frequented road to the Sweet, Warm and Hot Springs at Greenbriar,
and from thence to Kentucky, passes through Staunton. Eight inns are
established there, three of which are large. Hemp, which grows very
fine, is cultivated throughout the whole of this country. Wheat in
this region is mowed with the sickle, as in Europe, and is infected
with the rot. On the other side of the Blue Mountains they mow with
the scythe. From Staunton we passed by Keyssel Town, Newmarket,
Strasburgh (formerly called Stover’s Town), and Newtown, to Winchester.
Winchester sends to Alexandria the whole produce of the upper country,
and draws from Baltimore, but especially from Philadelphia, all sorts
of dry goods. Upwards of thirty well-stocked stores, or shops, have
been opened at Winchester. The town contains ten or twelve inns,
large and small, which are often full. In the course of last year
upwards of 4,000 persons passed through the place, going to settle in
Tennessee or Kentucky. Landed property in the vicinity of Charlestown
is more divided, perhaps, than in any other part of Virginia. Very few
of the planters possess more than 2,000 acres of land, and few even
so much. Alexandria is, beyond all comparison, the handsomest town
in Virginia, and, indeed, is among the finest in the United States.
Alexandria carries on a constant trade with the West India Islands, and
also some with Europe. There is a bank at Alexandria, the only one in
Virginia. The establishment of a bank at Richmond was authorized by the
Legislature of Virginia in December, 1792, but the subscriptions not
filling it does not exist.[L]
“The roads are in general good throughout this State; and although the
inns are sometimes bad, yet upon the whole they are better than in
the other States. Those in the back country, where I have traveled,
are preferable to the inns in many of the most inhabited parts of New
England.”
_XI._
_JOHN DAVIS OF SALISBURY._
_1801-1802._
_The Sailor Turned Author--Vice-President Burr--Washington in
1801--Cherokees--Gadesby’s--Colchester--Occoquan--Romantic
Situation--Tavern Luxuries--Eloquence and a War-Dance--Parson
Weems--Scholarship Per Se--Frying Pan--Newgate--Mr. Ball--‘To
Virginia.’_
In the year 1798 John Davis came to America. He had been very much of a
traveler, had lived in the East Indies, had crossed the equator several
times and doubled the Cape of Good Hope more than once. Davis came
from Salisbury, in England. He deserves a place in the biographical
dictionaries, but is not found there. Having been a sailor before
the mast for eleven years, he became a desultory man of letters, of
considerable literature, who paid his way while in this country by
potboiling for New York and Philadelphia booksellers and by teaching in
South Carolina and Virginia.[M] He brought with him across the Atlantic
a library of 300 volumes, French, Latin and English. These books he
read. For statistics, commerce, land speculations, Davis cared nothing
whatever. He was an impressionist and not to be disregarded as a poet.
His work, therefore, is distinct among these early travels which are
usually records of fact as fact, and as such are extremely valuable.
However a man sees, let him write.
Thomas Jefferson, who was pleased to accept the dedication to him of
this volume, supposed that it would be of a statistical sort. “Should
you in your journeyings have been led to remark on the same objects on
which I gave crude notes some years ago, I shall be happy to see them
confirmed or corrected by a more accurate observer,” wrote President
Jefferson from Monticello.
Davis accepted the acceptance and published a book as little like the
“Notes on Virginia” as any book could well be. The author had read
Horace and believed as that poet did that his work was going to last.
“That this volume will regale curiosity while man continues to be
influenced by his senses and affections, I have little doubt,” was the
statement of John Davis in his preface. “It will be recurred to with
equal interest on the banks of the Thames and those of the Ohio. There
is no man who is not pleased in being told by another what he thought
of the world and what the world thought of him.” There is a good deal
of truth in both the particular and the general observation. We have
not yet taken the time to review our history with much care. Whenever
that is done, John Davis, of Salisbury, citizen of the world, more or
less, should find readers again after a hundred years.
Having translated for bookseller Caritat, in New York (at Aaron
Burr’s suggestion), “The Campaign in Italy of General Buonaparte,”
and afterwards having spent a winter as tutor in the family of Mr.
Drayton, of South Carolina, Davis came back to the North, wrote a novel
called the “Wanderings of William,” for Thompson, of Philadelphia,
and, nevertheless, being in want of ready money, applied to Mr.
