Delightful country--Beautiful fields of maize--Washington--A
philosophical butcher--An architectural wagonner--May’s-lick--Barren
hills--Licking river--Dangerous ford--Blue licks--Good inn--Salt
furnaces.
Our road led over a high hill but of easy ascent for about half a mile,
with small cultivated spots here and there. When at the summit of the
river hills, we entered on a fine country, consisting of hill {150}
and dale, with very extensive farms, and some of the largest fields of
Indian corn I had ever seen. Perhaps no plantation has a more beautiful
appearance than a field of maize in that stage of vegetation in which
we now saw it. It was in tassel and silk according to the country
terms. The first of these is the flower or blossom, which grows on the
top of the plant which is from eight to twelve feet high. It is of a
light brown colour and resembles the feather of a quill stripped down
and twisted round the stem, and nods and trembles with the slightest
air of wind. The latter consists of a few silky and silvery threads,
which issue from the end of each ear, from two to three of which grow
at the height of about two thirds of the stalk. The leaves which grow
luxuriantly from the stalk to from a foot to two feet long, are of a
deep and rich green, and have their ends generally bent down by their
own weight. It is impossible to convey an idea on paper of the beauty
of a field of fifty or sixty acres in this state. A field of sugar
canes in the West Indies, when nearly ripe, comes the nearest to it
in beauty and appearance of any other species of cultivation I am
acquainted with. It might be deemed impertinent to occupy the time of
the American reader, in describing the appearance of a field, to the
sight of which he is so accustomed, but should these sheets ever find
their way to Europe, it may afford information to those who may never
have an opportunity of knowing more of the culture of so useful, so
noble and so beautiful a plant.[113]
{151} About half a mile further, we passed on the right the handsome
house, spacious square barn, fine farm and improvements of major John
Brown, an Irishman, the whole together indicating taste and opulence.
A mile and a half beyond this on the left, is a large and remarkably
well built brick house of a Mr. Blanchard, well situated, but left
rather naked of wood.
The country on every side appears to be better improved than I have
observed it in any part of America, and wonderfully abundant in grain,
chiefly Indian corn.
Four miles from Maysville, we entered the flourishing town of
Washington, which is laid out on a roomy and liberal plan, in three
parallel streets, containing only as yet ninety-six houses, mostly
large and good ones. There is here a good stone court-house with a
small belfry, a church of brick for a society of Scotch Presbyterians,
and another of wood for one of Anabaptists. Washington being the
capital of Braken county, and in the heart of a very rich country, is a
thriving town, and will probably continue to be so, notwithstanding it
is without the advantage of any navigable river nearer than the Ohio at
Maysville.[114]
Mr. Lee a merchant here, to whom I had letters of introduction was
polite and obliging.[115] We got an excellent dinner, at Ebert’s
tavern; after which we hired two horses through Mr. Lee’s interest,
as it is difficult for strangers to procure horses on hire throughout
this country. We engaged one at half a dollar, and the other at three
quarters of a dollar a {152} day; the last from a Mr. Fristoe, a small
man of sixty-eight, married to his second wife of thirty-two years of
age. She is a contrast to her husband in size as well as years, she
being tall and fat, and weighing two hundred and forty pounds. She is
two years younger than his youngest daughter by his first wife. He has
grand and great grandchildren born in Kentucky. He is a Virginian,
and was once a man of large property, when he resided on the banks of
one of the rivers which fall into the Chesapeak, where he loaded the
ship in which captain, afterwards consul O’Brien was captured by the
Algerines. By unfortunate land jobbing in Kentucky, he has lost his
property, and is now a butcher in Washington.
He is truly a philosopher, contrasting his former with his present
situation, with much good humour and pleasantry.
At three o’clock, we left Washington on horseback, and travelled on a
good road through a well improved country, four miles to the north fork
of Licking river, which we crossed by a wooden bridge supported by
four piers of hammered limestone, with a transverse sleeper of timber
on each which supports the sill. The bridge is seventy-seven yards
long, and only wants abutments to be very complete. A wagonner had
stopped his wagon on it to measure its proportions. He told me that
he had contracted to build a similar bridge over the south fork of
Licking at Cynthiana, forty miles from hence, which is larger than the
north fork. It may seem strange that a wagonner should be employed as
a builder, but it is common throughout the United States, particularly
at a distance from the sea coast, for one man to have learned and
wrought at two, and even sometimes three or four different mechanical
professions, at different periods of his life.
{153} The country still continued fine, but not quite so well improved,
to Lee’s creek mill, three miles and a half beyond the north fork of
Licking. The mill was now stopped for want of water in the creek,
which is an inconvenience to which the whole of the western country is
liable, the brooks and small rivers generally failing during the summer.
Half a mile further we came to a small post town, called May’s-lick,
containing only eight or ten houses, irregularly scattered on the side
of a hill. We here stopped to feed our horses, and then proceeded four
miles through a good natural, but indifferently improved country to
Clark’s excellent mill on Johnston’s fork of Licking, which is a fine
mill stream, and falls into Licking river, several miles lower down.
