crossing of Forbes’s road, and the Indian trail to
Kiskiminitas Creek. The latter was made the county seat
at the erection of Westmoreland in 1773; but in 1782 was
totally destroyed by an Indian raid. In 1786, Greensburg
was laid out, about three miles southwest, as the seat of
Westmoreland County; and here the first court was held in
January, 1787.--ED.
[17] Horbach’s inn was the stopping place for the mail, its
proprietor being a contractor. It was situated on the
corner of Main and East Pittsburg streets,
Greensburg.--ED.
[18] These last sentences result from a faulty translation of
the French. Michaux stated that the gentleman’s intention
was to descend the Ohio, and that he was not fond of
whiskey.--ED.
[19] For a description of the present appearance of Braddock’s
battle-field, see Thwaites, _On the Storied Ohio_ (New
York, 1897, and Chicago, 1903), p. 17; also “A Day on
Braddock’s Road,” in _How George Rogers Clark won the
Northwest_ (Chicago, 1903).--ED.
[20] Fort Duquesne, built in the summer of 1754 by the French
commander Contrecœur, and named for the governor of New
France, was situated directly in the point or angle made
by the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers. It was
strengthened, and strongly garrisoned, during the four
years which the French possessed it; and was evacuated
and burned by its commandant, DeLignery, on the approach
of Forbes’s army in November, 1758.--ED.
[21] These newspapers were the Pittsburgh _Gazette_, founded in
1786; and the _Commonwealth_, a Democratic journal begun
about the time of Michaux’s visit.--ED.
[22] Michaux here refers to the Indian wars of the Northwest,
culminating in the battle of Fallen Timbers in 1795,
followed by the treaty of Greenville in 1796.--ED.
[23] As early as 1752, the Ohio Company had built a storehouse,
called the “Hangard,” at the mouth of Redstone Creek, and
it was described by the French officer who (1754)
explored that region and burned the English defenses.
After the capture of Fort Duquesne (1758), Bouquet sent
Colonel James Burd to build a fort at this place, which
was named Fort Burd; but it was long popularly known as
Redstone Old Fort, because of the remains of
moundbuilding Indians to be seen at this point. The fort
was abandoned during Pontiac’s War (1763), but appears to
have been garrisoned by the time of Lord Dunmore’s War
(1774). It was the rendezvous for Clark’s men in 1778,
and in 1791 the assembly place for fomenters of the
Whiskey Rebellion. In 1785 the town of Brownsville was
incorporated, and for many years continued to be an
important starting point for Western emigration. See
Thwaites, _On the Storied Ohio_, for descriptions of this
movement, and of the region in general.--ED.
[24] An Indian boat.--F. A. MICHAUX.
[25] I have been informed since my return, that this ship, named
the _Pittsburgh_, was arrived at Philadelphia.--F. A. MICHAUX.
[26] Kentucky was erected into a state in 1792, Tennessee in 1796,
and Ohio in 1802.--ED.
[27] Morgantown, West Virginia, was settled originally in 1758 by
the ill-fated Deckers, who were massacred the following
year; but not until 1768 was it a permanent settlement
established by the Morgan brothers. The town was
incorporated in 1785. It is now the seat of West Virginia
University.--ED.
[28] The settlement of Southwestern Pennsylvania--the Monongahela
and Youghiogheny valleys--was largely by emigrants from
Virginia and the Southeast. Elizabeth was founded by
Stephen Bayard of Maryland, a Revolutionary officer who
came West after the war and formed a partnership with
Major Isaac Craig of Pittsburg. The site of the town was
originally called New Store. Bayard gave it the present
name in 1787, in honor of his wife. It was from this
point that many travellers took boats for the Ohio
journey.--ED.
[29] The river Yazous runs into the Mississippi between the
thirty-second and thirty-third degree of latitude.--F. A.
MICHAUX.
[30] An early trader on the Ohio, speaking of the return
journey, says, “As soon as we got to Wheeling, we went on
foot to Pittsburgh, it being less fatiguing and costing
less time to walk 57 miles, the land distance, than to
pole and paddle 90 miles, the distance by the
river.”--_Cist’s Advertiser_, November, 1849.--ED.
[31] The boundary line between Virginia and Pennsylvania was the
cause of much disturbance, each colony claiming the
region south of the Ohio. The Monongahela Valley was
settled largely from Virginia, and on several occasions
the conflict of jurisdiction nearly led to a border war.