Burr, now Vice-President, for a recommendation that might lead to
government employment. The Vice-President very obligingly promised the
indigent author a place in the Treasury Department. Davis set out for
Washington, which at that time had only begun to emerge. The village of
1801 is thus described, as if by Goldsmith: “Washington, on my second
journey to it wore a very dreary aspect. The multitude had gone to
their homes, and the inhabitants of the place were few. There were no
objects to catch the eye but a forlorn pilgrim forcing his way through
the grass that overruns the streets, or a cow ruminating on a bank,
from whose neck depended a bell, that the animal might be found the
more readily in the woods. I obtained accommodations at the Washington
Tavern, which stands opposite the Treasury. There I found seven
Cherokee chiefs. They came to be instructed in the mode of European
agriculture.” Presenting himself to Secretary Gallatin immediately
after the Cherokee chiefs had descended the Treasury stairs, Davis was
told by the Secretary that the Vice-President had made a mistake, and
that there was no consulship or any other office to be had. Another
instance of the startling difference between promise and fulfilment.
“Finding a schooner at Georgetown ready to sail for Alexandria, I put
my trunk on board of her, and left without regret the Imperial City.
The wind being contrary, we had to work down the Potomac. The river
here is very beautiful. Mason’s Island forms one continued garden;
but what particularly catches the eye is the Capitol, rising with
sacred majesty above the woods. It was easier landing at Alexandria in
America than Alexandria in Egypt; and I found elegant accommodations at
Gadesby’s hotel. It is observable that Gadesby keeps the best house of
entertainment in the United States. The splendour of Gadesby’s hotel
not suiting my finances, I removed to a public-house kept by a Dutchman.
“To what slight causes does a man owe some of the principal events of
his life. I had been a fortnight at Alexandria, when, in consequence
of the short advertisement I had put in the _Gazette_, a gentleman was
deputed to wait on me from a Quaker, on the banks of the Occoquan,
who wanted a Tutor for his children. The following evening I left
Alexandria on horseback to visit the abode of Mr. Ellicott. Having
crossed the bridge [at Colchester], which is built over the Occoquan, I
alighted at the door of the tavern.
“Having ordered supper, I gazed with rapture on the Occoquan River,
which ran close to the house, and, gradually enlarging, emptied itself
into the capacious bosom of the Potomac. The fishermen on the shore
were hawling their seine, and the sails of a little bark, stemming the
waves, were distended by the breeze of night. The seaboy was lolling
over the bow, and the helmsman was warbling a song to his absent fair.
“The next day I proceeded to Occoquan; but so steep and craggy was
the road that I found it almost inaccessible. On descending the last
hill, I was nearly stunned by the noise of two huge mills, whose roar,
without any hyperbolical aggravation, is scarcely inferior to that of
the great falls of the Potomac, or the cataract of Niagara. My horse
would not advance; and I was myself lost in astonishment.
“Friend Ellicott and his wife received me with an unaffected simplicity
of manners, whom I was happy to catch just as they were going to
dinner. An exquisite Virginia ham smoked on the board, and two damsels
supplied the guests with boiled Indian corn, which they had gathered
with their own hands. Friend Ellicott, uncorrupted by the refinement of
modern manners, had put his hat to its right use, for it covered his
head.
“Our agreement was soon made. Quakers are men of few words. Friend
Ellicott engaged me to educate his children for a quarter of a year. He
wanted them taught reading, writing, and arithmetic. Delightful task!
As to Latin or French, he considered the study of either language an
abuse of time; and very calmly desired me not to say another word about
it.
“No place can be more romantic than the view of Occoquan to a stranger,
after crossing the rustic bridge, which has been constructed by the
inhabitants across its stream. He contemplates a river urging its
course along mountains that lose themselves among the clouds; he
beholds vessels taking on board flour under the foam of the mills, and
others deeply laden expanding their sails to the breeze; while every
face wears contentment, every gale wafts health, and echo from the
rocks multiplies the voices of the waggoners calling to their teams.
“No walk could be more delightful than that from Occoquan to
Colchester, when the moon was above the mountains. You traverse the
bank of a placid stream over which impend rocks, in some cases bare,
but more frequently covered with an odoriferous plant that regales the
traveller with its fragrance. So serpentine is the course of the river
that the mountains, which rise from its bank, may be said to form an
amphitheatre; and nature seems to have designed the spot for the haunt
only of fairies; for here grow flowers of purple dye, and here the
snake throws her enamelled skin.
“After clambering over mountains, almost inaccessible to human toil,
you come to the junction of the Occoquan with the noble river of the
Potomac, and behold a bridge, whose semi-elliptical arches are scarcely
inferior to those of princely London. And on the side of this bridge
stands a tavern, where every luxury that money can purchase is to
be obtained at a first summons; where the richest viands cover the
table, and where ice cools the Madeira that has been thrice across the
ocean.[N] The apartments are numerous and at the same time spacious;
carpets of delicate texture cover the floors; and glasses are suspended
from the walls in which a Goliah might survey himself. No man can be
more complaisant than the landlord. Enter but his house with money
in your pocket, and his features will soften into the blandishments
of delight; call and your mandate is obeyed; extend your leg and the
boot-jack is brought you.
