Departure from Philadelphia to the Western Country.—Communications by land in the United States.—Arrival at Lancaster.—Description of the town and its environs.—Departure.—Columbia.—Passage from Susquehannah, York, Dover, Carlisle.—Arrival at Shippensburgh.—Remarks upon the state of agriculture during the journey.
The states of Kentucky, Tennessea, and Ohio comprise that vast extent of country known in America by the name of the Western Country. Almost all the Europeans who have published observations upon the United States, have been pleased to say, according to common report, that this part of the country is very fertile; but they have never entered into the least particulars. It is true that, to reach these new settlements, one is obliged to travel over a considerable tract of uninhabited country, and that {24} these journies are tedious, painful, and afford nothing very interesting to travellers who wish to describe the manners of the people who reside in the town or most populous parts; but as natural history, and more especially vegetable productions, with the state of agriculture, were the chief object of my researches; my business was to avoid the parts most known, in order to visit those which had been less explored; consequently, I resolved to undertake the journey to that remote and almost isolated part of the country. I had nearly two thousand miles to travel over before my return to Charleston, where I was to be absolutely about the beginning of October. My journey had likewise every appearance of being retarded by a thousand common-place obstacles, which is either impossible to foresee, or by any means prevent. These considerations, however, did not stop me; accordingly I fixed my departure from Philadelphia on the 27th of June 1802: I had not the least motive to proceed on slowly, in order to collect observations already confirmed by travellers who had written before me on that subject; this very reason induced me to take the most expeditious means for the purpose of reaching Pittsburgh, situated at the extremity of Ohio; in consequence of which I took {25} the stage[7] at Philadelphia, that goes to Shippensburgh by Lancaster, York, and Carlisle. Shippensburgh, about one hundred and forty miles from Philadelphia, is the farthest place that the stages go to upon that road.[8]
It is reckoned sixty miles from Philadelphia to Lancaster, where I arrived the same day in the afternoon. The road is kept in good repair by the means of turnpikes, fixed at a regular distance from each other. Nearly the whole of the way the houses are almost close together; every proprietor to his enclosure. Throughout the United States all the land that is cultivated is fenced in, to keep it from the cattle and quadrupeds of every kind that the inhabitants leave the major part of the year in the woods, which in that respect are free. Near towns or villages these {26} enclosures are made with posts, fixed in the ground about twelve feet from each other, containing five mortises, at the distance of eight or nine inches, in which are fitted long spars about four or five inches in diameter, similar to the poles used by builders for making scaffolds. The reason of their enclosing thus is principally through economy, as it takes up but very little wood, which is extremely dear in the environs of the Northern cities; but in the interior of the country, and in the Southern states, the enclosures are made with pieces of wood of equal length, placed one above the other, disposed in a zig-zag form, and supported by their extremities, which cross and interlace each other; the enclosures appear to be about seven feet in height. In the lower part of the Carolines they are made of fir; in the other parts of the country, and throughout the North, they are comprised of oak and walnut-tree; they are said to last about five and twenty years when kept in good repair.
The tract of country we have to cross, before we get to Lancaster, is exceedingly fertile and productive; the fields are covered with wheat, rye, and oats, which is a proof that the soil is better than that between New York and Philadelphia. The inns are very {27} numerous on the road; in almost all of them they speak German. My fellow travellers being continually thirsty, made the stage stop at every inn to drink a glass or two of grog. This beverage, which is generally used in the United States, is a mixture of brandy and water, or rum and water, the proportion of which depends upon the person’s taste.
Lancaster is situated in a fertile and well-cultivated plain. The town is built upon a regular plan; the houses, elevated two stories, are all of brick; the two principal streets are paved as at Philadelphia. The population is from four to five thousand inhabitants, almost all of German origin, and various sects; each to his particular church; that of the Roman Catholics is the least numerous. The inhabitants are for the most part armourers, hatters, saddlers, and coopers; the armourers of Lancaster have been long esteemed for the manufacturing of rifle-barrelled guns, the only arms that are used by the inhabitants of the interior part of the country, and the Indian nations that border on the frontiers of the United States.
At Lancaster I formed acquaintance with Mr. Mulhenberg, a Lutheran minister, who, for twenty years past, had applied himself to botany. He shewed {28} me the manuscript concerning a Flora Lancastriensis. The number of the species described were upwards of twelve hundred. Mr. Mulhenberg is very communicative, and more than once he expressed to me the pleasure it would give him to be on terms of intimacy with the French botanists; he corresponds regularly with Messrs. Wildenow and Smith.[9] I met at Lancaster Mr. W. Hamilton, whose magnificent garden I had an opportunity of seeing near Philadelphia. This amateur was very intimate with my father; and I can never forget the marks of benevolence that I received from him and Mr. Mulhenberg, as well as the concern they both expressed for the success of the long journey I had undertaken.
On the 27th of June I set out from Lancaster for Shippensburgh. There were only four of us in the stage, which was fitted up to hold twelve passengers. Columbia, situated upon the Susquehannah, is the first town that we arrived at; it is composed of about fifty houses, scattered here and there, and almost all built with wood; at this place ends the turnpike road.
