WITH DICKENS ALONG PIONEER ROADS
Some of the most interesting descriptions of pioneer traveling are from
the racy pages of Charles Dickens's _American Notes_, a volume well
known to every reader. No description of early traveling in America
would be complete, however, without including a number of these
extremely witty, and, in some instances, extremely pathetic descriptions
of conditions that obtained in Virginia and Ohio in Dickens's day. The
following description of a negro driver's manipulation of reins, horses,
and passengers may be slightly exaggerated, but undoubtedly presents a
typical picture of southern stage driving:
"Soon after nine o'clock we come to Potomac Creek, where we are to land;
and then comes the oddest part of the journey. Seven stage-coaches are
preparing to carry us on. Some of them are ready, some of them are not
ready. Some of the drivers are blacks, some whites. There are four
horses to each coach, and all the horses, harnessed or unharnessed, are
there. The passengers are getting out of the steamboat, and into the
coaches, the luggage is being transferred in noisy wheel-barrows; the
horses are frightened, and impatient to start; the black drivers are
chattering to them like so many monkeys; and the white ones whooping
like so many drovers: for the main thing to be done in all kinds of
hostlering here, is to make as much noise as possible. The coaches are
something like the French coaches, but not nearly so good. In lieu of
springs, they are hung on bands of the strongest leather. There is very
little choice or difference between them; and they may be likened to the
car portion of the swings at an English fair, roofed, put upon
axle-trees and wheels, and curtained with painted canvas. They are
covered with mud from the roof to the wheel-tire, and have never been
cleaned since they were first built.
"The tickets we have received on board the steamboat are marked No. 1,
so we belong to coach No. 1. I throw my coat on the box, and hoist my
wife and her maid into the inside. It has only one step, and that being
about a yard from the ground, is usually approached by a chair: when
there is no chair, ladies trust in Providence. The coach holds nine
inside, having a seat across from door to door, where we in England put
our legs: so that there is only one feat more difficult in the
performance than getting in, and that is getting out again. There is
only one outside passenger, and he sits upon the box. As I am that one,
I climb up; and while they are strapping the luggage on the roof, and
heaping it into a kind of tray behind, have a good opportunity of
looking at the driver.
"He is a negro--very black indeed. He is dressed in a coarse
pepper-and-salt suit excessively patched and darned (particularly at the
knees), grey stockings, enormous unblacked high-low shoes, and very
short trousers. He has two odd gloves: one of parti-coloured worsted,
and one of leather. He has a very short whip, broken in the middle and
bandaged up with string. And yet he wears a low-crowned, broad-brimmed,
block hat: faintly shadowing forth a kind of insane imitation of an
English coachman! But somebody in authority cries 'Go ahead!' as I am
making these observations. The mail takes the lead in a four-horse
wagon, and all the coaches follow in procession: headed by No. 1.
"By the way, whenever an Englishman would cry 'All right!' an American
cries 'Go ahead!' which is somewhat expressive of the national character
of the two countries.
"The first half mile of the road is over bridges made of loose planks
laid across two parallel poles, which tilt up as the wheels roll over
them: and IN the river. The river has a clayey bottom and is full of
holes, so that half a horse is constantly disappearing unexpectedly, and
can't be found again for some time.
"But we get past even this, and come to the road itself, which is a
series of alternate swamps and gravel-pits. A tremendous place is close
before us, the black driver rolls his eyes, screws his mouth up very
round, and looks straight between the two leaders, as if he were saying
to himself, 'We have done this often before, but _now_ I think we shall
have a crash.' He takes a rein in each hand; jerks and pulls at both;
and dances on the splashing board with both feet (keeping his seat, of
course) like the late lamented Ducrow on two of his fiery coursers. We
come to the spot, sink down in the mire nearly to the coach windows,
tilt on one side at an angle of forty-five degrees, and stick there. The
insides scream dismally; the coach stops; the horses flounder; all the
other six coaches stop; and their four-and-twenty horses flounder
likewise: but merely for company, and in sympathy with ours. Then the
following circumstances occur.
"BLACK DRIVER (to the horses). 'Hi!'
Nothing happens. Insides scream again.
BLACK DRIVER (to the horses). 'Ho!'
Horses plunge, and splash the black driver.
GENTLEMAN INSIDE (looking out). 'Why, what on airth--'
Gentleman receives a variety of splashes and draws his head in again,
without finishing his question or waiting for an answer.
BLACK DRIVER (still to the horses). 'Jiddy! Jiddy!'
Horses pull violently, drag the coach out of the hole, and draw it up a
bank; so steep, that the black driver's legs fly up into the air, and he
goes back among the luggage on the roof. But he immediately recovers
himself, and cries (still to the horses),
'Pill!'
No effect. On the contrary, the coach begins to roll back upon No. 2,
which rolls back upon No. 3, which rolls back upon No. 4, and so on,
until No. 7 is heard to curse and swear, nearly a quarter of a mile
behind.
BLACK DRIVER (louder than before). 'Pill!'
Horses make another struggle to get up the bank, and again the coach
rolls backward.
BLACK DRIVER (louder than before). 'Pe-e-e-ill!'
Horses make a desperate struggle.
BLACK DRIVER (recovering spirits). 'Hi! Jiddy, Jiddy, Pill!'
Horses make another effort.
