Chapter VI: Preface: To Volume III (5)

From Shippensburgh to Pittsburgh the distance is about an hundred and seventy miles.[12] The stages going no farther, a person must either travel the remainder of the road on foot, or purchase horses. There are always some to be disposed of; but the natives, taking advantage of travellers thus situated, make them pay more than double their value; and when you arrive at Pittsburgh, on your return, you can only sell them for one half of what they cost. I could have wished, for the sake of economy, to travel the rest of the way on foot, but from the observations I had heard I was induced to buy a horse, in conjunction with an American officer with whom I came in the stage, and who was also going to Pittsburgh. We agreed to ride alternately.

{35} CHAP. IV

_Departure from Shippensburgh to Strasburgh--Journey over the
Blue Ridges--New species of_ Rhododendrum--_Passage over
the river Juniata--Use of the Cones of the_ Magnolia
Acuminata--_Arrival at Bedford Court House--Excesses
to which the Natives of that part of the Country are
addicted--Departure from Bedford--Journey over Alleghany
Ridge and Laurel Hill--Arrival at West Liberty Town._

On the morning of the 30th of June we left Shippensburgh, and arrived at twelve o’clock at Strasburgh, being a distance of ten miles. This town consists of about forty log-houses, and is situated at the foot of the first chain of Blue Ridges. The tract of country you have to cross before you get there, although uneven, is much better; and you have a view of several plantations tolerably well {36} cultivated. After having taken a moment’s repose at Strasburgh, we pursued our journey notwithstanding the heat, which was excessive, and ascended the first ridge by an extremely steep and rocky path. We reached the summit after three quarters of an hour’s difficult walking, and crossed two other ridges of nearly the same height, and which follow the same direction. These three ridges form two little valleys, the first of which presents several small huts built on the declivity; in the second, which is rather more extensive, is situated a town called Fenetsburgh, composed of about thirty houses, which stand on both sides of the road; the plantations that surround them are about twenty in number, each of which is composed of from two to three hundred acres of woody land, of which, from the scarcity of hands, there are seldom more than a few acres cleared. In this part of Pensylvania every individual is content with cultivating a sufficiency for himself and family; and according as that is more or less numerous the parts so cleared are more or less extensive; whence it follows, that the larger family a man has capable of assisting him, the greater independence he enjoys; this is one of the principal {37} causes of the rapid progress that population makes in the United States.

This day we travelled only six-and-twenty miles, and slept at Fort Littleton, about six miles from Strasburg, at the house of one Colonel Bird, who keeps a good inn. From Shippensburgh the mountains are very flinty, and the soil extremely bad; the trees of an indifferent growth, and particularly the white oak that grows upon the summit, and the _calmia latifolia_ on the other parts.

The next day we set out very early in the morning to go to Bedford Court House. From Fort Littleton to the river Juniata we found very few plantations; nothing but a succession of ridges, the spaces between which were filled up with a number of little hills. Being on the summit of one of these lofty ridges, the inequality of this group of mountains, crowned with innumerable woods, and overshadowing the earth, it afforded nearly the same picture that the troubled sea presents after a dreadful storm.

Two miles before you come to the river Juniata, the road is divided into two branches, which meet again at the river side. The right leads across the mountains, and the left, which we took, appeared to {38} have been, and may be still the bed of a deep torrent, the ground being wet and marshy. The banks were covered with the _andromeda_, _vaccinium_, and more particularly with a species of _rhododendrum_, that bears a flower of the clearest white; the fibres of the stamina are also white, and the leaves more obtuse, and not so large as the _rhododendrum maximum_. This singular variation must of course admit its being classed under a particular species. I discovered this beautiful shrub a second time on the mountains of North Carolina. Its seeds were at that time ripe, and I carried some of them over with me to France, which came up exceedingly well. The river Juniata was not, in that part, above thirty or forty fathoms broad, and in consequence of the tide being very low, we forded it; still, the greatest part of the year people cross it in a ferry-boat. Its banks are lofty and very airy. The _magnolia acuminata_ is very common in the environs; it is known in the country by the name of the _cucumber tree_. The inhabitants of the remote parts of Pensylvania, Virginia, and even the western countries, pick the cones when green to infuse in whiskey, which gives it a pleasant bitter. This bitter is very much esteemed in the country as a preventive against intermittent {39} fevers; but I have my doubts whether it would be so generally used if it had the same qualities when mixed with water.