It is not useless to observe here, that in the United States they give often the name of town to a group of seven or eight houses, and that the mode of constructing them is not the same everywhere. At {29} Philadelphia the houses are built with brick. In the other towns and country places that surround them, the half, and even frequently the whole, is built with wood; but at places within seventy or eighty miles of the sea, in the central and southern states, and again more particularly in those situated to the Westward of the Alleghany Mountains, one third of the inhabitants reside in log houses. These dwellings are made with the trunks of trees, from twenty to thirty feet in length, about five inches diameter, placed one upon another, and kept up by notches cut at their extremities. The roof is formed with pieces of similar length to those that compose the body of the house, but not quite so thick, and gradually sloped on each side. Two doors, which often supply the place of windows, are made by sawing away a part of the trunks that form the body of the house; the chimney, always placed at one of the extremities, is likewise made with the trunks of trees of a suitable length; the back of the chimney is made of clay, about six inches thick, which separates the fire from the wooden walls. Notwithstanding this want of precaution, fires very seldom happen in the country places. The space between these trunks of trees is filled up with clay, but so very carelessly, that the {30} light may be seen through in every part; in consequence of which these huts are exceedingly cold in winter, notwithstanding the amazing quantity of wood that is burnt. The doors move upon wooden hinges, and the greater part of them have no locks. In the night time they only push them to, or fasten them with a wooden peg. Four or five days are sufficient for two men to finish one of these houses, in which not a nail is used. Two great beds receive the whole family. It frequently happens that in summer the children sleep upon the ground, in a kind of rug. The floor is raised from one to two feet above the surface of the ground, and boarded. They generally make use of feather beds, or feathers alone, and not mattresses. Sheep being very scarce, the wool is very dear; at the same time they reserve it to make stockings. The clothes belonging to the family are hung up round the room, or suspended upon a long pole.
At Columbia the Susquehannah is nearly a quarter of a mile in breadth. We crossed it in a ferry-boat. At that time it had so little water in it, that we could easily see the bottom. The banks of this river were formed by lofty and majestic hills, and the bosom of it is strewed with little islands, which {31} seem to divide it into several streams. Some of them do not extend above five or six acres at most, and still they are as lofty as the surrounding hills. Their irregularity, and the singular forms that they present, render this situation picturesque and truly remarkable, more especially at that season of the year, when the trees were in full vegetation.
About a mile from Susquehannah I observed an annona triloba, the fruit of which is tolerably good, although insipid. When arrived at maturity it is nearly the size of a common egg. According to the testimony of Mr. Mulhenberg this shrub grows in the environs of Philadelphia.
About twelve miles from Columbia is a little town called York, the houses of which are not so straggling as many others, and are principally built with brick. The inhabitants are computed to be upward of eighteen hundred, most of them of German origin, and none speak English. About six miles from York we passed through Dover, composed of twenty or thirty log-houses, erected here and there. The stage stopped at the house of one M’Logan, who keeps a miserable inn fifteen miles from York.[10] That day we travelled only thirty or forty miles.
Inns are very numerous in the United States, and {32} especially in the little towns; yet almost everywhere, except in the principal towns, they are very bad, notwithstanding rum, brandy, and whiskey[11] are in plenty. In fact, in houses of the above description all kinds of spirits are considered the most material, as they generally meet with great consumption. Travellers wait in common till the family go to meals. At breakfast they make use of very indifferent tea, and coffee still worse, with small slices of ham fried in the stove, to which they sometimes add eggs and a broiled chicken. At dinner they give a piece of salt beef and roasted fowls, and rum and water as a beverage. In the evening, coffee, tea, and ham. There are always several beds in the rooms where you sleep; seldom do you meet with clean sheets. Fortunate is the traveller who arrives on the day they happen to be changed; although an American would be quite indifferent about it.
Early on the 28th of June we reached Carlisle, situated about fifty-four miles from Lancaster. The town consists of about two hundred houses, a few of them built with brick, but by far the greatest part {33} with wood. Upon the whole it has a respectable appearance, from a considerable number of large shops and warehouses. These receptacles are supplied from the interior parts of the country with large quantities of jewellery, mercery, spices, &c. The persons who keep those shops purchase and also barter with the country people for the produce of their farms, which they afterwards send off to the seaport towns for exportation.
From M’Logan’s inn to Carlisle the country is barren and mountainous, in consequence of which the houses are not so numerous on the road, being at a distance of two or three miles from each other; and out of the main road they are still more straggling. The white, red, and black oaks, the chesnut, and maple trees are those most common in the forests. Upon the summit of the hills we observed the quercus banisteri. From Carlisle to Shippensburgh the country continues mountainous, and is not much inhabited, being also barren and uncultivated.
We found but very few huts upon the road, and those, from their miserable picture, clearly announced that their inhabitants were in but a wretched state; as from every appearance of their approaching {34} harvest it could only afford them a scanty subsistence.
The coach stopped at an inn called the General Washington, at Shippensburgh, kept by one Colonel Ripey, whose character is that of being very obliging to all travellers that may happen to stop at his house on their tour to the western countries. Shippensburgh has scarcely seventy houses in it. The chief of its trade is dealing in corn and flour. When I left this place, a barrel of flour, weighing ninety-six pounds, was worth five piastres.
From Shippensburgh to Pittsburgh the distance is about an hundred and seventy miles.[12] The stages going no farther, a person must either travel the remainder of the road on foot, or purchase horses. There are always some to be disposed of; but the natives, taking advantage of travellers thus situated, make them pay more than double their value; and when you arrive at Pittsburgh, on your return, you can only sell them for one half of what they cost. I could have wished, for the sake of economy, to travel the rest of the way on foot, but from the observations I had heard I was induced to buy a horse, in conjunction with an American officer with whom I came in the stage, and who was also going to Pittsburgh. We agreed to ride alternately.