The settlers themselves desired a new state. The
controversy was finally settled by an agreement between
the states in 1780, although the lines were not finally
run until 1785. See Turner, “Western State Making in the
Revolutionary Era,” in _American Historical Review_, i,
pp. 81-83.
West Liberty was established as a town November 29, 1787.--ED.
[32] The translation here is faulty. It should be, “it is
navigable for only two hundred miles,” etc.--ED.
[33] General Arthur St. Clair was a native of Scotland, who came
to America during the French and Indian War, and settled
in Western Pennsylvania. He served with much success in
the Revolution, and in 1787 was president of the Congress
of the Confederation. He was appointed by Washington
first governor of the Northwest Territory, and served in
that capacity 1788-1802. He was unpopular because of the
military defeat here mentioned, and his Federalist
principles. On his dismissal, in 1802, he retired to his
home in Pennsylvania, and died there in obscurity in
1818.--ED.
[34] Michaux has here given a good account of the unfortunate
French colony founded on the banks of the Ohio, nearly
opposite the mouth of the Great Kanawha. The Scioto
Company was an offshoot of the Ohio Company formed by
Manasseh Cutler and his associates. In May, 1788, the
Scioto Company employed Joel Barlow, “the patriot poet of
the Revolution,” to go to Paris and sell lands for them.
The buyers were, as Michaux remarks, unsuited to pioneer
life; the company overcharged them, and then ensued
litigation in which the settlers lost the titles to their
lands. The log-houses mentioned by Michaux were built for
the settlers on their arrival in October, 1790, but the
severity of the climate, Indian hostilities, and frontier
hardships, decimated their ranks. The present town has
been built up by the energy of American and German
settlers, and in 1893 but three descendants of the French
settlers lived there. For further accounts, see Winsor,
_Westward Movement_ (Boston, 1897), pp. 402-407, 498;
“Centennial of Gallipolis,” in Ohio Archæological and
Historical Society _Publications_, iii; and Thwaites, _On
the Storied Ohio_.--ED.
[35] Chillicothe, on the site of the famous Indian village, was
laid out in 1796 by General Massie as an American town.
It was in the heart of the Virginia military district,
and was chiefly settled by Southerners. It was the seat
of government for Ohio until 1816. The weekly newspaper
was the _Scioto Gazette_, begun at this place in 1800 by
Nathaniel Willis, grandfather of the poet N. P.
Willis.--ED.
[36] The banks of this river are now inhabited by the Americans,
for forty miles beyond its _embouchure_ in the
Mississippi; the number of those who are settled there is
computed to be about three thousand, and it increases
daily by the repeated emigrations that are made from
Kentucky and the Upper Carolinas.--F. A. MICHAUX.
[37] The route from Limestone to Lexington was the road whereby
most of the travel by way of the Ohio came into Kentucky.
It passed through the present county of Mason, along the
western corner of Fleming, crossed the Licking River in
Nicholas County, and the South Fork of the same at
Hinkston’s Ferry, thence passed through Bourbon and
Fayette counties to Lexington.
Washington was first settled by Simon Kenton, the
well-known pioneer hunter, in 1784; it was laid out as a
town in 1786; and was the seat of Mason County from
1788-1848. With the introduction of railroads, its
importance declined.--ED.
[38] May’s Lick was named for John May of Virginia, its original
owner, who was killed by Indians when descending the Ohio
in 1790.
Millersburg was settled by John Miller about 1784, on
lands that he had located in 1775 on Hinkston Creek, in
Bourbon County. It is still a small town and the present
seat of Kentucky Wesleyan University, founded in 1817.
Henry Savary was an enterprising Frenchman who kept one
of the first stores in Millersburg.--ED.
[39] The name of Kentucky’s capital is said to be taken from that
of a pioneer, Stephen Frank, who was killed on this spot
in 1780. The site was first surveyed in 1773 for the
McAfees, but the place was not incorporated until 1786.
It was made the seat of government in 1793.--ED.
[40] The first two newspapers were the _Kentucke Gazette_, founded
by John Bradford in 1787--the pioneer paper of the West;
and the _Kentucky Herald_, founded by James H. Stewart
in 1795. See Perrin, “Pioneer Press of Kentucky,” in
Filson Club _Publications_ (Louisville, 1887), No.
3.--ED.
[41] This is a mistranslation; it should be, “the majority of the
inhabitants of Kentucky trade with Lexington
merchants.”--ED.
