CHAPTER II

Indian bridges over Chickey creeks--Elizabethtown--Cheapness of living--Swatara creek and ferry--Middleton--Susquehannah river--Chambers’s ferry--Harrisburgh.

On Thursday 29th January I left Lancaster on foot, proceeding along the Harrisburgh road, at a steady pace of about three miles and a half an hour. The weather was remarkable fine, and the road in excellent order, and what was remarkable for the season, a little dusty. About a mile and a half from Lancaster, I past a turnpike toll gate, from a little beyond which I got the last view of the steeples of that town, and soon after I crossed a stone bridge over a branch of Conestoga creek. The road continued {18} fine, and the country rich, laid out in large farms, with good dwelling houses of brick and stone, and immense barns. Though hill and dale, woods and cultivated farms, presented themselves alternately yet there was nothing very striking in the scenery.

The road continued fine, nine miles, to a rivulet called Big Chickey, which I crossed over on an Indian bridge, which is a high tree cut down so as to fall across the stream from bank to bank, and then its branches lopped off. The banks being high, and the bridge long and narrow, my nerves were so discomposed when I reached the middle, that I had like to have fallen off, but balancing and tottering, I at length reached the end.

Two miles further I had to cross another Indian bridge over Little Chickey creek, which I did boldly, without any difficulty; which is one proof of the use of practice and experience.

The road now became very bad, the turnpike intended from Lancaster to Harrisburgh not being as yet finished any further.[6] The country also is not so highly improved as in the neighbourhood of Lancaster, the inhabitants still residing in their original small log houses, though they have generally good and spacious stone barns.

After four hours walking, I arrived at Elizabethtown eighteen miles from Lancaster,[7] and stopped at the sign of General Wayne, where for a five penny bit (six cents and a quarter) I got a bowl of excellent egg punch, and a crust of bread.

It is surprising that at so short a distance from Lancaster, the necessaries of life should be at least a third cheaper, which on enquiry I found them here.

This village contains about thirty tolerable houses--has a meeting-house, and a school, when a master {19} can be got, which is not always the case, the place having now been some months vacant, to whom the trustees ensure twenty-five scholars, at two dollars each per quarter, which being only two hundred dollars per annum, I would have supposed insufficient for his support, if at the same time I had not been informed that his board and lodging in the most respectable manner, will not cost him above eighty dollars a year, in this cheap and plentiful country.[8]

After resting about an hour, and not feeling at all fatigued, at half past four, I proceeded for Middleton, eight miles further, first loading one of the barrels of my gun with a running ball, as I had to pass near where one Eshelman was robbed and murdered last fall.

The road over Connewago hills was bad, and by the time I arrived at the bridge over Connewago creek, three miles from Elizabethtown, my left foot began to pain me, so that I was forced to slacken my pace, which made it dark before I arrived at Swatara creek, when the pain had much increased, which was occasioned by my stepping through the ice up to my knees in a run which crossed the road, which the darkness prevented my seeing.

The boat was at the other side of the creek, and the German family at the ferry-house let me kick my heels at the door until I was quite chilled, before they invited me in, which old Mrs. Smith did at last with a very bad grace, and she almost scolded me for risking the dropping on her very dirty floor, the spirits of turpentine, with which I was wetting the feet of my stockings to prevent my catching cold, a phial of which I carried in my pocket for that purpose. In about half an hour, which appeared to me an age, the boat returned, and I gladly left the dirty, boorish, inhospitable mansion, crossed the creek in a canoe, hauled over by a rope extended from bank to bank, about 70 yards, and in a few minutes after {20} I found myself in Mrs. Wentz’s excellent inn, the sign of general Washington in Middleton. My foot being much blistered, I bathed it in cold water, and then injudiciously opened the blisters with a lancet, and spunged them with spirits of turpentine: I then got a good supper and an excellent bed, but my foot pained me so much as to prevent my sleeping, so I arose early, unrefreshed, and breakfasted with my landlady, an agreeable, well bred woman.