BLACK DRIVER (with great vigour). 'Ally Loo! Hi. Jiddy, Jiddy. Pill.
Ally Loo!'
Horses almost do it.
BLACK DRIVER (with his eyes starting out of his head). 'Lee, dere. Lee,
dere. Hi. Jiddy, Jiddy. Pill. Ally Loo. Lee-e-e-e-e!'
"They run up the bank, and go down again on the other side at a fearful
pace. It is impossible to stop them, and at the bottom there is a deep
hollow, full of water. The coach rolls frightfully. The insides scream.
The mud and water fly about us. The black driver dances like a madman.
Suddenly we are all right by some extraordinary means, and stop to
breathe.
"A black friend of the black driver is sitting on a fence. The black
driver recognizes him by twirling his head round and round like a
harlequin, rolling his eyes, shrugging his shoulders, and grinning from
ear to ear. He stops short, turns to me, and says:
"'We shall get you through sa, like a fiddle, and hope a please you when
we get you through sa. Old 'ooman at home sir:' chuckling very much.
'Outside gentleman sa, he often remember old 'ooman at home sa,'
grinning again.
"'Aye aye, we'll take care of the old woman. Don't be afraid.'
"The black driver grins again, but there is another hole, and beyond
that, another bank, close before us. So he stops short: cries (to the
horses again) 'Easy. Easy den. Ease. Steady. Hi. Jiddy. Pill. Ally.
Loo!' but never 'Lee!' until we are reduced to the very last extremity,
and are in the midst of difficulties, extrication from which appears to
be all but impossible.
"And so we do the ten miles or thereabouts in two hours and a half;
breaking no bones though bruising a great many; and in short getting
through the distance, 'like a fiddle.'
"This singular kind of coaching terminates at Fredericksburgh, whence
there is a railway to Richmond...."
Dickens, the student of human nature, surely found vast material for
inspection and observation in our American coaches. The drivers
particularly attracted his attention as we have seen; their
philosophical indifference to those under their charge as well as their
anxieties on certain occasions caused him to marvel. The stage-drivers
of Dickens's day were marvels and offer character studies as unique as
they were interesting. For the general air of conscienceless
indifference on the part of drivers, and exasperated verbosity of
passengers, perhaps no sketch of Dickens is more to the point than the
following which describes, with lasting flavor, a ride from York,
Pennsylvania, to Harrisburg:
"We left Baltimore by another railway at half-past eight in the morning,
and reached the town of York, some sixty miles off, by the early
dinner-time of the Hotel which was the starting-place of the four-horse
coach, wherein we were to proceed to Harrisburg.
"This conveyance, the box of which I was fortunate enough to secure, had
come down to meet us at the railroad station, and was as muddy and
cumbersome as usual. As more passengers were waiting for us at the
inn-door, the coachman observed under his breath, in the usual
self-communicative voice, looking the while at his mouldy harness, as
if it were to that he was addressing himself:
"'I expect we shall want _the big_ coach.'
"I could not help wondering within myself what the size of this big
coach might be, and how many persons it might be designed to hold; for
the vehicle which was too small for our purpose was something larger
than two English heavy night coaches, and might have been the
twin-brother of a French diligence. My speculations were speedily set at
rest, however, for as soon as we had dined, there came rumbling up the
street, shaking its sides like a corpulent giant, a kind of barge on
wheels. After much blundering and backing, it stopped at the door:
rolling heavily from side to side when its other motion had ceased, as
if it had taken cold in its damp stable, and between that, and the
having been required in its dropsical old age to move at any faster pace
than a walk, were distressed by shortness of wind.
"'If here ain't the Harrisburg mail at last, and dreadful bright and
smart to look at too,' cried an elderly gentleman in some excitement,
'darn my mother!'
"I don't know what the sensation of being darned may be, or whether a
man's mother has a keener relish or disrelish of the process than
anybody else; but if the endurance of this mysterious ceremony by the
old lady in question had depended on the accuracy of her son's vision in
respect to the abstract brightness and smartness of the Harrisburg mail,
she would certainly have undergone its infliction. However, they booked
twelve people inside; and the luggage (including such trifles as a large
rocking-chair, and a good-sized dining-table), being at length made fast
upon the roof, we started off in great state.
"At the door of another hotel, there was another passenger to be taken
up.
"'Any room, sir?' cries the new passenger to the coachman.
"'Well there's room enough,' replies the coachman, without getting down,
or even looking at him.
"'There an't no room at all, sir,' bawls a gentleman inside. Which
another gentleman (also inside) confirms, by predicting that the attempt
to introduce any more passengers 'won't fit nohow.'
"The new passenger, without any expression of anxiety, looks into the
coach, and then looks up at the coachman: 'Now, how do you mean to fix
it?' says he, after a pause: 'for I _must_ go.'
"The coachman employs himself in twisting the lash of his whip into a
knot, and takes no more notice of the question: clearly signifying that
it is anybody's business but his, and that the passengers would do well
to fix it, among themselves. In this state of things, matters seem to be
approximating to a fix of another kind, when another inside passenger in
a corner, who is nearly suffocated, cries faintly,
"'I'll get out.'
