A Ride to Niagara in 1809 Glass, F I Z 3 Book_^C7k_ *! lina A Ride to Niagara in 1809 By T. C. i^^k? 3^ / ■I r: Two hundred copies reprinted, October, 1915, from the Portfolio for July, August, September and October, 1810, for George P. Humphrey, Rochester, N. Y. No. Mr. Oldschool, Finding myself at Williamsport, in Lycoming county about the Lt that t me almost a wilderness, and I was not tempted to go fur her l^^a^ than'^e mouth of the river. It is now a very populous Tnd well cultivated country, considering the short per.od of its settle ' ent ind every year lessens the inconveniences attendmg so mter- :^ a jaunt T^vellers, who, like myself, ride post through a coun^ trv have seldom much accurate information to give: but as I think t^e tour wmTarly become more fashionable, because it deserves to become so I send you the observations that occurred to me on the route Even the designation of stages and the names of taverns, will not be wilhout their use to persons in this stat^ who have leisure and • -^ ,r. ,M-s;t nn obiect so remarkable as Niagara Falls. At any Tth o..::^ notes wiJ. for. a .oWr.b.e register o< the pr.sen, s^a'; of the country. I wish we had such, imperfect as >t .s^of^every part of the United States. A Ride to Niagara ITINERARY I set out from WilHamsport on Saturday the sixth of May, 1809, in the afternoon, and went to (14 miles) Reynolds's, a good tavern. Here the tolerable road ends. 15* Sunday 7th, to Higley's at the block house, along a villainous road, nearly impassable for a pleasure carriage. 10 To Bloss's at Peters's Camp: a very bad road through a very improvable country. Iron ore and bituminous coal found within a mile and a half of his house : the iron ore not rich, nor the vein of coal thick. A miserable habitation, but civil people. 9 To Jenyns's : a house to bait at only. 10 To widow Berry's: tolerable accommodation. The bottom lands of the Tioga* are almost all of them in the incipient stage of improvement. They are as yet chiefly settled by half share intruders, who are grad- ually becoming tired of their illegal and precarious title. The flats are not wide, but the land is very rich. 8 Monday, may eighth, crossed the Tioga and the Canisteo or Canister, to judge Linby's, about a mile over the state line : at the state line the road, from being ex- ecrable through Pennsylvania, from Reynolds's, (I may * The figures at the beginning of the paragraphs denote the num- ber of miles from the place mentioned in the preceding, to that in the paragraph at which the figure is placed. * I wish we had preserved more of the old Indian appellations. The head of Tioga was Cutcutticanay. The Indian name of Dela- ware was Mackerick Kitton: it is so called in the first purchase deed of fifteenth July, 1682. Schuylkill was Manaiunk. In another deed of same date, the islands in the Delaware within that purchase, were Mactinnictink, Scpassinks, and Onctons. The names of Ncshaniinck and Pcmapccka, are preserved. Chester Creek was Mackopanacklian. Duck Creek, in Chester County, was Quinquingus. The Genesee River is the Cheneseo. The gut called in that coun- try Jerundagut is Eutenantoquot. The Indians of that country lay the emphasis on the last syllable. 10 A RIDE TO NIAGARA indeed say from Williamsport, considering the frequent crossings of Lycoming Creek) to the boundary Hne of the state, becomes suddenly pleasant and good. I do not now recollect how many times a traveller has to pass Lycoming Creek, and Trout Run, and the Tioga, and the Canister in the last fifty miles ; but there can- not be less than between forty and fifty fordings alto- gether; I believe the latter number is nearest the truth. And yet the greater part of the road passes through or in sight of very good land. Between Reynolds's and judge Linby's, I met with no hay. 12 To Irwin's at the painted post : through a good country, along a good road, to a tolerable tavern. 12 To doctor Falkner's, who keeps tavern at Mud Creek. He is the president judge of the court of com- mon pleas of Steuben county. The judges of common pleas in Newyork state receive no salary : they are allowed some trifling bench fees, not worth their accept- ance, and seldom inquired after. The courts sit three times a year. The judges of the supreme court attend (singly) to hold circuit or nisi prius court twice a year. The court of common pleas lasts about six days : prob- ably a lawyer as the president, with a decent salary, would abridge this two days, and save the time, the trouble, and the expense of the suitors, at least to the amount of one-third. The attornies (four at present) usually reside at Bath. There are from forty to fifty suits brought to a term. 6 To Bath, to William Spring's tavern. This is