“On the north bank of the Occoquan is a pile of stones, which indicates
that an Indian warrior is interred underneath. The Indians from the
back settlements, in traveling to the northward, never fail to leave
the main road, and visit the grave of their departed hero. If a stone
be thrown down, they religiously restore it to the pile; and, sitting
round the rude monument, they meditate profoundly; catching, perhaps, a
local emotion from the place.
“A party of Indians, while I was at Occoquan, turned from the common
road into the woods to visit this grave on the bank of the river. The
party was composed of an elderly Chief, twelve young War Captains, and
a couple of Squaws. Of the women, the youngest was an interesting girl
of seventeen; remarkably well shaped, and possessed of a profusion of
hair, which in colour was raven black. She appeared such another object
as the mind images Pocahontas to have been.
“The Indians being assembled round the grave, the old Chief rose
with a solemn mien, and, knocking his war-club against the ground,
pronounced an oration to the memory of the departed warrior. No orator
of antiquity ever exceeded this savage chief in the force of his
emphasis, and the propriety of his gesture. Indeed, the whole scene was
highly dignified. The fierceness of his countenance, the flowing robe,
elevated tone, naked arm, and erect stature, with a circle of auditors
seated on the ground, and in the open air, could not but impress upon
the mind a lively idea of the celebrated speakers of ancient Greece and
Rome.
“Having ended his oration, the Indian struck his war-club with fury
against the ground, and the whole party obeyed the signal by joining
in a war-dance--leaping and brandishing their knives at the throats of
each other, and accompanying their menacing attitudes with a whoop and
a yell, which echoed with ten-fold horror from the banks of the river.
The dance took place by moonlight, and it was scarcely finished, when
the Chief produced a keg of whiskey, and having taken a draught, passed
it round among his brethren. The squaws now moved the tomahawks into
the woods, and a scene of riot ensued. The keg was soon emptied. The
effects of the liquor began to display itself in the looks and motions
of the Indians. To complete the scene, the old warrior was uttering the
most mournful lamentations over the keg he had emptied; inhaling its
flavour with his lips, holding it out with his hands in a supplicating
attitude, and vociferating to the bye-standers, ‘Scuttawawbah!
Scuttawawbah! More strong drink! More strong drink!’
“About eight miles from the Occoquan mills is a house of worship,
called Powheek Church; a name it derives from a Run that flows near its
walls. Hither I rode on Sundays and joined the congregation of Parson
Weems. I was confounded on first entering the church-yard at Powheek to
hear
‘_Steed threaten steed with high and boastful neigh._’
Nor was I less stunned with the rattling of carriage-wheels, the
cracking of whips, and the vociferations of the gentlemen to the
negroes who accompanied them. But the discourse of Parson Weems calmed
every perturbation.
“After church I made my salutations to Parson Weems, and having turned
the discourse to divine worship, I asked him his opinion of the piety
of the blacks. ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘no people in this country prize the
Sabbath more seriously than the trampled-upon negroes. They are swift
to hear; they seem to hear as for their lives.--How, sir, did you like
my preaching?’ ‘Sir,’ cried I, ‘it was a sermon to pull down the proud
and humble the haughty.’
“I had been three months at Occoquan. My condition was growing irksome.
I, therefore, resigned my place to an old drunken Irishman, who was
traveling the country on foot in search of an Academy. I remonstrated
with Friend Ellicott on the impropriety of employing a sot to educate
his children. ‘Friend,’ said he, ‘of all the schoolmasters I ever
employed, none taught my children to write so good a hand, as a man who
was constantly in a state that bordered on intoxication. They learned
more of him in one month than of any other in a quarter. I will make
trial of Burbridge.’”
Davis returned to New York, collecting a few dollars at Philadelphia,
due him from sales of “The Wanderings of William.” In April, 1802, he
was at Washington again, where Congress was in session. “I watched
an opportunity to make the Vice-President my salutations as he came
out of the Capitol. He demonstrated no little pleasure to see me;
and his chariot being at the steps, he took me home with him to
dine.” The House of Representatives was then sitting in a detached
temporary building. Davis thought John Randolph the most eloquent in
debate. After a few days in Washington, the itinerant passed on to
Prince William County, where he had been engaged as tutor by Mr. Ball
at twenty-five pounds the quarter. At Frying Pan, in Prince William
County, Davis inquired the way. “How far, my boy,” said I, “is it to
Frying Pan?” “You be in the Pan now,” replied the boy.
