suited to the culture of small grain and clover, and produces abundant
crops. As this earth, however, does not absorb the water very quickly,
the farmer is exposed to great losses from heavy falls of rain; the seed
is liable to be washed out of the ground, so that sometimes it is found
necessary to sow a field two or three different times before it becomes
green; and if great care be not taken to guard such fields as lie on a
declivity by proper trenches, the crops are sometimes entirely
destroyed, even after they arrive at maturity; indeed, very often,
notwithstanding the utmost precautions, the water departs from its usual
channel, and sweeps away all before it. After heavy torrents of rain I
have frequently seen all the negroes in a farm dispatched with hoes and
spades to different fields, to be ready to turn the course of the water,
in case it should take an improper direction. On the sides of the
mountain, where the ground has been worn out with the culture of
tobacco, and left waste, and the water has been suffered to run in the
same channel for a length of time, it is surprising to see the depth of
the ravines or gullies, as they are called, which it has formed. They
are just like so many precipices, and are insurmountable barriers to the
passage from one side of the mountain to the other.
[Sidenote: CLIMATE.]
Notwithstanding such disadvantages, however, the country in the
neighbourhood of these mountains is far more populous than that which
lies towards Richmond; and there are many persons that even consider it
to be the garden of the United States. All the productions of the lower
part of Virginia may be had here, at the same time that the heat is
never found to be so oppressive; for in the hottest months in the year
there is a freshness and elasticity in the air unknown in the low
country. The extremes of heat and cold are found to be 90° and 6° above
cipher, but it is not often that the thermometer rises above 84°, and
the winters are so mild in general, that it is a very rare circumstance
for the snow to lie for three days together upon the ground.
The salubrity of the climate is equal also to that of any part of the
United States; and the inhabitants have in consequence a healthy ruddy
appearance. The female part of the peasantry in particular is totally
different from that in the low country. Instead of the pale, sickly,
debilitated beings, whom you meet with there, you find amongst these
mountains many a one that would be a fit subject to be painted for a
Lavinia. It is really delightful to behold the groups of females,
assembled here, at times, to gather the cherries and other fruits which
grow in the greatest abundance in the neighbourhood of almost every
habitation. Their shapes and complexions are charming; and the
carelessness of their dresses, which consist of little more, in common,
than a simple bodice and petticoat, makes them appear even still more
engaging.
The common people in this neighbourhood appeared to me to be of a more
frank and open disposition, more inclined to hospitality, and to live
more contentedly on what they possessed, than the people of the same
class in any other part of the United States I passed through. From
being able, however, to procure the necessaries of life upon very easy
terms, they are rather of an indolent habit, and inclined to
dissipation. Intoxication is very prevalent, and it is scarcely possible
to meet with a man who does not begin the day with taking one, two, or
more drams as soon as he rises. Brandy is the liquor which they
principally use, and having the greatest abundance of peaches, they make
it at a very trifling expence. There is hardly a house to be found with
two rooms in it, but where the inhabitants have a still. The females do
not fall into the habit of intoxication like the men, but in other
respects they are equally disposed to pleasure, and their morals are in
like manner relaxed.
[Sidenote: MONTICELLO.]
Along these mountains live several gentlemen of large landed property,
who farm their own estates, as in the lower parts of Virginia; among the
number is Mr. Jefferson[23], from whose seat I date this letter. His
house is about three miles distant from Charlottesville and two from
Milton, which is on the head waters of Rivanna River. It is most
singularly situated, being built upon the top of a small mountain, the
apex of which has been cut off, so as to leave an area of about an acre
and half. At present it is in an unfinished state; but if carried on
according to the plan laid down, it will be one of the most elegant
private habitations in the United States. A large apartment is laid out
for a library and museum, meant to extend the entire breadth of the
house, the windows of which are to open into an extensive green house
and aviary. In the center is another very spacious apartment, of an
octagon form, reaching from the front to the rear of the house, the
large folding glass doors of which, at each end, open under a portico.