the county town of Steuljen. It was the scene of the Gen- esee speculations so much encouraged by captain Wil- liamson. It is situated in a high cold climate ; almost surrounded by mountains; on a meagre, barren, silice- ous soil. It contains even now, although the first town built by and the favourite residence of captain W^il A RIDE TO NIAGARA 11 liamson, but thirty houses. Captain Wilhamson's old house, a mile before you reach Bath, with eight hundred and forty-six acres of land, four hundred of which were cleared and improved, and sixty of them meadow, sold lately to a Mr. Hopkins for nine thousand dollars. The buildings alone cost captain Williamson at least fifteen thousiand. Goods are purchased here chiefly -from Newyork, which, as a market, is upon the average about one-sixteenth cheaper than Philadelphia. The price of carriage hither is about the same, viz. two dollars and twenty-five cents per hundred weight; but the road to and from New York is much the best. I staid here on business part of Tuesday, May ninth, and in the after- noon went on to Terples's (twenty miles). He is the sherifif of the county, and keeps a tolerable tavern. Very bad road from Bath hither. Wednesday ninth, rain. In the afternoon to Rice's (eleven and a half miles) at Snell's town, nicknamed Pen Yang, from its being originally settled by Penna- mites and Yankees in about equal proportions. This is a poor place and a very middling tavern. It is on the outlet of the Crooked Lake where there is an ex- cellent mill-seat. I heard of limestone about nine miles from Terples's near to the bank of the Seneca Lake, but I saw not a particle of that stone on the whole road from the mouth of Loyalsock till I came here : an ex- tent of ninety-four miles. Thursday May ii. To^ Powel's at Geneva (fifteen miles). About one hundred houses ; a place of much trade. A delightful street on the bank of the lake : the houses of frame, well painted, clean, cheerful, with a full view of this charming lake in front. Geneva is built on limestone, wdiich I suspect extends all the way up the Seneca Lake to Catharine's Town, if not in a continuous stratum, in hills and nodules. Powel's tavern was built 12 A RIDE TO NIAGARA by captain Williamson. It might be kept cleaner and neater than it is. I guessed it at fifty feet square with- inside. I inquired of Powel, if there had been any ap- pearance of plaster of paris remarked in his neighbour- hood, or in any part of the Genesee country : he said he had never heard of any, unless a substance like alabas- ter which had been suspected for plaster, about nine miles off. Instead, therefore, of going the direct turn- pike road to Canandaigua, (pronounced Canadarque) sixteen miles, I went the Sulphur- spring road. 9 To Sterne's tavern : walked to Dickson's mill and house, about half a mile oft' on the opposite side of the road, and found a well that had been partly dug and abandoned, in which I dug out some specimens of good genuine gypsum, too decidedly marked to be mistaken. I could see none on the surface. 3^ To Powel's at the Sulphur-springs. This is the brother of Powel at Geneva, a civil obliging man. The place is dreary, but the house large, though unfin- ished. It was intended as a kind of watering place, and no doubt the spring would have an excellent effect in cutaneous disorders, in diabetes mellitus, and, I think, in pthisis. Doctor Beddoes's theory has not been of much service as yet in that terrible disorder, but old Mr. Watt of Birmingham, whose opinions and observa- tions are entitled to very great weight, informed me soon after his daughter's death of that disorder, that she never took a dose of inflammable, mixed with at- mospheric air, without manifest alleviation of the symp- toms. From whatever species of idiosyncrasy (whether natural or induced by disease) it be, certain it is, that the blood in that disorder is too much oxygenated. Doctor Rollo's successful practice g-ives well-founded hope that these springs would be of great use in dia- betes. The establishment is too large for the resort. A RIDE TO NIAGARA 13 There are two or three sulphur springs hereabout, but Powel's is the largest and most saturated. He told me that however well corked and secured, the water would not bear transportation. I tried it, by well corking and waxing a vial full, but on opening it a month afterward, its peculiar smell and taste was gone. I gave for a bot- tle of London porter (so called) at Powel's five shillings York money : probably the people, who would otherwise resort here, find the living somewhat too expensive. An assessor here informed me that the lands of that township were rated one with another in the tax books, at twenty-two shillings and six