«y -^ - €> « o ' ^^ • rf5s\^s«fc,^. V? ' • ^' ^ A*: o » » ^"^9^ • » I .' .♦^'V. 0* .•^.•♦-''b r- -^^0^ • 6 vOs " V^^'' * A > O ^Ao^ C"^ *1p5^5j^^*^ "^ '^"^ * "^ .n"^ 0*/r^^^:^lCV* *«. 4.*^" -^ ^^9- : ,^'\ ' f 1 1 *»I1» r/& «» PROMINENT FEATURES OF A WRITTEN From a Brief Diary, kept in travelling' from Charleston, S. C. to, and through PJiode-Islaud, Massachusetts, New-Hampshire, Vermont, Lower and Upper Ca- nada, New-York, Maine, North-Carolina, South-Carolina, and back to Charleston again. Commencing' on the 12th of June, 1821, and terminating the 12th of November followiner. CHARLESTON : PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR, By C. 0. Sebring. 1822. PREFACE. The autlior, sensible of the barbarous stylo in which this narrative is written, has had it printed merely to gratify his acquaintances, to whom, only, it can be interesting. But should it be read by others, they are enjoined not to criticise the composition ; or the anomalies, monotonies, prolixities, pleonisms, tautologies, and solecisms, with which it abounds ; and wliich the writer has neither learning nor abilities to ex- punge. As much as I have here written of the whole, might be said of each village I was in ; but I have told others such things, only, as I would others should have told me, before I went to see for myself. Tlie topographical remarks may appear obscure to some persons, but they must bear in mind, that the author has not chosen a title, which proposes teaching geography. While on this tour, I travelled with, and saw many persons of distinction, from various parts of the union; but as iew individuals like to be made conspicuous, I have named those only, who have often had the eyes of Argus upon them. A logician has said, " He that sends a book into the light, desires it to be read, and he that throws a book into the fire, •sends it into the light :" I have neither sent nor thrown mine into the fire, (though I were very near doing so,) nor would I ask aid from a subscriber, to save it fiom oblivion ; and I leave the reader to conclude as he pleases, whether I desire it to he — or not to he — yo{u\, '^' T'he words of'' the author •• are ended." THE NARRATIVE Tired with a long drudgery in business, and adopting the precept of Solonion ; that there is a time to gather mo- ney, and a time to scatter it ; I resolved to make a tour to the north. And, as I had in anticipation, business, health, pleasure, and curiosity, I made my calculations so as to visit as many places as possible which I had not before seen. Ac- cordingly June I2th, I sailed from Charleston, S. C. in the sloop P — , Capt. C — ; we passed Cape Hatteras on the 15th, and, after a pleasant passage, with little else to view except sky and water; on the 20th, made the east end of Long Island, A fog coming on too thick to run in for the land, we stretch- ed off to the eastward, where I had an opportunity of seeing the ermine, from the muddy bottom of Block Island Channel. And singular enough it is, that, from the mouth of Long Is- land Sound, directly out to sea, until you are off of soundings, the surface of the bottom should be besmeared with slime or ooze; whilst the rest of the coast, from Cape Cod to Cape Florida, has a sand, shell, or coral bottom : notwithstanding there are several embouchures along the shore, each discharg- ing more water than the above named sound, though that receives the Thames, Connecticut, and Housatonnick rivers. In the afternoon we made Block Island, and passing pretty near to it, on the west side, I counted twenty-five farm houses, beside their out buildings : and I suppose, that it contains about as many white inhabitants now, as it did Pequot In- dians one hundred and eighty-five years ago ; for it was then that Capt. Endicot, from Boston, invaded it; drove the na- tives into the woods, and burnt fifty of thdr canoes, and one hundred wigwams. In this manner are mortals astonished ! When they behold, at one time, an ant-heap covered with large black pismires ; and in a i^w days after, inhabited only by little red emmets. The foo^ prevciiling again, we anchored durmg the nisjht, between Block Island and Point Judith. June 21st. We got under weigh early next morning, and beat up into Newport harbour ; where I landed, and took a cursory view of this declining town. At the tavern where I dined, finding myself heterogene- ously situated in a shoal of politicians ; I sought out the