CHAPTER XXVI

Lexington--Excellent tavern--Fine market--Transylvania university--Publick buildings--Schools--Manufacturies--Stores and state of business--Coffee house--Vauxhall.

The country had insensibly assumed the appearance of an approach to a city.--The roads very wide and fine, with grazing parks, meadows, and every spot in sight cultivated.

Soon after parting with the general, we were gratified with a view of Lexington, about half a mile distant, from an eminence on the road. On entering the town we were struck with the fine roomy scale on which every thing appeared to be planned. Spacious streets, and large houses chiefly of brick, which since the year 1795, have been rapidly taking the place of the original wooden ones, several of which however yet remain.

We turned up the main street, which is about eighty feet wide, compactly built, well paved, and {161} having a footway, twelve feet wide on each side.--Passing several very handsome brick houses of two and three stories, numerous stores well filled with merchandize of every description, and the market place and court-house, we dismounted at Wilson’s inn, and entered the traveller’s room, which had several strangers in it. Shortly after, the supper bell ringing, we obeyed the summons, and were ushered into a room about forty feet long, where, at the head of a table, laid out with neatness, plenty and variety, sat our well dressed hostess, who did the honours of it with much ease and propriety.

We retired early, and next morning, before breakfast, went to the market, which is held every Wednesday and Saturday. We were surprised at the number of horses belonging to the neighbouring farmers, which were fastened around on the outside, and on entering the market place we were equally astonished at the profusion and variety of most of the necessaries and many of the luxuries of life. There was not however such a display of flesh meat as is seen in Pittsburgh, which might be owing to the warmth of the climate at that season. Prices were nearly similar to those at Pittsburgh: beef four cents per pound, bacon eight, butter twelve and a half; lamb twenty-five cents a quarter, corn meal forty-two cents per bushel, and every thing else in proportion. Vegetables were in great abundance and very cheap, and were sold mostly by negro men and women; indeed that race were the most predominant both as to sellers and buyers.

Our beds had been very good, and our breakfast and dinner to-day, were correspondent to our supper last night--displaying a variety neatly and handsomely served up, with excellent attendance.

I employed the forenoon in running over and viewing the town. It contains three hundred and sixty-six dwelling houses, besides barns, stables and {162} other out offices. The streets cross each other at right angles, and are from fifty to eighty feet wide. A rivulet which turns some mills below the town, runs through the middle of Water street, but it is covered by an arch, and levelled over it the length of the street. It falls into the Elkhorn a few miles to the N. W.

There are societies of Presbyterians, Seceders, Episcopalians, Anabaptists and Roman Catholicks, each of which has a church, no way remarkable, except the Episcopalian, which is very neat and convenient. There is also a society of Methodists, which has not yet any regular house of worship. The court-house now finishing, is a good, plain, brick building, of three stories, with a cupola, rising from the middle of the square roof, containing a bell and a town clock. The cupola is supported by four large brick columns in the centre of the house, rising from the foundation, through the hall of justice, and in my opinion adding nothing to its beauty or convenience. The whole building when finished, will cost about fifteen thousand dollars. The masonick hall, is a neat brick building, as is also the bank, where going for change for a Philadelphia bank note, I received in specie one per cent. advance, which they allow on the notes of the Atlantick cities for the convenience of remitting. There is a publick library and a university, called Transylvania, which is incorporated and is under the government of twenty-one trustees and the direction of a president, the Rev. James Blythe, who is also professor of natural philosophy, mathematicks, geography and English grammar. There are four professors besides: the Rev. Robert H. Bishop, professor of moral philosophy, belles lettres, logick and history; Mr. Ebenezer Sharpe, professor of the languages; Doctor James Fishback, professor of medicine, &c. and Henry Clay, Esq. professor of law. The funds of the university arise from the price of tuition, (which {163} is lower than in any other seminary of learning in the United States) and from eight thousand acres of first rate land, granted to it by the state of Virginia; five thousand of which are in the neighbourhood of Lexington, and three thousand near Louisville at the falls of Ohio. The legislature of Kentucky have also granted to it six thousand acres of valuable land, south of Green river. Its yearly income from the lands, now amounts to about two thousand dollars, which will probably be soon much increased.[126]

There are no fewer than three creditable boarding schools for female education, in which there are at present above a hundred pupils. An extract from Mrs. Beck’s card, will convey some idea of the progress of polite education in this country.