“Frying Pan is composed of four log huts and a meeting-house. It took
its name from a curious circumstance. Some Indians, having encamped on
the run, missed their frying pan in the morning, and hence the name was
conferred on the place. I did not stop at Frying Pan, but prosecuted
my walk to Newgate, where in the piazza of the tavern I found a party
of gentlemen from the neighboring plantations carousing over a bowl
of toddy and smoking segars. No people could exceed these men in
politeness. On my ascending the steps to the piazza every countenance
seemed to say: This man has a double claim to our attention because
he is a stranger. In a moment there was room made for me to sit down;
a new bowl was called for, and every one who addressed me did so
with a smile of conciliation. The higher Virginians seem to venerate
themselves as men. Whatever may be advanced against Virginians,
their good qualities will ever outweigh their defects; and when the
effervescence of youth has abated, when reason asserts her empire,
there is no man on earth who discovers more exalted sentiments, more
contempt for baseness, more love of justice, more sensibility of
feeling, than a Virginian. At Newgate my pilgrimage was nearly at an
end, for Mr. Ball’s plantation was only distant eight miles.”
Beyond Newgate, Bull Run was to be crossed. Having passed that famous
stream, the pedagogue and peripatetic, after a mile or two, came to
the Ball plantation. An old negro showed him the way, who related,
among many other things, that when he was a young buck he made as much
as fifteen dollars one winter as capitation money--“Master, I don’t
tell you a word of a lie”--levied on the wolves of the region. At
Mr. Ball’s: “In my way through the garden I passed two young ladies
gathering roses, who, however immured in the woods, were clad with not
less elegance than the most fashionable females of Europe. I asked them
whether Mr. Ball was at home. They replied that their papa was in the
parlour, and with much sweetness of manner directed me by the shortest
path to the house. Mr. Ball[O] received me with undissembled accents
of joy. He said he had long expected my coming and was gratified at
last. I was not a little delighted with the suavity of his manners and
the elegance of his conversation. I now opened what some called an
Academy and others an Old Field School; and, however it may be thought
that content was never felt within the walls of a seminary, I for my
part experienced an exemption from care and was not such a fool as to
measure the happiness of my condition by what others thought of it.
Of the boys I can not speak in very encomiastic terms. Of my female
students there was none equal in capacity to Virginia. Geography was
one of our favorite studies. I often addressed the rose of May in an
appropriate ode--
_TO VIRGINIA, LOOKING OVER A MAP_
“Powerful as the magic wand,
Displaying far each distant land,
Is that angel hand to me,
When it points each realm and sea.
“Plac’d in geographic mood,
Smiling, shew the pictur’d flood,
Where along the Red Sea coast
Waves o’erwhelm’d the Egyptian host.
“Again the imag’d scene survey,
The rolling Hellespontic Sea,
Whence the Persian from the shore
Proudly pass’d his millions o’er.
“And behold to nearer view,
Here thy own lov’d country too--
Virginia! which produc’d to me
A pupil fair and bright like thee.”
What with a horse, the artisanry of verse, a mild philosophy, and the
business of his office, John Davis spent three months very agreeably
on Bull Run, within sight of the Blue Ridge. Then a New Jersey farmer
of the neighborhood discovered that his eldest boy wrote a better
hand than the teacher. Davis resigned the academy to the carpenter of
the plantation. “I now once more seized my staff and walked towards
Baltimore. It was a killing circumstance to separate from Virginia (the
student of geography), but who shall persume to contend against fate?
_Phyllida amo ante alias, nam me discedere flevit._ I embarked August,
1802, in the good ship Olive, Captain Norman, lying at Baltimore, for
Cowes, in the Isle of Wight.”
LIST OF TRAVELS
1. A Tour in the United States. Containing an Account of the Present
Situation of that Country, the Population, Agriculture, Commerce,
Customs & Manners of the Inhabitants, &c., &c. By John Ferdinand D.
Smyth. Two Volumes. London, 1784.
2. Travels through the Interior Parts of America. In a Series of
Letters. By an Officer. [Thomas Anburey.] Two Volumes. London, 1789.
3. New Travels through North America. In a Series of Letters,
exhibiting the History of the Victorious Campaign of the Allied Armies,
under his Excellency General Washington and the Count de Rochambeau
in the Year 1781. Translated from the Original of the Abbé Robin.