The view down the Susquehannah from Mrs. Wentz’s back piazza is very fine. The town contains about a hundred houses and is well and handsomely situated about half a mile above the conflux of Swatara creek with Susquehannah river, the former of which forms a good harbour for boats, which it is in contemplation to join to the Schuylkill by a canal, in order to give Philadelphia the benefit of the navigation of the Susquehannah through its long course above Middleton. If this is carried into effect, it will draw to Philadelphia a vast quantity of produce, which now goes to Baltimore.[9]

The Susquehannah is a noble river, here about a mile wide, with fine sloping wooded banks, and abounds with rock-fish, perch, mullet, eels, suckers, cat-fish and white salmon, which last is described as a fine fish from seven to fifteen pounds weight, but a distinct species from the red salmon of the northern rivers. Notwithstanding their plenty, Mrs. Wentz assured me that she was seldom gratified with a dish of fish; for though there are many poor people in the town and neighbourhood, who might make a good living by fishing, she says they are too lazy to do any thing more than will procure them some whiskey, in addition to a miserable subsistence, which a very little labour will suffice for in a country where work is so well paid for, and where the necessaries of life are so abundant and cheap.

Was it not that the Susquehannah abounds with {21} falls, shallows and rapids which impede the navigation, it would be one of the most useful rivers in the world, as its different branches from its different sources, embrace a wonderful extent of country, settled, or rapidly settling, and abounding in wheat and maize (Indian corn,) which most probably will always be staples of the large and flourishing state of Pennsylvania.

The road to Harrisburgh leads parallel to the Susquehannah, in some places close to the river, and never more distant from it than a quarter of a mile, along a very pleasant level, bounded on the right by a ridge of low, but steep wooded hills, approaching and receding at intervals, and affording a fine shelter from the northerly winds, to the farms between them and the river; which perhaps is one reason that the orchards are so numerous and so fine in this tract.

I have rarely seen in any country, a road more pleasant than this, either from its own goodness, or the richness and variety of prospect. The Susquehannah on the left about three quarters of a mile wide; sometimes appearing, and sometimes concealed by orchards, groves or clumps of wood. The fine wooded islands in the river. The mountains which terminate the ridge called the South mountain (which crosses part of Virginia, and the southern part of this state) rising abruptly from the margin of the river, in which they are charmingly reflected, altogether form a scenery truly delightful.

About three miles below Harrisburgh the mountains terminate, and the south bank of the river becomes more varied, though still hilly; and here on an elevated promontory, with a commanding view of the river, from above Harrisburgh to below Middleton, is a large, and apparently fine stone house, owned by general Simpson who resides in it on his farm, and is proprietor of a ferry much frequented by the western wagonners, as the road that way is {22} shorter by two miles, than that by Harrisburgh.--He farms out the ferry on his side for about three hundred dollars per annum, while on this side the proprietor rents it at four hundred and seventy. The value of this ferry called Chambers’s, may serve to convey some idea of the state of travelling in this country, particularly if one reflects that there are many other well frequented ferries where publick roads cross the river, within thirty miles both above and below this one, and which are all great avenues to the western country.

When two miles from the ferry I observed a long line of sleds, horses, men, &c. crossing on the ice; which scene, at that distance had a curious and picturesque appearance, as the ice was glassy, and in consequence they appeared to be moving on the surface of the water, in which their shadows inverted and reflected as in a mirror, struck the eye with very grotesque imagery.

Some labourers who were at work in a barn at the ferry-house, and of whom I was asking some questions relative to the country, were much astonished at my double barrelled gun, admiring its work and lightness, and calling it a _curious creature_.

When within a mile and a half of Harrisburgh,[10] the white cupola of its court-house, and the roofs of the houses of the town are seen peeping over the trees, and have a good effect.

At one o’clock I entered that town, turning to the left over Paxton creek bridge. I stopt at the ferry-house, which is also a tavern, but appearance of accommodation not being very promising, I continued my walk along the bank of the river, and stopt at another tavern, where I asked if I could have a bed that night. A dirty looking girl at the stove drawled but that she believed I might. I then asked for some mulled wine. She said eggs were scarce, and she could not get any. From these symptoms of {23} carelessness, I thought it best to try my fortune a little further; so putting on my shot belt and taking my gun, I quietly walked out in search of a place of more civil reception, and fortunately I entered Bennet’s, the sign of the white horse, fronting the river, at the corner of the principal cross street, which leads to the market place. I say _fortunately_, for I found it an excellent, plentiful and well frequented house, and Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, two fine girls, his daughters by a former wife, and a Mr. Fisher an assistant, and apparently some relation, all attentive and studious to please.

