Lexington--Excellent tavern--Fine market--Transylvania
university--Publick buildings--Schools--Manufacturies--Stores and
state of business--Coffee house--Vauxhall.
The country had insensibly assumed the appearance of an approach to a
city.--The roads very wide and fine, with grazing parks, meadows, and
every spot in sight cultivated.
Soon after parting with the general, we were gratified with a view of
Lexington, about half a mile distant, from an eminence on the road. On
entering the town we were struck with the fine roomy scale on which
every thing appeared to be planned. Spacious streets, and large houses
chiefly of brick, which since the year 1795, have been rapidly taking
the place of the original wooden ones, several of which however yet
remain.
We turned up the main street, which is about eighty feet wide,
compactly built, well paved, and {161} having a footway, twelve feet
wide on each side.--Passing several very handsome brick houses of two
and three stories, numerous stores well filled with merchandize of
every description, and the market place and court-house, we dismounted
at Wilson’s inn, and entered the traveller’s room, which had several
strangers in it. Shortly after, the supper bell ringing, we obeyed the
summons, and were ushered into a room about forty feet long, where, at
the head of a table, laid out with neatness, plenty and variety, sat
our well dressed hostess, who did the honours of it with much ease and
propriety.
We retired early, and next morning, before breakfast, went to the
market, which is held every Wednesday and Saturday. We were surprised
at the number of horses belonging to the neighbouring farmers, which
were fastened around on the outside, and on entering the market place
we were equally astonished at the profusion and variety of most of the
necessaries and many of the luxuries of life. There was not however
such a display of flesh meat as is seen in Pittsburgh, which might be
owing to the warmth of the climate at that season. Prices were nearly
similar to those at Pittsburgh: beef four cents per pound, bacon eight,
butter twelve and a half; lamb twenty-five cents a quarter, corn
meal forty-two cents per bushel, and every thing else in proportion.
Vegetables were in great abundance and very cheap, and were sold mostly
by negro men and women; indeed that race were the most predominant both
as to sellers and buyers.
Our beds had been very good, and our breakfast and dinner to-day, were
correspondent to our supper last night--displaying a variety neatly and
handsomely served up, with excellent attendance.
I employed the forenoon in running over and viewing the town. It
contains three hundred and sixty-six dwelling houses, besides barns,
stables and {162} other out offices. The streets cross each other at
right angles, and are from fifty to eighty feet wide. A rivulet which
turns some mills below the town, runs through the middle of Water
street, but it is covered by an arch, and levelled over it the length
of the street. It falls into the Elkhorn a few miles to the N. W.
There are societies of Presbyterians, Seceders, Episcopalians,
Anabaptists and Roman Catholicks, each of which has a church, no way
remarkable, except the Episcopalian, which is very neat and convenient.
There is also a society of Methodists, which has not yet any regular
house of worship. The court-house now finishing, is a good, plain,
brick building, of three stories, with a cupola, rising from the middle
of the square roof, containing a bell and a town clock. The cupola
is supported by four large brick columns in the centre of the house,
rising from the foundation, through the hall of justice, and in my
opinion adding nothing to its beauty or convenience. The whole building
when finished, will cost about fifteen thousand dollars. The masonick
hall, is a neat brick building, as is also the bank, where going for
change for a Philadelphia bank note, I received in specie one per cent.
advance, which they allow on the notes of the Atlantick cities for the
convenience of remitting. There is a publick library and a university,
called Transylvania, which is incorporated and is under the government
of twenty-one trustees and the direction of a president, the Rev. James
Blythe, who is also professor of natural philosophy, mathematicks,
geography and English grammar. There are four professors besides: the
Rev. Robert H. Bishop, professor of moral philosophy, belles lettres,
logick and history; Mr. Ebenezer Sharpe, professor of the languages;
Doctor James Fishback, professor of medicine, &c. and Henry Clay, Esq.