An apartment like this, extending from front to back, is very common in
a Virginian house; it is called the saloon, and during summer is the one
generally preferred by the family, on account of its being more airy and
spacious than any other. The house commands a magnificent prospect on
one side of the blue ridge of mountains for nearly forty miles, and on
the
Footnote 23:
Vice-president of the United States.
opposite one, of the low country, in appearance like an extended heath
covered with trees, the tops alone of which are visible. The mists and
vapours arising from the low grounds give a continual variety to the
scene. The mountain whereon the house stands is thickly wooded on one
side, and walks are carried round it, with different degrees of
obliquity, running into each other. On the south side is the garden and
a large vineyard, that produces abundance of fine fruit.
[Sidenote: VINES.]
Several attempts have been made in this neighbourhood to bring the
manufacture of wine to perfection; none of them however have succeeded
to the wish of the parties. A set of gentlemen once went to the expence
even of getting six Italians over for the purpose, but the vines which
the Italians found growing here were different, as well as the soil,
from what they had been in the habit of cultivating, and they were not
much more successful in the business than the people of the country. We
must not, however, from hence conclude that good wine can never be
manufactured upon these mountains. It is well known that the vines, and
the mode of cultivating them, vary as much in different parts of Europe
as the soil in one country differs from that in another. It will require
some time, therefore, and different experiments, to ascertain the
particular kind of vine, and the mode of cultivating it, best adapted to
the soil of these mountains. This, however, having been once
ascertained, there is every reason to suppose that the grape may be
cultivated to the greatest perfection, as the climate is as favourable
for the purpose as that of any country in Europe. By experiments also it
is by no means improbable, that they will in process of time learn the
best method of converting the juice of the fruit into wine.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
+LETTER + XVI.
_Of the Country between the South-west and Blue Mountains.—Copper and
Iron Mines.—Lynchburgh.—New London.—Armoury here.—Description of the
Road over the Blue Mountains.—Peaks of Otter, highest of the
Mountains.—Supposed Height.—Much over-rated.—German Settlers numerous
beyond the Blue Mountains.—Singular Contrast between the Country and
the Inhabitants on each Side of the Mountains.—Of the Weevil.—Of the
Hessian Fly.—Bottetourt County.—Its Soil.—Salubrity of the
Climate.—Medicinal Springs here.—Much frequented._
Fincastle, May.
THE country between the South-west Mountains and the Blue Ridge is very
fertile, and it is much more thickly inhabited than the lower parts of
Virginia. The climate is good, and the people have a healthy and robust
appearance. Several valuable mines of iron and copper have been
discovered here, for the working of some of which works have been
established; but till the country becomes more populous it cannot be
expected that they will be carried on with much spirit.
[Sidenote: BLUE MOUNTAINS.]
Having crossed the South-west Mountains, I passed along through this
county to Lynchburgh, a town situated on the south side of Fluvanna
River, one hundred and fifty miles above Richmond. This town contains
about one hundred houses, and a warehouse for the inspection of tobacco,
where about two thousand hogsheads are annually inspected. It has been
built entirely within the last fifteen years, and is rapidly increasing,
from its advantageous situation for carrying on trade with the adjacent
country. The boats, in which the produce is conveyed down the river, are
from forty-eight to fifty-four feet long, but very narrow in proportion
to their breadth. Three men are sufficient to navigate one of these
boats, and they can go to Richmond and back again in ten days. They fall
down with the stream, but work their way back again with poles. The
cargo carried in these boats is always proportionate to the depth of
water in the river, which varies very much. When I passed it to
Lynchburgh, there was no difficulty in riding across, yet when I got
upon the opposite banks I observed great quantities of weeds hanging
upon the trees, considerably above my head though on horseback,
evidently left there by a flood. This flood happened in the preceding
September, when the waters rose fifteen feet above their usual level.