From the crossing of the river Juniata to Bedford Court House, the country, although mountainous, is still better, and more inhabited, than that we travelled over from Shippensburgh. The plantations, although seldom in sight of each other, are near enough to give a more animated appearance to the country. We arrived at Bedford in the dusk of the evening, and took lodgings at an inn, the landlord of which was an acquaintance of the American officer with whom I was travelling. His house was commodious, and elevated one story above the ground floor, which is very rare in that part of the country. The day of our arrival was a day of rejoicing for the country people, who had assembled together in this little town to celebrate the suppression of the tax laid upon the whiskey distilleries; rather an arbitrary tax, that had disaffected the inhabitants of the interior against the late president, Mr. Adams.[13] The public houses, inns, and more especially the one where we lodged, were filled with the lower class of people, who made the most dreadful riot, and committed such horrible excesses, that {40} is almost impossible to form the least idea of. The rooms, stairs, and yard were strewed with drunken men; and those who had still the power of speech uttered nothing but the accents of rage and fury. A passion for spirituous liquors is one of the features that characterise the country people belonging to the interior of the United States. This passion is so strong, that they desert their homes every now and then to get drunk in public houses; in fact, I do not conceive there are ten out of a hundred who have resolution enough to desist from it a moment provided they had it by them, notwithstanding their usual beverage in summer is nothing but water, or sour milk. They care very little for cyder, which they find too weak. Their dislike to this wholesome and pleasant beverage is the more distressing as they might easily procure it at a very trifling expense, for apple trees of every kind grow to wonderful perfection in this country. This is a remark which I have made towards the east as well as the west of the Alleghany Mountains, where I have known lofty trees spring up from kernels, which bore apples from eight to nine inches in circumference.

At Bedford there are scarce a hundred and twenty houses in the whole, and those but of a miserable {41} appearance, most of them being built of wood. This little town, like all the rest on that road, trades in all kinds of corn, flour, &c. which, with salt provisions, are the only articles they sell for exportation. During the war, in the time of the French revolution, the inhabitants found it more to their advantage to send their corn, &c. to Pittsburgh, there to be sent by the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans, or embark them for the Carribbees, than to send them to Philadelphia or Baltimore; notwithstanding it is not computed to be more than two hundred miles from Bedford to Philadelphia, and a hundred and fifty from Bedford to Baltimore, whilst the distance from Bedford to New Orleans is about two thousand two hundred miles; viz. a hundred miles by land to Pittsburgh, and two thousand one hundred miles by water from Pittsburgh to the mouth of the Mississippi. It is evident, according to this calculation, that the navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi is very easy, and by far less expensive, since it compensates for the enormous difference that exists between those two distances. The situation of New Orleans, with respect to the Carribbees, by this rule, gives this town the most signal advantage over all the ports eastward of the United States; and in proportion as {42} the new western states increase in population, New Orleans will become the centre of an immense commerce. Other facts will still rise up to the support of this observation.

On the following day (the 1st of July) we left Bedford very early in the morning. The heat was excessive; the ridges that we had perpetually to climb, and the little mountains that rise between these ridges, rendered the journey extremely difficult; we travelled no more than six-and-twenty miles this day. About four miles from Bedford the road divides into two different directions; we took the left, and stopped to breakfast with a miller who keeps a public house. We found a man there lying upon the ground, wrapt up in a blanket, who on the preceding evening had been bitten by a rattle-snake. The first symptoms that appeared, about an hour after the accident, were violent vomitings, which was succeeded by a raging fever. When I saw him first his leg and thigh were very much swelled, his respiration very laborious, and his countenance turgescent, and similar to that of a person attacked with the hydrophobia whom I had an opportunity of seeing at Charité. I put several questions to him; but he was so absorbed that it was impossible to obtain {43} the least answer from him. I learnt from some persons in the house that immediately after the bite, the juice of certain plants had been applied to the wound, waiting the doctor’s arrival, who lived fifteen or twenty miles off. Those who do not die with it are always very sickly, and sensible to the changes of the atmosphere. The plants made use of against the bite are very numerous, and almost all succulent. There are a great many rattle-snakes in these mountainous parts of Pensylvania; we found a great number of them killed upon the road. In the warm and dry season of the year they come out from beneath the rocks, and inhabit those places where there is water.

On that same day we crossed the ridge which takes more particularly the name of Alleghany Ridges. The road we took was extremely rugged, and covered with enormous stones. We attained the summit after two hours painful journey. It is truly astonishing how the vehicles of conveyance pass over so easily, and with so few accidents this multitude of steep hills or ridges, that uninterruptedly follow in succession from Shippensburgh to Pittsburgh, and where the spaces between each are filled up with an infinity of small mountains of a less elevation.

{44} Alleghany Ridge is the most elevated link in Pensylvania; on its summit are two log-houses, very indifferently constructed, about three miles distant from each other, which serve as public houses. These were the only habitations we met with on the road from Bedford; the remaining part of the country is uninhabited. We stopped at the second, kept by one Chatlers, tolerably well supplied with provisions for the country, as they served us up for dinner slices of ham and venison fried on the hearth, with a kind of muffins made of flour, which they baked before the fire upon a little board.

Notwithstanding a very heavy fall of rain, we went to sleep that day at Stanley Town, a small place, which, like all those in that part of Pensylvania, is built upon a hill. It is composed of about fifty houses, the half of which are log-houses; among the rest are a few inns, and two or three shops, supplied from Philadelphia; the distance is about seven miles from Chatler’s; the country that separates them is very fertile, and abounds with trees of the highest elevation; those most prevalent in the woods are the white, red, and black oaks, the beech, tulip, and _magnolia acuminata_.