professor of law. The funds of the university arise from the price of
tuition, (which {163} is lower than in any other seminary of learning
in the United States) and from eight thousand acres of first rate land,
granted to it by the state of Virginia; five thousand of which are in
the neighbourhood of Lexington, and three thousand near Louisville at
the falls of Ohio. The legislature of Kentucky have also granted to it
six thousand acres of valuable land, south of Green river. Its yearly
income from the lands, now amounts to about two thousand dollars, which
will probably be soon much increased.[126]
There are no fewer than three creditable boarding schools for female
education, in which there are at present above a hundred pupils. An
extract from Mrs. Beck’s card, will convey some idea of the progress of
polite education in this country.
“Boarders instructed in the following branches, at the rate of
two hundred dollars per annum, viz. Reading, spelling, writing,
arithmetick, grammar, epistolary correspondence, elocution and
rhetorick; geography, with the use of maps, globes, and the armillary
sphere; astronomy, with the advantage of an orrery; ancient and modern
history; chronology, mythology, and natural history; natural and moral
philosophy; musick, vocal and instrumental; drawing, painting, and
embroidery of all kinds; artificial flowers, and any other fashionable
fancy-work; plain sewing, marking, netting, &c.”
The card designates a regular course of education, as it proceeds
through the successional branches, all of which cannot be studied by
any individual at the same time.
Mrs. Beck is an English lady, and is in high reputation as an
instructress. She was now absent, having taken advantage of a vacation,
to visit the Olympian Springs, about fifty miles from Lexington, much
resorted, on account of their salubrious effects.
There is no regular academy for males, but there are several day
schools.
{164} The number of inhabitants in Lexington, in 1806, was 1655 free
white inhabitants, and 1165 negro slaves, in all 2820. The whole number
may now be safely estimated at 3000.
There are three nail manufacturies, which make about sixty tons of
nails per annum; and there are ten blacksmith’s shops, which find
constant employment for a considerable number of hands.
There are two copper and tin manufacturies, one of which manufactures
ware to the amount of ten thousand dollars yearly; the other is on a
smaller scale.
There are four jewellers and silversmiths, whose business is very
profitable.
Seven saddler’s shops employ thirty hands, the proceeds of whose labour
is annually from twenty-five to thirty thousand dollars.
There are four cabinet-maker’s shops, where household furniture is
manufactured in as handsome a style as in any part of America, and
where the high finish which is given to the native walnut and cherry
timber, precludes the regret that mahogany is not to be had but at an
immense expense.
Three tan yards and five currying shops, manufacture about thirty
thousand dollars worth of leather every year.
There is one excellent umbrella manufactury, one brush, one reed, four
chair, and two tobacco manufacturies which make chewing tobacco, snuff
and cigars. Three blue-dyers. Five hatters, who employ upwards of fifty
hands, and manufacture about thirty thousand dollars worth of fur and
wool hats annually. Ten tailors, who employ forty-seven journeymen
and apprentices. Fifteen shoe and boot makers, who employ about sixty
hands, and manufacture to the amount of about thirty thousand dollars
yearly; and two stocking weavers.
Two brew-houses make as good beer as can be got in the United States.
A carding machine for {165} wool, is a great convenience to the
manufacturers of that article. There is one manufacturer of baling
cloth for cotton wool, who employs thirty-eight hands, and makes
thirty-six thousand yards annually; and two cotton spinning machines,
worked by horses, yield a handsome profit to the proprietors. An oil
mill, worked by horses, makes fifteen hundred gallons of oil per year.
Seven distilleries make near seven thousand gallons of spirits yearly.
Four rope-walks employ about sixty hands, and make about three hundred
tons of cordage annually, the tar for which is made on the banks of
Sandy river, and is bought in Lexington at from eighteen to twenty-five
cents per gallon. There are two apothecaries’ shops, and five regular
physicians. Twenty-two stores retail upwards of three hundred thousand
dollars worth of imported, foreign merchandize annually; and there is
one book and stationary store on a very large scale, and two printing
offices, where gazettes are printed weekly.[127]
In the neighbourhood are six powder mills, that make about twenty
thousand pounds of powder yearly.