cause of their numbers, and found that the legislature was then in session. After dinner, I took a seat in the gallery of the representative hall. There I saw nothing miraculous, or odd, except two of the members taking their seats, one eating ap- ples and the other a stick of sugar candy. I mention this for its oddness onl}^; and not to deride their legislature or those inembers ; for the former I found respectable, and the latter iioldingno second rank, when they entered on business: and I assented to an observation made by a gentleman who sit near me : that, he would rather see these petty singularities, that he saw here, than that of intoxication which he had seen in legislative bodies elsewhere. Of those members that I heard speak, I thought Mr. Potter the most shrewd and pointed : and if there is a situation where a statesman is per- fectly at home, it must be when he consents to serve in one of our state legislatures, after having been a distinguished mem- ber in congress. Jifue 22(1. I left Newport the next morning at 4 o'clock, and went through Middletown and Portsmouth ; crossed tlie stone bridge ofi^ of Rhode-Island ; thence through Tiverton, Troy, Freetown, and Berkley, and left the Boston stage on Taunton green. At Taunton, I changed my course; going through Middleborough and Fair-Haven to New-Bedford; where I arrived at 4 p. m. New-Bedford is, at present, a thriving town — there was as much oil on the wharves, in casks of, from 30, to 230 gal- ions, as, if rolled together, v/ould cover two or three acres of ground. There were 20 or 30 new houses building; and I btve no doubt but they will progress in that kind of improve- ment, till the place, like Newport, ?^'ewbuvyport, and Bath, becomes too lari^e not to suffer in the dearths of business. .//•K? 2:kL The r.evt day I rode on horseback round the head of Aci.shnet river, and took a survey of the shipyards, and the town of Fair-lJaven. J^nir ?4j'A. I left NV*w-Bedford on tlie morning of the 24th. o in a packet; and sailed across Buzzard's Bay; tlirougli Wood's Hole, and the Vineyard sound, and at 5 i\ m. landed in, and on the town, county, and island ol' Nantucket. June 2bth, Here I met a sea captain, with whom, eighteen years before, I had doubled Cape Horn. The following day, we procured a Jersey waggon, and rode across the island, to Siasconset. Our former voj^age ; a late sealing voyage he had made to the new-discovered land; the hislory and geo- graphy of this island, added to the inquisitive malady prevail- ing amongst New-Englanders; gave rise to the greatest day's talking that I underwent diuung my tour. It is now but one hundred and fifty-nine years since this island was in full possession of tlie aborigines: but so great has been their diminution, from sickness and other causes, that I saw not one vvhile there; and was told there were not a dozen native Indians living. " The hand of Providence is notable (this is not my language, but Trumbull's: lor I an i not so pious,) in these surprising instances of mortality among the Indians to make room for the tvhites,^^ Nantucket has, like all other places, some local customs, which appear comical to a stranger when lie first arrives. Such is that of their gentry riding in carts; in a manner simi- lar to that which I have seen two or three persons ride in Charleston at particular times. I noticed a lawyer's sign iji Nantucket, whicii, instead of being a small piece of tin, mere- ly giving the name, and '"' Attorne}^ at Law," or the like, was a large board projecting out from a corner, about 7 f*iet by It- inches, and portraying all the various branches of his profes- sion : something like the sign of a steam-boat coffee house. There is one thing more, I must not omit to tell the read- er : Nantucket abounds with handsome and courteous ladies ; and had I never read the following lines of Ovid, I mighi have prolonged my visit : " Think there's the Syren's den, the deadly bay, Make all the sail you can, and scud away." June 26tk. I took my departure from Nantucket on the 26th, in the mail packet; and, after being enveloped in a fog, almost the whole passage, at 3 p. m. arrived at Falmouth. I spent'the balance of the day in looking at this village, which consists of about one hundred detatched houses ; and they seem determined not to bo out o( Aisliion, for they were build- higa. banlc. T\\ty have here, whole acres covered with vat* fur makhig sah ; the water being evaporated by solar heat. June Tltli. I left Falmouth at 2 o'clock the next morning, in the Boston mail stage; breakfasted in Sandwich, and after- wards stopped for half an hour in Plymouth. Here I stood upon the rock, on which, two hundred and one years before, our forefathers had landed; and whose succeeding generations have multiplied and replenished; grown, augmented, and accumulated, to a nation of ten million souls : whose prowess has coped with the strongest monarchy on earth, and whose republican institutions portend freedom to the world. From Plymouth, we continued through Kingston, Duxbury, Pem- broke, Hanover, Scituate, Hingham, Weymouth, and Brain- tree to Quincy; where I saw the mansions of Mr. John Adams and JMr. Josiab Quincy; thence through Milton and Dorchester to Boston ; where we arrived at 5 p. m. June l^th. The following day, I went through Charles- town, Chelsea, Saugus, and Lynn, to Salem ; where I tarried lour days with my friends, from whom I had been long absent : and, as my employment in that time, is interesting only to myself, I shall leave it blank in the series of this journal. JuJn 3d. On the third of July I returned to Boston; and on the 4th of July, heard two orations; the Democratic and the Federal ; and, as far as my judgment goes in politics, they were both Republican. I shall ofier but one remark on these orators, and tliat is, they had crowded, orderly and respect- able audiences, and, were never so much applauded, as when they spoke of the pernicious effects of priestcraft. » Juli/ bfh. After the national birth-day was over, I left Bos- ton; and passed over the great western avenue; and which I pronounce the most substantial piece of work, of its kind, (except the government docks in Liverpool; though they are not exactly of this kind,) that I ever saw. But the reader must not suspect me for having seen the whole world. Fiom tlie causeway I continued to the westward, through Brookline, Brighton, Newton, Needham, Natick, Framing- ham, Soutliborough Westborough, and Shrewsbury; and left the stage in Worcester; in which, and the neighbouring towns, Charlton, Leicester, Spencer, Ward, Brookfield, Holden, and West-Boyleston, I sojourned for a week. July 13th. On the 13th, I was one of a party that went horn Worcester to Princeton, and ascended the Worchusett Diountain. This I believe is the highest land in Massachu- setts, Rhode Island, or Connecticut : and from hs summit we could overlook the adjacent country for more than fifty miles, in almost every direction ; and from conjecture, more than one hundred towns and villages. From the mountain, I returned to Worcester, just in time to take the evening stage for Bos- ton; where I arrived at 12 p. m. precisely at the time a fire broke out, which consumed some ten or a dozen buildings. July 14th. The next day I went to Salem; where, and in its suburbs, I spent five days more. During that time, I visited the hill, where were executed and buried, the twenty persons, who one hundred and twenty-eight years before, had been condemned for witchcraft.* I also visited the Na- hant, at Lynn, where the sea-serpent was once seen, by so many respectable personages from Boston. July 19th. On the 19th, I went from Salem to Boston, and made preparations for a Canadian tour. July 20th. At 7 o'clock the next morning, I got into the New-Hampshire stage, and proceeded through the following towns: Charlestown, Medford, Stoneham, South-Reading, Reading, Andover, Methuen, Salem, Londondery, Man- chester, Dunbarton, and Bow ; crossing the Merimack river twice, on the way; and at 6 p. m. arrived at Concord, New- Hampshire^s capital. AVe had but just time suflicient to go through and examine their State House before dark. It is builrof hewn, or sawed stone, wrought by their state priso- ners; its halls are spacious; and, take it, for all in all, as * It is a gloomy reflection, that this should have happened in the lifetime of Locke, Newton, Leibnitz, Boling-broke, Pope, and Montes- quieu. Howbeit, the next year (1(594) gave birth to a man, who has, perhaps, done more towards annihilating this kind of superstition, than any other that ever lived in any age, country, or nation ; and for which, probably, there never was a man who received so much abuse. But, " such" (I use his own words,) " is the reception truth always meets with from those who have been nursed in eiTor." Mr. Wallace, in his Treatise on the Globes, has told us, that Voltaire was the great champion of every error ; but there are, and have been divines in Euiope, if not in America, who think differently of his writ- ings ; and among that number, I find the reverend and ivell-read Dr, Blair, who, speaking of the Henriade, says, "Voltaire is, in the strain of his sentiments, the most religious and the most moral of all tragic poets." And again : "Religion appears, on every occasion, with great and proper lustre ; and the author breathes that spirit of humanity and tolerationj wliioh is conspicuous in all his vorkf:." 