Chapter X: Preface: To Volume III (9)

The second day after our departure we met a party of eight or ten Indians, who were searching for grapes and chinquapins, a species of small chesnuts, superior in taste to those in Europe. As we had only twenty miles to go before we reached West Point, we gave them the remainder of our provisions, with which they were highly delighted. Bread is a great treat for them, their usual food consisting of nothing but venison and wild fowl.

The road that crosses this part of the Indian territory cuts through the mountains in Cumberland; it is as broad and commodious as those in the environs of Philadelphia, in consequence of the amazing number {214} of emigrants that travel through it to go and settle in the western country. It is, notwithstanding, in some places very rugged, but nothing near so much as the one that leads from Strasburgh to Bedford in Pennsylvania. About forty miles from Nasheville we met an emigrant family in a carriage, followed by their negroes on foot, that had performed their journey without any accident. Little boards painted black and nailed upon the trees every three miles, indicate to travellers the distance they have to go.

In this part of Tennessea the mass of the forests is composed of all the species of trees that belong more particularly to the mountainous regions of North America, such as oaks, maples, and nut trees. Pines abound in those parts where the soil is the worst. What appeared to me very extraordinary was, to find some parts of the woods, for the space of several miles, where all the pines that formed at least one fifth part of the other trees were dead since the preceding year, and still kept all their withered foliage. I was not able to learn the causes that produced this singular phenomenon. I only heard that the same thing happens every fifteen or twenty years.

At West Point is established a fort, pallisadoed round with trees, built upon a lofty eminence, at the {215} conflux of the rivers Clinch and Holston. The fedral government maintain a company of soldiers there, the aim of which is to hold the Indians in respect, and at the same time to protect them against the inhabitants on the frontiers, whose illiberal proceedings excite them frequently to war. The objects of these insults were to drive them from their possessions; but the government has prevented this fruitless source of broils and wars, by declaring that all the possessions occupied by the Indians within the boundaries of the United States, comprise a part of their domains.

The following trait will give an idea of the ferocious disposition of some of these Americans on the frontiers. One of them belonging to the environs of Fort Blount, had lost one of his horses, which had strayed from his plantation and penetrated some distance into the Indian territory. About a fortnight after it was brought to him by two Cherokees; they were scarcely fifty yards from the house when the owner perceiving them, killed one upon the spot with his carabine; the other fled and carried the news to his fellow-countrymen. The murderer was thrown into prison; but was afterwards released for the want of evidence, although he stood convicted in the eyes {216} of every one. During the time he was in prison the Indians suspended their resentment, in hopes that the death of their fellow-countryman would be revenged; but scarcely were they informed that he was set at liberty when they killed a white, at more than a hundred and fifty miles from the place where the first murder had been committed. To the present moment we have never been able to make the Indians comprehend that punishment should only fall upon the guilty; they conceive that the murder of one or more of their people ought to be avenged by the death of an equal number of individuals belonging to the nation of that person who committed the deed. This is a custom they will not renounce, more especially if the person so murdered belongs to a distinguished family, as among the Creeks and Cherokees there exists a superior class to the common of the nation. These Indians are above the middling stature, well proportioned, and healthy in appearance, notwithstanding the long fasting they frequently endure in pursuit of animals, the flesh of which forms their chief subsistence. The carabine is the only weapon they make use of; they are very dexterous with it, and kill at a very great distance. The usual dress of the men consists of a shirt, _à l’Européene_, which {217} hangs loose, and of a slip of blue cloth about half a yard in length, which serves them as breeches; they put it between their thighs, and fasten the two ends, before and behind, to a sort of girdle. They wear long gaiters, and shoes of stag skins prepared. When full dressed they wear a coat, waistcoat, and hat, but never any breeches. The natives of North America have never been able to adopt that part of our dress. They have only on the top of their heads a tuft of hair, of which they make several tresses, that hang down the sides of the face, and very frequently they attach quills or little silver tubes to the extremities. A great number of them pierce their noses, in order to put rings through, and cut holes in their ears, that hang down two or three inches, by the means of pieces of lead that they fasten to them when they are quite young. They paint their faces red, blue, or black.

A man’s shirt and a short petticoat form the dress of the women, who wear also gaiters like the men; they let their hair grow, which is always of a jet black, to its natural length, but they never pierce their noses, nor disfigure their ears. In winter, the men and women, in order to guard against the cold, wrap themselves in a blue rug, which they always {218} carry with them, and which forms an essential part of their luggage.

Near the fort is established a kind of warehouse where the Cherokees carry ginseng and furs, consisting chiefly of bear, stag, and otter skins. They give them in exchange for coarse stuffs, knives, hatchets, and other articles that they stand in need of.

I learnt at West Point, of several persons who make frequent journies among the Cherokees that within these few years they take to the cultivating of their possessions, and that they make a rapid progress. Some of them have good plantations, and even negro slaves. Several of the women spin and manufacture cotton stuffs. The federal government devotes annually a sum to supply them with instruments necessary for agriculture and different trades. Being pressed for time I could not penetrate farther into the interior of the country, as I had intended, and I did not profit by the letters of recommendation that Mr. W. P. Anderson had given me for that purpose to the garrison-officers in the fort.

