[1] The date given here is evidently wrong; the translation in Phillips’s Voyages gives it as August 25, which corresponds with the arrival of Michaux in Charleston.—​Ed.

[2] The piastre was the Spanish dollar, then the common circulating coin in the United States, and the one whose value was adopted in our dollar. A South Carolina shilling was worth 3/14 of a dollar.—​Ed.

[3] The services of the elder Michaux in introducing European plants into America, were considerable. He is said also to have been the first to teach the frontier settlers the value of ginseng.—​Ed.

[4] The History of Oaks discovered in America by A. Michaux.—​F. A. Michaux.

[5] Dr. Nicholas Collin was one of the most prominent members of the Philosophical Society, elected in 1789, dying in 1831. It is a curious mistake of Michaux’s to call him president, at a time when Jefferson held this position. Dr. Collin was often acting chairman, and had been chairman of the committee for raising funds for the elder Michaux’s proposed Western exploration (1792).

Dr. John Vaughan was treasurer and librarian of the Society for many years.

The Bartrams were famous botanists of Philadelphia, whom the elder Michaux frequently visited. See ante, p. 97, note 177.—​Ed.

[6] The gardens of William Hamilton were at this time the most famous in the United States. They now form part of Woodlawn cemetery, West Philadelphia, where some rare trees planted by him still exist.—​Ed.

[7] Till the year 1802, the stages that set out at Philadelphia did not go farther South than to Petersburg in Virginia, which is about three hundred miles from Philadelphia; but in the month of March of that year, a new line of correspondence was formed between the latter city and Charleston. The journey is about a fortnight, the distance fifteen hundred miles, and the fare fifty piastres. There are stages also between Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, as well as between Charleston and Savannah, in Georgia, so that from Boston to Savannah, a distance of twelve hundred miles, persons may travel by the stages.—​F. A. Michaux.

[8] For historical sketch of Shippensburg, see Post’s Journals, vol. i of this series, p. 238, note 76.—​Ed.

[9] Gotthilf Heinrich Ernest Muhlenberg was a brother of General Muhlenburg of Revolutionary fame, and grandson of Conrad Weiser. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1753, educated at Halle, Germany, and on his return to America in 1774 was ordained as a Lutheran clergyman. He served charges in New Jersey and Philadelphia until 1779, when he settled at Lancaster, where he remained until his death in 1807. He was much interested in botany, and devoted all his leisure to that pursuit, being a member of the American Philosophical Society, and, as Michaux notes, in correspondence with many scientists.—​Ed.

[10] The town of Columbia was situated at what was known as Wright’s Ferry, one of the oldest crossing places on the Susquehanna.

Michaux’s father was at York, July 18, 1789, and describes it as “a pretty enough little town situated at 59 miles from Fredericksburg (Md.). The country appears to me to be but little cultivated in the environs. The inhabitants are Germans as well as in Pennsylvania. They are generally very laborious and very industrious.” On his later journey he does not describe this place, see ante, p. 50.—​Ed.

[11] They give the name of whiskey, in the United States, to a sort of brandy made with rye.—​F. A. Michaux.

[12] Michaux travelled to Pittsburg by way of the Pennsylvania state road which was laid out and built 1785-87, following in the main the road cut for Forbes’s army in 1758. This was the most important thoroughfare to the West, until the Cumberland national road was built; and even afterwards a large share of the traffic went this way. For a description of travel about this period see McMaster, History of People of United States (New York, 1895), vol. iv, chap. 33; and Albert, History of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1882), chap. 35.—​Ed.

[13] Michaux refers here to the excise tax that led to the “Whiskey Rebellion” in this part of Pennsylvania. Its repeal was one of the first financial measures of Jefferson’s administration, and had occurred at the session of Congress in the spring of 1802.—​Ed.

