Chapter XI: Preface: To Volume III (10)

At Lincolnton they print a newspaper in folio, that comes out twice a week. The price of subscription is two dollars per year; but the printer, who is his own editor, takes, by way of payment, for the ease of his country subscribers, flour, rye, wax, &c. at the market price. The advertisements inserted for the inhabitants of the country are generally the surest profit to the printers. The foreign news is extracted from the papers that are published at the sea ports. The federal government, of which the constant aim is {268} to propagate among the people instruction, the knowledge of the laws, grants the editors of periodical papers, throughout the whole extent of the United States, the right to receive, free of postage, the newspapers that they wish to exchange among themselves, or those which are addressed to them.

The county of Lincoln is populated, in a great measure, by Germans from Pennsylvania. Their plantations are kept in the greatest order, and their lands well cultivated. Almost all have negro slaves, and there reigns much more independance among them than in the families of English origin. One may form a correct idea of the industry of some of them by the appearance of the plantation where I stopped, situated upon a branch of the Catabaw River. In eight hundred acres, of which it is composed, a hundred and fifty are cultivated in cotton, Indian corn, wheat, and oats, and dunged annually, which is a great degree of perfection in the present state of the agriculture of this part of the country. Independant of this, he has built in his yard several {269} machines, that the same current of water puts in motion; they consist of a corn mill, a saw mill, another to separate the cotton seeds, a tan-house, a tan-mill, a distillery to make peach brandy, and a small forge, where the inhabitants of the country go to have their horses shod. Seven or eight negro slaves are employed in the different departments, some of which are only occupied at certain periods of the year. Their wives are employed under the direction of the mistress in manufacturing cotton and linen for the use of the family.

The whole of my landlord’s taxes, assessed upon his landed property, and these different kinds of industry, did not amount annually to more than seven dollars; whilst under the presidency of J. Adams they had increased to fifty; at the same time his memory is not held in great veneration in Upper Carolina and the Western States, where the political opinion is strongly pronounced in the sense of opposition, and where nobody durst confess himself publicly attached to the federal party.

{270} In all the towns that I travelled through every tanner has his tan mill, which does not cost him above ten dollars to erect. The bark is put into a wooden arch, twelve or fourteen feet in diameter, the edges of which are about fifteen inches high, and it is crushed under the weight of a wheel, about one foot thick, which is turned by a horse, and fixed similar to a cyder-press. For this purpose they generally make use of an old mill-stone, or a wooden wheel, formed by several pieces joined together, and furnished in its circumference with three rows of teeth, also made of wood, about two inches long and twelve or fifteen wide.

From Lincolnton to Chester court house in the state of South Carolina, it is computed to be about seventy miles. For the whole of this space the earth is light and of an inferior quality to that situated between Morganton and Lincolnton, although the mass of the forests is composed of various species of oaks; in the mean time the pines are in such abundance there, that for several miles the ground is covered {271} with nothing else. Plantations are so little increased there, that we scarcely saw twenty where they cultivate cotton or Indian wheat. We passed by several that had been deserted by the owners as not sufficiently productive: for the inhabitants of Georgia and the two Carolinas, who plant nothing but rice, choose frequently rather to make new clearings than to keep their land in a state of producing annually, by regular tillage, as they do in Europe, and even in New England and Pennsylvania. The considerable extent of this country, compared with the trifling population, gives rise to these changes which take place after fifteen or twenty successive harvests.

Chester contains about thirty houses, built of wood; among the number are two inns and two respectable shops. In the principal county towns of the Western and Southern States, they have neither fairs nor markets. The inhabitants sell the produce of their culture to shopkeepers settled in the small towns, or what is more usual in the south, they convey them in waggons to the sea ports.

{272} From Chester the country grows worse in every respect. The traveller no longer meets reception at plantations; he is obliged to put up at inns, where he is badly accommodated both in point of board and lodging, and pays dearer than in any other part of the United States. The reputation of these inns is esteemed according to the quantity and different kinds of spirits that they sell, among which French brandies hold always the first rank, although they are often mixed with water for the third or fourth time.