They reckon thirty-five miles from West Point to Knoxville. About a mile from West Point we passed through Kingstown, composed of thirty or forty log houses; after that the road runs upwards of eighteen {219} miles through a rugged and flinty soil, although covered with a kind of grass. The trees that occupy this extent grow within twenty or thirty yards of each other, which makes it seem as though this district changes from the appearance of a meadow to that of a forest. After this the soil grows better, and the plantations are not so far apart.

{220} CHAP. XXIV

_Knoxville.--Commercial intelligence.--Trees that grow in the
environs.--Converting some parts of the Meadows into
Forests.--River Nolachuky.--Greensville.--Arrival at
Jonesborough._

Knoxville, the seat of government belonging to the state of Tennessea, is situate upon the river Holston, in this part nearly a hundred and fifty fathoms broad. The houses that compose it are about two hundred in number, and chiefly built of wood. Although founded eighteen or twenty years ago, this little town does not yet possess any kind of establishment or manufactory, except two or three tan yards. Trade, notwithstanding, is brisker here than at Nasheville. The shops, though very few in {221} number, are in general better stocked. The tradespeople get their provisions by land from Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Richmond in Virginia; and they send in return, by the same way, the produce of the country, which they buy of the cultivators, or take in barter for their goods. Baltimore and Richmond are the towns with which this part of the country does most business. The price of conveyance from Baltimore is six or seven dollars per hundred weight. They reckon seven hundred miles from this town to Knoxville, six hundred and forty from Philadelphia, and four hundred and twenty from Richmond.

They send flour, cotton and lime to New Orleans by the river Tennessea; but this way is not so much frequented by the trade, the navigation of this river being very much encumbered in two different places by shallows interspersed with rocks. They reckon about six hundred miles from Knoxville to the _embouchure_ of the Tennessea in the Ohio, and thirty-eight miles thence to that of the Ohio in the Mississippi.

{222} We alighted at Knoxville at the house of one Haynes, the sign of the General Washington, the best inn in the town. Travellers and their horses are accommodated there at the rate of five shillings per day; though this is rather dear for a country where the situation is by no means favourable to the sale of provisions, which they are obliged to send to more remote parts. The reason of things being so dear proceeds from the desire of growing rich in a short time, a general desire in the United States, where every man who exercises a profession or art wishes to get a great deal by it, and does not content himself with a moderate profit, as they do in Europe.

There is a newspaper printed at Knoxville[55] which comes out twice a week, and written and published by Mr. Roulstone, a fellow-countryman and friend of my travelling companion, Mr. Fisk. It is very remarkable that most of the emigrants from New England have an ascendancy over the others in point of morals, industry, and knowledge.

{223} On the 17th of September I took leave of Mr. Fisk, and proceeded towards Jonesborough, about a hundred miles from Knoxville, and situate at the foot of the lofty mountains that separate North Carolina from the state of Tennessea. On leaving Knoxville the soil is uneven, stony and very indifferent, of which it is an easy thing to judge by the quantity of pines, or _pinus mitis_, that are in the forests. We also found there an abundance of Chinquapin oaks, or _quercus prinus Chinquapin_, that seldom grow above three feet high, some of which were that year so loaded with acorns that they were bent to the ground. The sorel-tree, or _andromeda arborea_, is also very common. This tree, that rises about forty feet in the mountains, would be one of the most splendid ornaments for our gardens, on account of its opening clusters of white flowers. Its leaves are very acid, and many of the inhabitants prefer them to shumac for dyeing cottons.

I crossed the river Holston at Macby, about fifteen miles from Knoxville; here the soil grows better, {224} and the plantations are nearer together, although not immediately within sight of each other. At some distance from Macby the road, for the space of two miles, runs by the side of a copse, extremely full of young suckers, the highest of which was not above twenty feet. As I had never seen any part of a forest so composed before, I made an observation of it to the inhabitants of the country, who told me that this place was formerly part of a barren, or meadow, which had naturally clothed itself again with trees, that fifteen years since they had been totally destroyed by fire, in order to clear the land, which is a common practice in all the southern states. This example appears to demonstrate that the spacious meadows in Kentucky and Tennessea owe their birth to some great conflagration that has consumed the forests, and that they are kept up as meadows by the custom that is still practised of annually setting them on fire. In these conflagrations, when chance preserves any part from the ravages of the flame, for a certain number of years they are re-stocked with trees; but {225} as it is then extremely thick, the fire burns them completely down, and reduces them again to a sort of meadow. We may thence conclude, that in these parts of the country the meadows encroach continually upon the forests. The same has probably taken place in Upper Louisiana and New Mexico, which are only immense plains, burnt annually by the natives, and where there is not a tree to be found.