The road on each side the fork is very bad, the hills being extremely
steep.
After passing Clark’s mill, we found the country gradually worse
cultivated, less inhabited, and at last a continuation of barren hills,
bearing very little besides wild pennyroyal, with which the air is
strongly perfumed, and a few stunted shrubs and trees, there being
nothing to promote vegetation, but gravel and loose stones of every
variety--marble, limestone, flint, freestone, and granate, among which
the limestone is the most predominant. The road also was very bad for
the three or four miles next to the Blue salt licks on Licking river,
which is eight miles from Clark’s mill.
On the road we met a Mr. Ball and another man, both armed, going in
search of four negro slaves, who had ran away from him, and two of his
neighbours near Boonsborough,[116] seven had ran away, but three had
been apprehended that morning.
We saw from the eminences on the road, the smoke of the salt furnaces,
when three miles distant from them.
{154} In fording the Licking, which is a fine river about eighty yards
wide, we kept rather too high, and got into such deep water that mine
had to swim some yards, while A----, who was behind me took advantage
of my mistake, and kept lower down, so that his horse was only up to
the saddle skirts.
Some negro salt labourers on the bank, mischievously beckoned and
called to us towards them, enjoying our embarrassment, but taking care
to get out of sight when we got firm footing on the same side of the
river with them.
We found Mrs. Williams an obliging hostess, and her sister Miss Howard,
a very agreeable woman; they favoured us with their company at supper,
and were both much better bred, and better informed than most of the
tavern ladies we had seen since we left Pittsburgh.
There were some other ladies and some children in the house from
Washington, who were here for the benefit of drinking the waters of the
salt spring, which are esteemed efficacious in some disorders. They are
frequented by people from different parts of the state, as both a cure
and antidote for every disorder incident to the human frame. I believe
them to be perfectly neutral: They are impregnated with sulphur, and
smell and taste exactly like the bilge water in a ship’s hold, of
course they are very nauseous. They act sometimes as a cathartick,
and sometimes as an emetick, but without causing either griping, or
sickness of the stomach.
There are seven furnaces wrought here, but the water which lies at the
surface is not near so strong as that at the salt lick near the Ohio,
each furnace here making only about twenty-five bushels of salt per
week. The Blue lick salt is much whiter and handsomer than the other,
but it only sells at the same price. Each furnace rents at about three
hundred dollars a year.
{155} These licks were much frequented by buffaloes and deer, the
former of which have been destroyed or terrified from the country. It
is only fourteen or fifteen years since no other except buffaloe or
bear meat was used by the inhabitants of this country.[117]
FOOTNOTES:
[113] An ear of corn, in most parts of Ireland, England, and Scotland,
and other parts of Europe, is deemed a great curiosity, and is
carefully preserved, when it can be procured, for a number of years
by some families as a shew of a singular production of nature, and
is as much admired and as closely examined as would be here the shoe
of a Chinese lady of quality. A young Irish gentleman tells me,
when a boy in Ireland he once carried a _corn cob_ fourteen miles
in his pocket to shew it to his relatives, who viewed it as a great
curiosity from America, and could form no just idea of the manner of
its growing, or of its utility, but concluded it grew like oats or
barley, and like these were cut with sickles or scythes. The cob had
been previously stripped of its grains by as many individuals, each
taking one, as a sight of singular curiosity for their families and
neighbourhood.--CRAMER.
[114] For a sketch of the town of Washington, see F. A. Michaux’s
_Travels_, vol. iii of this series, p. --, note 37. Cuming is mistaken
in making it the seat of Bracken instead of Mason County.--ED.
[115] For biographical sketch of General Henry Lee, see Michaux’s
_Travels_, vol. iii of this series, p. 36, note 25.--ED.
[116] Boonesborough was one of the first settlements of Kentucky, laid
out in 1775 by the pioneer for whom it was named. It was the capital
of the Transylvania Company, and the scene of some of the most noted
events of early Kentucky history, particularly during the siege of
1778. Boonesborough declined in importance after the Indian wars; in
1810 it was a mere hamlet, and since that but the site of a farm. For
further details see the excellent monograph of Ranck, _Boonesborough_
(Filson Club _Publications_, No. 16; Louisville, 1901).--ED.
[117] The Lower Blue Licks, which Cuming here describes, were
discovered in 1773 by a party of surveyors led by John Finley. It was
a well-known spot in early Kentucky annals, and Daniel Boone was here
engaged in making salt when captured by Indians (1778). The most famous
event in its history was the disastrous battle fought here, August 19,
1782, in which the flower of Kentucky frontiersmen lost their lives.
See Young, “Battle of Blue Licks” in Durrett, _Bryant’s Station_
(Filson Club _Publications_, No. 12; Louisville, 1897). The Lower Blue
Licks later became, as Cuming indicates, a favorite watering-place for
the vicinity.--ED.