A few miles from Lynchburgh, towards the Blue Mountains, is a small town
called New London, in which there is a magazine, and also an armoury,
erected during the war. About fifteen men were here employed, as I
passed through, repairing old arms and furbishing up others; and indeed,
from the slovenly manner in which they keep their arms, I should imagine
that the same number must be constantly employed all the year round. At
one end of the room lay the musquets, to the amount of about five
thousand, all together in a large heap, and at the opposite end lay a
pile of leathern accoutrements, absolutely rotting for want of common
attention. All the armouries throughout the United States are kept much
in the same style.
Between this place and the Blue Mountains the country is rough and
hilly, and but very thinly inhabited. The few inhabitants, however, met
with here are, uncommonly robust and tall; it is rare to see a man
amongst them who is not six feet high. These people entertain a high
opinion of their own superiority in point of bodily strength over the
inhabitants of the low country. A similar race of men is found all along
the Blue Mountains.
The Blue Ridge is thickly covered with large trees to the very summit;
some of the mountains are rugged and extremely stony, others are not so,
and on these last the soil is found to be rich and fertile. It is only
in particular places that this ridge of mountains can be crossed, and at
some of the gaps the ascent is steep and difficult; but at the place
where I crossed it, which was near the Peak of Otter, on the south side,
instead of one great mountain to pass over, as might be imagined from an
inspection of the map, there is a succession of small hills, rising
imperceptibly one above the other, so that you get upon the top of the
ridge before you are aware of it.
[Sidenote: PEAKS OF OTTER.]
The Peaks of Otter are the highest mountains in the Blue Ridge, and,
measured from their bases, are supposed to be more lofty than any others
in North America. According to Mr. Jefferson, whose authority has been
quoted nearly by every person that has written on the subject since the
publication of his Notes on Virginia, the principal peak is about four
thousand feet in perpendicular height; but it must be observed, that Mr.
Jefferson does not say that he measured the height himself; on the
contrary, he acknowledges that the height of the mountains in America
has never yet been ascertained with any degree of exactness; it is only
from certain data, from which he says a tolerable conjecture may be
formed, that he supposes this to be the height of the loftiest peak.
Positively to assert that this peak is not so high, without having
measured it in any manner, would be absurd; as I did not measure it, I
do not therefore pretend to contradict Mr. Jefferson; I have only to
say, that the most elevated of the peaks of Otter appeared to me but a
very insignificant mountain in companion with Snowden, in Wales; and
every person that I conversed with that had seen both, and I conversed
with many, made the same remark. Now the highest peak of Snowden is
found by triangular admeasurement to be no more than three thousand five
hundred and sixty-eight feet high, reckoning from the quay at Carnarvon.
None of the other mountains in the Blue Ridge are supposed, from the
same data, to be more than two thousand feet in perpendicular height.
[Sidenote: COTTON.]
Beyond the Blue Ridge, after crossing by this route near the Peaks of
Otter, I met with but very few settlements till I drew near to
Fincastle, in Bottetourt County. This town stands about twenty miles
distant from the mountain, and about fifteen south of Fluvanna River. It
was only begun about the year 1790, yet it already contains sixty
houses, and is most rapidly increasing. The improvement of the adjacent
country has likewise been very rapid, and land now bears nearly the same
price that it does in the neighbourhood of York and Lancaster, in
Pennsylvania. The inhabitants consist principally of Germans, who have
extended their settlements from Pennsylvania along the whole of that
rich track of land which runs through the upper part of Maryland, and
from thence behind the Blue Mountains to the most southern parts of
Virginia. These people, as I before mentioned, keep very much together,
and are never to be found but where the land is remarkably good. It is
singular, that although they form three fourths of the inhabitants on
the western side of the Blue Ridge, yet not one of them is to be met
with on the eastern side, notwithstanding that land is to be purchased
in the neighbourhood of the South-west Mountains for one fourth of what
is paid for it in Bottetourt County. They have many times, I am told,
crossed the Blue Ridge to examine the land, but the red soil which they
found there was different from what they had been accustomed to, and the
injury it was exposed to from the mountain torrents always appeared to
them an insuperable objection to settling in that part of the country.