There are seven brick yards which employ sixty hands, and make
annually two million five hundred thousand bricks; and there are fifty
bricklayers, and as many attendants, who have built between thirty and
forty good brick houses each of the last three years. The Presbyterian
society is now finishing a church which will cost eight thousand
dollars.
Manufactures are progressing in several parts of the state.
In Madison county there has lately been established a manufactury on
a large scale for spinning hemp and flax. It is wrought by water, and
is calculated to keep in motion twelve hundred spindles, each of which
will spin per day, half a pound of thread of fineness to make from six
to ten hundred linen, or {166} four pounds per spindle suitable for
cotton baling. One hundred and sixty spindles are now at work, which
have spun a quantity of thread of superiour quality.
Having been informed that Mr. Prentice, from New England, who is
keeper of the county gaol, had collected much local information
respecting Lexington, with an intention of publishing an account of its
settlement, progress and present state, I called on him, and he very
politely communicated to me every thing I interrogated him on: as his
book however will be given to the publick on some future day, I will
not anticipate it; but will merely mention one circumstance as a proof
how much luxury has progressed here. Last year there were in Lexington
thirty-nine two wheel carriages, such as gigs and one horse chaises,
valued at 5764 dollars, and twenty-one four wheel ones, coaches,
chariots, &c. valued at 8900 dollars; since when four elegant ones
have been added to the number. This may convey some idea of the taste
for shew and expense which pervades this country. There are now here,
fifteen hundred good and valuable horses, and seven hundred milk cows.
The police of Lexington seems to be well regulated: as one proof of
which there is an established nightly watch.
The copper coinage of the United States is of no use in Kentucky--the
smallest circulating coin being a silver sixteenth of a dollar.
There are four billiard tables in Lexington, and cards are a good deal
played at taverns, where it is more customary to meet for that purpose
than at private houses.
There is a coffee house here, where is a reading room for the benefit
of subscribers and strangers, in which are forty-two files of different
newspapers from various parts of the United States. It is supported
{167} by subscribers, who pay six dollars each annually, and of which
there are now sixty. In the same house is a billiard table, and chess
and back-gammon tables, and the guests may be accommodated with wine,
porter, beer, spirituous liquors, cordials and confectionary. It is
kept by a Mr. Terasse, formerly of the island of St. Bartholomew. He
had been unfortunate in mercantile business in the West Indies, and
coming to this country, and failing in the recovery of some property
he had shipped to New York, he had no other resource left to gain a
provision for his family, but the teaching of the French language
and dancing, in Lexington. The trustees of Transylvania college (or
university, as the Lexington people proudly call it) employed him in
the former, but had it not been for the latter, he might have starved.
And here it may not be impertinent to remark, that in most parts of
the United States, teachers of dancing, meet with more encouragement
than professors of any species of literary science.--Disgusted at
length with the little encouragement he received, he bethought himself
of his present business, in which he has become useful to the town
and seems to be reaping a plentiful harvest from his ingenuity. He
has opened a little publick garden behind his house, which he calls
Vauxhall. It has a most luxuriant grape arbour, and two or three summer
houses, formed also of grape vines, all of which are illuminated with
variegated lamps, every Wednesday evening, when the musick of two or
three decent performers sometimes excites parties to dance on a small
boarded platform in the middle of the arbour. It is becoming a place of
fashionable resort.
FOOTNOTES:
[126] For the early history of Transylvania University, one of the
oldest and most celebrated educational institutions in the West, as
well as for sketches of its early professors, see Peter, _Transylvania
University_ (Filson Club _Publications_, No. 11; Louisville, 1896).--ED.
[127] For a sketch of Lexington and its first two newspapers, see
Michaux’s _Travels_, vol. iii of this series, p. 37, note 28, and F. A.