After getting some refreshment I wrote some letters, and carried them to the post-office. The office being shut, the postmaster very civilly invited me into his parlour, to settle for the postage, where seeing a large map of Pennsylvania, I took the opportunity of tracing my journey, which the postmaster observing, he very politely assisted me in it, pointing out the most proper route. There were some ladies in the room, apparently on a visit, and there was an air of socialty and refinement throughout, which was very pleasing.

Leaving the post-office I walked through the town. It contains about two hundred and fifty houses, most of them very good, some of brick, some of stone, and some of wood. The principal street runs nearly east and west, and has two small market-houses in the centre, where the street is widened purposely into a small square. Parallel to this main street is a street charmingly situated on the bank of the Susquehannah, open to the river on the side next it, and tolerably well built on the other, having a wide foot way, in some parts paved, and marked in its whole length by a row of Lombardy poplars regularly planted, which serves also to shade the houses from the scorching rays of the summers sun. This street, though at present wide enough, has not been laid {24} out sufficiently so to provide against the gradual encroachment of the river, on its steep gravelly bank of about twenty feet high above the common level of the water. The view from every part of this street is very beautiful, both up and down the river, about five miles each way--terminated upwards by the long ridge of the Blue mountains, through a gap in which of about three miles long, which is also open to the view, the river rolls its rapid current, contracted there to less than half a mile wide. While downwards the eye rests on the South mountain, impending over general Simpson’s house, which in its turn seems to overhang the river, from the high promontory on which it is situated. Several islands add to the beauty of the view, particularly one, on which is a fine farm of nearly one hundred acres just opposite the town.

The court-house is near the market square on the principal cross street, and is a handsome plain brick building of two lofty stories, with a cupola rising from the centre of the roof, remarkable for its vane of copper gilt, representing an Indian chief, as large as the life, with a bow in his left hand, and a tomahawk in the act of cutting, in the right. The house is about seventy feet by fifty, with two small receding wings. The hall for the court is very neat, spacious and convenient; doors opening from it into the record and prothonotary’s offices in the wings. A fine easy double staircase leads to the great room over the hall for the courts. This room is now used as a temporary place of worship by the English Presbyterians, until their own meeting-house is finished, which is of brick and in great forwardness. From each corner of this room a door opens into the register office, the library and two jury rooms.

There is as yet no other place of publick worship in Harrisburgh, except an old wooden house used as such, by a congregation of German Lutherans.

{28, _i.e._, 25} This town which is now the capital of Dauphin county was laid out twenty-three years ago by the late proprietor, Mr. Harris, whose father is buried near the bank of the river, opposite the stone house he lived in, under a large old tree, which, once during his life, concealed and saved him from some Indians, by whom he was pursued.

I observed in the office of a Mr. Downie, a magistrate, a newly invented patent stove, made of sheet iron, consisting of two horizontal parallel cylinders, about a foot apart, one over the other and communicating by a pipe; the upper one is heated by the smoke from the lower, which contains the fuel. Mr. Downie informed me that it saved much fuel. The patentee lives here.

On returning to my inn, I found there a Mr. W. P----, of Pittsburgh, just arrived. In the course of the evening he gave me much good information of the western country, accompanied by a friendly invitation to call on him in Pittsburgh, should I be detained there until his return from Philadelphia, where he was now going. He had formerly lived in Harrisburgh for some years after his arrival from Ireland, his native country. The joyful eagerness with which numbers of his old acquaintance flocked to Bennet’s to visit him, evinced his having been much esteemed and respected.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] This turnpike is now completed, I am informed, as far as Middleton, and another extends from Lancaster to York, and is progressing on that route to Chambersburgh.--CRAMER.

[7] The site of Elizabethtown was secured by an Indian trader in 1746, who sold it seven years later to Barnabas Hughes. The latter, a noted tavern-keeper, laid out the town and named it in honor of his wife. On the highway between Lancaster and Harrisburg, Elizabethtown soon became an important stopping place, the original log-cabin tavern having been extant until 1835.--ED.

