Early Western Travels, 1748-1846, Volume XII Part 1

Early Western Travels, 1748-1846, Volume XII.

by William Faux and Adlard Welby.

Volume XII

JOURNAL

(PART II)

_January 1st, 1820._--I left Princeton at ten o'clock, with Mr. Phillips and Mr. Wheeler; and here parted with my good and kind friend Ingle.

I met and spoke, ten miles off, with two hog-jobbing judges, Judge Prince and Judge Daniel,[104] driving home twenty fat hogs, which they had just bought.

I reached, and rested at Petersburgh,[105] consisting of fifteen houses.

I pa.s.sed good farms. Our landlord of this infant town, though having an {333} ostler, was compelled to groom, saddle, unsaddle, and to do all himself. Having fifty dollars owing to him, from a gentleman of Evansville, he arrested him, when he went into the bounds; then he sued one of the bondsmen, who also entered the bounds. The squire is next to be sued, who, it is expected, will do likewise.

_Sunday, 2nd._--I rode thirty-one miles this day, and rested at Edmonstone, in a little cold log-hole, out of which I turned an officer's black cat, which jumped from the roof into our faces, while in bed; but she soon found her way in again, through a hole in the roof.

The cat liked our fire. We got no coffee nor tea, but cold milk and pork, and corn cake.

_3rd._--Travelled all day, through the mud-holes formed by springs running from countless hills, covered with fine timber, to breakfast, at three o'clock, p. m. I supped and slept at Judge Chambers's, a comfortable house, and saw again the judge's mother, of eighty, whose activity and superior horsemanship, I have before mentioned. I smoked a segar with Mrs. Judge, while she smoked her pipe, (the first pipe I have seen here.) She, as well as the old lady, is a quaker. The judge was gone to the metropolitan town of Coridon, being a senator, on duty.[106]

The land which I pa.s.sed over all this day, seemed poor, but full of wild turkeys and bears.

_4th._--I reached Miller's to supper, but found no {334} coffee; cold milk only, as a subst.i.tute. The ride hither is interesting, through a fine rolling country. The wolves howled around us all night.

_5th._--Pa.s.sed the Silver Hills,[107] from the summit of which is a fine, extensive prospect of Kentucky, the Ohio, and of Louisville, where we breakfasted. I called with Mr. Flower's letter to Archer, who was out. I received the present of a cow-hide whip, from a lady, and promised to treat the beast kindly, for her sake. Judge Waggoner recently shook hands at a whiskey-shop, with a man coming before him that day, to be tried for murder. He drank his health, and wished him well through.

I rode seven miles with an intelligent old Kentucky planter, having four children, who cultivate his farm, without negroes. He says, "Kentucky is morally and physically ruined. We have been brought up to live without labour: all are demoralized. No man's word or judgment is to be taken for the guidance and government of another. Deception is a trade, and all are rogues. The west has the sc.u.m of all the earth. Long ago it was said, when a man left other States, he is gone to h.e.l.l, or Kentucky.

The people are none the better for a free, good government. The oldest first settlers are all gone or ruined. Your colt, sir, of one hundred dollars, is worth only fifteen dollars. At Louisville, as good a horse can be bought at ten dollars, or fifteen dollars. You are therefore cheated."

The Missouri territory boasts the best land in {335} the country, but is not watered by springs. Wells are, however, dug, abounding in good water, says our hearty landlord, just returned from viewing that country.

The bottom land is the finest in the world. Corn, from sixty to eighty bushels, and wheat, from forty to sixty bushels an acre. The best prairies are full of fine gra.s.s, flowers, and weeds, not coa.r.s.e, benty, sticky gra.s.s, which denotes the worst of prairie land. Gra.s.s, of a short fine quality, fit for pasture or hay, every where abounds. The country is full of wild honey, some houses having made seven and eight barrels this season, taken out of the trees, which are cut down without killing the bees. These industrious insects do not sting, but are easily hived and made tame. Our landlord likes the Missouri, but not so well as Old Kentucky.

Two grim, gaunt-looking men burst into our room, at two, this morning; and by six, the landlord disturbed us by cow-hiding his negro, threatening to squeeze the life out of him.

_6th._--I rode all day through a country of fine plantations, and reached Frankfort to supper, with the legislative body, where I again met my gay fellow-traveller, Mr. Cowen. It was interesting to look down our table, and contemplate the many bright, intelligent faces around me: men who might honour any nation. As strangers, we were {336} invited by the landlord, (the best I have seen) to the first rush for a chance at the table's head.