[14] Michaux is in error in saying that the French built Fort Ligonier. He was probably misled by the name. It was named for Sir John Ligonier, commander-in-chief of the land-forces of Great Britain (1751), and erected on Loyalhanna Creek, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, during the advance of Forbes’s army (1758). Fort Ligonier was thrice attacked, once after Grant’s defeat (October 12, 1758), and in the following June by a party of French and Indians. During Pontiac’s War, it endured a long siege, being relieved in August, 1763. This outpost served to protect the frontier during the Revolution, after which it was no longer garrisoned. General St. Clair made his later home at this place, dying here in 1818.—​Ed.

[15] Professor R. A. Harper, of the University of Wisconsin, thinks this plant may have been some variety of sumac (rhus).—​Ed.

[16] Greensburg was the successor to Hannastown, a place at the crossing of Forbes’s road, and the Indian trail to Kiskiminitas Creek. The latter was made the county seat at the erection of Westmoreland in 1773; but in 1782 was totally destroyed by an Indian raid. In 1786, Greensburg was laid out, about three miles southwest, as the seat of Westmoreland County; and here the first court was held in January, 1787.—​Ed.

[17] Horbach’s inn was the stopping place for the mail, its proprietor being a contractor. It was situated on the corner of Main and East Pittsburg streets, Greensburg.—​Ed.

[18] These last sentences result from a faulty translation of the French. Michaux stated that the gentleman’s intention was to descend the Ohio, and that he was not fond of whiskey.—​Ed.

[19] For a description of the present appearance of Braddock’s battle-field, see Thwaites, On the Storied Ohio (New York, 1897, and Chicago, 1903), p. 17; also “A Day on Braddock’s Road,” in How George Rogers Clark won the Northwest (Chicago, 1903).—​Ed.

[20] Fort Duquesne, built in the summer of 1754 by the French commander Contrecœur, and named for the governor of New France, was situated directly in the point or angle made by the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers. It was strengthened, and strongly garrisoned, during the four years which the French possessed it; and was evacuated and burned by its commandant, DeLignery, on the approach of Forbes’s army in November, 1758.—​Ed.

[21] These newspapers were the Pittsburgh Gazette, founded in 1786; and the Commonwealth, a Democratic journal begun about the time of Michaux’s visit.—​Ed.

[22]] Michaux here refers to the Indian wars of the Northwest, culminating in the battle of Fallen Timbers in 1795, followed by the treaty of Greenville in 1796.—​Ed.

[23] As early as 1752, the Ohio Company had built a storehouse, called the “Hangard,” at the mouth of Redstone Creek, and it was described by the French officer who (1754) explored that region and burned the English defenses. After the capture of Fort Duquesne (1758), Bouquet sent Colonel James Burd to build a fort at this place, which was named Fort Burd; but it was long popularly known as Redstone Old Fort, because of the remains of moundbuilding Indians to be seen at this point. The fort was abandoned during Pontiac’s War (1763), but appears to have been garrisoned by the time of Lord Dunmore’s War (1774). It was the rendezvous for Clark’s men in 1778, and in 1791 the assembly place for fomenters of the Whiskey Rebellion. In 1785 the town of Brownsville was incorporated, and for many years continued to be an important starting point for Western emigration. See Thwaites, On the Storied Ohio, for descriptions of this movement, and of the region in general.—​Ed.

[24] An Indian boat.—​F. A. Michaux.

[25] I have been informed since my return, that this ship, named the Pittsburgh, was arrived at Philadelphia.—​F. A. Michaux.

[26] Kentucky was erected into a state in 1792, Tennessee in 1796, and Ohio in 1802.—​Ed.

[27] Morgantown, West Virginia, was settled originally in 1758 by the ill-fated Deckers, who were massacred the following year; but not until 1768 was it a permanent settlement established by the Morgan brothers. The town was incorporated in 1785. It is now the seat of West Virginia University.—​Ed.