I stopped the first day at a place where most of the inhabitants are Quakers, who came fifteen or eighteen years since from Pennsylvania. The one with whom I lodged had an excellent plantation, and his log-house was divided into two rooms, which is very uncommon in that part of the country. Around the house magnificent apple-trees were planted, which, although produced from pips, bore fruit of an extraordinary size and luxuriance in taste, which proves how well this country is adapted for the culture of fruit trees. Here, as well as in Kentucky, they give the preference to the peach, on account of their {226} making brandy with it. At the same house where I stopped there were two emigrant families, forming together ten or twelve persons, who were going to settle in Tennessea. Their ragged clothes, and the miserable appearance of their children, who were bare-footed and in their shirts, was a plain indication of their poverty, a circumstance by no means uncommon in the United States. At the same time it is not in the western country that the riches of the inhabitants consist in specie; for I am persuaded that not one in ten of them are in possession of a single dollar; still each enjoys himself at home with the produce of his estate, and the money arising from the sale of a horse or a few cows is always more than sufficient to procure him the secondary articles that come from England.

The following day I passed by the iron-works, situate about thirty miles from Knoxville, where I stopped some time to get a sample of the native ore. The iron that proceeds from it they say is of an excellent quality. The road at this place divides into {227} two branches, both of which lead to Jonesborough; but as I wanted to survey the banks of the river Nolachuky, so renowned in that part of the country for their fertility, I took the right, although it was rather longer, and not so much frequented. About six or seven miles from the iron-works we found upon the road small rock crystals, two or three inches long, and beautifully transparent. The facets of the pyramids that terminate the two extremities of the prism are perfectly equal with respect to size, they are loose, and disseminated in a reddish kind of earth, and rather clayey. In less than ten minutes I picked up forty. Arrived on the boundaries of the river Nolachuky, I did not observe any species of trees or plants that I had not seen elsewhere, except a few poplars and horse-chesnuts, which bore a yellow blossom. Some of these poplars were five or six feet in diameter, perfectly straight, and free from branches for thirty or forty feet from the earth.

On the 21st I arrived at Greenville, which contains scarcely forty houses, constructed with square {228} beams something like the log-houses. They reckon twenty-five miles from this place to Jonesborough. In this space the country is slightly mountainous, the soil more adapted to the culture of corn than that of Indian wheat, and the plantations are situated upon the road, two or three miles distant from each other.

Jonesborough, the last town in Tennessea, is composed of about a hundred and fifty houses, built of wood, and disposed on both sides the road. Four or five respectable shops are established there, and the tradespeople who keep them have their goods from Richmond and Baltimore. All kinds of English-manufactured goods are as dear here as at Knoxville. A newspaper in folio is published at this town twice a week. Periodical sheets are the only works that have ever been printed in the towns or villages situate west of the Alleghanies.

{229} CHAP. XXV

_General observations on the State of Tennessea.--Rivers
Cumberland and Tennessea.--What is meant by East Tennessea
or Holston, and West Tennessea or Cumberland.--First
settlements in West Tennessea.--Trees natives of that
country._

The state of Tennessea is situated between 35 and 36 deg. 30 min. latitude, and 80 and 90 deg. 30 min. longitude. It is bounded north by Kentucky, south by the territories belonging to the Indian Cherokees and Chactaws, west by the Ohio, and east by the Alleghany Mountains, which separate it from Virginia and North Carolina. Its extent in breadth is nearly a hundred and three miles {230} by three hundred and sixty in length. Prior to the year 1796, the epoch of its being admitted into the Union, this country comprised a part of North Carolina. The two principal rivers are the Cumberland and Tennessea, which flow into the Ohio eleven miles distant from each other, and are separated by the chain of mountains in Cumberland.

The river Cumberland, known to the French Canadians by the name of the river Shavanon, derives its source in Kentucky, amidst the mountains that separate it from Virginia. Its course is about four hundred and fifty miles. It is navigable, in winter and spring, for three hundred and fifty miles from its _embouchure_; but in summer, not above fifty miles from Nasheville. The river Tennessea, named by the French Canadians the Cherokee River, is the most considerable of all those that empty themselves into the Ohio. It begins at West Point, where it is formed by the junction of the rivers Clinch and Holston, which derive their source in that part of the Alleghany Mountains situated in Virginia, each of {231} which are more than a hundred fathoms broad at their _embouchure_. Both are navigable to an immense distance, and particularly the Holston, which is so for two hundred miles. The river French Broad, one of the principal branches of the Holston, receives its waters from the Nolachuky, is about twenty fathoms broad, and is navigable in the spring. Thus the Tennessea, with the Holston, has, in the whole, a navigable course for near eight hundred miles: but this navigation is interrupted six months in the year by the muscle shoals, a kind of shallows interspersed with rocks, which are met with in its bed two hundred miles from its _embouchure_ in the Ohio. From West Point the borders of this great river are yet almost entirely uninhabited. The signification of the name of Tennessea, which it bears, is unknown to the Cherokees and Chactaws that occupied this country before the whites. Mr. Fisk, who has had several conversations with these Indians, never heard any precise account; in consequence of which it is most likely that this name has {232} been given to it by the nation that the Cherokees succeeded.[56]

The Cumberland Mountains are but a continuation of Laurel Mountain, which itself is one of the principal links of the Alleghanies. These mountains, on the confines of Virginia, incline more toward the west, and by the direction which they take, cut obliquely in two the state of Tennessea, which, in consequence, divides East and West Tennessea into two parts, both primitively known by the names of the Holston and Cumberland settlements, and which afford each a different aspect, both by the nature of the country, and by the productions that grow there.