"This is no matter of relief or self-congratulation to the driver, for
his immoveable philosophy is perfectly undisturbed by anything that
happens in the coach. Of all things in the world, the coach would seem
to be the very last upon his mind. The exchange is made, however, and
then the passenger who has given up his seat makes a third upon the box,
seating himself in what he calls the middle: that is, with half his
person on my legs, and the other half on the driver's.
"'Go a-head cap'en,' cries the colonel, who directs.
"'Go-lang!' cries the cap'en to his company, the horses, and away we go.
"We took up at a rural bar-room, after we had gone a few miles, an
intoxicated gentleman who climbed upon the roof among the luggage, and
subsequently slipping off without hurting himself, was seen in the
distant perspective reeling back to the grog-shop where we had found
him. We also parted with more of our freight at different times, so that
when we came to change horses, I was again alone outside.
"The coachmen always change with the horses, and are usually as dirty as
the coach. The first was dressed like a very shabby English baker; the
second like a Russian peasant; for he wore a loose purple camlet robe
with a fur collar, tied round his waist with a parti-coloured worsted
sash; grey trousers; light blue gloves; and a cap of bearskin. It had by
this time come on to rain very heavily, and there was a cold damp mist
besides, which penetrated to the skin. I was very glad to take advantage
of a stoppage and get down to stretch my legs, shake the water off my
great-coat, and swallow the usual anti-temperance recipe for keeping out
the cold....
"We crossed this river [Susquehanna] by a wooden bridge, roofed and
covered in on all sides, and nearly a mile in length. It was profoundly
dark; perplexed, with great beams, crossing and recrossing it at every
possible angle; and through the broad chinks and crevices in the floor,
the rapid river gleamed, far down below, like a legion of eyes. We had
no lamps; and as the horses stumbled and floundered through this place,
towards the distant speck of dying light, it seemed interminable. I
really could not at first persuade myself as we rumbled heavily on,
filling the bridge with hollow noises, and I held down my head to save
it from the rafters above, but that I was in a painful dream; for I have
often dreamed of toiling through such places, and as often argued, even
at the time, 'this cannot be reality.'
"At length, however, we emerged upon the streets of Harrisburg...."
Coachmen are further described by Dickens during his stagecoach trip
from Cincinnati to Columbus in Ohio:
"We often stop to water at a roadside inn, which is always dull and
silent. The coachman dismounts and fills his bucket, and holds it to the
horses' heads. There is scarcely any one to help him; there are seldom
any loungers standing round; and never any stable-company with jokes to
crack. Sometimes, when we have changed our team, there is a difficulty
in starting again, arising out of the prevalent mode of breaking a young
horse; which is to catch him, harness him against his will, and put him
in a stage-coach without further notice: but we get on somehow or other,
after a great many kicks and a violent struggle; and jog on as before
again.
"Occasionally, when we stop to change, some two or three half-drunken
loafers will come loitering out with their hands in their pockets, or
will be seen kicking their heels in rocking-chairs, or lounging on the
window sill, or sitting on a rail within the colonnade: they have not
often anything to say though, either to us or to each other, but sit
there idly staring at the coach and horses. The landlord of the inn is
usually among them, and seems, of all the party, to be the least
connected with the business of the house. Indeed he is with reference to
the tavern, what the driver is in relation to the coach and passengers:
whatever happens in his sphere of action, he is quite indifferent, and
perfectly easy in his mind.
"The frequent change of coachmen works no change or variety in the
coachman's character. He is always dirty, sullen, and taciturn. If he be
capable of smartness of any kind, moral or physical, he has a faculty of
concealing it which is truly marvellous. He never speaks to you as you
sit beside him on the box, and if you speak to him, he answers (if at
all) in monosyllables. He points out nothing on the road, and seldom
looks at anything: being, to all appearance, thoroughly weary of it, and
of existence generally. As to doing the honours of his coach, his
business, as I have said, is with the horses. The coach follows because
it is attached to them and goes on wheels: not because you are in it.
Sometimes, towards the end of a long stage, he suddenly breaks out into
a discordant fragment of an election song, but his face never sings
along with him: it is only his voice, and not often that.
"He always chews and always spits, and never encumbers himself with a
pocket-handkerchief. The consequences to the box passenger, especially
when the wind blows toward him, are not agreeable."
Hiring a special express coach at Columbus, Dickens and his party went
on to Sandusky on Lake Erie alone. His description of the rough, narrow
corduroy road is unequaled and no one but Dickens could have penned such
a thrilling picture of the half-conquered woodland and its spectral
inhabitants:
"There being no stage-coach next day, upon the road we wished to take, I
hired 'an extra,' at a reasonable charge, to carry us to Tiffin, a small
town from whence there is a railroad to Sandusky. This extra was an
ordinary four-horse stage-coach, such as I have described, changing
horses and drivers, as the stage-coach would, but was exclusively our
own for the journey. To ensure our having horses at the proper stations,
and being incommoded by no strangers, the proprietors sent an agent on
the box, who was to accompany us all the way through; and thus attended,
and bearing with us, besides, a hamper full of savoury cold meats, and
fruit, and wine; we started off again, in high spirits, at half-past six
o'clock next morning, very much delighted to be by ourselves, and
disposed to enjoy even the roughest journey.
