Part 18
Although the temperature of the climate in Kentucky and other western states is favourable to the culture of fruit trees, these parts have not been populated long enough for them to be brought to any great perfection. Beside, the Americans are by no means so industrious or interested in this kind of {185} culture as the European states. They have confined themselves, at present, to the planting of peach and apple trees.
The former are very numerous, and come to the greatest perfection. There are five or six species of them, some forward, and others late, of an oval form, and much larger than our garden peaches. All the peaches grow in the open field, and proceed from kernels without being either pruned or grafted. They shoot so vigorously, that at the age of four years they begin to bear. The major part of the inhabitants plant them round their houses, and others have great orchards of them planted crosswise. They turn the hogs there for two months before the fruit gets ripe. These animals search with avidity for the peaches that fall in great numbers, and crack the stones of them for the kernels.
The immense quantity of peaches which they gather are converted in brandy, of which there is a great consumption in the country, and the rest is exported. A few only of the inhabitants have stills; the others carry their peaches to them, and bring back a quantity of brandy proportionate to the number of peaches they carried, except a part that is left for the expense of distilling. Peach brandy sells {186} for a dollar a gallon, which is equal to four English quarts.
In Kentucky the taxes are assessed in the following manner: they pay a sum equivalent to one shilling and eight-pence for every white servant, six-pence halfpenny for every negro, three-pence for a horse, two shillings per hundred acres of land of the first class, cultivated or not, seventeen-pence per hundred of the second class, and sixpence halfpenny per hundred of the third class. Although these taxes are, as we must suppose, very moderate, and though nobody complains of them, still a great number of those taxable are much in arrears. This is what I perceived by the numerous advertisements of the collectors that I have seen pasted up in different parts of the town of Lexinton. Again, these delays are not peculiar to the state of Kentucky, as I have made the same remark in those of the east.
{187} CHAP. XX
_Particulars relative to the manners of the inhabitants of Kentucky.--Horses and Cattle.--Necessity of giving them salt.--Wild Horses caught in the Plains of New Mexico.--Exportation of salt provisions._
For some time past the inhabitants of Kentucky have taken to the rearing and training horses;[50] and by this lucrative branch of trade they derive considerable profit, on account of the superfluous quantity of Indian corn, oats, and other forage, of which they are deficient at New Orleans.
Of all the states belonging to the union, Virginia is said to have the finest coach and saddle-horses, and those they have in this country proceed originally from them, the greatest part of which was brought by the emigrants who came from Virginia {188} to settle in this state. The number of horses, now very considerable, increases daily. Almost all the inhabitants employ themselves in training and meliorating the breed of these animals; and so great a degree of importance is attached to the melioration, that the owners of fine stallions charge from fifteen to twenty dollars for the covering of a mare. These stallions come from Virginia, and, as I have been told, some were at different times imported from England. The horses that proceed from them have slim legs, a well-proportioned head, and are elegantly formed. With draught-horses it is quite different. The inhabitants pay no attention with respect to improving this breed; in consequence of which they are small, wretched in appearance, and similar to those made use of by the peasantry in France. They appeared to me still worse in Georgia and Upper Carolina. In short, I must say that throughout the United States there is not a single draught-horse that can be in any wise compared with the poorest race of horses that I have seen in England. This is an assertion which many Americans may probably not believe, but still it is correct.
Many individuals profess to treat sick horses, but none of them have any regular notions of the veterinary {189} art; an art which would be so necessary in a breeding country, and which has, within these few years, acquired so high a degree of perfection in England and France.
In Kentucky, as well as in the southern states, the horses are generally fed with Indian corn. Its nutritive quality is esteemed double to that of oats; notwithstanding sometimes they are mixed together. In this state horses are not limited as to food. In most of the plantations the manger is filled with corn, they eat of it when they please, leave the stable to go to grass, and return at pleasure to feed on the Indian wheat. The stables are nothing but log-houses, where the light penetrates on all sides, the interval that separates the trunks of the trees with which they are constructed not being filled up with clay.
The southern states, and in particular South Carolina, are the principal places destined for the sale of Kentucky horses. They are taken there in droves of fifteen, twenty and thirty at a time, in the early part of winter, an epoch when the most business is transacted at Carolina, and when the drivers are in no fear of the yellow fever, of which the inhabitants of the interior have the greatest apprehension. {190} They usually take eighteen or twenty days to go from Lexinton to Charleston. This distance, which is about seven hundred miles, makes a difference of twenty-five or thirty per cent in the price of horses. A fine saddle-horse in Kentucky costs about a hundred and thirty to a hundred and forty dollars.