[42] The distance from Lexinton to Philadelphia, by way of
Pennsylvania, is about six hundred and fifty miles. Those
who have occasion to go there on business, generally set
out in autumn, and take three weeks or a month to perform
the journey.--F. A. MICHAUX.
[43] Dr. Samuel Brown was a younger brother of John Brown, first
delegate from Kentucky to the Continental Congress. He
was born in Virginia, in 1769, educated at Carlisle,
Pennsylvania, and took a medical course at Edinburgh. One
of the first physicians of Kentucky, he was professor of
medicine in Transylvania College, 1799-1806, and again in
1819. He later removed to Huntsville, Alabama, where he
died in 1830.--ED.
[44] Harrodsburg, seat of Mercer County, is the oldest town in the
state, the first cabin being built there by James Harrod
in 1774, and the fort in 1775. In June, 1776, a
convention was held at this place, which chose George
Rogers Clark a delegate to the Virginia legislature. He
secured the appointment of Harrodsburg as county town for
the newly-erected Kentucky County. Until about 1785,
therefore, Harrodsburg was the seat of government, but it
declined in importance before its neighbor Danville.--ED.
[45] General John Adair was a South Carolinian who, after
distinguished Revolutionary services, emigrated to
Kentucky about 1786, and settled in Mercer County. He was
a leader of Kentucky volunteers in St. Clair’s campaign
(1791); and served with distinction in the War of
1812-15, commanding the Kentucky detachment at the battle
of New Orleans. From 1820-24, he was governor of the
state, and was a Kentucky member of both the national
House of Representatives and the Senate, dying in 1840 at
his Kentucky home.--ED.
[46] Michaux passed from General Adair’s, through Mercer and
Marion counties, and over the range of Muldrow’s Hills,
which until about 1785 formed the southern boundary of
Kentucky settlement. The “barrens,” lying south and west,
were so called from their lack of trees. The road led
through Green, Barren, and Allen counties, and entered
Tennessee in Sumner County, about forty miles northeast
of Nashville.--ED.
[47] The sons of the Duke of Orleans, Louis-Philippe and his two
young brothers, came to the United States and travelled
extensively in 1797, visiting the Southern and Western
states, the Great Lakes, and New England. Finally passing
through the Mississippi Valley, they embarked at New
Orleans for Europe.--ED.
[48] For an account of this road, see _ante_, p. 45.--ED.
[49] In the United States they give the name of Cumberland to that
part of Tennessea situated to the west of the mountains of
the same name.--F. A. MICHAUX.
[50] As evidence of the interest of the early Kentuckians in the
raising of horses, it is noted that the first legislative
assembly for Transylvania, meeting at Boonesborough in
1775, passed an “act for preserving the breed of
horses.”--ED.
[51] The first newspaper published in Western Tennessee was the
_Tennessee Gazette_, begun in 1797; its name was changed
to the Nashville _Clarion_, in 1800.
One of the acts of Robertson, founder of Nashville, was
to secure from the North Carolina legislature, in 1785, a
bill for the “promotion of learning in Davidson County.”
A tract of land was granted, and the school organized as
Davidson Academy; this became Cumberland College in 1806.
The year of Michaux’s visit, a plan was made for the
erection of a building, which was not completed until
1807, and now forms part of Vanderbilt University.
Michaux seems to be in error in calling Moses Fisk the
president of this college; he solicited funds to keep the
Academy in Nashville, but James Craighead was president
until 1809.--ED.
[52] This was Moses Fisk, of Massachusetts, who graduated
from Harvard in the same class with Daniel Webster. A man
of considerable fortune, he came to Cumberland in the
period after the Revolution, and was instrumental in the
educational and industrial development of this section.
In 1805 he settled at Hillham, Overton County, which he
hoped to make an important city, and built many turnpike
roads about it. He was trustee of Davidson Academy, and
founded at Hillham an academy for young women.--ED.
[53] Natchez was a prominent frontier town of the Southwest,
which had had a long and varied history. In 1715 the
French of Louisiana established a trading post at this
place, and in 1716 Fort Rosalie was built. Thirteen years
later occurred the massacre of the garrison and
inhabitants by the Natchez Indians. While a fort was
rebuilt at this place, there seems to have been no
settlement during the remainder of the French occupation.