They reckon fifty-five miles from Chester to Columbia; twenty-five miles on this side we passed through Winesborough, composed of about a hundred and fifty houses. This place is one of the oldest inhabited in Carolina, and several planters of the low country go and spend the summer and autumn there. Fifteen miles on this side Winesborough the _pine barrens_ begin, and thence to the sea side the country is one continued forest composed of pines.

Columbia, founded within these twenty years, is the seat of government for the state of South Carolina. {273} It is built about two hundred fathoms from the Catabaw River, upon an uniform spot of ground. The number of its houses does not exceed two hundred; they are almost all built of wood, and painted grey and yellow; and although there are very few of them more than two stories high, they have a very respectable appearance. The legislature, formed by the union of the delegates of different counties that send them in a number proportionate to their population, meet there annually on the first of December, and all the business is transacted in the same month; it then dissolves, and, except at that time, the town derives no particular advantage from being the seat of government.

The inhabitants of the upper country, who do not approve of sending their provisions to Charleston, stop at Columbia, where they dispose of them at several respectable shops established in the town.

The river Catabaw, about twenty fathoms broad, is only navigable during the winter; the rest of the year its navigation is stopped by large rocks that intercept {274} its course. They have been, nevertheless, at work for these several years past in forming a canal to facilitate the descent of the boats, but the work goes on very slowly for the want of hands, although the workmen are paid at the rate of a dollar per day.

Columbia is about a hundred and twenty miles from Charleston; for the whole of this space, and particularly from Orangeburgh, composed of twenty houses, the road crosses an even country, sandy and dry during the summer; whilst in the autumn and winter it is so covered with water that in several places, for the space of eight or ten miles, the horses are up to their middles. Every two or three miles we meet with a miserable log-house upon the road, surrounded with little fields of Indian corn, the slender stalks of which are very seldom more than five or six feet high, and which, from the second harvest, do not yield more than four or five bushels per acre. In the mean time, notwithstanding their sterility, this land is sold at the rate of two dollars per acre.

The extreme unwholesomeness of the climate is {275} clearly demonstrated by the pale and livid countenances of the inhabitants, who, during the months of September and October, are almost all affected with tertian fevers, insomuch that at this period of the year Georgia and the Lower Carolinas resemble, in some measure, an extensive hospital. Very few persons take any remedy, but wait the approach of the first frosts, which, provided they live so long, generally effect a cure. The negroes are much less subject to intermittent fevers than the whites; and it is seldom that in the great rice plantations there is more than one fifth of them disabled on this account.

{276} CHAP. XXXI

_General observations on the Carolinas and Georgia.--Agriculture
and produce peculiar to the upper part of these states._

The two Carolinas and Georgia are naturally divided into the upper and lower country, but the upper embraces a greater extent. Just at the point where the maritime part is terminated the soil rises gradually till it reaches the Alleghany Mountains, and presents, upon the whole, a ground rather irregular than mountainous, and interspersed with little hills as far as the mountains. The Alleghanies give birth to a great number of creeks or small rivers, the junction of which forms the rivers Pidea, Santea, {277} Savannah, and Alatamaha, which are hardly navigable above two hundred miles from their _embouchure_. In the upper country the most fertile lands are situated upon the borders of these creeks. Those that occupy the intermediate spaces are much less so. The latter are not much cultivated; and even those who occupy them are obliged to be perpetually clearing them, in order to obtain more abundant harvests; in consequence of which a great number of the inhabitants emigrate into the western country, where they are attracted by the extreme fertility of the soil and low price of land; since that of the first class may be purchased for the same money as that of the second in Upper Carolina; and, as we have already said, the latter is scarcely to be compared to that which in Kentucky and Cumberland is ranked in the third.

In the upper country the mass of the forests is chiefly composed of oaks, nut trees, maples, and poplars. Chesnut trees do not begin to appear in these states for sixty miles on this side the mountains. {278} It is only in the remote parts that the inhabitants manufacture maple sugar for their use.