“Boarders instructed in the following branches, at the rate of two hundred dollars per annum, viz. Reading, spelling, writing, arithmetick, grammar, epistolary correspondence, elocution and rhetorick; geography, with the use of maps, globes, and the armillary sphere; astronomy, with the advantage of an orrery; ancient and modern history; chronology, mythology, and natural history; natural and moral philosophy; musick, vocal and instrumental; drawing, painting, and embroidery of all kinds; artificial flowers, and any other fashionable fancy-work; plain sewing, marking, netting, &c.”

The card designates a regular course of education, as it proceeds through the successional branches, all of which cannot be studied by any individual at the same time.

Mrs. Beck is an English lady, and is in high reputation as an instructress. She was now absent, having taken advantage of a vacation, to visit the Olympian Springs, about fifty miles from Lexington, much resorted, on account of their salubrious effects.

There is no regular academy for males, but there are several day schools.

{164} The number of inhabitants in Lexington, in 1806, was 1655 free white inhabitants, and 1165 negro slaves, in all 2820. The whole number may now be safely estimated at 3000.

There are three nail manufacturies, which make about sixty tons of nails per annum; and there are ten blacksmith’s shops, which find constant employment for a considerable number of hands.

There are two copper and tin manufacturies, one of which manufactures ware to the amount of ten thousand dollars yearly; the other is on a smaller scale.

There are four jewellers and silversmiths, whose business is very profitable.

Seven saddler’s shops employ thirty hands, the proceeds of whose labour is annually from twenty-five to thirty thousand dollars.

There are four cabinet-maker’s shops, where household furniture is manufactured in as handsome a style as in any part of America, and where the high finish which is given to the native walnut and cherry timber, precludes the regret that mahogany is not to be had but at an immense expense.

Three tan yards and five currying shops, manufacture about thirty thousand dollars worth of leather every year.

There is one excellent umbrella manufactury, one brush, one reed, four chair, and two tobacco manufacturies which make chewing tobacco, snuff and cigars. Three blue-dyers. Five hatters, who employ upwards of fifty hands, and manufacture about thirty thousand dollars worth of fur and wool hats annually. Ten tailors, who employ forty-seven journeymen and apprentices. Fifteen shoe and boot makers, who employ about sixty hands, and manufacture to the amount of about thirty thousand dollars yearly; and two stocking weavers.

Two brew-houses make as good beer as can be got in the United States. A carding machine for {165} wool, is a great convenience to the manufacturers of that article. There is one manufacturer of baling cloth for cotton wool, who employs thirty-eight hands, and makes thirty-six thousand yards annually; and two cotton spinning machines, worked by horses, yield a handsome profit to the proprietors. An oil mill, worked by horses, makes fifteen hundred gallons of oil per year. Seven distilleries make near seven thousand gallons of spirits yearly. Four rope-walks employ about sixty hands, and make about three hundred tons of cordage annually, the tar for which is made on the banks of Sandy river, and is bought in Lexington at from eighteen to twenty-five cents per gallon. There are two apothecaries’ shops, and five regular physicians. Twenty-two stores retail upwards of three hundred thousand dollars worth of imported, foreign merchandize annually; and there is one book and stationary store on a very large scale, and two printing offices, where gazettes are printed weekly.[127]

In the neighbourhood are six powder mills, that make about twenty thousand pounds of powder yearly.

There are seven brick yards which employ sixty hands, and make annually two million five hundred thousand bricks; and there are fifty bricklayers, and as many attendants, who have built between thirty and forty good brick houses each of the last three years. The Presbyterian society is now finishing a church which will cost eight thousand dollars.

Manufactures are progressing in several parts of the state.

In Madison county there has lately been established a manufactury on a large scale for spinning hemp and flax. It is wrought by water, and is calculated to keep in motion twelve hundred spindles, each of which will spin per day, half a pound of thread of fineness to make from six to ten hundred linen, or {166} four pounds per spindle suitable for cotton baling. One hundred and sixty spindles are now at work, which have spun a quantity of thread of superiour quality.