West Tennessea comprises two-thirds of this state. The greater part of it reposes upon a bank of chalky substance of the same nature, the beds of which are horizontal. The stratum of vegetable earth with which it is covered appears generally not so thick as in Kentucky, and participates less of the clayey nature. It is usually, in point of colour, of {233} a dark brown, without the least mixture of stony substances. The forests that cover the country clearly indicate how favourable the soil is for vegetation, as most of the trees acquire a very large diameter. Iron mines are also as scarce there as in Kentucky; and provided any new ones were discovered, they would have been worked immediately, since the iron that is imported from Pennsylvania is at such an enormous price.

The secondary rivers which in this part of Tennessea run into Cumberland are almost completely dry during the summer; and it is probable enough, that when the population grows more numerous, and the plantations are formed farther from their banks, the want of water will be more severely felt in this part than in Kentucky. There are, notwithstanding, several large rivulets or creeks that issue from excavations that are found at the foot of the mountains, in different parts of the country: at the same time it has been remarked that these kind of sources never fail, although the water is not so deep in summer. {234} Just at the mouth of these subterraneous passages they are sometimes accompanied with a current of air strong enough to extinguish a light. I observed this particularly myself at the spring of the rivulet called Dixon’s Spring, and of another situated about four miles from Nasheville.

It was in 1780 that the whites first made the attempt to travel over the Cumberland Mountains, and to settle in the environs of Nasheville; but the emigrants were not very numerous there till the year 1789. They had to support, for several years, a bloody war against the Indian Cherokees, and till 1795 the settlements at Holston and Kentucky communicated with those in Cumberland by caravans, for the sake of travelling in safety over so extensive a tract of uninhabited country that separated them; but for these five or six years past, since peace has been made with the natives, the communications formed between the countries are perfectly established; and although not much frequented, they travel there with as much safety as in any other part of the Atlantic states.

{235} This country having been populated after that of Kentucky, every measure was taken at the commencement to avoid the great confusion that exists concerning the right of property in the latter state; at the same time the titles are looked upon as more valid, and not so subject to dispute. This reason, the extraordinary fertility of the soil, and a more healthy climate, are such great inducements to the emigrants of the Atlantic states, that most of them prefer settling in West Tennessea than in Kentucky. They reckon there, at present, thirty thousand inhabitants, and five or six thousand negro slaves.

With a few exceptions the various species of trees and shrubs that form the mass of the forests are the same as those that I observed in the most fertile parts of Kentucky. The _gleditsia triacanthos_ is still more common there.[57] Of this wood the Indians made their bows, before they adopted the use of fire-arms.

We found particularly, in these forests, a tree which, by the shape of its fruit and the disposition of its leaves, appears to have great affinity with the {236} _sophora japonica_, the wood of which is used by the Chinese for dyeing yellow. My father, who discovered this tree in 1796, thought that it might be employed for the same use, and become an important object of traffic for the country. He imparted his conjectures to Mr. Blount, then governor of this state, and his letter was inserted in the Gazette at Knoxville on the 15th of March 1796. Several persons in the country having a great desire to know whether it were possible to fix the beautiful yellow which the wood of this tree communicated to the water by the simple infusion, cold, I profited by my stay at Nasheville to send twenty pounds of it to New York, the half of which was remitted to Dr. Mitchell, professor of chemistry, and the other addressed to Paris, to the Board of Agriculture, attached to the Minister of the Interior, in order to verify the degree of utility that might be derived from it. This tree very seldom rises above forty feet, and grows, in preference, on the knobs, species of little hills, where the soil is very rich. Several of the inhabitants have {237} remarked that there is not in the country a single species of tree that produces so great an abundance of sap. The quantity that it supplies exceeds even that of the sugar maple, although the latter is twice its bulk. The epoch of my stay at Nasheville being that when the seeds of this tree were ripe, I gathered a small quantity of them, which I brought over with me, and which have all come up. Several of the plants are at the present moment ten or fifteen inches high. It is very probable that this tree may be reared in France, and that it will endure the cold of our winters, and more so, as, according to what I have been told, the winters are as severe in Tennessea as in any parts of France.

West Tennessea is not so salubrious as Holston and Kentucky. A warmer and damper climate is the cause of intermittent fevers being more common there. Emigrants, for the first year of their settling there, and even travellers, are, during that season, subject to an exanthemetic affection similar to the itch. This malady, with which I began to be attacked {238} before I reached Fort Blount, yielded to a cooling regimen, and repeated bathings in the rivers Cumberland and Roaring. This disorder is very appropriately called in the country the Tennessean itch.

{239} CHAP. XXVI

_Different kinds of produce of West Tennessea.--Domestic
manufactories for cottons encouraged by the legislature of
this state.--Mode of letting out estates by some of the
emigrants._

WEST Tennessea, or Cumberland, being situated under a more southerly latitude than Kentucky, is particularly favourable to the growth of cotton; in consequence of which the inhabitants give themselves up almost entirely to it, and cultivate but little more corn, hemp, and tobacco than what is necessary for their own consumption.