_7th._--I travelled this day through a fine country of rich pasture and tillage, to Lexington City, to Keen's excellent tavern. I drank wine with Mr. Lidiard, who is removing eastward, having spent 1,100_l._ in living, and travelling to and fro. Fine beef at three cents per lb. Fat fowls, one dollar per dozen. Who would not live in old Kentucky's first city?

_8th._--Being a wet day, I rested all day and this night. Prairie flies bleed horses nearly to death. Smoke and fire is a refuge to these distressed animals. The Indian summer smoke reaches to the Isle of Madeira.

Visited the Athenaeum. Viewed some fine horses, at two hundred dollars each.

_Sunday, 9th._--I quitted Lexington, and one of the best taverns in America, for Paris, Kentucky, and a good, genteel farm-house, the General Washington, twenty-three miles from the city, belonging to Mr.

Hit, who, though owning between four hundred and five hundred acres of the finest land in Kentucky, does not think it beneath him to entertain travellers and their horses, on the best fare and beds in the country.

He has been offered sixty dollars, and could now have forty dollars an acre, for his land, which averages thirty bushels of wheat, and sixty bushels of corn per acre, and, in {337} natural or artificial gra.s.s, is the first in the world. Sheep, (fine stores) one dollar per head; beef, fine, three cents per lb., and fowls, one dollar per dozen.

_10th._--Rode all day in the rain and mud, and through the worst roads in the universe, frequently crossing creeks, belly deep of our horses.

Pa.s.sed the creek at Blue-lick, belly deep, with sulphurous water running from a sulphur spring, once a salt spring. The water stinks like the putrid stagnant water of an English horse-pond, full of animal dung.

This is resorted to for health.

Five or six dirkings and stabbings took place, this fall, in Kentucky.

_11th._--Breakfasted at Washington, (Kentucky) where we parted with Mr.

Phillips, and met the Squire, and another gentleman, debating about law.

Rested at Maysville, a good house, having chambers, and good beds, with curtains. The steam-boats pa.s.s this handsome river town, at the rate of fifteen to twenty miles an hour. To the pa.s.senger, the effect is beautiful, every minute presenting new objects of attraction.

_12th._--Crossed the Ohio in a flat, submitting to Kentuckyan imposition of seventy-five cents a horse, instead of twenty-five, because we were supposed to be Yankees. "We will not," said the boat-man, "take you over, for less than a dollar each. We heard of you, yesterday. The gentleman in the cap (meaning me) looks as though he {338} could afford to pay, and besides, he is so slick with his tongue. The Yankees are the smartest of fellows, except the Kentuckyans." Sauciness and impudence are characteristic of these boat-men, who wished I would commence a bridge over the river.

Reached Union town, Ohio,[108] and rested for the night.

_13th._--Breakfasted at Colonel Wood's. A fine breakfast on beef, pork-steaks, eggs, and coffee, and plenty for our horses, all for fifty cents each. Slept at Colonel Peril's, an old Virginian revolutionary soldier, living on 400 acres of fine land, in a good house, on an eminence, which he has held two years only. He now wishes to sell all at ten dollars an acre, less than it cost him, because he has a family who will all want as much land each, in the Missouri, at two dollars. He never had a negro. He knows us to be English from our dialect. We pa.s.sed, this day, through two or three young villages.

_14th._--Breakfasted at Bainbridge,[109] where is good bottom land, at twenty to thirty dollars an acre, with improvements. The old Virginian complains of want of labourers. A farmer must do all himself. Received of our landlady a lump of Ohio wild sugar, of which some families make from six to ten barrels a-year, sweet and good enough.

Reached Chilicothe, on the Sciota river, to {339} sup and rest at the tavern of Mr. Madera, a sensible young man. Here I met Mr. Randolph, a gentleman of Philadelphia, from Missouri and Illinois, who thinks both sickly, and not to be preferred to the east, or others parts of the west. I saw three or four good houses, in the best street, abandoned, and the windows and doors rotting out for want of occupants.

_15th._--I rode all day through a fine interesting country, abounding with every good thing, and full of springs and streams. Near Lancaster,[110] I pa.s.sed a large high ridge of rocks, which nature has clothed in everlasting green, being beautified with the spruce, waving like feathers, on their bleak, barren tops. I reached Lancaster to rest; a handsome county seat, near which land is selling occasionally from sixteen dollars to twenty dollars. A fine farm of 170 acres, 100 being cleared, with all improvements, was sold lately by the sheriff, at sixteen dollars one cent an acre, much less than it cost. Labour is to be had at fifty cents and board, but as the produce is so low, it is thought farming, by hired hands, does not pay. Wheat, fifty cents; corn, 33-1/2 cents; potatoes, 33 cents a bushel; beef, four dollars per cwt.; pork, three dollars; mutton none; sheep being kept only for the wool, and bought in common at 2_s._ 8_d._ per head.