Michaux’s _Travels_, p. 100, note 40.--ED.
{168} CHAPTER XXVII
Road to Frankfort--Leesburgh--Mulatto innkeeper--Interchange of
musical entertainment--Frankfort--Breakfast under air fans--Sand fit
for glass--Marble--Publick buildings--Eccentrick character of the
keeper of the penitentiary--Return--Coles’s bad inn--Abuses in the
post-office department.
We left Lexington after dinner, and taking the left hand road of two
equally used to Frankfort, we travelled twelve miles through a very
rich, but not a generally settled country.
After crossing the Town branch, Wolfe’s fork, Steele’s run, and
the South branch of Elkhorn river, to which the three former are
auxiliaries, and on all of which are several mills, we arrived at a
hamlet of three or four houses called Leesburgh, twelve miles from
Lexington.[128] One of the houses had been the seat of the late Col.
Lee, and is still owned by his widow, who rents it to a mulatto man
named Daly, who has converted it into an excellent inn. With the
house, Daly occupies as much cultivated land as nearly supplies his
well frequented stables with hay, corn and oats. There is also a good
kitchen garden in which are vast quantities of culinary sweet herbs,
besides useful vegetables, and he has good stabling and other out
offices--for all which he pays only forty pounds Virginia currency,
or one hundred and thirty-six dollars and two thirds, per annum. We
experienced the benefit of his spacious icehouse, in the fine butter
we had at supper, where every thing was good, particularly the coffee,
which was almost _a la Française_. Daly having a good violin, on which
he plays by ear with some taste, he entertained us with musick while we
supped, in return for which, we played for him afterwards some duets,
by the aid {169} of another violin, borrowed of young Mr. Lee, who
resides in the neighbourhood with his mother.
My good bed did not lull me to repose, partly from the strength of
our host’s coffee, and partly from a stomachick affection through
indigestion.
After a sleepless night, the freshness of the morning air revived me,
and we proceeded towards Frankfort, amusing ourselves by the way with
talking over the vanity and egotism of Mr. Daly, who had entertained
us with many little anecdotes, connected with some of the first and
most celebrated characters in the United States, in which he was always
a principal actor. His vanity however had met with a sad check, soon
after our alighting at his house, from the abuse of a female negro
slave from a neighbouring plantation, who he drove away with a cowskin,
and she in return lavished on him the most opprobrious epithets, among
which he seemed to be most hurt by her calling him “an Indian looking
and a black son of a b--.”
A fine road, through a more level country than we had came through
last evening, brought us in two hours, eleven miles, to the hill above
Frankfort, which from thence was seen to advantage, with Kentucky
river flowing past it, through a deep and narrow valley, confined by
steep and rather stony hills, which afford a variety, after the fine
plains, luxuriant forests and rich farms, within twenty miles in every
direction of Lexington.
We descended the hill, into the capital of Kentucky, and stopped at
Weiseger’s, the sign of the Golden Eagle, where we sat down to a
sumptuous breakfast, with two green silk air fans kept in motion over
our heads, by a little negro girl with a string from the ceiling, in a
room seventy-two feet long.[129]
After breakfast I accompanied Mr. A---- to examine a shallow stratum
of sand, on the bank of the river, near a mineral spring about half a
mile below {170} the town, and he got a negro who was fishing, to wade
to an island opposite, and bring some from thence, which had probably
accumulated there by floods.--He pronounced both kinds proper for the
manufacture of glass, which was what he had in view, but it did [not]
seem as if a sufficient quantity could be procured for an extensive
manufactury.