When this territory passed into the hands of the English
(1763) liberal land grants were made, and Fort Panmure
was erected on the site of Fort Rosalie; emigration from
the Southern states and the East then came into this
region, especially from New Jersey and Connecticut. After
the beginning of the Revolution, an attempt was made to
secure the neutrality of the Natchez people, if not their
co-operation with the American cause. But the brutality
of Captain Willing, sent on this mission in 1778,
alienated the inhabitants and kept them loyal to Great
Britain. On the outbreak of war between England and Spain
(1779) the Spanish governor Gayoso made an expedition
into West Florida, and captured Natchez with other
British posts. The inhabitants rebelled and seized Fort
Panmure; but on the downfall of Pensacola, they were
obliged to flee. The Spaniards took possession by treaty
in 1783, and under their régime, at the close of the
American Revolution, a large immigration took place. Land
speculation and intrigues ran riot. The Yazoo grants
occupied this territory in part. The United States
claimed the Natchez district as within her boundaries. In
the treaty of 1795 with Spain, this claim was conceded,
and a commission was appointed to run a boundary line. In
1798 Mississippi Territory was organized, Natchez being
included therein. In the early days of the Mississippi
traffic, the commercial importance of the place was
second only to New Orleans. The Natchez trace, of which
Michaux speaks, was one of the most travelled roads of
the Western country.--ED.
[54] General Daniel Smith, born in Virginia about 1740, migrated
to Tennessee at an early age, and was first secretary of
the territory south of the Ohio (1790-96), United States
senator (1798-99 and 1805-09), and major general of
militia. He was one of the most prominent of the early
pioneers, a man of education and wealth, and his home in
Sumner County was the seat of wide hospitality.--ED.
[55] The newspaper referred to by Michaux was established by
George Roulstone at Rogersville in 1791; later it was
removed to the capital, and called the Knoxville
_Gazette_.--ED.
[56] The derivation of the word “Tennessee” is variously given: as
from a village of the Cherokee Indians, “Tanase;” a
Cherokee word meaning “curved spoon;” or from the Taensa
Indians of the Natchesan family, who lived in Louisiana
within historic times.--ED.
[57] The _gleditsia triacanthus_, or honey locust, is common to a
large part of the United States.--ED.
[58] For an account of the movement for the State of Franklin, see
Turner, “Western State Making,” _American Historical
Review_, i, pp. 256-261.--ED.
[59] The _protonopsis horrida_, or a similar variety limited to
the Alleghanies--_protonopsis fusca_. The former is
generally called the “hellbender.”--ED.
[60] For the invention of the cotton-gin, and its effect on the
growth of cotton culture, see Hammond, “Cotton Industry,”
in American Economic Association _Publications_, i (new
series).--ED.
JOURNAL OF A TOUR ... NORTHWEST OF THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS, BY
THADDEUS MASON HARRIS, A. M.
Reprint from Boston edition, 1805; the Journal proper, omitting
the Appendix thereto
THE
JOURNAL OF A TOUR
INTO THE
_Territory Northwest of the Alleghany
Mountains;_
Made in the Spring of the Year 1803.
WITH
A GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF
THE
State of Ohio.
_Illustrated with Original Maps and Views._
BY
THADDEUS MASON HARRIS, A. M.
Member of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
“Profuit et varios mores, hominumque locorumque
Explorasse situs, multas cum peregrinavit
Aut vidisse ipsum urbes, aut narrantibus illas
Ex aliis novisse.” VIDÆ, _poet_.
Boston:
PRINTED BY MANNING & LORING, NO. 2, CORNHILL.
1805.
_District of Massachusetts_, to wit.
BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the first day of February, in the
twenty-ninth year of the Independence of the United States of America,
THADDEUS MASON HARRIS, of the said District, hath deposited in this
office the title of a Book, the right whereof he claims as Author, in
the words following, _to wit_:--“The Journal of a Tour into the
Territory Northwest of the Alleghany Mountains; made in the Spring of
the year 1803. With a geographical and historical Account of the State
of Ohio. By THADDEUS MASON HARRIS, A.M. Member of the Massachusetts
Historical Society.--Illustrated with 1. An original Map of the
Alleghany, Monongahela, and Yohiogany Rivers. 2. A Map of the State of
Ohio, by the Hon. Rufus Putnam, Esq. Surveyor General of the United
States, made from actual Surveys. 3. A Map of the Tract appropriated
by Congress for Military Services; on which the Sections are laid down
and marked by Numbers, &c. 4. A Ground Plat of the City Marietta. 5. A
View of the Ancient Mounds and Fortifications on the Muskingum.”
In Conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States,
entitled, “An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by securing the
Copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of
such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned;” and also to an Act,
entitled, “An Act supplementary to an Act, entitled, An Act for the
Encouragement of Learning, by securing the Copies of Maps, Charts, and
Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of such Copies, during the Times
therein mentioned; and extending the Benefits thereof to the Arts of
Designing, Engraving, and Etching, Historical and other Prints.”
N. GOODALE, _Clerk of the District of Massachusetts_.
A true Copy of Record. Attest:
N. GOODALE, _Clerk_.
TO THE
Hon. RUFUS PUTNAM, Esq.
GENERAL IN THE ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE LATE REVOLUTIONARY
WAR, AND SINCE SURVEYOR GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES,
&C. &C.[1]
PERMIT me, dear Sir, to inscribe to you the following pages, in
grateful acknowledgment of the hospitality and kindness you showed me
while at Marietta, and of the readiness with which you answered my
inquiries respecting the State of Ohio.
I AM sensible that the geographical sketches I have given of that
Territory will appear very imperfect to you, who have so intimate an
acquaintance with every part of it; but to _others_ they may convey
information more particular and correct than has been hitherto
published.
AS the founder and father of the State, you will feel interested in
the details I have given; and, I hope, will not be wholly disappointed
{iv} with my attempt to describe a part of our country so rapidly
increasing in population and importance.
RELYING on your candor, and encouraged by the very flattering manner
in which you have seconded my proposals for this publication, I am led
to flatter myself that, while you condescend to take the work under
your patronage, you will consider it as the offering of one whose
address on this occasion proceeds from the pure motive of veneration
for a character so worthily distinguished, and from the honest
ambition of being known as your friend.
THADDEUS MASON HARRIS
INTRODUCTION
HAVING long laboured under wasting sickness, which obliged me for a
time to relinquish the duties of my ministry; my mind, naturally
feeble and timid, sunk under its depressions and yielded to
despondency. To divert its attention, by directing its regards to
objects remote from its corroding cares, and to benefit my bodily
health by means of exercise and change of climate, my physicians urged
my taking a journey.
A MUCH esteemed neighbour, Mr. SETH ADAMS, was about making an
excursion into the TERRITORY NORTHWEST OF THE OHIO, and proposed my
accompanying him thither. My brother in law, Mr. JOHN DIX, kindly
offered to be my attendant, and assisted me in summoning resolution
for the undertaking.
ON the 29th of March, 1803, we set out on the tour. We took the post
road from Boston, through New-York and Philadelphia, to Lancaster; and
thence, through Carlisle and Shippensburgh, to Strasburgh at the foot
of the {vi} Alleghany Mountains. Here commence the extracts from my
journal.
FOR the gratification of my family and a few friends, I kept a record
of the occurrences each day afforded, and some particulars of the
several towns through which we passed. I was advised, on my return, to
communicate the Geographical articles to the public; and I have
consented, from a willingness to contribute my mite, however
insignificant, to the common stock of the topographical knowledge of
our country.
I AM aware that many of the remarks and observations may appear
desultory or trivial: but some indulgence is due to them from the
circumstances under which they were made. They were first sketched
down, as opportunity presented, in a pocket-book with a lead pencil;
and at evening transcribed into my diary. They consist of such
reflections as were made upon the places and the prospects immediately
under my eye, and of such information as could be collected from
intelligent individuals with whom I had the opportunity of conversing.
The whole is the fruit of those moments of leisure, (rescued from a
fatiguing journey) which the languor and pain of a miserable state of
health would permit me to employ.
I HOPE the freedom with which I have expatiated on the description of
forest and mountain {vii} scenery will not be unpleasing to those who
have never had the privilege of beholding the grand and prominent
features of nature, or of penetrating its sequestered glooms. For
myself, I have always been an admirer of the sublime and beautiful in
creation; and the immediate effect upon my feelings, produced by
umbrageous forests, and by contemplating extended prospects from lofty
mountains, was of so pleasurable and exalted a kind, that I wished to
retain the impression to myself, and, as well as I could, communicate
it to others, by a description taken on the spot.
“A STATE of convalescence (says a fine writer[2]) appears to me to
be that of all others, which is most open to, and which indulges most
in, the melancholy and awful impressions: and the transitions from the
sublime to the pleasing, and from the sounds of discordance to those
of melody, have their alternate and sympathetic effects, and have
consequently their attractions. Every object delights the eye, and
every murmur of the grove is in unison with the soul. The convalescent
has his hopes, his wishes, and his fears; but the remembrance of
sickness melts them down to _resigned patience, and humble
expectation_.”