pence, York currency, per acre. ID To Taylor's at Canandaigua : a good tavern. Canadarque consists of one street extending from the lake. It contains from ninety to a hundred frame houses, generally speaking, neat and elegant in their external appearance ; a meeting house and a court house. It is indeed a very handsome town. There are two potash works here. About eight lawyers, for this is the county town of Ontario. The agriculture of the neighbourhood is probably improving, for I observed in one of the newspapers (there are two published here) forty half blooded Merino lambs to be disposed of at Palmyra by William Howe Cuyler. The house and lot of forty acres in this town formerly owned by Mr. T. Morris, sold to the present occupant, Mr. Clarke, a tanner, for seven thousand dollars. In the time of Mr. Morris it was, in good truth, a hospitable mansion; and then, the only house in the place of genteel appearance. At present there are twenty as good. lo Friday, twelfth, to Eccleston's. 2 To Hall's ; the more frequented of the two. 12 To the widow Berry's, about half a mile on this side the Genesee river. This is in Hartford. From Can- 14 A RIDE TO NIAGARA adarque hither, you pass through Bloomfield and Charlestown townships. It is one village all the way from Canadarque; at least you are scarcely ever out of sight of a house. In Bloomfield I saw two brick houses, one brick store, and one brick meeting house. My memory does not serve me to recollect any other from Williamsport hither, but log and frame buildings. In Pennsylvania, on this route, you see log houses; in Newyork state, frames. Indeed the county town of Williamsport, in Lycoming, contains but two brick houses, the house of Mr. M. Ross, and the very excel- lent tavern of Mr. Wilson. Judge Hepburn has a brick house about a mile off. And yet limestone is to be found but two miles and a half distant from Williams- port, at the mouth of Loyalsock; and from the outlet of the Crooked Lake through Geneva to Lake Erie limestone abounds. From Canandaigua hither the stone on the road is round siliceous pebble, siliceous grit, chert, chert-flint, flint occasionally by itself, and sometimes imbedded in limestone, chert intermixed with limestone, and here and there limestone, in the proportion of perhaps one-fourth of the whole number of stones. For a mile before you come to the Genesee river, the road is made chiefly of gravel formed of com- pact siliceous stones. 4 Across the Genesee river. Passed the Indian vil- lage of Canewagas. This tribe has reserved about two miles square on the river. It began to rain, and I was compelled to put up for the night at a tolerable tavern kept by a major Smith. 12 Saturday, May thirteenth, to Marvin's; tolerable house. Very poor cherty land for five miles from Smith's. 8 To Keys or Kyes at Batavia. Excellent land and well settled for the last eighteen miles. The road tol- A RIDE TO NIAGARA 15 erably good. Limestone and chert all the way. The country is very level, and as well fitted for a Batavian as any I know of. Batavia contains two taverns, (another is fitting up in the court house) two stores, and about a dozen houses. One of them is the land office of the Holland company for the disposal of the three millions of acres purchased of the late Robert Morris. This is under the care of Joseph and Benjamin Ellicot, brothers to Andrew Ellicot of Lancaster, one of whose sons has a mill here in the town upon the Tonnewanta creek. All the Holland company's lands hereabouts (ninety- four miles one way by about as much in the broadest part the other way) have been accurately surveyed under the direction of the Ellicots, who have laid down connectedly on a large scale every tract, on one large map divided into three parts. Each part is attached to rollers and inclosed within a glass sash frame, so that by turning backward or forward the roller con- taining the survey required, you find in a minute's time any particular tract, its courses and distances, and a reference to the field notes containing the quality of the land and its timber. All the field books are half bound and numbered, and the notes appear to be judi- ciously taken; so as to enable the company to judge of the comparative value of each tract. The rollers appear to me to be about eight or ten feet long each, and the tracts very neatly and accurately laid down. The great convenience of this plan renders it well worthy of imi- tation in our land ofifice of Pennsylvania, where, to the great disgrace of the state, no connected map can be found of any one county in it. The Pennsylvania land ofifice has been in full operation now for a century ; and it is not saying a great deal too much, that the Ellicots, on the part of the