The difference indeed between the country on the eastern and on the
western side of the Blue Ridge, in Bottetourt County, is astonishing,
when it is considered that both are under the same latitude, and that
this difference is perceptible within the short distance of thirty
miles.
On the eastern side of the ridge cotton grows extremely well; and in
winter the snow scarcely ever remains more than a day or two upon the
ground. On the other side cotton never comes to perfection, the winters
are severe, and the fields covered with snow for weeks together. In
every farm yard you see sleighs or sledges, carriages used to run upon
the snow. Wherever these carriages are met with, it may be taken for
granted that the winter lasts in that part of the country for a
considerable length of time, for the people would never go to the
expence of building them, without being tolerably certain that they
would be useful. On the eastern side of the Blue Ridge, in Virginia, not
one of these carriages is to be met with.
It has already been mentioned, that the predominant soil to the eastward
of the Blue Ridge is a red earth, and that it is always a matter of some
difficulty to lay down a piece of land in grass, on account of the
rains, which are apt to wash away the seeds, together with the mould on
the surface. In Bottetourt County, on the contrary, the soil consists
chiefly of a rich brown mould, and throws up white clover spontaneously.
To have a rich meadow, it is only necessary to leave a piece of ground
to the hand of nature for one year. Again, on the eastern side of the
Blue Mountains, scarcely any limestone is to be met with; on the
opposite one, a bed of it runs entirely through the country, so that by
some it is emphatically called the limestone county. In sinking wells,
they have always to dig fifteen or twenty feet through a solid rock to
get at the water.
[Sidenote: INSECTS.]
Another circumstance may also be mentioned, as making a material
difference between the country on one side of the Blue Ridge and that on
the other, namely, that behind the mountains the weevil is unknown. The
weevil is a small insect of the moth kind, which deposits its eggs in
the cavity of the grain, and particularly in that of wheat; and if the
crops are stacked or laid up in the barn in sheaves, these eggs are
there hatched, and the grain is in consequence totally destroyed. To
guard against this in the lower parts of Virginia, and the other states
where the weevil is common, they always thresh out the grain as soon as
the crops are brought in, and leave it in the chaff, which creates a
degree of heat sufficient to destroy the insect, at the same time that
it does not injure the wheat. This insect has been known in America but
a very few years; according to the general opinion, it originated on the
eastern shore of Maryland, where a person, in expectation of a great
rise in the price of wheat, kept over all his crops for the space of six
years, when they were found full of these insects; from thence they have
spread gradually over different parts of the country. For a considerable
time the Patowmac River formed a barrier to their progress, and while
the crops were entirely destroyed in Maryland, they remained secure in
Virginia; but these insects at last found their way across the river.
The Blue Mountains at present serve as a barrier, and secure the country
to the westward from their depredations[24].
Footnote 24:
There is another insect, which in a similar manner made its
appearance, and afterwards spread through a great part of the country,
very injurious also to the crops. It is called the Hessian fly, from
having been brought over, as is supposed, in some forage belonging to
the Hessian troops, during the war. This insect lodges itself in
different parts of the stalk, while green, and makes such rapid
devastations, that a crop which appears in the best possible state
will, perhaps, be totally destroyed in the course of two or three
days. In Maryland, they say, that if the land is very highly manured,
the Hessian fly never attacks the grain; they also say, that crops
raised upon land that has been worked for a long time are much less
exposed to injury from these insects than the crops raised upon new
land. If this is really the case, the appearance of the Hessian fly
should be considered as a circumstance rather beneficial than
otherwise to the country, as it will induce the inhabitants to
relinquish that ruinous practice of working the same piece of ground
year after year till it is entirely worn out, and then leaving it
waste, instead of taking some pains to improve it by manure. This fly
is not known at present south of the Patowmac River, nor behind the
Blue Ridge.