The horse we bought at Shippensburgh, and which {45} we rode alternately, was very much fatigued, in consequence of which we travelled but very little farther than if we had been on foot; in the mean time the American officer, my companion, was in haste to arrive at Pittsburgh, to be present at the fête of the 4th of July in commemoration of the American independence. In order to gain a day, he hired a horse at Stanley Town, with which we crossed Laurel Hill, a distance of four miles. The direction of this ridge is parallel with those we had left behind us; the woods which cover it are more tufted, and the vegetation appears more lively. The name given to this mountain I have no doubt proceeds from the great quantity of _calmia latifolia_, from eight to ten feet high, which grows exclusively in all the vacant places, and that of the _rhododendrum maximum_, which enamel the borders of the torrents; for the inhabitants call the _rhododendrum_ laurel as frequently as the _calmia latifolia_. Some describe the latter shrub by the name of the colico-tree, the leaves of which, they say, are a very subtle poison to sheep, who die almost instantaneously after eating them. At the foot of Laurel Hill begins the valley of Ligonier, in which is situated, about a quarter of a mile from the mountain, West Liberty Town, composed {46} of eighteen or twenty log-houses. The soil of this valley appears extremely fertile. It is very near this place that the French, formerly masters of Canada, built Fort Ligonier, as every part of the United States west of the Alleghany Mountains depended on Canada or Louisiana.[14]

{47} CHAP. V

_Departure from West Liberty Town to go among the Mountains in
search of a Shrub supposed to give good Oil, a new Species
of Azalea.--Ligonier Valley.--Coal Mines.--Greensburgh.--
Arrival at Pittsburgh._

On my journey to Lancaster Mr. W. Hamilton had informed me that at a short distance from West Liberty Town, and near the plantation of Mr. Patrick Archibald, there grew a shrub, the fruit of which he had been told produced excellent oil. Several persons at New York and Philadelphia had heard the same, and entertained a hope that, cultivated largely, it might turn to general advantage. In fact, it would have been a treasure to find a shrub which, to the valuable qualities of the olive-tree, united that of enduring the cold of the most northern countries. Induced by these motives, I left my {48} travelling companion to go amongst the mountains in quest of the shrub. About two miles from West Liberty Town I passed by Probes’s Furnace, a foundry established by a Frenchman from Alsace, who manufactures all kinds of vessels in brass and copper; the largest contain about two hundred pints, which are sent into Kentucky and Tennessea, where they use them for the preparation of salt by evaporation; the smaller ones are destined for domestic uses. They directed me at the foundry which road I was to take, notwithstanding I frequently missed my way on account of the roads being more or less cut, which lead to different plantations scattered about the woods; still I met with the greatest civility from the inhabitants, who very obligingly put me in my road, and on the same evening I reached Patrick Archibald’s, where I was kindly received after having imparted the subject of my visit. One would think that this man, who has a mill and other valuables of his own, might live in the greatest comfort; yet he resides in a miserable log-house about twenty feet long, subject to the inclemency of the weather. Four large beds, two of which are very low, are placed underneath the others in the day-time, and drawn out of an evening {49} into the middle of the room, receive the whole family, composed of ten persons, and at times strangers, who casually entreat to have a bed. This mode of living, which would announce poverty in Europe, is by no means the sign of it with them; for in an extent of two thousand miles and upward that I have travelled, there is not a single family but has milk, butter, salted or dried meat, and Indian corn generally in the house; the poorest man has always one or more horses, and an inhabitant very rarely goes on foot to see his neighbour.

The day after my arrival I went into the woods, and in my first excursion I found the shrub which was at that moment the object of my researches. I knew it to be the same that my father had discovered fifteen years before in the mountains of South Carolina, and which, in despite of all the attention he bestowed, he could not bring to any perfection in his garden.[15] Mr. W. Hamilton, who had received a few seeds and plants of it from that part of Pensylvania where I then was, had not been more successful. The seeds grow so soon rancid, that in the course of a few days they lose their germinative faculty, and contract an uncommon sharpness. This shrub, which seldom rises above five feet in {50} height is diocal. It grows exclusively on the mountains, and is only found in cool and shady places, and where the soil is very fertile. Its roots, of a citron colour, do not divide, but extend horizontally to a great distance, and give birth to several shoots, which very seldom grow more than eighteen inches high. The roots and the bark rubbed together, produce an unpleasant smell. I commissioned my landlord to gather half a bushel of seed, and send it to Mr. William Hamilton, giving him the necessary precaution to keep it fresh.--On the banks of the creek where Mr. Archibald’s mill is erected, and along the rivulets in the environs, grows a species of the azalea, which was then in full blossom. It rises from twelve to fifteen feet. Its flowers, of a beautiful white, and larger than those of the other known species, exhale the most delicious perfume. The _azalea coccinea_, on the contrary, grows on the summit of the mountains, is of a nasturtium colour, and blows two months before.