Holland company, have done more 16 A RIDE TO NIAGARA accurate work, have finished and connected more sur- veys, and furnished less ground for uncertain titles, in- terfering- claims, and protracted law suits, in half a dozen years, than our land office can boast by the labour of a hundred. For, amid so much as hath been done, how little hath been done effectually ! That legislature that would order, and those officers that would com- plete a map of each county in Pennsylvania containing every tract laid down from official survey, would indeed deserve the blessings of their country. If the business of courts is to be diminished, this indeed would be an effectual way of doing it. The common selling price of land in the Holland purchase is from two to four dollars an acre, long credit. At first they took payment of the instalments in wheat, at present they demand cash. Mr. Joseph Ellicot, I hear, means to remove his office to BufTaloe, recently named Newamsterdam. The company has erected, at their own expense, at Batavia, a court house, a gaol, and a hotel, all under one roof. The outside is airy and neat, but the inside is neither elegantly nor com- modiously distributed for any of the purposes intend- ed. They make good beer in Batavia, at five dollars the thirty-three gallons ; chiefly from wheat. ID to Goss's, to feed: a poor place. Richardson's, a mile further, seems somewhat better. 3 Carr's saw-mill on Murder Creek. The stone all chert. The limestone appears to decrease in quantity. 5 To Van Deewinder's. a frame house, the only place between Batavia and BufTaloe where you can sleep, and bad enough it is. The road from Batavia hither is very full of stumps and swamp holes; three- fourths of it consists of log causeways. There is a log cabin about every mile or two. It is much the worst road I have met with from the state line hither: it is A RIDE TO NIAGARA 17 much the same as the road from Lycoming Creek past the block house and Peters's Camp to Tyoga, only the Holland company have taken somewhat more pains than the state of Pennsylvania. 14 Sunday, May fourteenth, to Ransom's to break- fast : fried veal : the only fresh meat, except some beef at Canadarque, that I have seen since I left Williams- port. Nor has my horse had hay more than once since I left Reynolds's, the first stage from Williamsport. They attribute the want of it to a winter unusually protracted. 8 To Landen's at BufTaloe, a village of about six- teen houses near the outlet of Lake Erie on the lake. From Van Deewinder's here nothing but chert along the road, but Landen says they have plenty of lime- stone upon the hills about three miles off. Landen's is but an indifferent tavern, though the best in the place. Buffaloe appears very well situated for business with Erie, Detroit, and the western part of upper Can- ada, but there are, as yet, no symptoms of industry. Landen tells me that the whole road round the lake to the town of Erie in Pennsylvania, ninety miles off. is well settled except about nine miles. I asked him where was the market for the produce of that part of the country? he replied, New Orleans, by the Cha- tangue Lake, there being but nine miles of land car- riage from Lake Erie to New Orleans, to wit, the Chatangue portage, which is true. But, in my opinion, the market will be Montreal, for there are not more than nine miles portage from Lake Erie to Montreal, to wit, at Queenstown, and, as I think, the navigation is not only very much shorter, but much easier. For when the lake salt is four dollars and fifty cents at Buffaloe, it sells at ten dollars at Pittsburgh ; hence, allowing a dollar per barrel profit, the carriage from 18 A RIDE TO NIAGARA Buffaloe to Pittsburgh will be five dollars by water. I believe land carriage is now al)oiit six dollars per hun- dred weight from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. The ice was very thick in Lake Erie. 3 To Millar's ferry along the bank of the lake. If it be no object to call at Buffaloe, there is a road turn- ing to the right, about two miles from Buffaloe, which leads directly to the ferry, and saves that distance. The stone that bounds the river here is a mass of black chert. I arrived about twelve o'clock, but the ice was so thick in the river Niagara that it was impassable till three. There were three wagons of emigrants waiting to cross to the British side from Shoharie in Newyork state, and Buffaloe in Northumberland county, Penn- sylvania ; they were chiefly Germans. They expected two hundred acres of land to cost them about fifty dol- lars; I understand the British government sells it at forty dollars per two hundred acres. The American emigrants to Canada generally complain, as I heard, of the violence of party politics in Newyork state and in Pennsylvania. The taxes in Canada are very light, but unequal. The crossing here is three-fourths of a mile over; price half a dollar for man and horse. They catch abundance of fish in the spring with a seine. The fam- ily were dining on pickerell and salmon trout, each about four pounds weight. 