The soil, which is fat and clayey, appears to be a recent dissolving of vegetable substances, and seems, {240} till now, less adapted for the culture of corn than that of Indian wheat. The harvests of this grain are as plentiful as in Kentucky; the blades run up ten or twelve feet high; and the ears, which grow six or seven feet from the earth, are from nine to ten inches in length, and proportionate in size. It is cultivated in the same manner as in other parts of the western country.

The crows, which are a true plague in the Atlantic states, where they ravage, at three different periods, the fields of Indian wheat, which are obliged to be sown again as many times, have not yet made their appearance in Tennessea; but it is very probable that this visit is only deferred, as they do, annually, great damage in Kentucky.

I must also observe here that the grey European rats have not yet penetrated into Cumberland, though they are very numerous in other parts of the country, particularly in those settlements belonging to the whites.

The culture of cotton, infinitely more lucrative {241} than that of corn and tobacco, is, as before observed, the most adhered to in West Tennessea. There is scarcely a single emigrant but what begins to plant his estate with it the third year after his settling in the country. Those who have no negroes cultivate it with the plough, nearly in the same manner as Indian wheat, taking particular care to weed and throw new earth upon it several times in the course of the season. Others lay out their fields in parallel furrows, made with the hoe, from twelve to fifteen inches high. It is computed that one man, who employs himself with this alone, is sufficient to cultivate eight or nine acres, but not to gather in the harvest. A man and a woman, with two or three children, may, notwithstanding, cultivate four acres with the greatest ease, independent of the Indian wheat necessary for their subsistence; and calculating upon a harvest of three hundred and fifty pounds weight per acre, which is very moderate according to the extreme fertility of the soil, they will have, in four acres, a produce of fourteen hundred pounds of {242} cotton. Valuing it at the rate of eighteen dollars per hundred weight, the lowest price to which it had fallen at the epoch of the last peace, when I was in the country, gives two hundred and fifty-two dollars; from which deducting forty dollars for the expenses of culture, they will have a net produce of two hundred and twelve dollars; while the same number of acres, planted with Indian wheat, or sown with corn, would only yield at the rate of fifty bushels per acre; and twenty-five bushels of corn, about fifty dollars, reckoning the Indian wheat at thirteen pence, and the corn at two shillings and two pence per bushel; under the supposition that they can sell it at that price, which is not always the case. This light sketch demonstrates with what facility a poor family may acquire speedily, in West Tennessea, a certain degree of independence, particularly after having been settled five or six years, as they procure the means of purchasing one or two negroes, and of annually increasing their number.

The species of cotton which they cultivate here is {243} somewhat more esteemed than that described by the name of green-seed cotton, in which there is a trifling distinction in point of colour.

The cottons that are manufactured in West Tennessea are exceedingly fine, and superior in quality to those I saw in the course of my travels. The legislature of this state, appreciating the advantage of encouraging this kind of industry, and of diminishing, by that means, the importation of English goods of the same nature, has given, for these two years past, a premium of ten dollars to the female inhabitant who, in every county, presents the best manufactured piece; for in this part, as well as in Kentucky, the higher circles wear, in summer time, as much from patriotism as from economy, dresses made of the cottons manufactured in the country. At the same time they are convinced that it is the only means of preserving the little specie that is in the country, and of preventing its going to England.

The price of the best land does not yet exceed five dollars per acre in the environs of Nasheville, and {244} thirty or forty miles from the town they are not even worth three dollars. They can at that price purchase a plantation completely formed, composed of two to three hundred acres, of which fifteen to twenty are cleared, and a log-house. The taxes in this state are also not so high as in Kentucky.

Among the emigrants that arrive annually from the eastern country at Tennessea there are always some who have not the means of purchasing estates; still there is no difficulty in procuring them at a certain rent; for the speculators who possess many thousand acres are very happy to get tenants for their land, as it induces others to come and settle in the environs; since the speculation of estates in Kentucky and Tennessea is so profitable to the owners, who reside upon the spot, and who, on the arrival of the emigrants, know how to give directions in cultivation, which speedily enhances the value of their possessions.

The conditions imposed upon the renter are to clear and inclose eight or nine acres, to build a log-house, and to pay to the owner eight or ten bushels {245} of Indian wheat for every acre cleared. These contracts are kept up for seven or eight years. The second year after the price of two hundred acres of land belonging to a new settlement of this kind increases nearly thirty per cent.; and this estate is purchased in preference by a new emigrant, who is sure of gathering corn enough for the supplies of his family and cattle.

In this state they are not so famed for rearing horses as in Kentucky; yet the greatest care is taken to improve their breed, by rearing them with those of the latter state, whence they send for the finest mare foals that can be procured.

Although this country abounds with saline springs, none are yet worked, as the scarcity of hands would render the salt dearer than what is imported from the salt-pits of St. Genevieve, which supply all Cumberland. It is sold at two dollars per bushel, about sixty pounds weight.