"It was well for us, that we were in this humour, for the road we went
over that day, was certainly enough to have shaken tempers that were not
resolutely at Set Fair, down to some inches below Stormy. At one time we
were all flung together in a heap at the bottom of the coach, and at
another we were crushing our heads against the roof. Now, one side was
down deep in the mire, and we were holding on to the other. Now, the
coach was lying on the tails of the two wheelers; and now it was rearing
up in the air, in a frantic state, with all four horses standing on the
top of an insurmountable eminence, looking coolly back at it, as though
they would say 'Unharness us. It can't be done.' The drivers on these
roads, who certainly get over the ground in a manner which is quite
miraculous, so twist and turn the team about in forcing a passage,
corkscrew fashion, through the bogs and swamps, that it was quite a
common circumstance on looking out of the window, to see the coachman
with the ends of a pair of reins in his hands, apparently driving
nothing, or playing at horses, and the leaders staring at one
unexpectedly from the back of the coach, as if they had some idea of
getting up behind. A great portion of the way was over what is called a
corduroy road, which is made by throwing trunks of trees into a marsh,
and leaving them to settle there. The very slightest of the jolts with
which the ponderous carriage fell from log to log, was enough, it
seemed, to have dislocated all the bones in the human body. It would be
impossible to experience a similar set of sensations, in any other
circumstances, unless perhaps in attempting to go up to the top of St.
Paul's in an omnibus. Never, never once, that day, was the coach in any
position, attitude, or kind of motion to which we are accustomed in
coaches. Never did it make the smallest approach to one's experience of
the proceedings of any sort of vehicle that goes on wheels.
"Still, it was a fine day, and the temperature was delicious, and though
we had left Summer behind us in the west, and were fast leaving Spring,
we were moving towards Niagara and home. We alighted in a pleasant wood
towards the middle of the day, dined on a fallen tree, and leaving our
best fragments with a cottager, and our worst with the pigs (who swarm
in this part of the country like grains of sand on the sea-shore, to the
great comfort of our commissariat in Canada), we went forward again,
gaily.
"As night came on, the track grew narrower and narrower, until at last
it so lost itself among the trees, that the driver seemed to find his
way by instinct. We had the comfort of knowing, at least, that there was
no danger of his falling asleep, for every now and then a wheel would
strike against an unseen stump with such a jerk, that he was fain to
hold on pretty tight and pretty quick to keep himself upon the box. Nor
was there any reason to dread the least danger from furious driving,
inasmuch as over that broken ground the horses had enough to do to walk;
as to shying, there was no room for that; and a herd of wild elephants
could not have run away in such a wood, with such a coach at their
heels. So we stumbled along, quite satisfied.
"These stumps of trees are a curious feature in American travelling. The
varying illusions they present to the unaccustomed eye as it grows dark,
are quite astonishing in their number and reality. Now, there is a
Grecian urn erected in the centre of a lonely field; now there is a
woman weeping at a tomb; now a very comonplace old gentleman in a white
waist-coat, with a thumb thrust into each arm-hole of his coat; now a
student poring on a book; now a crouching negro; now, a horse, a dog, a
cannon, an armed man; a hunch-back throwing off his cloak and stepping
forth into the light. They were often as entertaining to me as so many
glasses in a magic lantern, and never took their shapes at my bidding,
but seemed to force themselves upon me, whether I would or no; and
strange to say, I sometimes recognized in them counterparts of figures
once familiar to me in pictures attached to childish books, forgotten
long ago.
"It soon became too dark, however, even for this amusement, and the
trees were so close together that their dry branches rattled against the
coach on either side, and obliged us all to keep our heads within. It
lightened too, for three whole hours; each flash being very bright, and
blue, and long; and as the vivid streaks came darting in among the
crowded branches, and the thunder rolled gloomily above the tree tops,
one could scarcely help thinking that there were better neighbourhoods
at such a time than thick woods afforded.
"At length, between ten and eleven o'clock at night, a few feeble lights
appeared in the distance, and Upper Sandusky, an Indian village, where
we were to stay till morning, lay before us."
Dickens's description of his visit to "Looking-Glass Prairie" from St.
Louis is full of amusement, and contains many vivid pictures of pioneer
roads and taverns in the Mississippi Valley:
"As I had a great desire to see a Prairie before turning back from the
furthest point of my wanderings; and as some gentlemen of the town had,
in their hospitable consideration, an equal desire to gratify me; a day
was fixed, before my departure, for an expedition to the Looking-Glass
Prairie, which is within thirty miles of the town. Deeming it possible
that my readers may not object to know what kind of thing such a gipsy
party may be at that distance from home, and among what sort of objects
it moves, I will describe the jaunt....
"I may premise that the word Prairie is variously pronounced _paraaer_,
_parearer_, and _paroarer_. The latter mode of pronunciation is perhaps
the most in favour. We were fourteen in all, and all young men: indeed
it is a singular though very natural feature in the society of these
distant settlements, that it is mainly composed of adventurous persons
in the prime of life, and has very few grey heads among it. There were
no ladies: the trip being a fatiguing one: and we were to start at five
o'clock in the morning punctually....
"At seven o'clock ... the party had assembled, and were gathered round
one light carriage, with a very stout axletree; one something on wheels
like an amateur carrier's cart; one double phaeton of great antiquity
and unearthly construction; one gig with a great hole in its back and a
broken head; and one rider on horseback who was to go on before. I got
into the first coach with three companions; the rest bestowed themselves
in the other vehicles; two large baskets were made fast to the lightest;
two large stone jars in wicker cases, technically known as demi-johns,
were consigned to the 'least rowdy' of the party for safe keeping; and
the procession moved off to the ferry-boat, in which it was to cross the
river bodily, men, horses, carriages, and all as the manner in these
parts is.