8 ^iiakspeare says, I think it the most neat, plain, and conve- nient edifice of its kind I have yet seen; and worthy to be visited by building committees from other states. Ji(hj 21 St. Leaving Concord the next morning, Boscawen was the first to^ni we went through ; then Salisbury, in which our road crossed a mound of earth, about 1 5 or 20 feet high in the centre, and 30 or 40 wide near its base. We could see about a mile of it, and was told by the neighbouring people, that it extends ten or twelve miles, over hills and dales, through the country. The trees and stumps that were on it, did not differ in size from those of the adjacent ground. I believe it has a fosse running parallel with it ; if so, it must have been raised by human labour; for nature, in her rudest sports, (as Guthrie says,) disdains to imitate the foll^'^ of man, (as St. Pierre would say,) so exactly. I was somewhat sur- prised, (and such will ever be the surprise of those v/ho tra- vel much, and read but little,) to think that I had never heard of this remnant of antiquity before. From Salisbury, we continued through Andover, Spring- field, Enfield, (here we passed a Shaker village,) Lebanon, and at 4 p. m. arrived at Dartmouth colleges, in Hanover. Four miles below Hanover, at Liman^s Bridge, I crossed Connecticut river into the state of Vermont; and, after going through Bagdad, Harvard, and Sharon, staid over night at Koyalton. Juli/ 22d. We started at 4 o'clock the next morning, and went through Randolph, Williamstown, and Barry; and stopped an hour and a half in Montpelier, the government ca])ital of the state. From thence our road was through Mid- dlesex, Waterbury, Bolton, Richmond, and Wesling; leaving the Camel's Rump mountain on our left, and Gov. Chitten- den's farm house on our right; and at 5 p. m. arrived at Burlington, on Lake Champlain. I came through Vermont, hyperbolically speaking, under ground ; for the stage entered St at the mouth of White river, the bank of which, and that of one of its branches, we followed to the source; and this source is not like those of other streams; for it divides a brook with Onion river, part running to the south-east, and part to the north-west ;* the latter of which, we followed till ' If a stick is thrown into this brook, a few paces above its divi- sion, one Ccinnot tell whether it will shape it:; com>e for the Gulf of St. Lawrewee, or Lon"" Island Sound. 9 within a few miles of the Lake : thus going from one side of the state to the other, through a continued gulfj leaving the Green Mountains on either side, elevated from forty-five to ninety degrees (for they sometimes had the appearance of hanging over us) above the horizon ; and without once com- ing on top of them. Burlington is pleasantly situated, on the broadest part of the lake ; which appeared to nie about as far over, to the New-York side, as the Vineyard Sound, from Holmes' Hole to Falmouth ; or the Straits of Gibraltar, from Africa to Eu- rope. Were it not for this Bay, Champlain had probabl;y borne the appellation of river, instead of lake. It is, how- ever, undoubtedly the most useful to navigation of any of the lakes; as it has all the convenience of water carriage, without being wide enough to produce an overwhelming sea. July 2^th. After three days dalliance, I embarked, at, 2 o'clock in the morning, in the steam-boat Phenix. After touching at Plattsburg, Chazy, and Champlain ; and passing our two forts, which now prove to be on English ground j we arrived at Isle-Aux-Naux. Here the British appear to be very industrious in fortifying the place : and here I saw an American sloop with Macdonough on her stern : a name not very palatable, I should guess j at that end of the lake. After stopping half an hour, we continued our course to the north : and at 1 p. m. landed in St. John's