Ligonier Valley is reckoned very fertile. Wheat, rye, and oats are among its chief productions. Some of the inhabitants plant Indian corn upon the summit of the mountains, but it does not succeed well, the country being too cold. The sun is not {51} seen there for three quarters of an hour after it has risen. They also cultivate hemp and flax, and each gathers a sufficient quantity of it to supply his domestic wants; and as all the women know how to spin and weave, they supply themselves and family, by this means, with linen. The price of land is from one to two piastres an acre. The taxes are very moderate, and no complaints are ever made against them. In this part of the United States, as well as in all mountainous countries, the air is very wholesome. I have seen men there upward of seventy-five years of age, which is very rare in the Atlantic states situated south of Pennsylvania. During my travels in this country the measles were very prevalent. At the invitation of my host I went to see several of his relatives and friends that were attacked with it. I found them all drinking whiskey, to excite perspiration. I advised them a decoction of the leaves of the viscous elm, with the addition of a spoonful of vinegar to a pint, and an ounce of sugar of maple. In consequence of the country being poor, and the population not very numerous, there are but few medical men there; and in cases of necessity they have to go twenty or thirty miles to fetch them.

{52} On the 4th of July I left Archibald’s, and posted on toward Greensburgh, which is about eleven miles from it. I had not gone far before I had to cross Chesnut Ridge, a very steep hill, the summit of which, for an extent of two miles, presents nothing but a dry and chalky soil, abounding with oaks and chesnut trees, stunted in their growth: but as I advanced toward Greensburgh the aspect of the country changes, the soil becomes better. The plantations, although surrounded with woods, are not so far apart as in the valley of Ligonier. The houses are much larger, and most of them have two rooms. The land better cultivated, the enclosures better formed, prove clearly it is a German settlement. With them every thing announces ease, the fruit of their assiduity to labour. They assist each other in their harvests, live happy among themselves, always speak German, and preserve, as much as possible, the customs of their ancestors, formerly from Europe. They live much better than the American descendants of the English, Scotch, and Irish. They are not so much addicted to spirituous liquors, and have not that wandering mind which often, for the slightest motive, prompts them to emigrate several {53} hundred miles, in hopes of finding a more fertile soil.

Prior to my arrival at Greensburgh[16] I had an opportunity of remarking several parts of the woods exclusively composed of white oaks, or _quercus alba_, the foliage of which being a lightish green, formed a beautiful contrast with other trees of a deeper colour. About a mile from the town, and on the borders of a tremendous cavity I perceived unequivocal signs of a coal mine. I learnt at Greensburgh and Pittsburgh that this substance was so common and so easy to procure, that many of the inhabitants burnt it from economical motives. Not that there is a scarcity of wood, the whole country being covered with it, but labour is very dear; so that there is not a proprietor who would not consent to sell a cord of wood for half the sum that coals would cost, provided a person would go a mile to fell the trees, and take them home.

Greensburgh contains about a hundred houses. The town is built upon the summit of a hill on the road from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. The soil of the environs is fertile; the inhabitants, who are of German origin, cultivate wheat, rye, and oats with great success. The flour is exported at Pittsburgh.

{54} I lodged at the Seven Stars with one Erbach, who keeps a good inn.[17] I there fell into company with a traveller who came from the state of Vermont, and through necessity we were obliged to sleep in one room. Without entering into any explanation relative to the intention of our journey, we communicated to each other our remarks upon the country that we had just travelled over. He had been upward of six hundred miles since his departure from his place of residence, and I had been four hundred since I left New York. He proposed accompanying me to Pittsburgh. I observed to him that I was on foot, and gave him my reasons for it, as it is very uncommon in America to travel in that manner, the poorest inhabitant possessing always one, and even several horses.

From Greensburgh to Pittsburgh it is computed to be about thirty-two miles. The road that leads to it is very mountainous. To avoid the heat, and to accelerate my journey, I set out at four in the morning. I had no trouble in getting out of the house, the door being only on the latch. At the inns in small towns, on the contrary, they are extremely careful in locking the stables, as horse-stealers are by no means uncommon in certain parts of the {55} United States; and this is one of the accidents to which travellers are the most exposed, more especially in the southern states and in the western countries, where they are sometimes obliged to sleep in the woods. It also frequently happens that they steal them from the inhabitants; at the same time nothing is more easy, as the horses are, in one part of the year, turned out in the forests, and in the spring they frequently stray many miles from home; but on the slightest probability of the road the thief has taken, the plundered inhabitant vigorously pursues him, and frequently succeeds in taking him; upon which he confines him in the county prison, or, which is not uncommon, kills him on the spot. In the different states the laws against horse-stealing are very severe, and this severity appears influenced by the great facility the country presents for committing the crime.

I had travelled about fifteen miles when I was overtaken by an American gentleman whom I had met the preceding evening at Greensburgh. Although he was on horseback, he had the politeness to slacken his pace, and I accompanied him to Pittsburgh. This second interview made us more intimately acquainted. He informed me that his intention {56} was to go by the side of the Ohio. Having the same design, I entertained a wish to travel with him, and more so, as he was not an amateur of whiskey; being compelled, by the heat of the weather, frequently to halt at the inns, which are tolerably numerous, I had observed that he drank very little of that liquor in water, and that he gave a preference to sour milk, whenever it could be procured.[18] In that respect he differed from the American officer with whom I had travelled almost all the way from Shippensburgh.