We then returned to town, walked through it, and entered the state
house, from the cupola of which we could distinctly count every house,
the number of which was exactly ninety, most of them well built with
brick, and some with rough but good marble of a dusky cream colour,
veined with both blue and red, and capable of a good polish, which
is abundant in the neighbourhood. The old wooden houses are rapidly
disappearing to give place to brick, since about two years ago. Until
that time, attempts had been made at every annual sitting of the
legislature, to remove the seat of government elsewhere, ever since
the year 1793, the first after the separation of this government from
the state of Virginia. These attempts having failed, and there having
been no renewals of them in the last two sessions of the legislature,
the proprietors, under a security of Frankfort being established as the
permanent capital of the state, have become spirited in improvement,
and the buildings erected since are on a scale and of materials worthy
of a capital.
The publick buildings here, are a state-house, a court-house, a gaol, a
market-house, the state penitentiary, and a government house occupied
by Mr. Greenup, who now holds that office.
The state-house of rough marble, is about eighty-six feet front, by
fifty-four deep. It is an oblong square with a square roof, and a
cupola containing a bell rising from the centre. The house is plain,
but roomy and commodious. On the first floor are the treasurer’s,
register’s, auditor’s, and printing offices. {171} On the second, the
rooms for the representatives of the state, and the federal court of
appeals, and on the third are the senate chamber, the general court and
a school room.[130]
The court-house is a plain brick building near the state-house.--A
piazza of five arches opens on the hall for the county courts.--The
clerk’s offices are on the same floor.--The jury rooms are on the
second floor, and on the third is a mason’s lodge.
There are four publick inns, which in point of size, accommodation
and attendance, are not surpassed in the United States, and there are
several large houses, where people under the necessity of attending
the courts, or detained for any time in Frankfort, can be accommodated
with private lodgings. The erection of a permanent wooden bridge over
the Kentucky has been lately commenced, which will be about one hundred
and forty yards long from bank to bank, the surface of which is about
fifty feet above low water mark. The present bridge of boats is about
sixty-five yards between the abutments, and the river now at low water
is eighty-seven yards wide. Three brigs have been built above the
bridge, and sent down the Kentucky, the Ohio, and the Mississippi, but
the Kentucky is not navigable during the low water of summer and fall.
Coals are brought down it nearly three hundred miles and delivered in
Frankfort at sixpence per bushel, but wood being yet tolerably plenty,
they are used only in the penitentiary and by the blacksmiths.
There are several curious strata of marble, rising from the margin of
the river, like steps of stairs, towards the top of the bank on the
town side. The marble is covered by a stratum of blue limestone, which
has {172} over it a superstratum of reddish clay and gravel mixed.
After dinner we visited the penitentiary accompanied by our landlord
and Mr. William Hunter, a respectable printer and bookseller, and a
genteel man, to whom I had brought a letter of introduction.[131] In
our way we passed the government house, which is a good, plain, two
story, brick building, and near it we met governour Greenup, who
saluted us with much familiarity. He is a plain, respectable looking
elderly man, much esteemed throughout the state.[132]
The penitentiary is contained within a square area of an acre,
consequently each side is two hundred and eight feet long. The work
shops and store houses occupy the front and the other three sides are
enclosed by a stone wall sixteen feet high, surmounted by a sort of
entablature of brick about three feet high, rounded on the top and
projecting about a foot from the wall on each side to prevent any
attempts of the convicts to scale the wall. There are now twenty-four
miserable wretches confined here for various limitations of time, in
proportion to the enormity of their crimes, but none exceeding ten
years, the longest period limited by law. The cells of the criminals
are in a two story building with a gallery on the inside of the area,
extending the length of one of the sides. Some of the convicts were
playing fives, and the rest amusing themselves otherwise in the yard.