During my sojourn in this state I had an opportunity of seeing those wild horses that are caught in the plains of New Mexico, and which descend from those that the Spaniards introduced there formerly. To catch them they make use of tame horses that run much swifter, and with which they approach them near enough to halter them. They take them to New Orleans and Natches, where they fetch about fifty dollars. The crews belonging to the boats that return by land to Kentucky frequently purchase some of them. The two that I saw and made a trial of were roan coloured, of a middling size, the head large, and not proportionate with the neck, the limbs thick, and the mane rather full and handsome. These horses have a very unpleasant gait, are capricious, difficult to govern, and even frequently throw the rider and take flight.
The number of horned cattle is very considerable in Kentucky; those who deal in them purchase them {191} lean, and drive them in droves of from two to three hundred to Virginia, along the river Potomack, where they sell them to graziers, who fatten them in order to supply the markets of Baltimore and Philadelphia. The price of a good milch cow is, at Kentucky, from ten to twelve dollars. The milk in a great measure comprises the chief sustenance of the inhabitants. The butter that is not consumed in the country is put into barrels, and exported by the river to the Carribbees.
They bring up very few sheep in these parts; for, although I went upwards of two hundred miles in this state, I saw them only in four plantations. Their flesh is not much esteemed, and their wool is of the same quality as that of the sheep in the eastern states. The most that I ever observed was in Rhode Island.
Of all domestic animals hogs are the most numerous; they are kept by all the inhabitants, several of them feed a hundred and fifty or two hundred. These animals never leave the woods, where they always find a sufficiency of food, especially in autumn and winter. They grow extremely wild, and generally go in herds. Whenever they are surprised, or attacked by a dog or any other animal, they either {192} make their escape, or flock together in the form of a circle to defend themselves. They are of a bulky shape, middling size, and straight eared. Every inhabitant recognizes those that belong to him by the particular manner in which their ears are cut. They stray sometimes in the forests, and do not make their appearance again for several months; they accustom them, notwithstanding, to return every now and then to the plantation, by throwing them Indian corn once or twice a week. It is surprising that in so vast a country, covered with forests, so thinly populated, comparatively to its immense extent, and where there are so few destructive animals, pigs have not increased so far as to grow completely wild.
In all the western states, and even to the east of the Alleghanies, two hundred miles of the sea coast, they are obliged to give salt to the cattle. Were it not for that, the food they give them would never make them look well; in fact, they are so fond of it that they go of their own accord to implore it at the doors of the houses every week or ten days, and spend hours together in licking the trough into which they have scattered a small quantity for them. This want manifests itself most among the horses; {193} but it may be on account of their having it given them more frequently.
Salt provisions form another important article of the Kentucky trade. The quantity exported in the first six months of the year 1802 was seventy-two thousand barrels of dried pork, and two thousand four hundred and eighty-five of salt.
Notwithstanding the superfluity of corn that grows in this part of the country, there is scarcely any of the inhabitants that keep poultry. This branch of domestic economy would not increase their expense, but add a pleasing variety in their food. Two reasons may be assigned for this neglect; the first is, that the use of salt provisions, (a use to which the prevalence of the scurvy among them may be attributed,) renders these delicacies too insipid; the second, that the fields of Indian corn contiguous to the plantations would be exposed to considerable damage, the fences with which they are inclosed being only sufficient to prevent the cattle and pigs from trespassing.
The inhabitants of Kentucky, as we have before stated, are nearly all natives of Virginia, and particularly the remotest parts of that state; and exclusive of the gentlemen of the law, physicians, and a small {194} number of citizens who have received an education suitable to their professions in the Atlantic states, they have preserved the manners of the Virginians. With them the passion for gaming and spirituous liquors is carried to excess, which frequently terminates in quarrels degrading to human nature. The public-houses are always crowded, more especially during the sittings of the courts of justice. Horses and law-suits comprise the usual topic of their conversation. If a traveller happens to pass by, his horse is appreciated; if he stops, he is presented with a glass of whiskey, and then asked a thousand questions, such as, Where do you come from? where are you going? what is your name? where do you live? what profession? were there any fevers in the different parts of the country you came through? These questions, which are frequently repeated in the course of a journey, become tedious, but it is easy to give a check to their inquiries by a little address; their only object being the gratification of that curiosity so natural to people who live isolated in the woods, and seldom see a stranger. They are never dictated by mistrust; for from whatever part of the globe a person comes, he may visit all the ports and principal towns of the United States, stay {195} there as long as he pleases, and travel in any part of the country without ever being interrogated by a public officer.