Through the whole of the country the nature of the soil is adapted for the growth of wheat, rye, and Indian corn. Good land produces upward of twenty bushels of Indian wheat per acre, which is commonly worth about half a dollar per bushel. A general consumption is made of it for the support of the inhabitants since, except those who are of German origin, there are very few, as we have before remarked, that make use of wheaten bread. The growth of corn is very circumscribed, and the small quantity of flour that is exported to Charleston and Savannah is sold fifteen per cent. cheaper than that imported from Philadelphia.

The low price to which tobacco is fallen in Europe, within these few years, has made them give up the culture of it in this part of the country. That of green-seed cotton has resumed its place, to the great advantage of the inhabitants, many of whom have since made their fortunes by it. The separation {279} of the seed from the felt that envelopes them is a tedious operation, and which requires many hands, is now simplified by a machine for which the inventor has obtained a patent from the federal government. The legislature of South Carolina paid him, three years since, the sum of a hundred thousand dollars, for all the inhabitants belonging to the state to have the privilege of erecting one. This machine, very simple, and the price of which does not exceed sixty dollars, is put in motion by a horse or by a current of water, and separates from the seed three or four hundred pounds of cotton per day; while by the usual method, a man is not able to separate above thirty pounds. This machine, it is true, has the inconvenience of shortening by haggling it; the wool, on that account, is rather inferior in point of quality, but this inconvenience is, they say, well compensated by the saving of time, and more particularly workmanship.[60]

It is very probable that the various species of fruit trees that we have in France would succeed very well {280} in Upper Carolina. About two hundred miles from the sea-coast the apple trees are magnificent, and in the county of Lincoln several Germans make cyder. But here, as well as in Tennessea, and the greatest part of Kentucky, they cultivate no other but the peach. The other kinds of trees, such as pears, apricots, plumbs, cherries, almonds, mulberries, nuts, and gooseberries, are very little known, except by name. Many of the inhabitants who are independent would be happy to procure some of them, but the distance from the sea-ports renders it very difficult. The major part of the inhabitants do not even cultivate vegetables; and out of twenty there is scarcely one of them that plants a small bed of cabbages; and when they do, it is in the same field as the Indian wheat.

In Upper Carolina the surface of the soil is covered with a kind of grass, which grows in greater abundance as the forests are more open. The woods are also like a common, where the inhabitants turn out their cattle, which they know again by their {281} private mark. Several persons have in their flocks a variety of poll oxen, which are not more esteemed than those of the common species. In the whole course of my travels I never saw any that could be compared to those I have seen in England, which beyond doubt proceeds from the little care that the inhabitants take of them, and from what these animals suffer during the summer, when they are cruelly tormented by an innumerable multitude of ticks and muskitos, and in the winter, through the want of grass, which dries up through the effect of the first frosts. These inconveniences are still more sensible, during the summer, in the low country, through the extreme heat of the climate. The result is, that the cows give but little milk, and are dry at the end of three or four months. In the environs of Philadelphia and New York, where they bestow the same care upon them as in England, they are, on the contrary, as fine, and give as great a quantity of milk.

The horses that they rear in this part of the {282} southern states are inferior to those of the western. The inhabitants keep but very few sheep, and those who have a dozen are accounted to have a great number.

The commercial intercourse of the Upper Carolines and Georgia is carried on, in a great measure, with Charleston, which is not much farther than Wilmington and Savannah. The inhabitants go there in preference, because the commerce is more active, and the sales more easy. The articles they carry there consists chiefly in short cotton, tobacco, hams, salt butter, wax, stag, and bear skins, and cattle. They take, in return, coarse iron ware, tea, coffee, powder sugar, coarse cloths, and fine linen, but no bar iron, the upper country abounding in mines of that metal, and those which are worked sufficing the wants of the inhabitants. They also bring salt from the sea-ports, since there are no salt pits in any part of the Atlantic states. The carriage of these goods is made in large waggons with four wheels, drawn by four or six horses, that travel {283} about twenty-four miles a day, and encamp every evening in the woods. The price of conveyance is about three shillings and four-pence per hundred weight for every hundred miles.