It was Sunday, a day always devoted to amusement by those outcasts of
society, who have their daily task exacted from them with rigour during
the rest of the week. They are taught, and work at every trade for
which they have a taste, and of which they are capable, so that some
who were useless burthens on society previous to their confinement,
carry with them, on their return to the world, the means of earning
a decent subsistence; though at {173} the same time, perhaps the
majority, instead of being reformed, become more prone to vice, through
despair of ever gaining their lost reputation. The institution had
like to have failed about two years ago, through the insufficiency of
the superintendants, when a captain Taylor, a man of good property in
Mercer county, who was an enthusiastick admirer of it, was prevailed on
by the governour to undertake the management and superintendance, and
it has since not only supported itself, but has earned a surplus, which
goes into the state treasury. Taylor is a stern man of steady habits,
and a great mechanical genius. He superintends every class of workmen
himself, and has invented several machines for the improvement of
mechanicks. He has nailors, coopers, chair makers, turners, and stone
cutters, the latter of whom cut and polish marble slabs of all sizes,
and he has taught most of them himself.
He is a large and strong man, about fifty years of age, and either
through eccentricity, or to give himself a terrifick appearance, he
wears his dark brown beard about two inches long, from each ear round
the lower part of the chin. It is surely a strange taste, which prompts
him to separate himself from his family and the world, to exercise a
petty tyranny over felons, and to live in such constant apprehension
from them, that, as I was informed, he always carries pistols.
We resisted the polite and friendly importunity of Mr. Hunter, to
spend the day with him, and quitting Frankfort, we took a different
route to that by which we had come, which brought us, after riding
ten miles mostly through woods, to Coles’s, who keeps an inn on this
road, in opposition to Daly, on the other. But any traveller, who has
once contrasted his rough vulgarity, and the badness of his table and
accommodations, with the taste, order, plenty, and good attendance of
his mulatto competitor, will {174} never trouble Mr. Coles a second
time, especially as there is no sensible difference in the length or
goodness of the roads, and that by Daly’s, is through a generally much
better settled country.
We got back to Lexington on Monday, 3d August, in time for breakfast,
which I partook of at the publick table of the Traveller’s Inn, merely
for curiosity, but notwithstanding the apparent elegance of the house,
my other landlord’s (Wilson) suffered nothing in the comparison.
I whiled away the day in expectation of the post, which was to decide
whether or not I should have the pleasure of my friend A----’s
company on my return to Pittsburgh, but owing to some unaccountable
irregularity, which is a cause of general complaint in this country
against the post-office department, it did not arrive until ten at
night, although it was due at eleven in the morning. Another very just
cause of complaint against the same department is the slowness with
which the mail is conveyed. A trifling improvement and a very small
additional expence, would forward the mails through the whole western
country, where the roads are comparatively good, and the climate very
fine, at the rate of fifty or sixty miles a day, except during floods
in the winter, where, for want of bridges, the roads are sometimes
impassable in particular spots for a few days, whereas, now, in the
best season, the average progress of the mails, does not exceed thirty
miles daily.
Mr. A---- having an engagement, the day would have passed very heavily,
had it not been for the coffee house, where I amused myself with
the wonderful mass of political contradiction to be found in forty
different newspapers, where scarcely any two editors coincided in
opinion.
FOOTNOTES:
[128] Leestown, laid out by Hancock Lee in 1775, was one of the
earliest settlements in Kentucky. Because of its location on the
Kentucky River, it seemed destined to become a town of importance. In
Cuming’s time, however, it had dwindled to a mere hamlet, and has since
long ceased to exist.--ED.
[129] For a sketch of the history of Frankfort, see F. A. Michaux’s
_Travels_, vol. iii of this series, p. 200, note 39. Daniel Weiseger
was a prominent Frankfort citizen, who assisted in laying out the town
and was one of the commissioners chosen for the erection of the second
Kentucky state-house, 1814.--ED.
[130] This was the first permanent Kentucky state-house, built in 1794,
and destroyed by fire in 1813. For a cut, see Collins, _History of
Kentucky_ (Covington, 1874), ii, p. 246.--ED.
[131] William Hunter was a native of New Jersey, who had been captured
at an early age by a French man-of-war, and carried to France, where
he learned the trade of printing. In 1793 he returned to America, and
formed a partnership with Matthew Carey at Philadelphia. Two years
later, he removed west, and after attempting newspapers in several
towns finally established _The Palladium_ at Frankfort in 1798, where
he was also State printer. Later in life he removed to Washington,
where he died in 1854.--ED.