The inhabitants of Kentucky eagerly recommend to strangers the country they inhabit as the best part of the United States, as that where the soil is most fertile, the climate most salubrious, and where all the inhabitants were brought through the love of liberty and independence! In the interior of their houses they are generally very neat; which induced me, whenever an opportunity offered, to prefer lodging in a private family rather than at a public house, where the accommodation is inferior, although the charges are considerably higher.
The women seldom assist in the labours of the field; they are very attentive to their domestic concerns, and the spinning of hemp or cotton, which they convert into linen for the use of their family. This employment alone is truly laborious, as there are few houses which contain less than four or five children.
Among the various sects that exist in Kentucky, those of the Methodists and Anabaptists are the most numerous. The spirit of religion has acquired a fresh degree of strength within these seven or eight {196} years among the country inhabitants, since, independent of Sundays, which are scrupulously observed, they assemble, during the summer, in the course of the week, to hear sermons. These meetings, which frequently consist of two or three thousand persons who come from all parts of the country within fifteen or twenty miles, take place in the woods, and continue for several days. Each brings his provisions, and spends the night round a fire. The clergymen are very vehement in their discourses. Often in the midst of the sermons the heads are lifted up, the imaginations exalted, and the inspired fall backwards, exclaiming, “Glory! glory!” This species of infatuation happens chiefly among the women, who are carried out of the crowd, and put under a tree, where they lie a long time extended, heaving the most lamentable sighs.
There have been instances of two or three hundred of the congregation being thus affected during the performance of divine service; so that one-third of the hearers were engaged in recovering the rest. Whilst I was at Lexinton I was present at one of these meetings. The better informed people do not share the opinion of the multitude with regard to this state of ecstacy, and on this account they are {197} branded with the appellation of _bad folks_. Except during the continuance of this preaching, religion is very seldom the topic of conversation. Although divided into several sects, they live in the greatest harmony; and whenever there is an alliance between the families, the difference of religion is never considered as an obstacle; the husband and wife pursue whatever kind of worship they like best, and their children, when they grow up, do just the same, without the interference of their parents.
Throughout the western country the children are kept punctually at school, where they learn reading, writing, and the elements of arithmetic. These schools are supported at the expense of the inhabitants, who send for masters as soon as the population and their circumstances permit; in consequence of which it is very rare to find an American who does not know how to read and write. Upon the Ohio, and in the Barrens, where the settlements are farther apart, the inhabitants have not yet been able to procure this advantage, which is the object of solicitude in every family.
{198} CHAP. XXI
_Nasheville.--Commercial details.--Settlement of the Natches_.
Nasheville, the principal and the oldest town in this part of Tennessea, is situate upon the river Cumberland, the borders of which, in this part, are formed by a mass of chalky stone upwards of sixty feet in height. Except seven or eight houses that are built of brick, the rest, to the number of about a hundred and twenty, are constructed of wood, and distributed upon a surface of twenty-five or thirty acres, where the rock appears almost bare in every part. They cannot procure water in the town without going a considerable way about to reach the banks of the river, or descending by a deep and dangerous path. When I was at Nasheville one of the inhabitants was endeavouring to pierce the rock, in order to make a well; but at that time he {199} had only dug a few feet, on account of the stone being so amazingly hard.