"We got over the river in due course, and mustered again before a little
wooden box on wheels, hove down all aslant in a morass, with 'MERCHANT
TAILOR' painted in very large letters over the door. Having settled the
order of proceeding, and the road to be taken, we started off once more
and began to make our way through an ill-favoured Black Hollow, called,
less expressively, the American Bottom....
"We had a pair of very strong horses, but travelled at the rate of
little more than a couple of miles an hour, through one unbroken slough
of black mud and water. It had no variety but in depth. Now it was only
half over the wheels, now it hid the axletree, and now the coach sank
down in it almost to the windows. The air resounded in all directions
with the loud chirping of the frogs, who, with the pigs (a coarse, ugly
breed, as unwholesome-looking as though they were the spontaneous growth
of the country), had the whole scene to themselves. Here and there we
passed a log hut; but the wretched cabins were wide apart and thinly
scattered, for though the soil is very rich in this place, few people
can exist in such a deadly atmosphere. On either side of the track, if
it deserve the name, was the thick 'bush;' and everywhere was stagnant,
slimy, rotten, filthy water.
"As it is the custom in these parts to give a horse a gallon or so of
cold water whenever he is in a foam with heat, we halted for that
purpose, at a log inn in the wood, far removed from any other residence.
It consisted of one room, bare-roofed and bare-walled of course, with a
loft above. The ministering priest was a swarthy young savage, in a
shirt of cotton print like bed-furniture, and a pair of ragged trousers.
There were a couple of young boys, too, nearly naked, lying idly by the
well; and they, and he, and _the_ traveller at the inn, turned out to
look at us....
"When the horses were swollen out to about twice their natural
dimensions (there seems to be an idea here, that this kind of inflation
improves their going), we went forward again, through mud and mire, and
damp, and festering heat, and brake and bush, attended always by the
music of the frogs and pigs, until nearly noon, when we halted at a
place called Belleville.
"Belleville was a small collection of wooden houses, huddled together in
the very heart of the bush and swamp.... The criminal court was
sitting, and was at that moment trying some criminals for
horse-stealing; with whom it would most likely go hard: for live stock
of all kinds being necessarily very much exposed in the woods, is held
by the community in rather higher value than human life; and for this
reason, juries generally make a point of finding all men indicted for
cattle-stealing, guilty, whether or no. The horses belonging to the bar,
the judge, and witnesses, were tied to temporary racks set up roughly in
the road; by which is to be understood, a forest path, nearly knee-deep
in mud and slime.
"There was an hotel in this place which, like all hotels in America, had
its large dining-room for the public table. It was an odd, shambling,
low-roofed out-house, half cowshed and half kitchen, with a coarse brown
canvas table-cloth, and tin sconces stuck against the walls, to hold
candles at supper-time. The horseman had gone forward to have coffee and
some eatables prepared, and they were by this time nearly ready. He had
ordered 'wheat-bread and chicken fixings,' in preference to 'corn-bread
and common doings.'[47] The latter kind of refection includes only pork
and bacon. The former comprehends broiled ham, sausages, veal cutlets,
steaks, and such other viands of that nature as may be supposed, by a
tolerably wide poetical construction, 'to fix' a chicken comfortably in
the digestive organs of any lady or gentleman....
"From Belleville, we went on, through the same desolate kind of waste,
and constantly attended, without the interval of a moment, by the same
music; until, at three o'clock in the afternoon, we halted once more at
a village called Lebanon to inflate the horses again, and give them some
corn besides: of which they stood much in need. Pending this ceremony, I
walked into the village, where I met a full sized dwelling-house coming
down-hill at a round trot, drawn by a score or more of oxen. The
public-house was so very clean and good a one, that the managers of the
jaunt resolved to return to it and put up there for the night, if
possible. This course decided on, and the horses being well refreshed,
we again pushed forward, and came upon the Prairie at sunset.
"It would be difficult to say why, or how--though it was possibly from
having heard and read so much about it--but the effect on me was
disappointment. Looking towards the setting sun, there lay, stretched
out before my view, a vast expanse of level ground; unbroken, save by
one thin line of trees, which scarcely amounted to a scratch upon the
great blank; until it met the glowing sky, wherein it seemed to dip:
mingling with its rich colours, and mellowing in its distant blue. There
it lay, a tranquil sea or lake without water, if such a simile be
admissible, with the day going down upon it; a few birds wheeling here
and there; and solitude and silence reigning paramount around. But the
grass was not yet high; there were bare black patches on the ground; and
the few wild flowers that the eye could see, were poor and scanty. Great
as the picture was, its very flatness and extent, which left nothing to
the imagination, tamed it down and cramped its interest. I felt little
of that sense of freedom and exhilaration which a Scottish heath
inspires, or even our English downs awaken. It was lonely and wild, but
oppressive in its barren monotony. I felt that in traversing the
Prairies, I could never abandon myself to the scene, forgetful of all
else; as I should do instinctively, were the heather underneath my feet,
or an iron-bound coast beyond; but should often glance towards the
distant and frequently-receding line of the horizon, and wish it gained
and passed. It is not a scene to be forgotten, but it is scarcely one, I
think (at all events, as I saw it), to remember with much pleasure, or
to covet the looking-on again, in after life.