[132] Christopher Greenup, third governor of Kentucky, was Virginia
born (1750), and served in the Revolution, attaining the rank of
colonel. In 1783, he migrated to Kentucky, and having already studied
law was, two years later, chosen as clerk of the chief court for
Kentucky District. His first service for the State was in Congress,
1792-97. After his gubernatorial experience (1804-08), he retired to
his home near Maysville, where he died in 1818.--ED.
{175} CHAPTER XXVIII
Departure from Lexington--Bryan’s station--Wonderful fertility
of soil--Paris--Sameness of prospect--Simplicity of election of
state representatives--Frank bird--Hasten on--Violent attack
of fever at May’s-lick--Washington--Occasional remarks on
hospitality--Maysville--Good effects of fortitude and abstinence.
I left Lexington on Tuesday the 4th August, by a different road to that
by which I had first entered it, now taking the stage and post road
direct to Paris.
The morning was fine, the road good, and the country well settled and
improved, but the want of the company of my worthy friend A----, to
which I had now been so long accustomed, was felt by me so sensibly as
to make the miles appear uncommonly long.
At four miles I passed a celebrated old military post, called Bryan’s
station, where the first settlers of the state, repelled a desperate
attack of the Indians, who soon after in their turn, ambushed and cut
off Col. Todd’s little army at the Blue licks, as before mentioned.
This post is now the pleasant seat and fine farm of a Mr. Rogers.[133]
I soon after overtook an Irishman named Gray, who was one of the
first settlers. He rode two miles with me, and was intelligent and
communicative. He informed me that the usual produce of an acre of this
wonderfully luxuriant soil, is from forty to fifty bushels of shelled
corn, or from twenty to thirty-seven of wheat clean from the threshing
floor. And here I must observe, that I have not seen, nor heard of any
of the threshing machines now so common in the British European Isles,
in any part of America. As they save so much labour, I am astonished
that {176} they have not yet made their way across the Atlantick.--They
would be of incalculable utility to the very wealthy farmers of
Kentucky.
Crossing the North fork of Elkhorn, and Hewetson’s branch of Licking,
both good mill streams, I entered Paris, eighteen miles from Lexington.
It is situated on Stoner’s fork of Licking, and contains eighty-seven
dwelling houses mostly good ones, several of them of brick, and six or
seven building.
It is compact, in three small parallel streets, with a square in the
centre, on which is a stone meeting house, a neat brick court-house, a
small but strong gaol, and a market house. It is the seat of justice of
Bourbon county, and has much appearance of prosperity. From the cupola
of the court-house, there is an extensive view of a very rich country
as far as the eye can reach in every direction, but though it is a
country of hills and dales, there is too great a sameness to please the
eye.
Perhaps there is not on the earth a naturally richer country than
the area of sixteen hundred square miles of which Lexington is the
centre, yet there is a something wanting to please the eye of taste--a
variety, like the fertile plains of the Milanese, contrasted with the
neighbouring Alpine scenery, and studded with the noble lakes, and
streaked with the meandering rivers of that delightful region, which
has given such inimitable taste and execution to the pencils of so many
eminent painters.
It was the day of election for representatives in the legislature of
the state. The voting was very simple. The county clerk sat within the
bar of the court-house, and the freeholders as they arrived, gave him
their names and the names of those they voted for, which he registered
in a book.--That done, the voter remounted his horse and returned to
his farm.
