meritorious, and the young persons of different sexes have but very
little intercourse with each other; they never enter each other’s
houses, and at church they are obliged to sit separate; it is only in
consequence of his having seen her at a distance, perhaps, that a
batchelor is induced to propose for a young woman in marriage, and he is
not permitted to offer his proposals in person to the object of his
choice, but merely through the medium of the superintendant of the
female house. If from the report of the elders and wardens of the
society it appears to the superintendant that he is able to maintain a
wife, she then acquaints her protegée with the offer, and should she
consent, they are married immediately, but if she do not, the
superintendant selects another female from the house, whom she imagines
would be suitable to the young man, and on his approval of her they are
as quickly married. Hasty as these marriages are, they are never known
to be attended with unhappiness; for being taught from their earliest
infancy to keep those passions under controul, which occasion so much
mischief amongst the mass of mankind; being inured to regular habits of
industry, and to a quiet sober life; and being in their peaceable and
retired settlements out of the reach of those temptations which persons
are exposed to who launch forth into the busy world, and who mingle with
the multitude, the parties meet with nought through life to interrupt
their domestic repose.
Attached to the young men’s and to the young women’s houses there are
boarding schools for boys and girls, under the direction of proper
teachers, which are also inspected by the elders and wardens of the
society. These schools are in great repute, and not only the children of
Moravians are sent to them, but also those of many genteel persons of a
different persuasion, resident in Philadelphia, New York, and other
towns in the neighbouring States. The boys are instructed in the Latin,
German, French, and English languages; arithmetic, music, drawing, &c.:
the girls are likewise instructed in these different languages and
sciences, and, in short, in every thing that is usually taught at a
female boarding school, except dancing. When of a sufficient age to
provide for themselves, the young women of the society are admitted into
the house destined for their accommodation, where embroidery, fine
needle-work, carding, spinning, knitting, &c. &c. and other works
suitable to females, are carried on. A separate room is allotted for
every different business, and a female, somewhat older than the rest,
presides in it, to inspect the work, and preserve regularity. Persons
are appointed to dispose of the several articles manufactured in the
house, and the money which they produce is distributed amongst the
individuals engaged in manufacturing them, who, after paying a certain
sum towards the maintenance of the house, and a certain sum besides into
the public fund of the society, are allowed to keep the remainder for
themselves.
After the boys have finished their school education, they are
apprenticed to the business which accords most with their inclination.
Should this be a business or trade that is carried on in the young men’s
house, they at once go there to learn it, but if at the house of an
individual in the town, they only board and lodge at the young men’s
house. If they are inclined to agricultural pursuits, they are then put
under the care of one of the farmers of the society. The young men
subscribe to the support of their house, and to the public fund, just as
the young women do; the widows do the same; and every individual in the
town likewise contributes a small sum weekly to the general fund of the
society.
[Sidenote: MORAVIANS.]
Situated upon the creek, which skirts the town, there is a flour mill, a
saw mill, an oil mill, a fulling mill, a mill for grinding bark and dye
stuff, a tan yard, a currier’s yard; and on the Leheigh River an
extensive brewery, at which very good malt liquor is manufactured. These
mills, &c. belong to the society at large, and the profits arising from
them, the persons severally employed in conducting them being first
handsomely rewarded for their services, are paid into the public fund.
The lands for some miles round the town, which are highly improved,
likewise belong to the society, as does also the tavern, and the profits
arising from them are disposed of in the same manner as those arising
from the mills, the persons employed in managing the farms, and
attending to the tavern, being nothing more than stewards or agents of
the society. The fund thus raised is employed in relieving the
distressed brethren of the society in other parts of the world, in
forming new settlements, and in defraying the expence of the missions
for the purpose of propagating the gospel amongst the heathens.