Having been informed that Mr. Prentice, from New England, who is keeper of the county gaol, had collected much local information respecting Lexington, with an intention of publishing an account of its settlement, progress and present state, I called on him, and he very politely communicated to me every thing I interrogated him on: as his book however will be given to the publick on some future day, I will not anticipate it; but will merely mention one circumstance as a proof how much luxury has progressed here. Last year there were in Lexington thirty-nine two wheel carriages, such as gigs and one horse chaises, valued at 5764 dollars, and twenty-one four wheel ones, coaches, chariots, &c. valued at 8900 dollars; since when four elegant ones have been added to the number. This may convey some idea of the taste for shew and expense which pervades this country. There are now here, fifteen hundred good and valuable horses, and seven hundred milk cows.

The police of Lexington seems to be well regulated: as one proof of which there is an established nightly watch.

The copper coinage of the United States is of no use in Kentucky--the smallest circulating coin being a silver sixteenth of a dollar.

There are four billiard tables in Lexington, and cards are a good deal played at taverns, where it is more customary to meet for that purpose than at private houses.

There is a coffee house here, where is a reading room for the benefit of subscribers and strangers, in which are forty-two files of different newspapers from various parts of the United States. It is supported {167} by subscribers, who pay six dollars each annually, and of which there are now sixty. In the same house is a billiard table, and chess and back-gammon tables, and the guests may be accommodated with wine, porter, beer, spirituous liquors, cordials and confectionary. It is kept by a Mr. Terasse, formerly of the island of St. Bartholomew. He had been unfortunate in mercantile business in the West Indies, and coming to this country, and failing in the recovery of some property he had shipped to New York, he had no other resource left to gain a provision for his family, but the teaching of the French language and dancing, in Lexington. The trustees of Transylvania college (or university, as the Lexington people proudly call it) employed him in the former, but had it not been for the latter, he might have starved. And here it may not be impertinent to remark, that in most parts of the United States, teachers of dancing, meet with more encouragement than professors of any species of literary science.--Disgusted at length with the little encouragement he received, he bethought himself of his present business, in which he has become useful to the town and seems to be reaping a plentiful harvest from his ingenuity. He has opened a little publick garden behind his house, which he calls Vauxhall. It has a most luxuriant grape arbour, and two or three summer houses, formed also of grape vines, all of which are illuminated with variegated lamps, every Wednesday evening, when the musick of two or three decent performers sometimes excites parties to dance on a small boarded platform in the middle of the arbour. It is becoming a place of fashionable resort.

FOOTNOTES:

[126] For the early history of Transylvania University, one of the oldest and most celebrated educational institutions in the West, as well as for sketches of its early professors, see Peter, _Transylvania University_ (Filson Club _Publications_, No. 11; Louisville, 1896).--ED.

[127] For a sketch of Lexington and its first two newspapers, see Michaux’s _Travels_, vol. iii of this series, p. 37, note 28, and F. A. Michaux’s _Travels_, p. 100, note 40.--ED.

{168} CHAPTER XXVII

Road to Frankfort--Leesburgh--Mulatto innkeeper--Interchange of musical entertainment--Frankfort--Breakfast under air fans--Sand fit for glass--Marble--Publick buildings--Eccentrick character of the keeper of the penitentiary--Return--Coles’s bad inn--Abuses in the post-office department.

We left Lexington after dinner, and taking the left hand road of two equally used to Frankfort, we travelled twelve miles through a very rich, but not a generally settled country.

After crossing the Town branch, Wolfe’s fork, Steele’s run, and the South branch of Elkhorn river, to which the three former are auxiliaries, and on all of which are several mills, we arrived at a hamlet of three or four houses called Leesburgh, twelve miles from Lexington.[128] One of the houses had been the seat of the late Col. Lee, and is still owned by his widow, who rents it to a mulatto man named Daly, who has converted it into an excellent inn. With the house, Daly occupies as much cultivated land as nearly supplies his well frequented stables with hay, corn and oats. There is also a good kitchen garden in which are vast quantities of culinary sweet herbs, besides useful vegetables, and he has good stabling and other out offices--for all which he pays only forty pounds Virginia currency, or one hundred and thirty-six dollars and two thirds, per annum. We experienced the benefit of his spacious icehouse, in the fine butter we had at supper, where every thing was good, particularly the coffee, which was almost _a la Française_. Daly having a good violin, on which he plays by ear with some taste, he entertained us with musick while we supped, in return for which, we played for him afterwards some duets, by the aid {169} of another violin, borrowed of young Mr. Lee, who resides in the neighbourhood with his mother.

