.
In this state they are not so famed for rearing horses as in Kentucky;
yet the greatest care is taken to improve their breed, by rearing them
with those of the latter state, whence they send for the finest mare
foals that can be procured.
Although this country abounds with saline springs, none are yet
worked, as the scarcity of hands would render the salt dearer than
what is imported from the salt-pits of St. Genevieve, which supply all
Cumberland. It is sold at two dollars per bushel, about sixty pounds
weight.
{246} CHAP. XXVII
_East Tennessea, or Holston.--Agriculture.--Population.--Commerce._
East Tennessea, or Holston, is situated between the loftiest of the
Alleghany and Cumberland Mountains. It comprises, in length, an extent
of nearly a hundred and forty miles, and differs chiefly from West
Tennessea in point of the earth’s being not so chalky, and better
watered by the small rivers issuing from the adjacent mountains, which
cross it in every part. The best land is upon their borders. The
remainder of the territory, almost everywhere interspersed with hills,
is of a middling quality, and produces nothing but white, red, black,
chincapin, {247} and mountain oaks, &c. intermixed with pines; and, as
we have before observed, except the _quercus macrocarpa_, the rest
never grow, even in the most fertile places.
Indian wheat forms here also one of the principal branches of
agriculture; but it very seldom comes up above seven or eight feet
high, and a produce of thirty bushels per acre passes for an
extraordinary harvest. The nature of the soil, somewhat gravelly,
appears more adapted for the culture of wheat, rye, and oats; in
consequence of which it is more adhered to than in Cumberland. That of
cotton is little noticed, on account of the cold weather, which sets
in very early. One may judge, according to this, that Holston is in
every point inferior in fertility to Cumberland and Kentucky.
To consume the superfluity of their corn the inhabitants rear a great
number of cattle, which they take four or five hundred miles to the
seaports belonging to the southern states. They lose very few of these
animals by the way, although they have to {248} cross several rivers,
and travel through an uninterrupted forest, with this disadvantage, of
the cattle being extremely wild.