About ten miles from Greensburgh, on the left, is a road that cuts off more than three miles, but which is only passable for persons on foot or on horseback. We took it, and in the course of half an hour perceived the river Monongahela, which we coasted till within a short distance of Pittsburgh. A tremendous shower obliged us to take shelter in a house about a hundred fathoms from the river. The owner having recognized us to be strangers, informed us that it was on that very spot that the French, in the seven years’ war, had completely defeated General Braddock; and he also showed us several trees that are still damaged by the balls.[19]

We reached Pittsburgh at a very early hour, when {57} I took up my residence with a Frenchman named Marie, who keeps a respectable inn. What pleased me most was my having accomplished my journey, as I began to be fatigued with travelling over so mountainous a country; for during an extent of about a hundred and eighty miles, which I had travelled almost entirely on foot, I do not think I walked fifty fathoms without either ascending or descending.

{58} CHAP. VI

_Description of Pittsburgh.--Commerce of the Town and adjacent
Countries with New Orleans.--Construction of large Vessels.--
Description of the Rivers Monongahela and Alleghany.--Towns
situated on their Banks.--Agriculture.--Maple Sugar._

Pittsburgh is situated at the conflux of the rivers Monongahela and Alleghany, the uniting of which forms the Ohio. The even soil upon which it is built is not more than forty or fifty acres in extent. It is in the form of an angle, the three sides of which are enclosed either by the bed of the two rivers or by stupendous mountains. The houses are principally brick, they are computed to be about four hundred, most of which are built upon the Monongahela; that side is considered the most commercial part of the town. As a great number of the houses are separated from each other by large spaces, the {59} whole surface of the angle is completely taken up. On the summit of the angle the French built Fort Duquesne, which is now entirely destroyed, and nothing more is seen than the vestige of the ditches that surrounded it.[20] This spot affords the most pleasing view, produced by the perspective of the rivers, overshadowed with forests, and especially the Ohio, which flows in a strait line, and, to appearance, loses itself in space.

The air is very salubrious at Pittsburgh and its environs; intermittent fevers are unknown there, although so common in the southern states, neither are they tormented in the summer with musquitoes. A person may subsist there for one-third of what he pays at Philadelphia. Two printing-offices have been long established there, and, for the amusement of the curious, each publish a newspaper weekly.[21]

Pittsburgh has been long considered by the Americans as the key to the western country. Thence the federal forces were marched against the Indians who opposed the former settlement of the Americans in Kentucky, and on the banks of the Ohio. However, now the Indian nations are repulsed to a considerable distance, and reduced to the impossibility {60} of hurting the most remote settlers in the interior of the states; besides, the western country has acquired a great mass of population, insomuch that there is nothing now at Pittsburgh but a feeble garrison, barracked in a fort belonging to the town, on the banks of the river Allighany.[22]

However, though this town has lost its importance as a military post, it has acquired a still greater one in respect to commerce. It serves as a staple for the different sorts of merchandise that Philadelphia and Baltimore send, in the beginning of spring and autumn, for supplying the states of Ohio, Kentucky, and the settlement of Natches.

The conveyance of merchandise from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh is made in large covered waggons, drawn by four horses two a-breast. The price of carrying goods varies according to the season; but in general it does not exceed six piastres the quintal. They reckon it to be three hundred miles from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, and the carriers generally make it a journey of from twenty to twenty-four days. The price of conveyance would not be so high as it really is, were it not that the waggons frequently return empty; notwithstanding they sometimes bring back, on their return to Philadelphia or {61} Baltimore, fur skins that come from Illinois or Ginseng, which is very common in that part of Pensylvania.

Pittsburgh is not only the staple of the Philadelphia and Baltimore trade with the western country, but of the numerous settlements that are formed upon the Monongahela and Alleghany. The territorial produce of that part of the country finds an easy and advantageous conveyance by the Ohio and Mississippi. Corn, hams and dried pork are the principal articles sent to New Orleans, whence they are re-exported into the Carribbees. They also export for the consumption of Louisiana, bar-iron, coarse linen, bottles manufactured at Pittsburgh, whiskey, and salt butter. A great part of these provisions come from Redstone, a small commercial town, situated upon the Monongahela, about fifty miles beyond Pittsburgh.[23] All these advantages joined together have, within these ten years, increased ten-fold the population and price of articles in the town, and contribute to its improvements, which daily grow more and more rapid.

The major part of the merchants settled at Pittsburgh, or in the environs, are the partners, or else the factors, belonging to the houses at Philadelphia. {62} Their brokers at New Orleans sell, as much as they can, for ready money; or rather, take in exchange cottons, indigo, raw sugar, the produce of Low Louisiana, which they send off by sea to the houses at Philadelphia and Baltimore, and thus cover their first advances. The bargemen return thus by sea to Philadelphia or Baltimore, whence they go by land to Pittsburgh and the environs, where the major part of them generally reside. Although the passage from New Orleans to one of these two ports is twenty or thirty days, and that they have to take a route by land of three hundred miles to return to Pittsburgh, they prefer this way, being not so difficult as the return by land from New Orleans to Pittsburgh, this last distance being fourteen or fifteen hundred miles. However, when the barges are only destined for Limeston, in Kentucky, or for Cincinnati, in the state of Ohio, the bargemen return by land, and by that means take a route of four or five hundred miles.

The navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi is so much improved of late that they can tell almost to a certainty the distance from Pittsburgh to New Orleans, which they compute to be two thousand one hundred miles. The barges in the spring season {63} usually take forty or fifty days to make the passage, which two or three persons in a _pirogue_[24] make in five and twenty days.

What many, perhaps, are ignorant of in Europe is, that they build large vessels on the Ohio, and at the town of Pittsburgh. One of the principal ship yards is upon the Monongahela, about two hundred fathoms beyond the last houses in the town. The timber they make use of is the white oak, or _quercus alba_; the red oak, or _quercus rubra_; the black oak, or _quercus tinctoria_; a kind of nut tree, or _juglans minima_; the Virginia cherry-tree, or _cerasus Virginia_; and a kind of pine, which they use for masting, as well as for the sides of the vessels which require a slighter wood. The whole of this timber being near at hand, the expense of building is not so great as in the ports of the Atlantic states. The cordage is manufactured at Redstone and Lexinton, where there are two extensive rope-walks, which also supply ships with rigging that are built at Marietta and Louisville. On my journey to Pittsburgh in the month of July 1802, there was a three-mast vessel[25] of two {64} hundred and fifty tons, and a smaller one of ninety, which was on the point of being finished. These ships were to go, in the spring following, to New Orleans, loaded with the produce of the country, after having made a passage of two thousand two hundred miles before they got into the ocean. There is no doubt but they can, by the same rule, build ships two hundred leagues beyond the mouth of the Missouri, fifty from that of the river Illinois, and even in the Mississippi, two hundred beyond the place whence these rivers flow; that is to say, six hundred and fifty leagues from the sea; as their bed in the appointed space is as deep as that of the Ohio at Pittsburgh; in consequence of which it must be a wrong conjecture to suppose that the immense tract of country watered by these rivers cannot be populous enough to execute such undertakings. The rapid population of the three new western states, under less favourable circumstances, proves this assertion to be true.[26] Those states, where thirty years ago there was scarcely three hundred inhabitants, are now computed to contain upwards of a hundred thousand; and although the plantations on the roads are scarcely four miles distant from each other, it is very rare to find one, even among {65} the most flourishing, where one cannot with confidence ask the owner, whence he has emigrated; or, according to the trivial manner of the Americans, “What part of the world do you come from?” as if these immense and fertile regions were to be the asylum common to all the inhabitants of the globe. Now if we consider these astonishing and rapid ameliorations, what ideas must we not form of the height of prosperity to which the western country is rising, and of the recent spring that the commerce, population and culture of the country is taking by uniting Louisiana to the American territory.

The river Monongahela derives its source in Virginia, at the foot of Laurel Mountain, which comprises a part of the chain of the Alleghanies; bending its course toward the west, it runs into Pennsylvania, and before it reaches Alleghany it receives in its current the rivers Chéat and Youghiogheny, which proceed from the south west. The territory watered by this river is extremely fertile; and the settlements formed upon the banks are not very far apart. It begins to be navigable at Morgan Town, which is composed of about sixty houses, and is situated upon the right, within a hundred miles of its _embouchure_.[27] Of all the little towns built upon {66} the Monongahela, New Geneva and Redstone have the most active commerce. The former has a glass-house in it, the produce of which is exported chiefly into the western country; the latter has shoe and paper manufactories, several flour mills, and contains about five hundred inhabitants. At this town a great number of those who emigrate from the eastern states embark to go into the west. It is also famous for building large boats, called _Kentucky boats_, used in the Kentucky trade; numbers are also built at Elizabeth Town,[28] situated on the same river, about twenty-three miles from Pittsburgh--the _Monongahela Farmer_ was launched there, a sailing vessel of two hundred tons.

Alleghany takes its source fifteen or twenty miles from lake Eria; its current is enlarged by the French Creek, and various small rivers of less importance. The Alleghany begins to be navigable within two hundred miles of Pittsburgh. The banks of this river are fertile; the inhabitants who have formed settlements there export, as well as those of Monongahela, the produce of their culture by the way of the Ohio and Mississippi. On the banks of this river they begin to form a few small towns; among the most considerable are Meadville, situated two {67} hundred and thirty miles from Pittsburgh; Franklin, about two hundred; and Freeport, scarcely one; each of which does not contain above forty or fifty houses.

Let the weather be what it will, the stream of the Alleghany is clear and limped; that of the Monongahela, on the contrary, grows rather muddy with a few days incessant rain in that part of the Alleghany Mountains where it derives its source.

The sugar-maple is very common in every part of Pennsylvania which the Monongahela and Alleghany water. This tree thrives most in cold, wet, and mountainous countries, and its seed is always more abundant when the winter is most severe. The sugar extracted from it is generally very coarse, and is sold, after having been prepared in loaves of six, eight, and ten pounds each, at the rate of seven-pence per pound. The inhabitants manufacture none but for their own use; the greater part of them drink tea and coffee daily, but they use it just as it has passed the first evaporation, and never take the trouble to refine it, on account of the great waste occasioned by the operation.