My good bed did not lull me to repose, partly from the strength of our host’s coffee, and partly from a stomachick affection through indigestion.

After a sleepless night, the freshness of the morning air revived me, and we proceeded towards Frankfort, amusing ourselves by the way with talking over the vanity and egotism of Mr. Daly, who had entertained us with many little anecdotes, connected with some of the first and most celebrated characters in the United States, in which he was always a principal actor. His vanity however had met with a sad check, soon after our alighting at his house, from the abuse of a female negro slave from a neighbouring plantation, who he drove away with a cowskin, and she in return lavished on him the most opprobrious epithets, among which he seemed to be most hurt by her calling him “an Indian looking and a black son of a b--.”

A fine road, through a more level country than we had came through last evening, brought us in two hours, eleven miles, to the hill above Frankfort, which from thence was seen to advantage, with Kentucky river flowing past it, through a deep and narrow valley, confined by steep and rather stony hills, which afford a variety, after the fine plains, luxuriant forests and rich farms, within twenty miles in every direction of Lexington.

We descended the hill, into the capital of Kentucky, and stopped at Weiseger’s, the sign of the Golden Eagle, where we sat down to a sumptuous breakfast, with two green silk air fans kept in motion over our heads, by a little negro girl with a string from the ceiling, in a room seventy-two feet long.[129]

After breakfast I accompanied Mr. A---- to examine a shallow stratum of sand, on the bank of the river, near a mineral spring about half a mile below {170} the town, and he got a negro who was fishing, to wade to an island opposite, and bring some from thence, which had probably accumulated there by floods.--He pronounced both kinds proper for the manufacture of glass, which was what he had in view, but it did [not] seem as if a sufficient quantity could be procured for an extensive manufactury.

We then returned to town, walked through it, and entered the state house, from the cupola of which we could distinctly count every house, the number of which was exactly ninety, most of them well built with brick, and some with rough but good marble of a dusky cream colour, veined with both blue and red, and capable of a good polish, which is abundant in the neighbourhood. The old wooden houses are rapidly disappearing to give place to brick, since about two years ago. Until that time, attempts had been made at every annual sitting of the legislature, to remove the seat of government elsewhere, ever since the year 1793, the first after the separation of this government from the state of Virginia. These attempts having failed, and there having been no renewals of them in the last two sessions of the legislature, the proprietors, under a security of Frankfort being established as the permanent capital of the state, have become spirited in improvement, and the buildings erected since are on a scale and of materials worthy of a capital.

The publick buildings here, are a state-house, a court-house, a gaol, a market-house, the state penitentiary, and a government house occupied by Mr. Greenup, who now holds that office.

The state-house of rough marble, is about eighty-six feet front, by fifty-four deep. It is an oblong square with a square roof, and a cupola containing a bell rising from the centre. The house is plain, but roomy and commodious. On the first floor are the treasurer’s, register’s, auditor’s, and printing offices. {171} On the second, the rooms for the representatives of the state, and the federal court of appeals, and on the third are the senate chamber, the general court and a school room.[130]

The court-house is a plain brick building near the state-house.--A piazza of five arches opens on the hall for the county courts.--The clerk’s offices are on the same floor.--The jury rooms are on the second floor, and on the third is a mason’s lodge.

There are four publick inns, which in point of size, accommodation and attendance, are not surpassed in the United States, and there are several large houses, where people under the necessity of attending the courts, or detained for any time in Frankfort, can be accommodated with private lodgings. The erection of a permanent wooden bridge over the Kentucky has been lately commenced, which will be about one hundred and forty yards long from bank to bank, the surface of which is about fifty feet above low water mark. The present bridge of boats is about sixty-five yards between the abutments, and the river now at low water is eighty-seven yards wide. Three brigs have been built above the bridge, and sent down the Kentucky, the Ohio, and the Mississippi, but the Kentucky is not navigable during the low water of summer and fall. Coals are brought down it nearly three hundred miles and delivered in Frankfort at sixpence per bushel, but wood being yet tolerably plenty, they are used only in the penitentiary and by the blacksmiths.