Although the climate of the Upper Carolinas is infinitely more wholesome than that of the lower parts, it is not, in the mean time, at two hundred miles, and even two hundred and fifty, from the ocean, that a person is safe from the yellow fever.

Eight-tenths of the inhabitants of this part of the country are in the same situation as those of Tennessea and Kentucky. They reside, like the latter, in log-houses isolated in the woods, which are left open in the night as well as the day. They live in the same manner with regard to their domestic affairs, and follow the same plans of agriculture. Notwithstanding there are many of them whose moral characters, perhaps, are not so unspotted as those of the western inhabitants, it is probably altered by associating with the Scotch and Irish who come every year in great numbers to settle in the country, and {284} who teach them a part of their vices and defects, the usual attendants on a great population. The major part of these new adventurers go into the upper country, where they engage to serve, for a year or two, those persons who have paid the captain of the ship for their passage.

{285} CHAP. XXXII

_Low part of the Carolines and Georgia.--Agriculture.--Population.--
Arrival at Charleston._

The low country of the two Carolinas extends from the borders of the sea for a hundred and twenty or a hundred and fifty miles, widening as it gets towards the south. The space that this extent embraces presents an even and regular soil, formed by a blackish sand, rather deep in parts, in which there are neither stones nor flints; in consequence of which they seldom shoe their horses in that part of the United States. Seven-tenths of the country are {286} covered with pines of one species, or _pinus palustris_, which, as the soil is drier and lighter, grow loftier and not so branchy. These trees, frequently twenty feet distant from each other, are not damaged by the fire that they make here annually in the woods, at the commencement of spring, to burn the grass and other plants that the frost has killed. These pines, encumbered with very few branches, and which split even, are preferred to other trees to form fences for plantations. Notwithstanding the sterility of the land where they grow, they are sometimes interspersed with three kinds of oaks; viz. the _quercus nigra_, the _quercus catasbœi_, and the _quercus obtusiloba_. The wood of the two first is only fit to burn, whilst that of the other is of an excellent use, as I have before remarked.

The Pine Barrens are crossed by little swamps, in the midst of which generally flows a rivulet. These swamps, from ten to forty fathoms broad, are sometimes more than a mile in length, and border on others, more spacious and marshy, near the rivers. {287} Each have different degrees of fertility, clearly indicated by the trees that grow there exclusively, and which are not to be found in the upper country. Thus the chesnut oak, or _quercus prinus palustris_, the _magnolia grandiflora_, the _magnolia tripetala_, the _nyssa biflora_, &c. flourish only in swamps where the soil is of a good quality, and continually cool, moist, and shady. In some parts of these same swamps, that are half the year submerged, where the earth is black, muddy, and reposes upon a clayey bottom, the acacia-leaved cypress, the _gleditsia monosperme_, the lyric oak, and the bunchy nut-tree, the nuts of which are small, and break easily between the fingers. The aquatic oak, the red maple, the _magnolia glauca_, the _liquidambar stiracyflua_, the _nyssa villosa_, the _Gordonia lasyanthus_, and the _laurus Caroliniensis_, cover, on the contrary, exclusively the narrow swamps of the Pine Barrens.

The Spanish beard, _tillandsia asneoides_, a kind of moss of a greyish colour, which is several feet in length, and which grows in abundance upon the {288} oaks and other trees, is again a plant peculiar to the low country.

In those districts where there are no pines, the soil is not so dry, deeper, and more productive. We found there white oaks, or _quercus alba_, aquatic oaks, or _quercus aquatica_, chesnut oaks, or _quercus prinus palustris_, and several species of nut-trees. The whole of these trees are here an index of the greatest fertility, which does not take place in the western country, as I have before observed.