[8] Cuming here describes one of the neighborhood or voluntary schools, organized chiefly in the frontier districts, which afterwards (1834) became the basis of the common-school system of Pennsylvania. See Wickersham, _History of Education in Pennsylvania_ (Lancaster, 1886), pp. 178-182.--ED.

[9] Middletown was so named from being half way between Lancaster and Carlisle. It is older than Harrisburg, and was first known as “South End of Paxtang township.” It flourished until 1796, when an enterprising merchant discovering that the Susquehanna could be navigated, trade was diverted hence to Baltimore.--ED.

[10] For the early history of Harrisburg, see Post’s _Journals_, vol. i of this series, p. 237, note 73.--ED.

{26} CHAPTER III

Harrisburgh ferry--Old Jameson--The Conestoga massacre--Militia riflemen--Carlisle and Dickenson college.

On Saturday 24th, I arose early, but the ferry-boat not being ready, I partook of an excellent breakfast with my friendly host and his family, and at ten o’clock I embarked in a large flat, with the western mail and several passengers and horses. The flat was worked by nine stout men, with short setting poles shod and pointed with iron, to break the ice and stick in the bottom. Only one set or pushed on the upper side, while eight set on the lower side, to keep the boat from being forced by the current against the ice, while a tenth steered with a large oar behind. A channel for this purpose had been cut through the ice, and was kept open as loaded wagons could cross the river in a flat with more safety than on the ice.

In twenty-two minutes we were landed on the western shore of the Susquehannah in Cumberland county; and I trudged on, my foot paining me very much, until half past twelve o’clock, when I stopped at a tavern seven miles from the ferry and got some refreshment. Here I found a tall active old man of the name of Jameson, seventy-six years of age, who had crossed the ferry with me, and had afterwards passed me on the road, on horseback. He had accompanied his parents from the county Antrim in Ireland when only six years old, had resided thirty-six years at Paxton, near where Harrisburgh has since been built, (where he had been on business) and had afterwards removed to a part of Virginia about two hundred miles distant, where he has a large farm and distillery. He insisted on treating me, as he said, he liked to encourage the consumption of whiskey; of which, and the telling of old stories he was so fond, that he appeared to forget he had so {27} long a journey before him, until reminded by seeing some travellers pass on horseback, whom he hastened to overtake for the sake of their company. He did not however neglect finishing his whiskey, which he swallowed with great gout, and on mounting his horse, cracked jokes about a buxom widow, at whose tavern beyond Carlisle, he proposed sleeping that night. Among other stories with which he had entertained me, he told me the particulars of the massacre of the Indians at Lancaster, and he took a good deal of pride to himself, for having been one of the heroes who had assisted on that memorably disgraceful expedition. In justice however to the old man, I must observe that he related with pleasure that the party he accompanied, arrived too late in Lancaster to assist in the carnage.[11]

{28} As this is a circumstance not generally known, it may not be amiss to introduce here a short account of it.--The Conestoga Indians, as they were called, from their residence near the banks of Conestoga creek, were the remains of a tribe of the Six nations, who entered into a treaty with William Penn the first proprietor of the then province of Pennsylvania, towards the close of the seventeenth century, by which they had a thousand acres of land assigned them in the manor of Conestoga for their residence. This treaty had been frequently renewed afterwards, and was never violated on either part until their extermination by the surrounding settlers. It is remarked that the Indians diminish rapidly, in proportion to the increase of European settlers in the neighbourhood of any of their towns. This was very observable here, where from a tribe, they had decreased in about seventy years, to seven men, five women, and eight children.