There are several curious strata of marble, rising from the margin of the river, like steps of stairs, towards the top of the bank on the town side. The marble is covered by a stratum of blue limestone, which has {172} over it a superstratum of reddish clay and gravel mixed.

After dinner we visited the penitentiary accompanied by our landlord and Mr. William Hunter, a respectable printer and bookseller, and a genteel man, to whom I had brought a letter of introduction.[131] In our way we passed the government house, which is a good, plain, two story, brick building, and near it we met governour Greenup, who saluted us with much familiarity. He is a plain, respectable looking elderly man, much esteemed throughout the state.[132]

The penitentiary is contained within a square area of an acre, consequently each side is two hundred and eight feet long. The work shops and store houses occupy the front and the other three sides are enclosed by a stone wall sixteen feet high, surmounted by a sort of entablature of brick about three feet high, rounded on the top and projecting about a foot from the wall on each side to prevent any attempts of the convicts to scale the wall. There are now twenty-four miserable wretches confined here for various limitations of time, in proportion to the enormity of their crimes, but none exceeding ten years, the longest period limited by law. The cells of the criminals are in a two story building with a gallery on the inside of the area, extending the length of one of the sides. Some of the convicts were playing fives, and the rest amusing themselves otherwise in the yard. It was Sunday, a day always devoted to amusement by those outcasts of society, who have their daily task exacted from them with rigour during the rest of the week. They are taught, and work at every trade for which they have a taste, and of which they are capable, so that some who were useless burthens on society previous to their confinement, carry with them, on their return to the world, the means of earning a decent subsistence; though at {173} the same time, perhaps the majority, instead of being reformed, become more prone to vice, through despair of ever gaining their lost reputation. The institution had like to have failed about two years ago, through the insufficiency of the superintendants, when a captain Taylor, a man of good property in Mercer county, who was an enthusiastick admirer of it, was prevailed on by the governour to undertake the management and superintendance, and it has since not only supported itself, but has earned a surplus, which goes into the state treasury. Taylor is a stern man of steady habits, and a great mechanical genius. He superintends every class of workmen himself, and has invented several machines for the improvement of mechanicks. He has nailors, coopers, chair makers, turners, and stone cutters, the latter of whom cut and polish marble slabs of all sizes, and he has taught most of them himself.

He is a large and strong man, about fifty years of age, and either through eccentricity, or to give himself a terrifick appearance, he wears his dark brown beard about two inches long, from each ear round the lower part of the chin. It is surely a strange taste, which prompts him to separate himself from his family and the world, to exercise a petty tyranny over felons, and to live in such constant apprehension from them, that, as I was informed, he always carries pistols.

We resisted the polite and friendly importunity of Mr. Hunter, to spend the day with him, and quitting Frankfort, we took a different route to that by which we had come, which brought us, after riding ten miles mostly through woods, to Coles’s, who keeps an inn on this road, in opposition to Daly, on the other. But any traveller, who has once contrasted his rough vulgarity, and the badness of his table and accommodations, with the taste, order, plenty, and good attendance of his mulatto competitor, will {174} never trouble Mr. Coles a second time, especially as there is no sensible difference in the length or goodness of the roads, and that by Daly’s, is through a generally much better settled country.

We got back to Lexington on Monday, 3d August, in time for breakfast, which I partook of at the publick table of the Traveller’s Inn, merely for curiosity, but notwithstanding the apparent elegance of the house, my other landlord’s (Wilson) suffered nothing in the comparison.

I whiled away the day in expectation of the post, which was to decide whether or not I should have the pleasure of my friend A----’s company on my return to Pittsburgh, but owing to some unaccountable irregularity, which is a cause of general complaint in this country against the post-office department, it did not arrive until ten at night, although it was due at eleven in the morning. Another very just cause of complaint against the same department is the slowness with which the mail is conveyed. A trifling improvement and a very small additional expence, would forward the mails through the whole western country, where the roads are comparatively good, and the climate very fine, at the rate of fifty or sixty miles a day, except during floods in the winter, where, for want of bridges, the roads are sometimes impassable in particular spots for a few days, whereas, now, in the best season, the average progress of the mails, does not exceed thirty miles daily.

Mr. A---- having an engagement, the day would have passed very heavily, had it not been for the coffee house, where I amused myself with the wonderful mass of political contradiction to be found in forty different newspapers, where scarcely any two editors coincided in opinion.