The tavern at Bethlehem is very commodious, and it is the neatest and
best conducted one, without exception, that I ever met with in any part
of America. Having communicated to the landlord, on arriving at it, our
wish to see the town and public buildings, he immediately dispatched a
messenger for one of the elders, and in less than a quarter of an hour,
brother Thomas, a lively fresh coloured little man, of about fifty years
of age, entered the room: he was dressed in a plain blue coat and
waistcoat, brown corderoy breeches, and a large round hat; there was
goodness and innocence in his looks, and his manners were so open and
unconstrained, that it was impossible not to become familiar with him at
once. When we were ready to sally forth, he placed himself between two
of us, and leaning on our arms, and chatting without ceremony, he
conducted us first to the young women’s house. Here we were shewn into a
neat parlour, whilst brother Thomas went to ask permission for us to see
the house. In a few minutes the superintendant herself came; brother
Thomas introduced her to us, and accompanied by them both we visited the
different apartments.
[Sidenote: MORAVIANS.]
The house is extensive, and the passages and stair-cases are commodious
and airy, but the work rooms are small, and to such a pitch were they
heated by stoves, that on entering into them at first we could scarcely
breathe. The stoves, which they use, are built in the German style. The
fire is inclosed in a large box or case formed of glazed tiles, and the
warm air is thence conducted, through flues, into similar large cases
placed in different parts of the room, by which means every part is
rendered equally warm. About a dozen females or more, nearly of the same
age, were seated at work in each apartment. The entrance of strangers
did not interrupt them in the least; they went on with their work, and
except the inspectress, who never failed politely to rise and speak to
us, they did not even seem to take any notice of our being in the room.
The dress of the sisterhood, though not quite uniform, is very nearly
so. They wear plain calico, linen, or stuff gowns, with aprons, and
close tight linen caps, made with a peak in front, and tied under the
chin with a piece of riband. Pink ribands are said to be worn as a badge
by those who are inclined to marry; however, I observed that all the
unmarried women wore them, not excepting those whose age and features
seemed to have excluded them from every chance of becoming the votaries
of Hymen.
The dormitory of the female house is a very spacious apartment in the
upper story, which is aired by a large ventilator in the ceiling. It
contains about fifty boarded beds without testers, each calculated to
hold one person. They sleep here during winter time in the German style,
between two feather beds, to which the sheets and blankets are stitched
fast; in summer time the heat is too great here to admit even of a
single blanket.
After having gone through the different apartments of the female house,
we were conducted by the superintendant into a sort of shop, where
different little articles of fancy work, manufactured by the sisterhood,
are laid out to the best advantage. It is always expected that strangers
visiting the house will lay out some trifling sum here; and this is the
only reward which any member of the society expects for the trouble of
conducting a stranger throughout every part of the town.
The house of the sisterhood exhibits a picture of the utmost neatness
and regularity, as do likewise the young men’s and the widows houses;
and indeed the same may be said of every private house throughout the
town. The mills, brewery, &c. which are built on the most approved
plans, are also kept in the very neatest order.
Brother Thomas, after having shewn us the different public buildings and
works, next introduced us into the houses of several of the married men,
that were most distinguished for their ingenuity, and in some of them,
particularly at the house of a cabinet maker, we were entertained with
very curious pieces of workmanship. This cabinet maker brought us a book
of Indian ink and tinted drawings, his own performances, which would
have been a credit to a person in his situation in any part of the
world.
[Sidenote: MORAVIANS.]
The manufactures in general carried on at Bethlehem consist of woollen
and linen cloths, hats, cotton and worsted caps and stockings, gloves,
shoes, carpenters, cabinet makers, and turners work, clocks, and a few
ether articles of hardware, &c. &c.
The church is a plain building of stone, adorned with pictures from
sacred history. It is furnished with a tolerable organ, as likewise are
the chapels of the young men’s and young women’s houses; they accompany
their hymns, besides, with violoncellos, violins, flutes, &c. The whole
society attends the church on a Sunday, and when any one of the society
dies, all the remaining members attend his funeral, which is conducted
with great solemnity, though with little pomp: they never go into
mourning for their departed friends.
Every house in the town is supplied with an abundance of excellent water
from a spring, which is forced through pipes by means of an hydraulic
machine worked by water, and which is situated on the banks of the
creek. Some of the houses are supplied with water in every room. The
machine is very simple, and would easily raise the water of the spring,
if necessary, several hundred feet.
