Part 10

It is not useless to observe here, that in the United States they give often the name of town to a group of seven or eight houses, and that the mode of constructing them is not the same everywhere. At {29} Philadelphia the houses are built with brick. In the other towns and country places that surround them, the half, and even frequently the whole, is built with wood; but at places within seventy or eighty miles of the sea, in the central and southern states, and again more particularly in those situated to the Westward of the Alleghany Mountains, one third of the inhabitants reside in _log houses_. These dwellings are made with the trunks of trees, from twenty to thirty feet in length, about five inches diameter, placed one upon another, and kept up by notches cut at their extremities. The roof is formed with pieces of similar length to those that compose the body of the house, but not quite so thick, and gradually sloped on each side. Two doors, which often supply the place of windows, are made by sawing away a part of the trunks that form the body of the house; the chimney, always placed at one of the extremities, is likewise made with the trunks of trees of a suitable length; the back of the chimney is made of clay, about six inches thick, which separates the fire from the wooden walls. Notwithstanding this want of precaution, fires very seldom happen in the country places. The space between these trunks of trees is filled up with clay, but so very carelessly, that the {30} light may be seen through in every part; in consequence of which these huts are exceedingly cold in winter, notwithstanding the amazing quantity of wood that is burnt. The doors move upon wooden hinges, and the greater part of them have no locks. In the night time they only push them to, or fasten them with a wooden peg. Four or five days are sufficient for two men to finish one of these houses, in which not a nail is used. Two great beds receive the whole family. It frequently happens that in summer the children sleep upon the ground, in a kind of rug. The floor is raised from one to two feet above the surface of the ground, and boarded. They generally make use of feather beds, or feathers alone, and not mattresses. Sheep being very scarce, the wool is very dear; at the same time they reserve it to make stockings. The clothes belonging to the family are hung up round the room, or suspended upon a long pole.

At Columbia the Susquehannah is nearly a quarter of a mile in breadth. We crossed it in a ferry-boat. At that time it had so little water in it, that we could easily see the bottom. The banks of this river were formed by lofty and majestic hills, and the bosom of it is strewed with little islands, which {31} seem to divide it into several streams. Some of them do not extend above five or six acres at most, and still they are as lofty as the surrounding hills. Their irregularity, and the singular forms that they present, render this situation picturesque and truly remarkable, more especially at that season of the year, when the trees were in full vegetation.

About a mile from Susquehannah I observed an _annona triloba_, the fruit of which is tolerably good, although insipid. When arrived at maturity it is nearly the size of a common egg. According to the testimony of Mr. Mulhenberg this shrub grows in the environs of Philadelphia.

About twelve miles from Columbia is a little town called York, the houses of which are not so straggling as many others, and are principally built with brick. The inhabitants are computed to be upward of eighteen hundred, most of them of German origin, and none speak English. About six miles from York we passed through Dover, composed of twenty or thirty log-houses, erected here and there. The stage stopped at the house of one M’Logan, who keeps a miserable inn fifteen miles from York.[10] That day we travelled only thirty or forty miles.

Inns are very numerous in the United States, and {32} especially in the little towns; yet almost everywhere, except in the principal towns, they are very bad, notwithstanding rum, brandy, and whiskey[11] are in plenty. In fact, in houses of the above description all kinds of spirits are considered the most material, as they generally meet with great consumption. Travellers wait in common till the family go to meals. At breakfast they make use of very indifferent tea, and coffee still worse, with small slices of ham fried in the stove, to which they sometimes add eggs and a broiled chicken. At dinner they give a piece of salt beef and roasted fowls, and rum and water as a beverage. In the evening, coffee, tea, and ham. There are always several beds in the rooms where you sleep; seldom do you meet with clean sheets. Fortunate is the traveller who arrives on the day they happen to be changed; although an American would be quite indifferent about it.

Early on the 28th of June we reached Carlisle, situated about fifty-four miles from Lancaster. The town consists of about two hundred houses, a few of them built with brick, but by far the greatest part {33} with wood. Upon the whole it has a respectable appearance, from a considerable number of large shops and warehouses. These receptacles are supplied from the interior parts of the country with large quantities of jewellery, mercery, spices, &c. The persons who keep those shops purchase and also barter with the country people for the produce of their farms, which they afterwards send off to the seaport towns for exportation.

From M’Logan’s inn to Carlisle the country is barren and mountainous, in consequence of which the houses are not so numerous on the road, being at a distance of two or three miles from each other; and out of the main road they are still more straggling. The white, red, and black oaks, the chesnut, and maple trees are those most common in the forests. Upon the summit of the hills we observed the _quercus banisteri_. From Carlisle to Shippensburgh the country continues mountainous, and is not much inhabited, being also barren and uncultivated.

We found but very few huts upon the road, and those, from their miserable picture, clearly announced that their inhabitants were in but a wretched state; as from every appearance of their approaching {34} harvest it could only afford them a scanty subsistence.

The coach stopped at an inn called the General Washington, at Shippensburgh, kept by one Colonel Ripey, whose character is that of being very obliging to all travellers that may happen to stop at his house on their tour to the western countries. Shippensburgh has scarcely seventy houses in it. The chief of its trade is dealing in corn and flour. When I left this place, a barrel of flour, weighing ninety-six pounds, was worth five piastres.

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._