Philadelphia. Robert Bell: Third Street. 1783.
4. Travels in North America in the Years 1780-81-82 by the Marquis
de Chastellux, one of the forty members of the French Academy &
Major General in the French Army, serving under Count de Rochambeau.
Translated from the French by an English Gentleman [George Grieve] who
resided in America at that period. With Notes by the Translator. New
York. 1828. [From the English edition of 1787.]
5. Reise durch einige der mittlern und südlichen vereinigten
Nordamerikanischen Staaten, nach Ost-Florida und den Bahama-Inseln,
unternommen in den Jahren 1783 und 1784. Von Johann David Schoepf. 2
Bde. Erlangen. 1788.
[Translated and edited by A. J. Morrison. Two Volumes. William J.
Campbell. Philadelphia. 1911.]
6. Viaggio negli Stati Uniti dell’ America settentrionale, fatto negli
anni 1785, 1786, e 1787, da Luigi Castiglioni, &c., &c. 2 Tome. Milano.
1790.
7. Extracts of the Journals of the Rev. Dr. Coke’s Five Visits to
America. London. 1793.
8. Voyage dans l’Intéreur des États Unis, à Bath, Winchester, dans
la Vallé de Shenandoha, etc., etc., etc., pendant l’été de 1791. Par
Ferdinand M. Bayard. Paris. 1797.
9. Travels through the States of North America and the Provinces of
Upper and Lower Canada, during the Years 1795, 1796, and 1797. By Isaac
Weld, Junior. 3rd Edition. Illustrated and embellished with sixteen
plates. Two Volumes. London. 1800.
10. Travels through the United States of North America, the Country
of the Iroquois, and Upper Canada. In the Years 1795, 1796, and 1797,
&c., &c. By the Duke de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt. [Translated by H.
Neuman.] Two Volumes. London. 1799.
11. Travels of Four Years and a Half in the United States of America.
During 1798, 1799, 1800, 1801, and 1802. Dedicated by permission to
Thomas Jefferson, Esq., President of the United States. By John Davis.
London. 1803.
[Edited by A. J. Morrison. Henry Holt & Co. New York. 1909.]
FOOTNOTES:
[A] Or Hicksford, now Emporia.
[B] Richard Henderson, one of the Colonial Judges of North Carolina, b.
Hanover County, Va., 1735.
[C] In Pittsylvania County, near the North Carolina line, and northwest
of the Little Sawra Towns. cf. Map, Jefferson’s _Notes_, Ed. 1787.
[D] Smyth’s entire book, two volumes, is one of the most interesting of
that period. It is possible he exaggerates, and he may be a compiler
here and there when he professes to be giving his own adventures. He is
readable always. Chapters of his book offer puzzles which are yet to
be elucidated. Some one must carefully check up the adventures of John
Rowzee Peyton with those of Smyth. (See John L. Peyton, _Adventures of
My Grandfather_.)
[E] And it is not at all impossible that the work was wholly a
compilation, done skilfully at London.
[F] Translated by Philip Freneau. Philadelphia, 1783: Price ‘two thirds
of a dollar.’
[G] The Marquis Armand de la Rouërie, called in America Colonel Armand.
[H] Colonel Banister was the son of the botanist. cf. Campbell, p. 725.
[I] Dr. Greenway was a connection of Gen. Winfield Scott. cf. Scott’s
_Autobiography_, I, pp. 3-5.
[J] John Wesley, d. in London, March 2, 1791. In Georgia and the
Carolinas Dr. Coke had been on ground familiar to Wesley. cf. _Rev. J.
Wesley’s Journal_, 1st American edition, New York, 1837. Vol. I, pp.
1-52 (1735-1738).
[K] From the description of the plantation, acreage, equipment, etc.,
and the character of the proprietor, Col. P. might have been Col.
Richard Kidder Meade, father of Bishop Meade, to whom Washington’s
farewell advice was, “Friend Dick, you must go to a plantation in
Virginia.”
[L] New York at that time, according to this traveler, had but two
banks; and there were but three at Philadelphia, the commercial centre
of the country.
[M] Davis wrote in 1806 a historical novel, _The First Settlers of
Virginia_, largely the story of Pocahontas. In the modern romantic way,
Davis discovered the Princess Pocahontas.
[N] During the war in Europe the United States were a sort of temporary
depot of the produce of all countries. Commodities over and above
consumption were re-exported. Madeira might come back a second time.
cf. La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Vol. II, p. 588.
[O] Spencer Ball, m. a daughter of Robert Carter of ‘Nomini.’ cf.
_Journal and Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian_, p. 70.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.