The spring from whence the houses are supplied with water stands nearly
in the center of the town, and over it, a large stone house with very
thick walls, is erected. Houses like this are very common in America;
they are called spring houses and are built for the purpose of
preserving meat, milk, butter, &c. during the heats of summer. This
spring house in Bethlehem is common to the whole town; a shelf or board
in it is allotted to each family, and though there is no watch placed
over it, and the door be only secured by a latch, yet every person is
certain of finding, when he comes for it, his plate of butter or bowl of
milk, &c. exactly in the same state as when he put it in.
[Sidenote: MORAVIANS.]
The Moravians study to render their conduct strictly conformable to the
principles of the Christian religion; but very different notions,
notwithstanding, are, and, no doubt, will be entertained respecting some
of their tenets. Every unprejudiced person, however, that has visited
their settlements must acknowledge, that their moral conduct is truly
excellent, and is such as would, if generally adopted, make men happy in
the extreme. They live together like members of one large family; the
most perfect harmony subsists between them, and they seem to have but
one with at heart, the propagation of the gospel, and the good of
mankind. They are in general of a grave turn of mind; but nothing of
that stiffness, or of that affected singularity, or pride, as I will
call it, prevalent amongst the Quakers, is observable in their manners.
Wherever their society has extended itself in America, the most happy
consequences have resulted from it; good order and regularity have
become conspicuous in the behaviour of the people of the neighbourhood,
and arts and manufactures have been introduced into the country.
As the whole of the plot of ground, on which Bethlehem stands; belongs
to the society, as well as the lands for a considerable way round the
town, the Moravians here are not liable to be troubled by intruders, but
any person that will conform to their line of conduct will be received
into their society with readiness and cordiality. They appeared to take
the greatest delight in shewing us their town, and every thing belonging
to it, and at parting lamented much that we could not stay longer with
them, to see still more of the manners and habits of the society.
They do not seem desirous of adding to the number of houses in
Bethlehem; but whenever there is an increase of people, they send them
off to another part of the country, there to form a new settlement.
Since Bethlehem was founded, they have established two other towns in
Pennsylvania, Nazareth and Letitz. The former of these stands at the
distance of about ten miles from Bethlehem, and in coming down from the
Blue Mountains you pass through it; it is about half the size of
Bethlehem, and built much on the same plan. Letitz is situated at a
distance of about ten miles from Lancaster.
The country for many miles round Bethlehem is most pleasingly
diversified with rising grounds; the soil is rich, and better cultivated
than any part of America I before saw. Until within a few years past
this neighbourhood has been distinguished for the salubrity of its
climate, but fevers, chiefly bilious and intermittent, have increased to
a very great degree of late, and, indeed, not only here, but in many
other parts of Pennsylvania, which have been long settled. During the
last autumn, more people suffered from sickness in the well cultivated
parts of the country than had ever been remembered. Various reasons have
been assigned for this increase of fevers in Pennsylvania, but it
appears most probably to be owing to the unequal quantities of rain that
have fallen of late years, and to the unprecedented mildness of the
winters.
Bethlehem is visited during summer time by great numbers of people from
the neighbouring large towns, who are led thither by curiosity or
pleasure; and regularly, twice a week throughout the year, a public
stage waggon runs between it and Philadelphia. We engaged this carriage
to ourselves, and early on the second day from that on which we quitted
Bethlehem, reached the capital, after an absence of, somewhat more than,
five months.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_LETTER _ XXXVIII.
_Leave Philadelphia.—Arrive at New York.—Visit Long Island.—Dreadful
havoc by the Yellow Fever.—Dutch Inhabitants suspicious of
Strangers.—Excellent Farmers.—Number of Inhabitants.—Culture of
Corn.—Immense Quantities of Grouse and Deer.—Laws to protect
them.—Increase of the same.—Decrease of Beavers.—New York agreeable to
Strangers.—Conclusion._
MY DEAR SIR, New York, January 1797.
[Sidenote: LEAVE PHILADELPHIA.]