j the end of steam-boat navigation from the lake. I went from St. John's in a stage, down the western mar- gin of Sorrel river ; and in plain sight of all its obstructions to navigation, which is one continued shoal and rapid, with scattering rocks, averaging two feet in diameter, promiscu- ously showing themselves over the whole surface of the wa- ter ; and as far down as Chambly. I saw a steam-boat at Chambly, for which the river is navigable, to its confluence with the St. LawTcnce. Our stage went directly across the country, from Chambly to Montreal, where we arrived at 9 in the evening; after crossing the river, three miles over the rapids, and running more hazard of being drowned, than one would in a good ship, to go round the world. July 26th. The next day I spent in looking at the place; and reading Mr. Adams' oration; which I found published in the New- York Spectator; a paper, of some circulation in Ca- nada. 1* 10 July 2Tth. The succeeding night I slept on board the ^team-boat Car of Commerce; in which, at 2 the next morn- ing, I left Montreal. We stopped first at William Henry, in the mouth of Sorrel river ; and afterwards at Three Rivers. At the latter place, I had intended to tarry a day, or so, to :>ee a man to whom I had been to school when but five or six years of age, which was upwards of thirty years ago. But, on my arrival, I was told that he had changed liis residence to Shipton, on the east bank of St. Francis river, about forty miles north of the Vermont line, and Memphremagog lake. The man to whom t allude, is Stephen Burroughs. And, to gratify the reader who has read the biography of this noto- rious character, I shall add, that I was at his school the last day he ever taught in Massachusetts; and waited at the •vchool-house two hours on the following day, when the dire- ful news came that our master was in himho. Burroughs was called a most excellent school-master; but he punished his scholars with such severity, that the fall of Tarquin, at Rome, was not hailed with more joy, than was that of him whom we considered the most learned man, and the greatest tyrant in the world. To return from this digression. Leaving Three Rivers, we continued down the St. Lawrence, and notwithstanding two hours were lost at the stopping places, at 8 in the even- ing arrived at Quebec; one hundred and eighty miles in eighteen hours ! July 2Sth. The next day I strolled about the upper and lower towns ; and in the afternoon visited the Plains of Abra- ham, where I got a piece of the rock (so they told me) on which Wolf died, July 29th. In the forenoon of the following day, I went over in the steam-boat which crosses every half hour, to Point Levi ; and, after going on to the high land for a prospect, I went four or five miles down the bank of the river, opposite the falls of Montmorenci ; of which I had a tolerable view ; as I also had of the upper end of tlie Island of Orleans, if returned to tlie city again : and, in tlie afternoon visited Cape Diamond ; the highest part of the fortifications in the upper town; and which is said by Mr. Silliman to be 340 feet higher than the river : and it appeared to me more than as high again as the pendant at the mast-head of the Newcastle frigate^ which was then lying in the stream. However, for 11 the information of those who are for taking of it, in case of another war, I can tell them, that the land towards the upper country, by the way of Abraham's Plains, extends off, for several miles, nearly level. Within the walls of Cape Dia- mond, they were doing what, in every country that I have been, employs a large portion of the human kind : that is, undoing what others have done. They were removing, from one place to another, huge masses of fortifications which but a few years before were erected at great expense, and then thought to have been permanent and well done. And they say of their predecessors, as peradventtire, their successors will say of them ; that they were fools and knew not what they were doing. July 30th. The next day I saw the place from whence the relics of Montgomery were taken ; and also, every thing else that I anticipated or had a desire to see ; except it was a sample of the Esquimaux Indians : and, that the reader who expects to travel that way, may not make the same calcula- tion, I shall inform him that they are as seldom seen there, as they are in New- York : or, at least, a native of the