{246} CHAP. XXVII

_East Tennessea, or Holston.--Agriculture.--Population.--Commerce._

East Tennessea, or Holston, is situated between the loftiest of the Alleghany and Cumberland Mountains. It comprises, in length, an extent of nearly a hundred and forty miles, and differs chiefly from West Tennessea in point of the earth’s being not so chalky, and better watered by the small rivers issuing from the adjacent mountains, which cross it in every part. The best land is upon their borders. The remainder of the territory, almost everywhere interspersed with hills, is of a middling quality, and produces nothing but white, red, black, chincapin, {247} and mountain oaks, &c. intermixed with pines; and, as we have before observed, except the _quercus macrocarpa_, the rest never grow, even in the most fertile places.

Indian wheat forms here also one of the principal branches of agriculture; but it very seldom comes up above seven or eight feet high, and a produce of thirty bushels per acre passes for an extraordinary harvest. The nature of the soil, somewhat gravelly, appears more adapted for the culture of wheat, rye, and oats; in consequence of which it is more adhered to than in Cumberland. That of cotton is little noticed, on account of the cold weather, which sets in very early. One may judge, according to this, that Holston is in every point inferior in fertility to Cumberland and Kentucky.

To consume the superfluity of their corn the inhabitants rear a great number of cattle, which they take four or five hundred miles to the seaports belonging to the southern states. They lose very few of these animals by the way, although they have to {248} cross several rivers, and travel through an uninterrupted forest, with this disadvantage, of the cattle being extremely wild.

This part of Tennessea began to be inhabited in 1775, and the population is so much increased, that there is now computed to be about seventy thousand inhabitants, including three or four thousand negro slaves. In 1787 they attempted to form themselves into an independent state, under the name of the Franklin State; but this project was abandoned.[58] It is still very probable, and has already been in question, that East and West Tennessea will ultimately form two distinct states, which will each enlarge itself by a new addition of part of the territory belonging to the Cherokee Indians. The natives, it is true, will not hear the least mention of a cession being made, objecting that their tract of country is barely sufficient to furnish, by hunting, a subsistence for their families. However, sooner or later they will be obliged to yield. The division of Tennessea cannot be long before it takes place, whether under {249} the consideration of convenience, or the enterprising disposition of the Americans. It is commanded, on the one hand, by the boundaries that Nature herself has prescribed between the two countries, in separating them by the Cumberland Mountains; and on the other, by their commerce, which is wholly different, since Cumberland carries on its trade by the Ohio and Mississippi, while Holston does most by land with the seaports belonging to the Atlantic states, and has very little to do with New Orleans by the river Tennessea, and scarcely any with Cumberland and Kentucky. Under this consideration, Holston is, of all parts in the United States that are now inhabited, the most unfavourably situated, being on every side circumscribed by considerable tracts of country that produce the same provisions, and which are either more fertile or nearer to the borders of the sea.

What has been said relative to the manners of the inhabitants of Kentucky will apply, in a great measure to Tennessea, since they come, as the former {250} do, from North Carolina and Virginia: still the inhabitants of Tennessea do not yet enjoy that degree of independence which is remarked among those of Kentucky. They appear also not so religious, although, in the mean time, they are very strict observers of Sundays. We found but very few churches in Tennessea. Itinerant preachers wander, in summer, through the different countries, and preach in the woods, where the people collect together.

{251} CHAP. XXVIII

_Departure from Jonesborough for Morganton in North Carolina.--
Journey over Iron Mountains.--Sojourn on the mountains.--
Journey over the Blue Ridges and Linneville Mountains.--
Arrival at Morganton._

On the 21st of September 1802 I set out from Jonesborough to cross the Alleghanies for North Carolina. About nine miles from Jonesborough the road divides into two branches, which unite again fifty-six miles beyond the mountains. The left, which is principally for carriages, cuts through Yellow Mountain, and the other through Iron {252} Mountain. I took the latter, as I had been informed it was much the shortest. I only made nineteen miles that day, and put up at one Cayerd’s at the Limestone Cove, where I arrived benumbed with cold by the thick fog that reigns almost habitually in the vallies of these enormous mountains.

Seven miles on this side Cayerd’s plantation, the road, or rather the path, begins to be so little cut that one can scarce discern the track for plants of all kinds that cover the superficies of it; it is also encumbered by forests of _rhododendrum_, shrubs from eighteen to twenty feet in height, the branches of which, twisting and interwoven with each other, impede the traveller every moment, insomuch that he is obliged to use an axe to clear his way. The torrents that we had continually to cross added to the difficulty and danger of the journey, the horses being exposed to fall on account of the loose round flints, concealed by the ebullition of the waters with which the bottom of these torrents are filled.