AFTER having remained a few days at Philadelphia, in order to arrange
some matters preparatory to my taking a final leave of that city, I set
out once more for New York. The month of December had now arrived;
considerable quantities of snow had fallen; and the keen winds from the
north-west had already spread a thick crust of ice over the Delaware,
whose majestic stream is always the last in this part of the country to
feel the chilly touch of the hand of winter. The ice however, was not
yet strong enough to sustain the weight of a stage carriage, neither was
it very readily to be broken; so that when we reached the falls of the
river, where it is usual to cross in going from Philadelphia to New
York, we had to remain for upwards of two hours, shivering before the
bitter blasts, until a passage was opened for the boat, which was to
convey us and our vehicle to the opposite side. The crossing of the
Delaware at this place with a wheel carriage, even when the river is
frozen over and the ice sufficiently thick to bear, is generally a
matter of considerable inconvenience and trouble to travellers, owing to
the large irregular masses of ice formed there, when the frost first
sets in, by the impetuosity of the current, which breaking away the
slender flakes of ice from the edges of the banks, gradually drifts them
up in layers over each other; it is only at this rugged part, that a
wheel carriage can safely pass down the banks of the river.
When the ground is covered with snow, a sleigh or sledge is by far the
most commodious sort of carriage to travel in, as neither it nor the
passengers it contains are liable to receive any injury whatsoever from
an overturn, and as, added to this, you may proceed much faster and
easier in it than in a carriage on wheels; having said then that there
was snow on the ground, it will perhaps be a subject of wonder to you,
that we had not one of these safe and agreeable carriages to take us to
New York; if so, I must inform you, that no experienced traveller in the
middle states sets out on a long journey in a sleigh at the commencement
of winter, as unexpected thaws at this period now take place very
commonly, and so rapid are they, that in the course of one morning the
snow sometimes entirely disappears; a serious object of consideration in
this country, where, if you happen to be left in the lurch with your
sleigh, other carriages are not to be had at a moment’s warning. In the
present instance, notwithstanding the intense severity of the cold, and
the appearances there were of its long continuance, yet I had not been
eight and forty hours at New York when every vestige of frost was gone,
and the air became as mild as in the month of September.
[Sidenote: LONG ISLAND.]
This sudden change in the weather afforded me an opportunity of seeing,
to much greater advantage than might have been expected at this season
of the year, parts of New York and Long Islands, which the shortness of
my stay in this neighbourhood had not permitted me to visit in the
summer. After leaving the immediate vicinage of the city, which stands
at the southern extremity of the former of these two islands, but little
is to be met with that deserves attention; the soil, indeed, is fertile,
and the face of the country is not unpleasingly diversified with rising
grounds; but there is nothing grand in any of the views which it
affords, nor did I observe one of the numerous seats, with which it is
overspread, that was distinguished either for its elegant neatness or
the delightfulness of its situation; none of them will bear any
comparison with the charming little villas which adorn the banks of the
Schuylkill near Philadelphia.
On Long Island much more will be found, in a picturesque point of view,
to interest the traveller. On the western side, in particular, bordering
upon the Narrows, or that contracted channel between the islands,
through which vessels pass in sailing to New York from the Atlantic, the
country is really romantic. The ground here is very much broken, and
numberless large masses of wood still remain standing, through the
vistas in which you occasionally catch the most delightful prospects of
the distant hills on Staten Island and the New Jersey shore, and of the
water, which is constantly enlivened by vessels sailing to and fro.
[Sidenote: LONG ISLAND.]
To an inhabitant of one of the large towns on the coast of America, a
country house is not merely desirable as a place of retirement from
noise and bustle, where the owner may indulge his fancy in the
contemplation of rural scenes, at a season when nature is attired in her
most pleasing garb, but also as a safe retreat from the dreadful
maladies which of late years have never failed to rage with more or less
virulence in these places during certain months. When at Philadelphia
the yellow fever committed such dreadful havoc, sparing neither the rich
nor the poor, the young nor the aged, who had the confidence to remain
in the city, or were unable to quit it, scarcely a single instance
occurred of any one of those falling a victim to its baneful influence,
who lived but one mile removed from town, where was a free circulation
of air, and who at the same time studiously avoided all communication
with the sick, or with those who had visited them; every person
therefore at Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, &c. who is sufficiently
wealthy to afford it, has his country habitation in the neighbourhood of
these respective places, to which he may retire in the hot unhealthy
season of the year; but this delightful part of Long Island, of which I
have been speaking, though it affords such a number of charming
situations for little villas, is unfortunately too far removed from New
York to be a convenient place of retreat to men so deeply engaged in
commercial pursuits as are the greater number of the inhabitants of that
city, and it remains almost destitute of houses; whilst another part of
the island, more conveniently situated, is crowded with them, although
the face of the country is here flat and sandy, devoid of trees, and
wholly uninteresting.