Met Judge and General ----, who states that four millions of acres of land will this year {340} be offered to sale, bordering on the lakes.

Why then should people go to the Missouri? It is not healthy near the lakes, on account of stagnant waters, made by sand bars, at the mouth of lake rivers. The regular periodical rising and falling of the lakes is not yet accounted for. There is no sensible diminution, or increase of the lake-waters. A grand ca.n.a.l is to be completed in five years, when boats will travel.[111]

_Sunday, 16th._--I left Lancaster at peep of day, travelling through intense cold and icy roads to Somerset, eighteen miles, in five hours, to breakfast.[112] Warmed at an old quarter-section man, a Dutch American, from Pennsylvania. He came here eleven years since, cleared seventy acres, has eight children, likes his land, but says, produce is too low to make it worth raising. People comfortably settled in the east, on good farms, should stay, unless their children can come and work on the land. He and his young family do all the work. Has a fine stove below, warming the first, and all other floors, by a pipe pa.s.sing through them.

I slept at a good tavern, the keeper of which is a farmer. All are farmers, and all the best farmers are tavern-keepers. Farms, therefore, on the road, sell from 50 to 100 per cent more than land lying back, though it is no better in quality, and for mere farming, worth no more.

But on the road, a farm and frequented tavern is found to be {341} a very beneficial mode of using land; the produce selling for double and treble what it will bring at market, and also fetching ready money.

Labour is not to be commanded, says our landlord.

_17th._--Started at peep of day in a snow-storm, which had covered the ground six inches deep. Breakfasted at beautiful Zanesville, a town most delightfully situated amongst the hills. Twelve miles from this town, one Chandler, in boring for salt, hit upon silver; a mine, seven feet thick, 150 feet below the surface. It is very pure ore, and the proprietor has given up two acres of the land to persons who have applied to the legislature to be incorporated. He is to receive one-fifth of the net profits.

_18th._--I rode all day through a fine hilly country, full of springs and fountains. The land is more adapted for good pasture than for cultivation. Our landlord, Mr. Gill, states that wheat at fifty cents is too low; but, even at that price, there is no market, nor at any other.

In some former years, Orleans was a market, but now it gets supplied from countries more conveniently situated than Ohio, from which it costs one dollar, or one dollar and a quarter per barrel, to send it. Boats carrying from 100 to 500 barrels, sell for only 16 dollars.

From a conversation, with an intelligent High Sheriff of this county, I learn that no common debtor has ever lain in prison longer than five {342} days. None need be longer in giving security for the surrender of all property.

_19th._--Reached Wheeling late at night, pa.s.sing through a romantic, broken, mountainous country, with many fine springs and creeks. Thus I left Ohio, which, thirty years ago, was a frontier state, full of Indians, without a white man's house, between Wheeling, Kaskasky, and St. Louis.

_20th._--Reached Washington, Pennsylvania, to sleep, and found our tavern full of thirsty cla.s.sics, from the seminary in this town.

_21st._--Reached Pittsburgh, through a beautiful country of hills, fit only for pasture. I viewed the fine covered bridges over the two rivers Monongahela and Allegany, which cost 10,000 dollars each. The hills around the city shut it in, and make the descent into it frightfully precipitous. It is most eligibly situated amidst rocks, or rather hills, of coal, stone, and iron, the coals lying up to the surface, ready for use. One of these hills, or coal banks, has been long on fire, and resembles a volcano. Bountiful nature has done every thing for this rising Birmingham of America.

We slept at Wheeling, at the good hotel of Major Spriggs, one of General Washington's revolutionary officers, now near 80, a chronicle of years departed.[113]

_22nd._--Bought a fine buffalo robe for five dollars. {343} The buffaloes, when Kentucky was first settled, were shot, by the settlers, merely for their tongues; the carcase and skin being thought worth nothing, were left where the animal fell.

Left Pittsburgh for Greensburgh, travelling through a fine, cultivated, thickly settled country, full of neat, flourishing, and good farms, the occupants of which are said to be rich. Land, _on_ the road, is worth from fifteen to thirty dollars; _from_ it, five to fifteen dollars per acre. The hills and mountains seem full of coal-mines and stone-quarries, or rather banks of coal and stone ever open gratuitously to all. The people about here are economical and intelligent; qualities characteristic of Pennsylvania.