The hostler at Buchanan’s inn, where I stopped to breakfast, is a
free negro man named Frank Bird. {177} He was formerly owned by the
great and good Washington, whom he accompanied and served in all
his campaigns. He had learned farriery, cooking and hairdressing in
England in his youth, so that he must have been a useful servant. He
was liberated and got some land near Mount Vernon, by the general’s
will, and now at the age of fifty-seven, he is hostler here, and enjoys
such health and strength, that a few days ago he carried eight bushels
of salt, exceeding four hundred pounds weight. The old man repaid my
complaisance in listening to him, by recounting as much of his own
memoirs as my time would permit me to hear.
I left Paris, and passing Millersburgh, and one of the first
settlements, called the Irish station, four miles further, just before
entering the barren country three or four miles on that side of Blue
licks, I spurred my horse past Nicholasville court-house and tavern,
where I counted above a hundred horses, fastened under trees. I was
induced to hasten past this place, as the voters in that sterile part
of the country did not appear quite so peaceable and orderly as those
I had seen in the morning at Paris, and I was not sure but some of
them might have been moved by the spirit of whiskey to challenge me to
run a race with them, or to amuse the company with a game of rough and
tumble, at both which the backwoods Virginians are very dexterous.
I arrived at May’s-lick about sunset, much fatigued with my ride of
fifty-two miles, in one of the hottest days of the season. I was very
feverish, yet I forced myself, though without appetite, to take a
light supper, after which I bathed my feet in warm water, and retired
to bed, where I passed a sleepless night in high fever and excessive
thirst, which being no ways abated at the first dawn of day, I arose
and called my host to prepare my horse, being determined not to sink
under my indisposition, while capable {178} of making the smallest
exertion. My flushed countenance, black and parched lips, and frequent
nausea, alarmed my host so as to induce him to dissuade me to proceed,
but finding me decided he prescribed a strong infusion of tansey in
Geneva--the bitterness of which a little relieved my thirst, but did
not prevent its return accompanied by nausea and excruciating headache,
in which situation I arrived at Washington at seven o’clock, and
returned my horse to its hearty old owner with the young fat wife.
I reposed a while on a bed at my friendly host Ebert’s, who as well as
Mrs. Ebert, was truly kind and hospitable.
Apropos--That last word just reminds me of a remark I have made in
the course of my tour. I had letters of introduction to some very
respectable merchants in different parts of this state, which were
productive of some general advice and information, but without my
being invited further into their houses than their shops, or (as they
are called) stores; or without having it in my power to excuse myself
from tasting their wine, cider, whiskey, or any thing else. I must
except Mr. Hunter of Frankfort, from this general remark, and the
polite invitation of general Russel on the road, was a specimen of the
hospitality of the country gentlemen, which I have heard much boasted
of, as brought with them from Virginia; so that I cannot absolutely tax
Kentucky with a total want of that virtue.
After taking a couple of basons of strong coffee without milk, I
found myself much relieved, and proceeded on foot to Maysville, where
I arrived in something more than an hour. The exercise of walking
had restored my perspiration, and after two hours repose at my host
January’s, I arose in a state of convalescence, sat down to the dinner
table, and forced myself to partake of a chicken--after which I devoted
the remainder of the day to quiet and reading {179}--took a cup of
coffee, retired early--had a good night’s rest, and felt no more of my
fever.
I am the more minute in describing my indisposition, partly to warn
other travellers, to avoid excessive fatigue under a hot sun, and
partly to shew the good effects to be derived from fortitude and
patience under most diseases. I am persuaded that had I obeyed the
dictates of my inclination, and my landlord’s advice at May’s lick,
I should have experienced a most severe, and probably fatal attack
of highly inflammatory and bilious fever--but by bearing up against
it--by perseverance in exercise and rest alternately--checking my
strong desire for liquids, and using only such as were proper for me,
and that moderately, and especially by refraining from every thing
which might have the smallest tendency towards keeping up the heat of
the blood, with the exception of the tansey bitters at May’s lick, I
precluded the necessity of either medicine or professional advice.
FOOTNOTES:
[133] See Durrett, _Bryant’s Station_ (Filson Club _Publications_, No.
12; Louisville, 1897).--ED.