{68}CHAP. VII

_Description of the Ohio.--Navigation of that river.--Mr. S.
Craft.--The object of his travels.--Remarks upon the State
of Vermont._

The Ohio, formed by the union of the Monongahela and Alleghany rivers, appears to be rather a continuance of the former than the latter, which only happens obliquely at the conflux. The Ohio may be, at Pittsburgh, two hundred fathoms broad. The current of this immense and magnificent river inclines at first north west for about twenty miles, then bends gradually west south west. It follows that direction for about the space of five hundred miles; turns thence south west a hundred and sixty miles; then west two hundred and seventy-five; at length runs into the Mississippi in a southwesterly direction, in the latitude of 36 deg. 46 min. about eleven hundred miles from Pittsburgh, and nearly {69} the same distance from Orleans. This river runs so extremely serpentine, that in going down it, you appear following a track directly opposite to the one you mean to take. Its breadth varies from two hundred to a thousand fathoms. The islands that are met with in its current are very numerous. We counted upward of fifty in the space of three hundred and eighty miles. Some contain but a few acres, and others more than a thousand in length. Their banks are very low, and must be subject to inundations. These islands are a great impediment to the navigation in the summer. The sands that the river drives up form, at the head of some of them, a number of little shoals; and in this season of the year the channel is so narrow from the want of water, that the few boats, even of a middling size, that venture to go down, are frequently run aground, and it is with great difficulty that they are got afloat; notwithstanding which there is at all times a sufficiency of water for a skiff or a canoe. As these little boats are very light when they strike upon the sands, it is very easy to push them off into a deeper part. In consequence of this, it is only in the spring and autumn that the Ohio is navigable, at least as far as Limestone, about a hundred and twenty {70} miles from Pittsburgh. During those two seasons the water rises to such a height, that vessels of three hundred tons, piloted by men who are acquainted with the river, may go down in the greatest safety. The spring season begins at the end of February, and lasts three months; the autumn begins in October, and only lasts till the first of December. In the mean time these two epochs fall sooner or later, as the winter is more or less rainy, or the rivers are a shorter or a longer time thawing. Again, it so happens, that in the course of the summer heavy and incessant rains fall in the Alheghany Mountains, which suddenly swell the Ohio: at that time persons may go down it with the greatest safety; but such circumstances are not always to be depended on.

The banks of the Ohio are high and solid; its current is free from a thousand obstacles that render the navigation of the Mississippi difficult, and often dangerous, when they have not skilful conductors. On the Ohio persons may travel all night without the smallest danger; instead of which, on the Mississippi prudence requires them to stop every evening, at least from the mouth of the Ohio to Naches, a space of nearly seven hundred and fifty miles.

{71} The rapidity of the Ohio’s current is extreme in spring; at the same time in this season there is no necessity for rowing. The excessive swiftness it would give, by that means, to the boat would be more dangerous than useful, by turning it out of the current, and running it upon some island or other, where it might get entangled among a heap of dead trees that are half under water, and from which it would be very difficult to extricate them; for which reason they generally go with the current, which is always strong enough to advance with great celerity, and is always more rapid in the middle of the stream. The amazing rapidity of the Ohio has an influence on the shape of the boats that navigate upon it, and that shape is not calculated to accelerate their progress, but to stem the current of the stream. All the boats or barges, whether those in the Kentucky or Mississippi trade, or those which convey the families that go into the eastern or western states, are built in the same manner. They are of a square form, some longer than others; their sides are raised four feet and a half above the water; their length is from fifteen to fifty feet; the two extremities are square, upon one of which is a kind of awning, under which the passengers shelter themselves {72} when it rains. I was alone upon the banks of the Monongahela, when I perceived, at a distance, five or six of these barges, which were going down the river. I could not conceive what these great square boxes were, which, left to the stream, presented alternately their ends, sides, and even their angles. As they advanced, I heard a confused noise, but without distinguishing any thing, on account of their sides being so very high. However, on ascending the banks of the river, I perceived in these barges several families, carrying with them their horses, cows, poultry, waggons, ploughs, harness, beds, instruments of agriculture, in fine, every thing necessary to cultivate the land, and also for domestic use. These people were abandoning themselves to the mercy of the stream, without knowing the place where they should stop, to exercise their industry, and enjoy peaceably the fruit of their labour under one of the best governments that exists in the world.

I sojourned ten days at Pittsburgh, during which I several times saw the Chevalier Dubac, formerly an officer in the French service, who, obliged, on account of the revolution, to emigrate from France, at first went to settle at Scioto, but very soon after {73} changed his residence, and went to Pittsburgh, where he is now in trade. He has very correct ideas concerning the western country; he is also perfectly acquainted with the navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi, having several times travelled over New Orleans, and gives, with all possible complaisance, to the few of his fellow-countrymen who go into that country, instructions to facilitate their journey, and prevent the accidents that might happen to them.