I had the day following twenty-three miles to {253} make without meeting with the least kind of a plantation. After having made the most minute inquiry with regard to the path I had to take, I set out about eight o’clock in the morning from the Limestone Cove, and after a journey of three hours I reached the summit of the mountain, which I recognized by several trees with “_the road_” marked on each, and in the same direction to indicate the line of demarcation that separates the state of Tennessea from that of North Carolina. The distance from the Limestone Cove to the summit of the mountain is computed to be about two miles and a half, and three miles thence to the other side. The declivity of the two sides is very steep, insomuch that it is with great difficulty a person can sit upon his horse, and that half the time he is obliged to go on foot. Arrived at the bottom of the mountain, I had again, as the evening before, to cross through forests of _rhododendrum_, and a large torrent called Rocky Creek, the winding course of which cut the path in twelve or fifteen directions; every time I was obliged to alight, or go {254} up the torrent by walking into the middle for the space of ten or fifteen fathoms, in order to regain on the other bank the continuation of the path, which is very rarely opposite, and of which the entrance was frequently concealed by tufts of grass or branches of trees, which have time to grow and extend their foliage, since whole months elapse without its being passed by travellers. At length I happily arrived at the end of my journey. I then perceived the imprudence I had committed in having exposed myself without a guide in a road so little frequented, and where a person every moment runs the risk of losing himself on account of the sub-divisions of the road, that ultimately disappear, and which it would be impossible to find again, unless by being perfectly acquainted with the localities and disposition of the country, where obstacle upon obstacle oppose the journey of the traveller, and whose situation would in a short time become very critical from the want of provisions.

On the 23d I made twenty-two miles through a {255} country bestrewed with mountains, but not so lofty as that which I had just passed over, and arrived at the house of one Davenport, the owner of a charming plantation upon Doe river, a torrent about forty feet in breadth, and which empties itself into the Nolachuky. I had learnt the evening before, of the person with whom I had lodged, that it was at Davenport’s my father had resided, and that it was this man who served him as a guide across the mountains when on his travels to discover their productions. I was at that time very far from thinking that at the same time when this worthy man was entertaining me about his old travelling companion, I lost a beloved father, who died a victim of his zeal for the progress of natural history upon the coast of the island of Madagascar!

I staid a week at Davenport’s, in order to rest myself after a journey of six hundred miles that I had just made, and during this interval I travelled over the Blue Ridges that encompass his plantation. On the 2d of October 1802 I set out on my journey {256} again, and proceeded towards Morganton, a distance of thirty-five miles. About four miles from Doe river I re-passed the chain of the Blue Ridges. Its summit is obtained by a gentle declivity, which is much longer and more rapid on the eastern side, without being impracticable for carriages. The journey over this mountain is computed to be about four miles and a half.

About five miles from the Blue Ridges are the Linneville Mountains, not quite so lofty as the latter, but steeper, and more difficult to ascend. The road that cuts through them is encumbered westward with large, flat stones, which impede the traveller on his route. From the summit of these mountains, which is not overstocked with trees, we discovered an immense extent of mountainous country covered with forests, and at their base only three small places cleared, which form as many plantations, three or four miles distant from each other.

From the Linneville Mountains to Morganton it is computed to be twenty-five miles, where I arrived {257} on the 5th of October. In this interval the country is slightly mountainous, and the soil extremely bad; at the same time we did not find more than four or five plantations on the road. About a mile on this side the town we crossed the northern arm of the river Catabaw, in this part nearly fifty fathoms broad, although the source of this river is only fifty miles. The rains that had fallen in the mountains had produced a sudden increase of water, and the master of the ferry-boat conceiving it would not last long, had not thought proper to re-establish his boat, so that I was obliged to ford. One of his children pointed out to me the different directions that I had to take in order to avoid the immense cavities under water.

{258} CHAP. XXIX

_General observations upon this part of the Chain of the
Alleghanies.--Salamander which is found in the torrents.--
Bear hunting._

IN Pennsylvania and Virginia the Alleghanies present themselves under the form of parallel furrows, but varying in their length. They are mostly near together, and form narrow vallies; but sometimes the interval that separates them is from twenty to thirty miles in length; again these spaces are filled with a multitude of hills of a lesser elevation, confusedly scattered, and in no wise affecting the direction of the principal chains. On the confines of North Carolina and Tennessea the Alleghanies are, {259} on the contrary, isolated mountains, and only contiguous by their base; they embrace also in diameter an extent of country less considerable, and which is not computed to be more than seventy miles. The furrow that bears more particularly the name of the Alleghany Ridge in Pennsylvania, and that of Blue Ridge in North Carolina, is the only one that, continuing uninterruptedly, divides the rivers that run into the Atlantic Ocean from those that swell the current of the Ohio. The height of this chain is still infinitely less than that of the neighbouring mountains. It is here that the Alleghanies, which cross the United States for the space of nine hundred miles, have the highest elevation. This is the opinion of most of the inhabitants, who, from the mountainous part of Pennsylvania and Virginia, have emigrated on the confines of North Carolina, and who know the respective heights of all these mountains. That of the first rank is called Grandfather Mountain, the next Iron Mountain, and thus in succession Yellow Mountain, Black Mountain, and Table {260} Mountain, which are all situate upon the western rivers. On the top of Yellow Mountain, the only one that is not stocked with trees, all the abovementioned may be seen.

We may again remark, in support of the preceding observation, that from the 10th to the 20th of September the cold is so keenly felt upon the mountains that the inhabitants are obliged to make a fire, which is not the case upon any of those in Virginia, although they are situated more northerly by several degrees: and besides I have since seen in my father’s notes that he had observed trees and shrubs upon the Yellow and Grandfather Mountains that he did not meet with again till he reached Low Canada.