[28] The settlement of Southwestern Pennsylvania—​the Monongahela and Youghiogheny valleys—​was largely by emigrants from Virginia and the Southeast. Elizabeth was founded by Stephen Bayard of Maryland, a Revolutionary officer who came West after the war and formed a partnership with Major Isaac Craig of Pittsburg. The site of the town was originally called New Store. Bayard gave it the present name in 1787, in honor of his wife. It was from this point that many travellers took boats for the Ohio journey.—​Ed.

[29] The river Yazous runs into the Mississippi between the thirty-second and thirty-third degree of latitude.—​F. A. Michaux.

[30] An early trader on the Ohio, speaking of the return journey, says, “As soon as we got to Wheeling, we went on foot to Pittsburgh, it being less fatiguing and costing less time to walk 57 miles, the land distance, than to pole and paddle 90 miles, the distance by the river.”—​Cist’s Advertiser, November, 1849.—​Ed.

[31] The boundary line between Virginia and Pennsylvania was the cause of much disturbance, each colony claiming the region south of the Ohio. The Monongahela Valley was settled largely from Virginia, and on several occasions the conflict of jurisdiction nearly led to a border war. The settlers themselves desired a new state. The controversy was finally settled by an agreement between the states in 1780, although the lines were not finally run until 1785. See Turner, “Western State Making in the Revolutionary Era,” in American Historical Review, i, pp. 81-83.

West Liberty was established as a town November 29, 1787.—​Ed.

[32] The translation here is faulty. It should be, “it is navigable for only two hundred miles,” etc.—​Ed.

[33] General Arthur St. Clair was a native of Scotland, who came to America during the French and Indian War, and settled in Western Pennsylvania. He served with much success in the Revolution, and in 1787 was president of the Congress of the Confederation. He was appointed by Washington first governor of the Northwest Territory, and served in that capacity 1788-1802. He was unpopular because of the military defeat here mentioned, and his Federalist principles. On his dismissal, in 1802, he retired to his home in Pennsylvania, and died there in obscurity in 1818.—​Ed.

[34] Michaux has here given a good account of the unfortunate French colony founded on the banks of the Ohio, nearly opposite the mouth of the Great Kanawha. The Scioto Company was an offshoot of the Ohio Company formed by Manasseh Cutler and his associates. In May, 1788, the Scioto Company employed Joel Barlow, “the patriot poet of the Revolution,” to go to Paris and sell lands for them. The buyers were, as Michaux remarks, unsuited to pioneer life; the company overcharged them, and then ensued litigation in which the settlers lost the titles to their lands. The log-houses mentioned by Michaux were built for the settlers on their arrival in October, 1790, but the severity of the climate, Indian hostilities, and frontier hardships, decimated their ranks. The present town has been built up by the energy of American and German settlers, and in 1893 but three descendants of the French settlers lived there. For further accounts, see Winsor, Westward Movement (Boston, 1897), pp. 402-407, 498; “Centennial of Gallipolis,” in Ohio Archæological and Historical Society Publications, iii; and Thwaites, On the Storied Ohio.—​Ed.

[35] Chillicothe, on the site of the famous Indian village, was laid out in 1796 by General Massie as an American town. It was in the heart of the Virginia military district, and was chiefly settled by Southerners. It was the seat of government for Ohio until 1816. The weekly newspaper was the Scioto Gazette, begun at this place in 1800 by Nathaniel Willis, grandfather of the poet N. P. Willis.—​Ed.

[36] The banks of this river are now inhabited by the Americans, for forty miles beyond its embouchure in the Mississippi; the number of those who are settled there is computed to be about three thousand, and it increases daily by the repeated emigrations that are made from Kentucky and the Upper Carolinas.—​F. A. Michaux.

[37] The route from Limestone to Lexington was the road whereby most of the travel by way of the Ohio came into Kentucky. It passed through the present county of Mason, along the western corner of Fleming, crossed the Licking River in Nicholas County, and the South Fork of the same at Hinkston’s Ferry, thence passed through Bourbon and Fayette counties to Lexington.

Washington was first settled by Simon Kenton, the well-known pioneer hunter, in 1784; it was laid out as a town in 1786; and was the seat of Mason County from 1788-1848. With the introduction of railroads, its importance declined.—​Ed.