[Sidenote: LONG ISLAND.]
The permanent residents on Long Island are chiefly of Dutch extraction,
and they seem to have inherited all the coldness, reserve, and
covetousness of their ancestors. It is a common saying in New York, that
a Long Island man will conceal himself in his house on the approach of a
stranger; and really the numberless instances of shyness I met with in
the inhabitants seemed to argue, that there was some truth in the
remark. If you do but ask any simple question relative to the
neighbouring country, they will eye you with suspicion, and evidently
drive to disengage themselves from you; widely different from the
Anglo-Americans, whose inquisitiveness in similar circumstances would
lead them to a thousand impertinent and troublesome enquiries, in order
to discover what your business was in that place, and how they could
possibly take any advantage of it. These Dutchmen are in general very
excellent farmers; and several of them have very extensive tracts of
land under cultivation, for the produce of which there is a convenient
and ready market at New York. Amongst them are to be found many very
wealthy men; but except a few individuals, they live in a mean,
penurious, and most uncomfortable manner. The population of the island
is estimated at about thirty-seven thousand souls, of which number near
five thousand are slaves. It is the western part of the island which is
the best inhabited; a circumstance to be ascribed, not so much to the
fertility of the soil as its contiguity to the city of New York. Here
are several considerable towns, as, Flatbush, Jamaica, Brooklynn,
Flushing, Utrecht; the three first-mentioned of which contain each
upwards of one hundred houses. Brooklynn, the largest of them, is
situated just opposite to New York, on the bank of the East River, and
forms an agreeable object from the city.
The soil of Long Island is well adapted to the culture of small grain
and Indian corn; and the northern part, which is hilly, is said to be
peculiarly favourable to the production of fruit. The celebrated Newtown
pippin, though now to be met with in almost every part of the state of
New York, and good in its kind, is yet supposed by many persons to
attain a higher flavour here than in any other part of America.
Of the peculiar soil of the plains that are situated towards the center
of this island, I have before had occasion to speak, when describing
those in the western parts of the state of New York. One plain here,
somewhat different from the rest, is profusely covered with stunted oaks
and pines; but no grain will grow upon it, though it has been cleared,
and experiments have been made for that purpose in many different
places. This one goes under the appellation of Brushy Plain. Immense
quantities of grouse and deer are found amidst the brushwood, with which
it is covered, and which is so well calculated to afford shelter to
these animals. Laws have been passed, not long since, to prevent the
wanton destruction of the deer; in consequence of which they are
beginning to increase most rapidly, notwithstanding such great numbers
are annually killed, as well for the New York market, as for the support
of the inhabitants of the island; indeed it is found that they are now
increasing in most of the settled parts of the states of New York, where
there is sufficient wood to harbour them; whereas in the Indian
territories, the deer, as well as most other wild animals, are becoming
scarcer every year, notwithstanding that the number of Indian hunters is
also decreasing; but these people pursue the same destructive system of
hunting, formerly practised on Long Island, killing every animal they
meet, whether young or full grown. Notwithstanding the strong
injunctions laid upon them by the Canadian traders, to spare some few
beavers at each dam, in order to perpetuate the breed, they still
continue to kill these animals wherever they find them, so that they are
now entirely banished from places which used to abound with, and which
are still in a state to harbour them, being far removed from the
cultivated parts of the country. An annual deficiency of fifteen
thousand has been observed in the number of beaver skins brought down to
Montreal, for the last few years.
[Sidenote: RETURN TO NEW YORK.]