"We encamped near a solitary log-house, for the sake of its water, and
dined upon the plain. The baskets contained roast fowls, buffalo's
tongue (an exquisite dainty, by the way), ham, bread, cheese, and
butter; biscuits, champagne, sherry; lemons and sugar for punch; and
abundance of rough ice. The meal was delicious, and the entertainers
were the soul of kindness and good humour. I have often recalled that
cheerful party to my pleasant recollection since, and shall not easily
forget, in junketings nearer home with friends of older date, my boon
companions on the Prairie. Returning to Lebanon that night, we lay at
the little inn at which we had halted in the afternoon. In point of
cleanliness and comfort it would have suffered by no comparison with any
village ale-house, of a homely kind, in England....
"After breakfast, we started to return by a different way from that
which we had taken yesterday, and coming up at ten o'clock with an
encampment of German emigrants carrying their goods in carts, who had
made a rousing fire which they were just quitting, we stopped there to
refresh. And very pleasant the fire was; for, hot though it had been
yesterday, it was quite cold to-day, and the wind blew keenly. Looming
in the distance, as we rode along, was another of the ancient Indian
burial-places, called The Monks' Mound; in memory of a body of fanatics
of the order of La Trappe, who founded a desolate convent there, many
years ago, when there were no settlers within a thousand miles, and
were all swept off by the pernicious climate: in which lamentable
fatality, few rational people will suppose, perhaps, that society
experienced any very severe deprivation.
"The track of to-day had the same features as the track of yesterday.
There was the swamp, the bush, the perpetual chorus of frogs, the rank
unseemly growth, the unwholesome steaming earth. Here and there, and
frequently too, we encountered a solitary broken-down waggon, full of
some new settler's goods. It was a pitiful sight to see one of these
vehicles deep in the mire; the axletree broken; the wheel lying idly by
its side; the man gone miles away, to look for assistance; the woman
seated among their wandering household gods with a baby at her breast, a
picture of forlorn, dejected patience; the team of oxen crouching down
mournfully in the mud, and breathing forth such clouds of vapour from
their mouths and nostrils, that all the damp mist and fog around seemed
to have come direct from them.
"In due time we mustered once again before the merchant tailor's, and
having done so, crossed over to the city in the ferry-boat: passing, on
the way, a spot called Bloody Island, the duelling-ground of St. Louis,
and so designated in honour of the last fatal combat fought there, which
was with pistols, breast to breast. Both combatants fell dead upon the
ground; and possibly some rational people may think of them, as of the
gloomy madmen on the Monks' Mound, that they were no great loss to the
community."
For purposes of comparison, the following description of experiences in
later times with Indian trails of the West will be of interest. Much
that has been deduced from a study of our pioneer history and embodied
in the preceding pages finds strong confirmation here; in earlier days,
with forests covering the country, the trails were more like roads than
in the open prairies of the West; but, as will be seen, many laws
governed the earlier and the later Indian thoroughfares, alike. I quote
from the Hon. Charles Augustus Murray's memoirs, written three-quarters
of a century ago, of a tour in Missouri:
"On the 18th we pursued our course, north by east: this was not exactly
the direction in which I wished to travel, but two considerations
induced me to adopt it at this part of the journey. In the first place,
it enabled me to keep along the dividing ridge; an advantage so great,
and so well understood by all prairie travellers, that it is worth
making a circuit of several miles a day to keep it; and the Indian
trails which we have crossed since our residence in the wilderness,
convince me that the savages pay the greatest attention to this matter.
In a wide extent of country composed of a succession of hills and
ridges, it is evident there must be a great number of steep banks, which
offer to an inexperienced traveller numerous obstacles, rendering his
own progress most toilsome, and that of loaded packhorses almost
impossible. If these ridges all ran in parallel lines, and were regular
in their formation, nothing would be more simple than to get upon the
summit of one, and keep it for the whole day's journey: but such is not
the case; they constantly meet other ridges running in a transverse
direction; and, of course, large dips and ravines are consequent upon
that meeting. The 'dividing ridge' of a district is that which, while it
is, as it were, the back-bone of the range of which it forms a part,
heads at the same time all the transverse ravines, whether on the right
or on the left hand, and thereby spares to the traveller an infinity of
toilsome ascent and descent.
"I have sometimes observed that an Indian trail wound through a country
in a course perfectly serpentine, and appeared to me to travel three
miles when only one was necessary. It was not till my own practical
experience had made me attend more closely to this matter, that I learnt
to appreciate its importance. I think that the first quality in a guide
through an unknown range of rolling prairie, is having a good and a
quick eye for hitting off the 'dividing ridge;' the second, perhaps, in
a western wilderness, is a ready and almost intuitive perception (so
often found in an Indian) of the general character of a country, so as
to be able to bring his party to water when it is very scarce....