[38] May’s Lick was named for John May of Virginia, its original owner, who was killed by Indians when descending the Ohio in 1790.

Millersburg was settled by John Miller about 1784, on lands that he had located in 1775 on Hinkston Creek, in Bourbon County. It is still a small town and the present seat of Kentucky Wesleyan University, founded in 1817.

Henry Savary was an enterprising Frenchman who kept one of the first stores in Millersburg.—​Ed.

[39] The name of Kentucky’s capital is said to be taken from that of a pioneer, Stephen Frank, who was killed on this spot in 1780. The site was first surveyed in 1773 for the McAfees, but the place was not incorporated until 1786. It was made the seat of government in 1793.—​Ed.

[40] The first two newspapers were the Kentucke Gazette, founded by John Bradford in 1787—​the pioneer paper of the West; and the Kentucky Herald, founded by James H. Stewart in 1795. See Perrin, “Pioneer Press of Kentucky,” in Filson Club Publications (Louisville, 1887), No. 3.—​Ed.

[41] This is a mistranslation; it should be, “the majority of the inhabitants of Kentucky trade with Lexington merchants.”—​Ed.

[42] The distance from Lexinton to Philadelphia, by way of Pennsylvania, is about six hundred and fifty miles. Those who have occasion to go there on business, generally set out in autumn, and take three weeks or a month to perform the journey.—​F. A. Michaux.

[43] Dr. Samuel Brown was a younger brother of John Brown, first delegate from Kentucky to the Continental Congress. He was born in Virginia, in 1769, educated at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and took a medical course at Edinburgh. One of the first physicians of Kentucky, he was professor of medicine in Transylvania College, 1799-1806, and again in 1819. He later removed to Huntsville, Alabama, where he died in 1830.—​Ed.

[44] Harrodsburg, seat of Mercer County, is the oldest town in the state, the first cabin being built there by James Harrod in 1774, and the fort in 1775. In June, 1776, a convention was held at this place, which chose George Rogers Clark a delegate to the Virginia legislature. He secured the appointment of Harrodsburg as county town for the newly-erected Kentucky County. Until about 1785, therefore, Harrodsburg was the seat of government, but it declined in importance before its neighbor Danville.—​Ed.

[45] General John Adair was a South Carolinian who, after distinguished Revolutionary services, emigrated to Kentucky about 1786, and settled in Mercer County. He was a leader of Kentucky volunteers in St. Clair’s campaign (1791); and served with distinction in the War of 1812-15, commanding the Kentucky detachment at the battle of New Orleans. From 1820-24, he was governor of the state, and was a Kentucky member of both the national House of Representatives and the Senate, dying in 1840 at his Kentucky home.—​Ed.

[46] Michaux passed from General Adair’s, through Mercer and Marion counties, and over the range of Muldrow’s Hills, which until about 1785 formed the southern boundary of Kentucky settlement. The “barrens,” lying south and west, were so called from their lack of trees. The road led through Green, Barren, and Allen counties, and entered Tennessee in Sumner County, about forty miles northeast of Nashville.—​Ed.

[47] The sons of the Duke of Orleans, Louis-Philippe and his two young brothers, came to the United States and travelled extensively in 1797, visiting the Southern and Western states, the Great Lakes, and New England. Finally passing through the Mississippi Valley, they embarked at New Orleans for Europe.—​Ed.

[48] For an account of this road, see ante, p. 45.—​Ed.

[49] In the United States they give the name of Cumberland to that part of Tennessea situated to the west of the mountains of the same name.—​F. A. Michaux.

[50] As evidence of the interest of the early Kentuckians in the raising of horses, it is noted that the first legislative assembly for Transylvania, meeting at Boonesborough in 1775, passed an “act for preserving the breed of horses.”—​Ed.

[51] The first newspaper published in Western Tennessee was the Tennessee Gazette, begun in 1797; its name was changed to the Nashville Clarion, in 1800.