As the only ideas given concerning the height of the Alleghanies are the result of observations taken in Virginia, we see, according to that short exposition, that we have but an inaccurate account; this induced me to point out the highest mountains where their true elevation might be ascertained. They are about three hundred and sixty miles from Charleston, in {261} South Carolina, and five hundred and fifty from Philadelphia.

The mineral kingdom is very little diversified in these mountains. The mines which have hitherto been found are chiefly those of iron. They are worked with success, and the iron which they derive from it is of an excellent quality.

In the mountainous parts of Pennsylvania and Virginia the land, frequently dry and flinty, is of an indifferent nature. Here, on the contrary, the soil far from being flinty, is perpetually moist, and very fertile. We may judge of it by the vegetable strength of the trees, among which we observed the red and black oak, the sugar-maple, the ash, the yellow-blossomed chesnut, or the _magnolia acuminata_ and _auriculata_, and the common chesnut, which grows to a prodigious height. The side of these mountains that looks north is sometimes covered exclusively with the _kalmia latifolia_, or calico-tree, from twelve to fifteen feet high. They frequently occupy spaces of from two to three hundred acres, {262} which at a distance affords the aspect of a charming meadow. It is well known that this shrub excels every other in point of blossom.

In the great woods the superficies of the soil is covered with a species of wild peas, that rises about three feet from the earth, and serves as excellent fodder for the cattle. They prefer this pasturage to any other, and whenever they are driven from it they pine away, or make their escape to get to it again.

These mountains begin to be populated rapidly. The salubrity of the air, the excellence of the water, and more especially the pasturage of these wild peas for the cattle, are so many causes that induce new inhabitants to settle there.

Estates of the first class are sold at the rate of two dollars, and the taxes are not more than a half-penny per acre. Indian corn, wheat, rye, oats, and peach trees, are the sole objects of culture.

In the torrents we found a species of salamander, called by the inhabitants the mountain alligator; {263} many of which are upwards of two feet in length.[59] It was in Doe river that my father caught the one which is described in _The New Dictionary of Natural History_, published by Deterville.

The inhabitants of these mountains are famed for being excellent hunters. Towards the middle of autumn most of them go in pursuit of bears, of which they sell the skins, and the flesh, which is very good, serves them in a great measure for food during that season. They prefer it to all other kinds of meat, and look upon it as the only thing they can eat without being indisposed by it. They make also of their hind legs the most delicious hams. In autumn and winter the bears grow excessively fat; some of them weigh upward of four hundred weight. Their grease is consumed in the country instead of oil. They hunt them with great dogs, which, without going near them, bark, teaze, and oblige them to climb up a tree, when the hunter kills them with a carabine. A beautiful skin sells for a dollar and a half or two dollars. The black bear of North {264} America lives chiefly on roots, acorns and chesnuts. In order to procure a greater quantity of them, he gets up into the trees, and as his weight does not permit him to climb to any height, he breaks off the branch where he has observed the most fruit by hugging it with one of his fore paws. I have seen branches of such a diameter that these animals must be endowed with an uncommon strength to have been able to break them by setting about it in this manner. In the summer, when they are most exposed to want victuals, they fall upon pigs, and sometimes even upon men.

{265} CHAP. XXX

_Morganton.--Departure for Charleston.--Lincolnton.--Chester.--
Winesborough.--Columbia.--Aspect of the Country on the Road.--
Agriculture, &c. &c._

Morganton, the principal town of the county of Burke, contains about fifty houses built of wood, and almost all inhabited by tradesmen. One warehouse only, supported by a commercial house at Charleston, is established in this little town, where the inhabitants, for twenty miles round, come and purchase mercery and jewellery goods from England, or give in exchange a part of their produce, which consists chiefly of dried hams, butter, tallow, {266} bear and stag skins, and ginseng, which they bring from the mountains.

From Morganton to Charleston it is computed to be two hundred and eighty-five miles. There are several roads to it, which do not vary in point of distance above twenty miles. Travellers take that where they think of finding the best houses for accommodation: I took the one that leads through Lincolnton, Chester, and Columbia. The distance from Morganton to Lincolnton is forty-five miles. For the whole of this space the soil is extremely bad, and the plantations, straggling five or six miles from each other, have but a middling appearance. The woods are in a great measure composed of different kinds of oaks, and the surface of the ground is covered with grass, intermixed with plants.

Lincolnton, the principal town of the county of Lincoln, is formed by the junction of forty houses, surrounded by the woods like all the small towns of the interior. Two or three large shops, that do the same kind of business as that at Morganton, are established {267} there. The tradesmen who keep them send the produce of their country to Charleston, but they find it sometimes answers their purpose better to stock themselves with goods from Philadelphia, although farther by six hundred miles. Some expedite them by sea to Carolina, whence they go by land to Lincolnton. The freight, a little higher from England to Charleston, and the enormous advance which the merchants lay on their goods, appear the only motives that make them give the preference to those of Philadelphia.