This little town, although built upwards of fifteen years, contains no kind of manufactory or public establishment; but there is a printing-office which publishes a newspaper once a week. They have also began to found a college, which has been presented with several benefactions for its endowment, but this establishment was only in its infancy, having but seven or eight students and one professor.[51]
The price of labour is higher in this town than at Lexinton, and the same disproportion exists between this price and that of provisions. There appeared to be from fifteen to twenty shops, which are supplied from Philadelphia and Baltimore, but they did not seem so well stocked as those at Lexinton, and the articles, though dearer, are of an inferior quality. The cause of their being so dear may be in some measure attributed to the expense of carriage, which is much greater on account of the amazing distance the boats destined for Tennessea have to go up the Ohio. In fact, after having passed by Limestone, the place where they unload for Kentucky, and which is four hundred and twenty miles from Pittsburgh, they have still to make a passage up the river of six {200} hundred and nineteen miles to reach the mouth of the river Cumberland, and a hundred and eighty miles to arrive at Nasheville, which, in the whole, comprises a space of one thousand five hundred and twenty-one miles from Philadelphia, of which twelve hundred are by water. Some merchants get their goods also from New Orleans, whence the boats go up the Mississippi, the Ohio, and Cumberland. This last distance is about twelve hundred and forty-three miles; viz. a thousand miles from New Orleans to the _embouchure_ of the Ohio, sixty-three miles from thence to Cumberland, and a hundred and eighty from this river to Nasheville.
There are very few cultivators who take upon themselves to export the produce of their labour, consisting chiefly of cotton; the major part of them sell it to the tradespeople at Nasheville, who send it by the river to New Orleans, where it is expedited to New York and Philadelphia, or exported direct to Europe. These tradesmen, like those of Lexinton, do not pay always in cash for the cotton they purchase, but make the cultivators take goods in exchange, which adds considerably to their profit. A great quantity of it is also sent by land to Kentucky, where each family is supplied with it to manufacture articles for their domestic wants.
{201} When I was there in 1802 they made the first attempt to send cottons by the Ohio to Pittsburgh, in order to be thence conveyed to the remote parts of Pennsylvania. I met several barges laden with them near Marietta; they were going up the river with a staff, and making about twenty miles a day. Thus are the remotest parts of the western states united by commercial interests, of which cotton is the basis, and the Ohio the tie of communication, the results of which must give a high degree of prosperity to this part of Tennessea, and insure its inhabitants a signal advantage over those of the Ohio and Kentucky, the territorial produce of which is not of a nature to meet with a great sale in the country or the adjoining parts, and which they are obliged to send to New Orleans.
I had a letter from Dr. Brown, of Lexinton, for Mr. William Peter Anderson, a gentleman of the law at Nasheville, who received me in the most obliging manner; I am also indebted to him for the acquaintance of several other gentlemen; among others was a Mr. Fisk, of New England, president of the college, with whom I had the pleasure of travelling to Knoxville.[52] The inhabitants are very engaging in their manners, and use but little ceremony. {202} On my arrival, I had scarcely alighted when several of them who were at the inn invited me to their plantations.
All the inhabitants of the western country who go by the river to New Orleans, return by land, pass through Nasheville, which is the first town beyond the Natches. The interval that separates them is about six hundred miles, and entirely uninhabited; which obliges them to carry their provisions on horseback to supply them on the road. It is true they have two or three little towns to cross, inhabited by the Chicasaws; but instead of recruiting their stock there, the natives themselves are so indifferently supplied, that travellers are obliged to be very cautious lest they should wish to share with them. Several persons who have been this road assured me, that for a space of four or five hundred miles beyond the Natches the country is very irregular, that the soil is very sandy, in some parts covered with pines, and not much adapted to any kind of culture; but that the borders of the river Tennessea are, on the contrary, very fertile, and even superior to the richest counties in Kentucky and Tennessea.
The settlement of the Natches, which is described by the name of the Mississippi Territory, daily acquires {203} a fresh degree of prosperity, notwithstanding the unhealthiness of the climate, which is such that three-fourths of the inhabitants are every year exposed to intermittent fevers during the summer and autumn; nevertheless, the great profits derived from the cotton entice an immense number of foreigners into that part. The population now amounts to five thousand whites and three thousand negro slaves.[53]
The road that leads to the Natches was only a path that serpentined through these boundless forests, but the federal government have just opened a road, which is on the point of being finished, and will be one of the finest in the United States, both on account of its breadth and the solidity of the bridges constructed over the small rivers that cut through it; to which advantages it will unite that of being shorter than the other by a hundred miles. Thus we may henceforth, on crossing the western country, go in a carriage from Boston to New Orleans, a distance of more than two thousand miles.
{204} CHAP. XXII
_Departure for Knoxville.--Arrival at Fort Blount.--Remarks upon the drying up of the Rivers in the Summer.--Plantations on the Road.--Fertility of the Soil.--Excursions in a Canoe on the River Cumberland._