The best rice plantations are established in the great swamps, that favour the watering of them when convenient. The harvests are abundant there, and the rice that proceeds from them, stripped of its husk, is larger, more transparent, and is sold dearer than that which is in a drier soil, where they have not the means or facility of irrigation. The culture of rice in the southern and maritime part of the United States has greatly diminished within these few years; it has been in a great measure replaced by that of cotton, which affords greater profit to the planters, {289} since they compute a good cotton harvest equivalent to two of rice. The result is, that many rice fields have been transformed into those of cotton, avoiding as much as possible the water penetrating.

The soil most adapted for the culture of cotton is in the isles situate upon the coast. Those which belong to the state of Georgia produce the best of cotton, which is known in the French trade by the name of Georgia cotton, fine wool, and in England by that of Sea Island cotton. The seed of this kind of cotton is of a deep black, and the wool fine and very long. In February 1803 it was sold at Charleston at 1s. 8d. per pound, whilst that which grows in the upper country is not worth above seventeen or eighteen pence. The first is exported to England, and the other goes to France; but what is very remarkable is, that whenever by any circumstance they import these two qualities into our ports, they only admit of a difference of from twelve to fifteen per cent. The cotton planters have particularly to dread the frosts that set in very early, and that frequently {290} do great damage to the crops by freezing one half of the stalks, so that the cotton has not an opportunity to ripen.

In all the plantations they cultivate Indian corn. The best land brings from fifteen to twenty bushels. They plant it, as well as the cotton, about two feet and a half distance, in parallel furrows from fifteen to eighteen inches high. The seed of this kind of Indian corn is round, and very white. When boiled it is preferable to that cultivated in the middle and western states, and in Upper Carolina. The chief part of what they grow is destined to support the negroes nine months in the year; their allowance is about two pounds per day, which they boil in water after having pounded it a little; the other three months they are fed upon yams. They never give them meat. In the other parts of the United States they are better treated, and live nearly upon the same as their masters, without having any set allowance. Indian corn is sold at Charleston for ten shillings per bushel, about fifty-five pounds weight.

{291} Thus rice, long cotton, yams, and Indian wheat, are the only cultures in the maritime part of the southern states; the temperature of the climate, and the nature of the soil, which is too light or too moist, being in no wise favourable for that of wheat or any kind of grain.

Through the whole of the low country the agricultural labours are performed by negro slaves, and the major part of the planters employ them to drag the plough; they conceive the land is better cultivated, and calculate besides that in the course of a year a horse, for food and looking after, costs ten times more than a negro, the annual expense of which does not exceed fifteen dollars.

I shall abstain from any reflexion concerning this, as the opinion of many people is fixed.

The climate of Lower Carolina and Georgia is too warm in summer to be favourable to European fruit-trees, and too cold in winter to suit those of the Carribbees. The fig is the only tree that succeeds tolerably well; again, the figs turn sour a few days after {292} they have acquired the last degree of maturity, which must doubtless be attributed to the constant dampness of the atmosphere.

In the environs of Charleston, and in the isles that border the coast, the orange-trees stand the winter in the open fields, and are seldom damaged by the frosts; but at ten miles distance, in the interior, they freeze every year even with the ground, although those parts of the country are situate under a more southerly latitude than Malta and Tunis. The oranges that they gather in Carolina are not good to eat. Those consumed there come from the island of St. Anastasia, situate opposite St. Augustin, the capital of East Florida; they are sweet, very large, fine skinned, and more esteemed than those brought from the Carribbees. About fifty years ago the seeds were brought from India, and given to an inhabitant of this island, who has so increased them that he has got an orchard of forty acres. I had an opportunity of seeing this beautiful plantation when I was at Florida in 1788.

{293} In the general verification of the United States, published in 1800, the population of North Carolina, comprising negro slaves, amounted to four hundred and seventy-eight thousand inhabitants, that of Georgia to one hundred and sixty-three thousand, and that of South Carolina to three hundred and forty-six thousand. Not having been able to see the private extracts of the two former states, I am unacquainted with the proportion that there is between the whites and blacks, and the difference that exists between the population of the low and high countries; however an idea may be formed by the verification of South Carolina, where they reckon in the low country, comprising the town of Charleston, thirty-six thousand whites and a hundred thousand negroes, and in the high country one hundred and sixty-three thousand whites and forty-six thousand negroes.