FOOTNOTES:

[128] Leestown, laid out by Hancock Lee in 1775, was one of the earliest settlements in Kentucky. Because of its location on the Kentucky River, it seemed destined to become a town of importance. In Cuming’s time, however, it had dwindled to a mere hamlet, and has since long ceased to exist.--ED.

[129] For a sketch of the history of Frankfort, see F. A. Michaux’s _Travels_, vol. iii of this series, p. 200, note 39. Daniel Weiseger was a prominent Frankfort citizen, who assisted in laying out the town and was one of the commissioners chosen for the erection of the second Kentucky state-house, 1814.--ED.

[130] This was the first permanent Kentucky state-house, built in 1794, and destroyed by fire in 1813. For a cut, see Collins, _History of Kentucky_ (Covington, 1874), ii, p. 246.--ED.

[131] William Hunter was a native of New Jersey, who had been captured at an early age by a French man-of-war, and carried to France, where he learned the trade of printing. In 1793 he returned to America, and formed a partnership with Matthew Carey at Philadelphia. Two years later, he removed west, and after attempting newspapers in several towns finally established _The Palladium_ at Frankfort in 1798, where he was also State printer. Later in life he removed to Washington, where he died in 1854.--ED.

[132] Christopher Greenup, third governor of Kentucky, was Virginia born (1750), and served in the Revolution, attaining the rank of colonel. In 1783, he migrated to Kentucky, and having already studied law was, two years later, chosen as clerk of the chief court for Kentucky District. His first service for the State was in Congress, 1792-97. After his gubernatorial experience (1804-08), he retired to his home near Maysville, where he died in 1818.--ED.

{175} CHAPTER XXVIII

Departure from Lexington--Bryan’s station--Wonderful fertility of soil--Paris--Sameness of prospect--Simplicity of election of state representatives--Frank bird--Hasten on--Violent attack of fever at May’s-lick--Washington--Occasional remarks on hospitality--Maysville--Good effects of fortitude and abstinence.

I left Lexington on Tuesday the 4th August, by a different road to that by which I had first entered it, now taking the stage and post road direct to Paris.

The morning was fine, the road good, and the country well settled and improved, but the want of the company of my worthy friend A----, to which I had now been so long accustomed, was felt by me so sensibly as to make the miles appear uncommonly long.

At four miles I passed a celebrated old military post, called Bryan’s station, where the first settlers of the state, repelled a desperate attack of the Indians, who soon after in their turn, ambushed and cut off Col. Todd’s little army at the Blue licks, as before mentioned. This post is now the pleasant seat and fine farm of a Mr. Rogers.[133]

I soon after overtook an Irishman named Gray, who was one of the first settlers. He rode two miles with me, and was intelligent and communicative. He informed me that the usual produce of an acre of this wonderfully luxuriant soil, is from forty to fifty bushels of shelled corn, or from twenty to thirty-seven of wheat clean from the threshing floor. And here I must observe, that I have not seen, nor heard of any of the threshing machines now so common in the British European Isles, in any part of America. As they save so much labour, I am astonished that {176} they have not yet made their way across the Atlantick.--They would be of incalculable utility to the very wealthy farmers of Kentucky.

Crossing the North fork of Elkhorn, and Hewetson’s branch of Licking, both good mill streams, I entered Paris, eighteen miles from Lexington. It is situated on Stoner’s fork of Licking, and contains eighty-seven dwelling houses mostly good ones, several of them of brick, and six or seven building.

It is compact, in three small parallel streets, with a square in the centre, on which is a stone meeting house, a neat brick court-house, a small but strong gaol, and a market house. It is the seat of justice of Bourbon county, and has much appearance of prosperity. From the cupola of the court-house, there is an extensive view of a very rich country as far as the eye can reach in every direction, but though it is a country of hills and dales, there is too great a sameness to please the eye.

Perhaps there is not on the earth a naturally richer country than the area of sixteen hundred square miles of which Lexington is the centre, yet there is a something wanting to please the eye of taste--a variety, like the fertile plains of the Milanese, contrasted with the neighbouring Alpine scenery, and studded with the noble lakes, and streaked with the meandering rivers of that delightful region, which has given such inimitable taste and execution to the pencils of so many eminent painters.