An Indian war had commenced through the intrigues of the French, in the year 1754, at the commencement of which, many of the frontier inhabitants being murdered or driven in by the aborigines, aided by the French, a general panick followed. The Conestoga Indians, notwithstanding their weakness, their local situation, and their peaceable and innocent habits of supporting themselves by making of wicker {29} baskets, brooms and other wooden ware, which they sold to their white neighbours, as well as the skins of the wild animals which they killed in hunting, became objects of terror to the panick struck whites. To be an Indian, was enough to excite both the passions of fear and revenge. This poor defenceless remnant of a once powerful tribe, had but just sent an address, according to their custom on the occasion of every new governor, to John Penn, esq. who then held that office; welcoming him on his arrival from Britain, and praying a continuance of that favour and protection they had hitherto experienced; when at the dawn of day of the 14th December 1763, the Indian village was attacked by about sixty men well mounted and armed. Only three men, two women and a boy were found at home, the rest being out among the whites vending their little wares. Those poor wretches were butchered and scalped in the manner of the savages, by those more savage descendants of the civilized Europeans: Even the hoary locks of the venerable and good old chief Shebaes, who had assisted at the second treaty between the whites and Indians in 1701, and who had always since been the avowed friend of the former, could not excite the mercy, much less the respect of his barbarous assassins:--he was cut to pieces in his bed, and scalped with the rest, and the huts were then committed to the flames. The magistrates of Lancaster collected the remaining Indians, and brought them into that town, condoling with them on the late misfortune, and promising them protection; with which intent they were put into the jail, as the strongest building in the town.

Their merciless blood hounds not satiated with the blood already spilt, and increased to the number of five hundred well armed men, marched into Lancaster. No opposition was made to them, though the first party which arrived did not consist of {30} more than fifty, who without awaiting any of the rest, forced the jail, dragged their victims into the yard, and there immolated them, while clinging to their knees, and supplicating mercy. In this manner they all, men, women, and children, received the hatchet, amid the exultations of their murderers, who after the tragedy, paraded the streets, huzzaing, and using every other mark of self-approbation for the glorious deed they had achieved. How weak must have been the government, which dared not attempt any publick investigation of an act so disgraceful to humanity, and in such direct violation of the laws; but it is a fact that not even the name of one of the perpetrators was ever published; they were however generally known by the appellation of _Paxton boys_, though the township of Paxton was only one of many concerned.

At the tavern where I overtook Jameson, I saw some young men in blue jackets with scarlet binding, the uniform of a volunteer corps of militia riflemen. They had been with their rifles in search of squirrels, but unsuccessfully, the weather being too cold for those animals to come out of their hollow trees.

Apropos of the rifle.--The inhabitants of this country in common with the Virginians, and all the back woods people, Indians as well as whites, are wonderfully expert in the use of it: thinking it a bad shot if they miss the very head of a squirrel, or a wild turkey, on the top of the highest forest tree with a single ball; though they generally load with a few grains of swan shot, with which they are equally sure of hitting the head of the bird or animal they fire at.

Ten miles further brought me to Carlisle,[12] at six o’clock in the evening; the whole road from Harrisburgh {31} being very fine and level, the houses and farms good, and the face of the country pleasant. The view on the right is all the way terminated by the Blue mountains--the longest north eastern branch of the Allegheny ridge, from six to ten miles distant.

I observed about a mile from Carlisle on the left, and about a half a mile from the road, a large handsome stone house belonging to a Mr. Jackson of Baltimore, which was formerly owned by General Arden; and about half way between it and the town, and also to the left of the road, the large barrack, magazine, and depot of arms, built during the revolutionary war. Dickenson college, a spacious stone building with a cupola was directly before me, with the town of Carlisle on the left of it extending to the southward on an elevated plain: the whole having a very good effect on the approach. The twilight shutting out further view, I hastened through a tolerable compact street to Foster’s, to which I had been recommended as the best inn. I asked if I could have a bed that night, and was answered rudely, by an elderly man, in the bar who I took for the landlord, after he had eyed me with a contemptuous scrutiny--that I could not. The house appeared a little _would be stylish_--and I was afoot--so not of consequence enough for Mr. Foster. I turned on my heel, and entered the next tavern kept by Michael Herr, an honest and obliging German, where I found nothing to make me regret my being rejected as a guest at Foster’s, except want of bed linen, sheets not being generally used in this country in the inns, excepting at English ones, or those of fashionable resort. A very good bed otherwise, and an excellent supper, with attentive treatment, well compensated for that little deficiency.

After supper, I received both pleasure and information from the conversation of a philosophick German gentleman, an inhabitant of Carlisle, who favoured {32} me with his company, and who discoursed fluently on opticks, pneumaticks, the French modern philosophy, and a variety of literary topicks, evincing great reading, and a good memory.