I arrived at Charleston on the 18th of October 1802, three months and a half after my departure from Philadelphia, having travelled over a space of {294} nearly eighteen hundred miles. I staid at Carolina till the 1st of March 1803, the epoch when I embarked for France on board the same ship that had taken me to America eighteen months before, and arrived at Bourdeaux on the 26th of March 1803.

THE END

FOOTNOTES:

[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.

JOURNAL OF A TOUR ... NORTHWEST OF THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS, BY
THADDEUS MASON HARRIS, A. M.

Reprint from Boston edition, 1805; the Journal proper, omitting
the Appendix thereto

THE

JOURNAL OF A TOUR

INTO THE

_Territory Northwest of the Alleghany
Mountains;_

Made in the Spring of the Year 1803.

WITH

A GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF

THE

State of Ohio.

_Illustrated with Original Maps and Views._

BY

THADDEUS MASON HARRIS, A. M.

Member of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

“Profuit et varios mores, hominumque locorumque
Explorasse situs, multas cum peregrinavit
Aut vidisse ipsum urbes, aut narrantibus illas
Ex aliis novisse.” VIDÆ, _poet_.

Boston:

PRINTED BY MANNING & LORING, NO. 2, CORNHILL.

1805.

_District of Massachusetts_, to wit.

BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the first day of February, in the twenty-ninth year of the Independence of the United States of America, THADDEUS MASON HARRIS, of the said District, hath deposited in this office the title of a Book, the right whereof he claims as Author, in the words following, _to wit_:--“The Journal of a Tour into the Territory Northwest of the Alleghany Mountains; made in the Spring of the year 1803. With a geographical and historical Account of the State of Ohio. By THADDEUS MASON HARRIS, A.M. Member of the Massachusetts Historical Society.--Illustrated with 1. An original Map of the Alleghany, Monongahela, and Yohiogany Rivers. 2. A Map of the State of Ohio, by the Hon. Rufus Putnam, Esq. Surveyor General of the United States, made from actual Surveys. 3. A Map of the Tract appropriated by Congress for Military Services; on which the Sections are laid down and marked by Numbers, &c. 4. A Ground Plat of the City Marietta. 5. A View of the Ancient Mounds and Fortifications on the Muskingum.”

In Conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, “An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by securing the Copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned;” and also to an Act, entitled, “An Act supplementary to an Act, entitled, An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by securing the Copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned; and extending the Benefits thereof to the Arts of Designing, Engraving, and Etching, Historical and other Prints.”

N. GOODALE, _Clerk of the District of Massachusetts_.
A true Copy of Record. Attest:
N. GOODALE, _Clerk_.

TO THE

Hon. RUFUS PUTNAM, Esq.

GENERAL IN THE ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE LATE REVOLUTIONARY
WAR, AND SINCE SURVEYOR GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES,
&C. &C.[1]

PERMIT me, dear Sir, to inscribe to you the following pages, in grateful acknowledgment of the hospitality and kindness you showed me while at Marietta, and of the readiness with which you answered my inquiries respecting the State of Ohio.

I AM sensible that the geographical sketches I have given of that Territory will appear very imperfect to you, who have so intimate an acquaintance with every part of it; but to _others_ they may convey information more particular and correct than has been hitherto published.

AS the founder and father of the State, you will feel interested in the details I have given; and, I hope, will not be wholly disappointed {iv} with my attempt to describe a part of our country so rapidly increasing in population and importance.

RELYING on your candor, and encouraged by the very flattering manner in which you have seconded my proposals for this publication, I am led to flatter myself that, while you condescend to take the work under your patronage, you will consider it as the offering of one whose address on this occasion proceeds from the pure motive of veneration for a character so worthily distinguished, and from the honest ambition of being known as your friend.

THADDEUS MASON HARRIS