[Sidenote: MEDICINAL SPRINGS.]
Bottetourt County is entirely surrounded by mountains; it is also
crossed by various ridges of mountains in different directions, a
circumstance which renders the climate particularly agreeable. It
appears to me, that there is no part of America where the climate would
be more congenial to the constitution of a native of Great Britain or
Ireland. The frost in winter is more regular, but not severer than
commonly takes place in those islands. In summer the heat is, perhaps,
somewhat greater; but there is not a night in the year that a blanket is
not found very comfortable. Before ten o’clock in the morning the heat
is greatest; at that hour a breeze generally springs up from the
mountains, and renders the air agreeable the whole day. Fever and ague
are disorders unknown here, and the air is so salubrious, that persons
who come hither afflicted with it from the low country, towards the sea,
get rid of it in a very short time.
In the western part of the county are several medicinal springs, whereto
numbers of people resort towards the latter end of summer, as much for
the sake of escaping the heat in the low country, as for drinking the
waters. Those most frequented are called the Sweet Springs, and are
situated at the foot of the Alleghany Mountains. During the last season
upwards of two hundred persons resorted to them with servants and
horses. The accommodations at the springs are most wretched at present;
but a set of gentlemen from South Carolina have, I understand, since I
was there, purchased the place, and are going to erect several
commodious dwellings in the neighbourhood, for the reception of company.
Besides these springs there are others in Jackson’s Mountains, a ridge
which runs between the Blue Mountains and the Alleghany. One of the
springs here is warm, and another quite hot; a few paces from the latter
a spring of common water issues from the earth, but which, from the
contrast, is generally thought to be as remarkable for its coldness as
the water of the adjoining one is for its heat: there is also a sulphur
spring near these; leaves of trees falling into it become thickly
incrusted with sulphur in a very short time, and silver is turned black
almost immediately. At a future period the medicinal qualities of all
these springs will probably be accurately ascertained; at present they
are but very little known. As for the relief obtained by those persons
that frequent the Sweet Springs in particular, it is strongly
conjectured that they are more indebted for it to the change of the
climate than to the rare qualities of the water.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
+LETTER + XVII.
_Description of the celebrated Rock Bridge, and of an immense
Cavern.—Description of the Shenandoa Valley.—Inhabitants
mostly Germans.—Soil and Climate.—Observations on American
Landscapes.—Mode of cutting down Trees.—High Road to Kentucky, behind
Blue Mountains. — Much frequented.—Uncouth, inquisitive
People.—Lexington.—Staunton.—Military Titles very common in
America.—Causes thereof.—Winchester._
[Illustration:
VIEW _of the_ ROCK BRIDGE.
]
Winchester, May.
[Sidenote: ROCK BRIDGE.]
AFTER remaining a considerable time in Bottetourt County, I again
crossed Fluvanna River into the county of Rockbridge, so called from the
remarkable natural bridge of rock that is in it. This bridge stands
about ten miles from Fluvanna River, and nearly the same distance from
the Blue Ridge. It extends across a deep cleft in a mountain, which, by
some great convulsion of nature, has been split asunder from top to
bottom, and it seems to have been left there purposely to afford a
passage from one side of the chasm to the other. The cleft or chasm is
about two miles long, and is in some places upwards of three hundred
feet deep; the depth varies according to the height of the mountain,
being deepest where the mountain is most lofty. The breadth of the chasm
also varies in different places; but in every part it is uniformly wider
at top than towards the bottom. That the two sides of the chasm were
once united appears very evident, not only from projecting rocks on the
one side corresponding with suitable cavities on the other, but also
from the different strata of earth, sand, clay, &c. being exactly
similar from top to bottom on both sides; but by what great agent they
were separated, whether by fire or by water, remains hidden amongst
those arcana of nature which we vainly endeavour to develope.
[Sidenote: ROCK BRIDGE.]