A few miles farther we crossed an old Indian trail I think it was of a
Pawnee party, for it bore north by west ... it had not been a war-party,
as was evident from the character of the trail. A war-party leaves only
the trail of the horses, or, of course, if it be a foot party, the still
slighter tracks of their own feet; but when they are on their summer
hunt, or migrating from one region to another, they take their squaws
and children with them, and this trail can always be distinguished from
the former, by two parallel tracks about three and a half feet apart,
not unlike those of a light pair of wheels: these are made by the points
of the long curved poles on which their lodges are stretched, the
thickest or butt ends of which are fastened to each side of the
pack-saddle, while the points trail behind the horse; in crossing rough
or boggy places, this is often found the most inconvenient part of an
Indian camp equipage.... I was fortunate enough to find an Indian trail
bearing north by east, which was as near to our destined course as these
odious creeks would permit us to go. We struck into it, and it brought
us safely, though not without difficulty, through the tangled and muddy
bottom in which we had been involved: sometimes a horse floundered, and
more than once a pack came off; but upon the whole we had great reason
to congratulate ourselves upon having found this trail, by which we
escaped in two hours from a place which would, without its assistance,
probably have detained us two days. I was by no means anxious to part
with so good a friend, and proceeded some miles upon this same trail; it
was very old and indistinct, especially in the high and dry parts of the
prairie. I left my horse with the rest of the party and went on foot, in
order that I might more easily follow the trail, which became almost
imperceptible as we reached an elevated district of table-land, which
had been burned so close that I very often lost the track altogether for
fifty yards. If a fire takes place on a prairie where there is already a
distinct trail, it is as easy to follow it, if not more so than before;
because the short and beaten grass offering no food to the fire, partly
escapes its fury, and remains a green line upon a sea of black; but if
the party making the trail pass over a prairie which is already burnt,
in the succeeding season when the new grass has grown, it can scarcely
be traced by any eye but that of an Indian.... After we had travelled
five hours ... I found that the trail which we had been following,
merged in another and a larger one, which appeared to run a point to the
west of north. This was so far out of our course that I hesitated
whether I should not leave it altogether; but, upon reflection, I
determined not to do so ... if I attempted to cross the country farther
to the eastward, without any trail, I should meet with serious
difficulties and delays.... I therefore struck into it, and ere long the
result justified my conjecture; for we came to a wooded bottom or
valley, which was such a complete jungle, and so extensive, that I am
sure, if we had not been guided by the trail, we could not have made our
way through it in a week. As it was, the task was no easy one; for the
trail, though originally large, was not very fresh, and the weeds and
branches had in many places so overgrown it, that I was obliged to
dismount and trace it out on foot. It wound about with a hundred
serpentine evolutions to avoid the heavy swamps and marshes around us;
and I repeatedly thought that, if we lost it, we never should extricate
our baggage: even with its assistance, we were obliged frequently to
halt and replace the packs, which were violently forced off by the
branches with which they constantly came in contact ... 'where on earth
is he taking us now?--why we are going back in the same direction as we
came!' I turned round and asked the speaker (a comrade) ... to point
with his finger to the quarter which he would make for if he were
guiding the party to Fort Leavenworth. He did so; and I took out my
compass and showed him that he was pointing south-west, _i.e._ to Santa
Fé and the Gulf of California: so completely had the poor fellow's head
become puzzled by the winding circuit we had made in the swamp."[48]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Washington's _Journal_ Sept. 2nd to Oct. 4th, 1784.
[2] _Historic Highways of America_, vol. v, ch. 3.
[3] This creek rises in Hardy County, Virginia, and flows northeastward
through Hampshire County, entering the North Branch of the Potomac River
about eight miles southeast of Cumberland, Maryland.
[4] Union Township, Monongalia County, West Virginia.
[5] Oliphant's Iron Furnace, Union Township?
[6] The mountainous boundary line between Monongalia and Preston
Counties.
[7] Bruceton's Mills, Grant Township, Preston County, West Virginia?
[8] Southwestern corner of Maryland, some twenty miles north of Oakland.
[9] Briery Mountain runs northeast through the eastern edge of Preston
County, bounding Dunkard Bottom on the east as Cheat River bounds it on
the west.
[10] The Friends were the earliest pioneers of Garrett County, John
Friend coming in 1760 bringing six sons among whom was this Charles. The
sons scattered about through the valley of the Youghiogheny, Charles
settling near the mouth of Sang Run, which cuts through Winding Ridge
Mountain and joins the Youghiogheny about fifteen miles due north from
Oakland. Washington, moving eastward on McCulloch's Path probably passed
through this gap in Winding Ridge. A present-day road runs parallel with
Winding Ridge from Friendsville (named from this pioneer family)
southward to near Altamont, which route seems to have been that pursued
by McCulloch's Path. See Scharf's _History of Western Maryland_, vol.
ii, p. 1518; _Atlas of Maryland_ (Baltimore, 1873), pp. 47-48; War Atlas
1861-65, _House Miscellaneous Documents_, vol. iv, part 2, No. 261, 52d
Cong. 1st Sess. 1891-92, Plate cxxxvi.
[11] Great Back Bone Mountain, Garrett County, Maryland, on which, at
Altamont, the Baltimore and Ohio Railway reaches its highest altitude.
It was about here that Washington now crossed it, probably on the
watershed between Youghiogheny and Potomac waters west of Altamont.
[12] Ryan's Glade No. 10, Garrett County.