During my stay at Pittsburgh I formed a most particular acquaintance with my fellow-traveller Mr. Samuel Craft, an inhabitant of the state of Vermont, whom I met, for the first time, at Greensburgh. I learnt of him, among other things, that in this state, and those contiguous to it, the expences occasioned by clearing the land are always covered by the produce of pearl-ashes, extracted from the ashes of trees which they burn; and that there are even persons who undertake to clear it on the sole condition of having the pearl-ashes. This kind of economy, however, does not exist in the other parts of North America; for in all the parts of the east, from New York westward, the trees are burnt at a certain loss. It is true that the inhabitants of New England, which, properly speaking, comprehends all the {74} states east of New York, are acknowledged to be the most enterprising and industrious of all the Americans, especially those who understand domestic economy the best.

Mr. Craft then imparted to me the intent of his journey, which was to be convinced that what he had seen published upon the extraordinary salubrity and fertility of the banks of the river Yazous was correct, and in that case to acquire for himself and a few friends several acres of land, and to go and settle there with two or three families in his neighbourhood who were rather embarrassed. The motive for his emigration to so remote a country was founded, in the first place, on the length of the winters, which in the state of Vermont are as severe as in Canada, and which shackle the activity of its inhabitants more than one third of the year; and in the next place, upon the cheapness of the country’s produce: instead of which, in those parts watered by the river Yazous,[29] the temperature of the climate and the fertility of the soil are favourable to the cultivation of cotton, indigo, and tobacco, {75} the produce of which is a great deal more lucrative than that of the northern part of the United States, and the sale of which is assured by their exportation to New Orleans, where they can go and come by the river in less than a fortnight.

{76} CHAP. VIII

_Departure from Pittsburgh for Kentucky.--Journey by land to
Wheeling.--State of agriculture on the route.--West Liberty
Town in Virginia.--Wheeling._

Mr. Craft and I agreed to go together to Kentucky by the Ohio, preferring that way, although longer by a hundred and forty miles, to that by land, which is more expensive. However, as the season of the year being that when the waters are at the lowest, to gain time, and to avoid a considerable winding which the river makes on leaving Pittsburgh, we were advised to embark at Wheeling, a small town situated upon the Ohio, eighty miles lower down the river, but not so far by land.[30] On the 14th of July, in the evening, we set out on foot, and crossed the Monongahela at John’s Ferry, situated on the opposite bank, at the bottom of Coal-Hill, a very lofty mountain which borders the river to a vast {77} extent, insomuch that it conceals the view of all the houses at Pittsburgh built on the other side.

After having coasted along the borders of the Ohio about a mile and a half, we entered the wood, and went to sleep at an indifferent inn at Charter Creek, where there was but one bed destined for travellers: whenever it happens that several travellers meet together, the last that arrive sleep on the floor, wrapped in the rug which they always carry with them when they travel into the remote parts of the United States.

The following day we made upwards of twenty miles, and went to lodge with one Patterson. On this route the plantations are two or three miles distant from each other, and more numerous than in the interior of the country, which is a general observation of all travellers. The inhabitants of this part of Pennsylvania are precise in their behaviour, and very religious. We saw, in some places, churches isolated in the woods, and in others, pulpits placed beneath large oaks. Patterson holds a considerable and extensive farm, and a corn-mill built upon a small river. He sends his corn to New Orleans. The rivers and creeks are rather scarce in this part of Virginia, on which account they are obliged to {78} have recourse to mills which they turn by horses; but the flour that comes from them is consumed in the country, not being susceptible of entering into trade. Nobody has ever yet thought of constructing windmills, although there are on the top of several of the hills places sufficiently cleared, that offer favourable situations.

On the 16th of July we arrived at Wheeling, very much fatigued. We were on foot, and the heat was extreme. Our journey was rendered more difficult from the nature of the country, which is covered with hills very close together, to some of which we were almost half an hour before we could reach the summit. About six miles from Patterson’s we found the line of demarkation that separates Pennsylvania from Virginia, and cuts the road at right angles. This line is traced by the rubbish that is piled up on lofty eminences, consisting of all the large trees, in a breadth of forty feet. Twelve miles before our arrival at Wheeling we passed by Liberty Town, a small town consisting of about a hundred houses, built upon a hill.[31] The plantations are numerous in the environs, and the soil, although even, is extremely fertile. The produce of the lands vary: they produce from fifteen to twenty bushels of corn {79} per acre, when they are entirely cleared, and only twelve to fifteen when the clearing away is not complete, that is to say, when there are many stumps remaining; for in clearing they begin by cutting the trees within two feet of the ground, and after that dig up the stumps. It is proper to observe that the inhabitants give only one tillage, use no manure, and never let the soil lie idle. The value of this land is according to its quality. The best, in the proportion of twenty to twenty-five acres cleared, for a lot of two or three hundred, is not worth more than three or four piastres per acre. The taxes are from a half-penny to a penny per acre. The hands being very scarce, labour is dear, and by no means in proportion with the price of produce; the result of which is, that in all the middle and southern states, within fifty miles of the sea, each proprietor clears very little more than what he can cultivate with his family, or with the reciprocal aid of some of his neighbours. This is applied more particularly to the western country, where every individual may easily procure land, and is excited to labour by its incomparable fertility.