Before I retired to rest, I walked to the tavern, where the wagons generally stop, and had the pleasure of finding, that arrived, which carried my baggage, which I had not seen since I left Lancaster.

Carlisle is a post town, and the capital of Cumberland county. It contains about three hundred houses of brick, stone, and wood. The two principal streets cross each other at right angles, where there is a market-house, a neat brick court-house and a large stone meeting-house. There are besides in the town, a German, an Episcopalian, and a Roman Catholick church. The streets are wide, and the footways are flagged or coarsely paved. Dickenson college on the north, was founded in 1783, and was so named in compliment to Mr. John Dickenson, formerly president of the supreme executive council of Pennsylvania, and author of the Pennsylvania Farmer’s Letters, and other writings of much merit. It has a principal,[13] three professors, and generally about eighty students. It has a philosophical apparatus and a library, containing about three thousand volumes. It has £4000 in funded certificates, and the state has granted it ten thousand acres of land: {33} On the whole it is esteemed a respectable seminary of learning, and is extremely well situated for that purpose, in a healthy and plentiful country, and about equidistant from the capital of the state, and the capital of the United States, one hundred and twenty miles from each.[14]

FOOTNOTES:

[11] The character here given of old Mr. Jameson, puts us in mind of an old man of a similar character in Washington county, Pennsylvania, of the name of _Foreman_, who at this time is _ninety-eight_ years of age. I had a curiosity in seeing this old gentleman, and about two years ago called on him for the purpose of conversing a few minutes with him. I was fully paid the trouble, for I found him talkative and considerably worldly minded. Among other things he observed that ‘The fashions of the day had injured society, and had lead astray the minds of young men and young women from the paths of simple and rustick honesty they used to walk in fifty or sixty years ago. That there was much hypocrisy in the shew of so much religion as appeared at present. That people were too fond of lying in their beds late in the morning, and drinking too much whiskey. That he himself used to take a frolick now and then to treat his friends of a Saturday night, after working hard all the week, but that he had not drank any spirituous liquors for twenty-five years. That he had been always an early riser, having been in the habit when he first settled where he now lives (having come from Virginia about thirty years ago) of going around to all his neighbours before or about day-light, to waken them up, and bid them _good morning_, and return home again before his own family would be out of bed. I asked him why he never came to Pittsburgh; he replied that he could ride there he supposed, but that he had no business in that place, but that he should like to move to Kentucky or to the state of Ohio, if he went any where. On speaking of his great age and the probable number of years he might yet live, he seemed inclined to believe he would live at least four years longer, (being then ninety-six) wishing as appeared to me, to make out the round number of _one hundred years_. He is quite a small man, somewhat emaciated, but erect in his carriage, can see tolerably well, and walks about the house without a cane, milk and vegetables have been, through life, his principal diet, and water his beverage. His present wife, being his second, is quite a smart woman, and is about eighty-six years old. The old gentleman observed that he had never to his recollection been sick, so as to have required the aid of a physician.’ Happy old man thought I, thou hast been happy, and art still so!--Peace to the remainder of thy lengthened days!--CRAMER.

[12] For an account of Carlisle, see Post’s _Journals_, vol. i of this series, p. 237, note 75.--ED.

[13] By a letter from Mr. Robert Lamberton, postmaster at Carlisle, it appears Dickenson college was burnt down by accidental fire, February 3d, 1803, and rebuilt in 1804. Doctor Nesbit, a Scotch gentleman of great learning, and much celebrated for his application to his studies, and particularly for the uncommon retentiveness of his memory, had been several years president of this college; he died 18th January, 1804. The Rev. Mr. Atwater, from Middlebury, Vermont, took his place as principal at the last commencement, on Wednesday the 27th September, 1809, and from his known abilities and piety, we may safely calculate that the college is again in a flourishing condition.--CRAMER.

[14] Dickenson has had many well-known alumni; but after the death of its first president, Dr. Nesbit, a period of decline set in, lasting until 1833, when its founders, the Presbyterians, sold it to the Methodists, who have since maintained the college.--ED.