[13] This point is pretty definitely determined in the Journal. We are
told that the mouth of Stony River (now Stony Creek) was four miles
below McCulloch's crossing. This would locate the latter near the
present site of Fort Pendleton, Garrett County, Maryland, the point
where the old Northwestern Turnpike crossed the North Branch.
[14] Greeland Gap, Grant County, West Virginia.
[15] Knobby Mountain.
[16] Near Moorefield, Hardy County, West Virginia.
[17] Mt. Storm, Grant County. The Old Northwestern Turnpike bears
northeast from here to Claysville, Burlington and Romney. Washington's
route was southwest along the line of the present road to Moorefield.
Evidently the buffalo trace bore southwest on the watershed between
Stony River and Abraham's Creek--White's _West Virginia Atlas_ (1873),
p. 26. Bradley's _Map of United States_ (1804) shows a road from
Morgantown to Romney; also a "Western Fort" at the crossing-place of the
Youghiogheny.
[18] Dunkard's Bottom, in Portland Township, Preston County, West
Virginia, was settled about 1755 by Dr. Thomas Eckarly and brothers who
traversed the old path to Fort Pleasant on South Branch.--Thwaites's
edition of Withers's _Chronicles of Border Warfare_ (1895), pp. 75-76.
[19] _Laws of Virginia_ (1826-1827), pp. 85-87.
[20] _Laws of Virginia_ (1831), pp. 153-158; _Journal of the Senate ...
of Virginia_ (1830-31), p. 165.
[21] See _Historic Highways of America_, vol. ix, pp. 60-64.
[22] _Journal of Thomas Wallcutt in 1790_, edited by George Dexter
(_Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society_, October, 1879).
[23] The Journal begins at the Ohio Company's settlement at Marietta,
Ohio.
[24] They crossed the Ohio River to the present site of Williamstown,
West Virginia, named from the brave and good pioneer Isaac Williams.
[25] The Monongahela Trail; see _Historic Highways of America_, vol. ii,
pp. 122-124.
[26] For an early (1826) map of this region that is reasonably correct,
see Herman Böye's _Map of Virginia_ in Massachusetts Historical Society
Library.
[27] Near Friendsville, Maryland--named in honor of the old pioneer
family; see note 10, _ante_; cf. Corey's map of Virginia in his
_American Atlas_ (1805), 3d edition; also Samuel Lewis's _Map of
Virginia_ (1794).
[28] Bellville was the earlier Flinn's Station, Virginia.--S. P.
Hildreth's _Pioneer History_, p. 148.
[29] The author has, for several years, been looking for an explanation
of this interesting obituary; "broadaggs" is, clearly, a corruption of
"Braddock's." Of "atherwayes" no information is at hand; it was probably
the name of a woodsman who settled here--for "bear camplain" undoubtedly
means a "bare _campagne_," or clearing. The word _campagne_ was a common
one among American pioneers. Cf. Harris's _Tour_, p. 60. A spot halfway
between Cumberland and Uniontown would be very near the point where the
road crossed the Pennsylvania state-line.
[30] A reminiscent letter written in 1842 for the _American Pioneer_
(vol. i, pp. 73-75).
[31] _Historic Highways of America_, vol. vii, pp. 139-148.
[32] _Historic Highways of America_, vol. ii, pp. 76-85.
[33] The Iroquois Trail likewise left the river valley at this spot.
[34] _Laws of New York_, 1794, ch. XXIX.
[35] _Laws of New York_, 1796, ch. XXVI.
[36] _Id._, ch. XXXIX.
[37] _Laws of New York_, 1797, ch. LX.
[38] _Laws of New York_, 1798, ch. XXVI.
[39] _Laws of New York_, 1797-1800, ch. LXXVIII.
[40] Boston, 1876, pp. 11-53.
[41] Published by Charles Scribner's Sons, 1901.
[41a] This name long since was abandoned. On the opposite side of the
river, however, a new settlement grew up under the name of Unadilla, the
beginnings of which date about 1790. See the same author's "The Pioneers
of Unadilla Village" (Unadilla, 1902).--HALSEY.
[42] State Land Papers.--HALSEY.
[43] Sluman Wattles's Account Book.--HALSEY.
[44] Dr. Dwight's figures are for the township, not for the village,
which was then a mere frontier hamlet, of perhaps one hundred
souls.--HALSEY.
[45] "Reminiscences of Village Life and of Panama and California from
1840 to 1850," by Gains Leonard Halsey, M. D. Published at
Unadilla.--HALSEY.
[46] A stage line, however, for long years afterward supplied these
settlements with a means of communication with Unadilla, and it is
within the memory of many persons still calling themselves young that
for a considerable series of years, trips twice a week were regularly
made by Henry S. Woodruff. After Mr. Woodruff's death a large and
interesting collection of coaches, sleighs, and other stage relics
remained upon his premises--the last survival of coaching times on the
Catskill Turnpike, embracing a period of three-quarters of a
century.--HALSEY.
[47] See _Historic Highways of America_, vol. xi, p. 199, _note_.
[48] _Travels in North America_ (London, 1839), vol. ii, pp. 29-48.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_.
2. Obvious errors in spelling and punctuation have been corrected.
3. Footnotes have been moved to the end of the main text body.
4. Images have been moved from the middle of a paragraph to the closest
paragraph break.
5. Carat character (^) followed by a single letter or a set of letters
in curly brackets is indicative of subscript in the original book.