It was the day of election for representatives in the legislature of the state. The voting was very simple. The county clerk sat within the bar of the court-house, and the freeholders as they arrived, gave him their names and the names of those they voted for, which he registered in a book.--That done, the voter remounted his horse and returned to his farm.

The hostler at Buchanan’s inn, where I stopped to breakfast, is a free negro man named Frank Bird. {177} He was formerly owned by the great and good Washington, whom he accompanied and served in all his campaigns. He had learned farriery, cooking and hairdressing in England in his youth, so that he must have been a useful servant. He was liberated and got some land near Mount Vernon, by the general’s will, and now at the age of fifty-seven, he is hostler here, and enjoys such health and strength, that a few days ago he carried eight bushels of salt, exceeding four hundred pounds weight. The old man repaid my complaisance in listening to him, by recounting as much of his own memoirs as my time would permit me to hear.

I left Paris, and passing Millersburgh, and one of the first settlements, called the Irish station, four miles further, just before entering the barren country three or four miles on that side of Blue licks, I spurred my horse past Nicholasville court-house and tavern, where I counted above a hundred horses, fastened under trees. I was induced to hasten past this place, as the voters in that sterile part of the country did not appear quite so peaceable and orderly as those I had seen in the morning at Paris, and I was not sure but some of them might have been moved by the spirit of whiskey to challenge me to run a race with them, or to amuse the company with a game of rough and tumble, at both which the backwoods Virginians are very dexterous.

I arrived at May’s-lick about sunset, much fatigued with my ride of fifty-two miles, in one of the hottest days of the season. I was very feverish, yet I forced myself, though without appetite, to take a light supper, after which I bathed my feet in warm water, and retired to bed, where I passed a sleepless night in high fever and excessive thirst, which being no ways abated at the first dawn of day, I arose and called my host to prepare my horse, being determined not to sink under my indisposition, while capable {178} of making the smallest exertion. My flushed countenance, black and parched lips, and frequent nausea, alarmed my host so as to induce him to dissuade me to proceed, but finding me decided he prescribed a strong infusion of tansey in Geneva--the bitterness of which a little relieved my thirst, but did not prevent its return accompanied by nausea and excruciating headache, in which situation I arrived at Washington at seven o’clock, and returned my horse to its hearty old owner with the young fat wife.

I reposed a while on a bed at my friendly host Ebert’s, who as well as Mrs. Ebert, was truly kind and hospitable.

Apropos--That last word just reminds me of a remark I have made in the course of my tour. I had letters of introduction to some very respectable merchants in different parts of this state, which were productive of some general advice and information, but without my being invited further into their houses than their shops, or (as they are called) stores; or without having it in my power to excuse myself from tasting their wine, cider, whiskey, or any thing else. I must except Mr. Hunter of Frankfort, from this general remark, and the polite invitation of general Russel on the road, was a specimen of the hospitality of the country gentlemen, which I have heard much boasted of, as brought with them from Virginia; so that I cannot absolutely tax Kentucky with a total want of that virtue.

After taking a couple of basons of strong coffee without milk, I found myself much relieved, and proceeded on foot to Maysville, where I arrived in something more than an hour. The exercise of walking had restored my perspiration, and after two hours repose at my host January’s, I arose in a state of convalescence, sat down to the dinner table, and forced myself to partake of a chicken--after which I devoted the remainder of the day to quiet and reading {179}--took a cup of coffee, retired early--had a good night’s rest, and felt no more of my fever.

I am the more minute in describing my indisposition, partly to warn other travellers, to avoid excessive fatigue under a hot sun, and partly to shew the good effects to be derived from fortitude and patience under most diseases. I am persuaded that had I obeyed the dictates of my inclination, and my landlord’s advice at May’s lick, I should have experienced a most severe, and probably fatal attack of highly inflammatory and bilious fever--but by bearing up against it--by perseverance in exercise and rest alternately--checking my strong desire for liquids, and using only such as were proper for me, and that moderately, and especially by refraining from every thing which might have the smallest tendency towards keeping up the heat of the blood, with the exception of the tansey bitters at May’s lick, I precluded the necessity of either medicine or professional advice.

FOOTNOTES:

[133] See Durrett, _Bryant’s Station_ (Filson Club _Publications_, No. 12; Louisville, 1897).--ED.