place, and a man whose ideas extend beyond the limits of Canada, told me that he had never seen one in his life. The three last days of July, were remarkably warm at Quebec ; and although the place is more than halfway north, from the equator to the pole ; and the highest north latitude in the scope of this tour, yet did I nowhere else feel the heat so oppressive during the summer. Juli/ olst. I left Quebec at 2 a. m. the next day, in the same boat in which I had come down ; and in coming up the river we stopped at the same places as when going down. Like all the roads and rivers in Lower Canada, the banks of the St. Lawrence, with the exception of that part which widens into Lake St. Peter, are lined with a continued village: so that it may be said, they have streets 500 miles in length. The houses stand about 50 or 100 yards apart, and are inter- spersed with Roman Catholic churches, in about the same ratio, as those of Connecticut are with Presbyterian meeting- houses. Aug. 1st. The second day after we left Quebec, at 10 in the evening, arrived at Montreal. Aug. 2d. In the fore part of next day, I ascended the mountain back of the town j and visited such parts of the city 12 as I had not yet seen. In the middle part, I went in the stage, from Montreal to Lachine ; and thence in a steam-boat, on Lake St. Louis, to the Cascades ; where I again took the stage, and went through, and to, the Cedars, Cotea-de-lac, Prison Island, and the French settlement. From there we were carried in a row-boat, on Lake St. Francis, twenty miles, to Lancaster. Aug. od. It was 3 o'clock in the morning when we arrived at Lancaster; from which place we continued our journey in the stage; through Cornwall, Millrush, Millnet, Oznaburg, Williamsburg, and Johnstown ; and got into Prescot at 7 in the evening. We travelled the whole day on the north bank of the St. Lawrence river, and so near to it, that we had a full view of all the shoals and rapids. In the afternoon we came over the battle ground at Crisley's Farm ; though, I suppose the people in the Unhed States will not thank me for re- minding them of it; but the duties of diarists and historians^ are well known. Aug, Ath. The next morning, I crossed the river direct; which is about a mile and a quarter wide ; from Prescot to Ogdensburg, in New- York state. This place is at the foot of navigation, for large vessels, from Lake Ontario. It has about 100 Durham boats, as they are called, belonging to it; which carry from 200 to 400 barrels of flour, each, and trade to Montreal. The merchants are mostly employed in for- warding goods. St. Lawrence seems to be the guardian saint of this place ; for it is on the St. Lawrence river ; the court town of St. Lawrence county ; has a St. Lawrence hotel, and a St. Lawrence Gazette ; besides other establishments bearing the title of the saint. A stranger on entering the taverns here, .:»uspects the countrymen to be Europeans, when he hears them talking of things in Lisbon, Madrid, Stockholm, and the Hague; till he learns that these are the names of the adjoin- ing towns. Arriving in this place one day after the steam- boat's departure, I had to bide a week, till her retui'n; and for that time shall cease to remark diurnally; but, in lieu of which, I shall record a iew observations, made in my vehe- ment transit, over the geogiaphicai, and political disk of Lower Canada. To begin with the natives of the United States, who reside there : Like all money making emigrants, they accommodate ^iieir political complexion, to that of the multitude, by whom IS they are surrounded ; and so well do they compare with the cameleon, that I cannot refrain from inserting the following remark of an author on that harmless reptile: " The poor de- fenceless animal," says he, " having no means of resistanccj gradually assumes the colour of some substance over which it passes, being thus provided by nature with the means of concealment." The natives of Great Britain, who are gene- rally both royal and loyal, use every artifice to deride our form of government; such as naming their stud horses the Democrat, or the Plebeian, and a hundred things of the like kind, that might be enumerated. And they affect as much astonishment on hearing one speak of a republic's being per- petuated, as the King of Pegu expressed real astonishment, when some Venitian mariners told him, they were not go- verned by kings: and he thought their