One of the acts of Robertson, founder of Nashville, was to secure from the North Carolina legislature, in 1785, a bill for the “promotion of learning in Davidson County.” A tract of land was granted, and the school organized as Davidson Academy; this became Cumberland College in 1806. The year of Michaux’s visit, a plan was made for the erection of a building, which was not completed until 1807, and now forms part of Vanderbilt University.

Michaux seems to be in error in calling Moses Fisk the president of this college; he solicited funds to keep the Academy in Nashville, but James Craighead was president until 1809.—​Ed.

[52] This was Moses Fisk, of Massachusetts, who graduated from Harvard in the same class with Daniel Webster. A man of considerable fortune, he came to Cumberland in the period after the Revolution, and was instrumental in the educational and industrial development of this section. In 1805 he settled at Hillham, Overton County, which he hoped to make an important city, and built many turnpike roads about it. He was trustee of Davidson Academy, and founded at Hillham an academy for young women.—​Ed.

[53] Natchez was a prominent frontier town of the Southwest, which had had a long and varied history. In 1715 the French of Louisiana established a trading post at this place, and in 1716 Fort Rosalie was built. Thirteen years later occurred the massacre of the garrison and inhabitants by the Natchez Indians. While a fort was rebuilt at this place, there seems to have been no settlement during the remainder of the French occupation. When this territory passed into the hands of the English (1763) liberal land grants were made, and Fort Panmure was erected on the site of Fort Rosalie; emigration from the Southern states and the East then came into this region, especially from New Jersey and Connecticut. After the beginning of the Revolution, an attempt was made to secure the neutrality of the Natchez people, if not their co-operation with the American cause. But the brutality of Captain Willing, sent on this mission in 1778, alienated the inhabitants and kept them loyal to Great Britain. On the outbreak of war between England and Spain (1779) the Spanish governor Gayoso made an expedition into West Florida, and captured Natchez with other British posts. The inhabitants rebelled and seized Fort Panmure; but on the downfall of Pensacola, they were obliged to flee. The Spaniards took possession by treaty in 1783, and under their régime, at the close of the American Revolution, a large immigration took place. Land speculation and intrigues ran riot. The Yazoo grants occupied this territory in part. The United States claimed the Natchez district as within her boundaries. In the treaty of 1795 with Spain, this claim was conceded, and a commission was appointed to run a boundary line. In 1798 Mississippi Territory was organized, Natchez being included therein. In the early days of the Mississippi traffic, the commercial importance of the place was second only to New Orleans. The Natchez trace, of which Michaux speaks, was one of the most travelled roads of the Western country.—​Ed.

[54] General Daniel Smith, born in Virginia about 1740, migrated to Tennessee at an early age, and was first secretary of the territory south of the Ohio (1790-96), United States senator (1798-99 and 1805-09), and major general of militia. He was one of the most prominent of the early pioneers, a man of education and wealth, and his home in Sumner County was the seat of wide hospitality.—​Ed.

[55] The newspaper referred to by Michaux was established by George Roulstone at Rogersville in 1791; later it was removed to the capital, and called the Knoxville Gazette.—​Ed.

[56] The derivation of the word “Tennessee” is variously given: as from a village of the Cherokee Indians, “Tanase;” a Cherokee word meaning “curved spoon;” or from the Taensa Indians of the Natchesan family, who lived in Louisiana within historic times.—​Ed.

[57] The gleditsia triacanthus, or honey locust, is common to a large part of the United States.—​Ed.

[58] For an account of the movement for the State of Franklin, see Turner, “Western State Making,” American Historical Review, i, pp. 256-261.—​Ed.

[59] The protonopsis horrida, or a similar variety limited to the Alleghanies—​protonopsis fusca. The former is generally called the “hellbender.”—​Ed.

[60] For the invention of the cotton-gin, and its effect on the growth of cotton culture, see Hammond, “Cotton Industry,” in American Economic Association Publications, i (new series).—​Ed.