15 To Chippeway: a house every three or four hun- dred yards all the way. An excellent road through good land. Chippeway contain's about ten houses. There are two good taverns, one kept by Stevens, the other by Fanning. Stevens being the nearest and the newest I stopt there. They are of equal repute. Each has a new part connected with the old building, and each has eight windows in front. The diningroom at Stevens's is twenty feet by thirty, carpetted. The at- A RIDE TO NIAGARA 19 tendance good, and the people civil. For a pint of tol- erable Teneriffe, a gill of rum, supper, breakfast, bed, and feed for my horse, I paid only thirteen shillings and six pence York money. There had been a handsome bridge over the Chippeway, but the middle part was broken down, and they now ferry across. On the op- posite side to the taverns, is a fort with a lieutenant's guard. The waters of Chippeway are dark coloured owing to its running for near thirty miles through a swamp. Mr. Ellicot told me that forty miles up the river there was gypsum in abundance, as he had been informed. He also mentioned two places near the mouth of Chippeway, in the river, whence issued bub- bles of inflammable air in considerable quantity, which might be fired by putting a small keg over the place with the bottom and top out, and one end immersed in the water. But my landlord, Stevens, could give me no information; nor would he take the trouble of giving me any particular directions as to the proper means of seeing the falls to the best advantage. "They are by the road side, you cannot miss them." Monday, May 15, to the falls of Niagara. Oppo- site Chippeway, the river seems to be about a mile and a half across. At the falls it is contracted and divided by an island into two main cataracts, the one near the British, the other near the American side. The road runs along the brow of a hill, and as you pass along at about two miles distance from Chippeway, you observe a wagon road descending to the right into some flats washed by the rapids of Niagara. The descent may be eighty or ninety feet. The flats are very narrow, but there are four or five buildings on them, a mill, a tan- nery, &c. At any of these you can procure a person to walk with you half a mile to the Table Rock, over a part of which the river rushes and makes the great fall. 20 A RIDE TO NIAGARA Ten dollars would make this a good horse road; at present you have to wind through the bushes very un- comfortably. The tavern-keepers at Chippeway ought to feel it their duty to make the walk as comfortable for the ladies as possible, and a trifle would make it so. When you get on the edge of this limestone flat called the Table Rock, you have before you a full and com- plete view of an amphitheatre of about half a mile* in circumference; comprehending close to your right two- thirds of the river Niagara, after rushing along in broken and foaming rapids, precipitating itself into a chasm beneath your feet, exactly one hundred and fifty feet deept. The falling water projects far enough to admit you to see a considerable way between the rock and the main sheet, and affords room enough for those who wish to descend, to go behind it. This is owing to a projecting ledge of the rock over which the water is precipitated. Opposite to you, at the distance of some- what less than a quarter of a mile, you see the river broken by a finely wooded island ; and the rest of this immense body of water, rushing- down into the farther part of the chasm below, on the American side. * So it appears to me, but I find the measurement more precisely given thus : Yards. The Horse-shoe falls have an extent of about . . 600 The Island, . . -340 The Small Fall beyond, on the American side, . . 8 Another island, wooded to the edge of the precipice, . 20 The Great Fall on the American side, 163 feet to the bottom, 350 The circumference of the amphitheatre, from the Table Rock to the edge of the last mentioned fall, . . . 718 I think the eye takes in at least half a mile. t This measurement I obtained from Mr. Jos. Ellicott, who told me he had taken much pains to ascertain the height from the Table Rock to the water's edge : and though he had made it one hundred and fifty feet on some trials, he had oftener made it one hundred and forty-nine feet six inches. It may, therefore, be called one hundred and fifty feet in round numbers. A RIDE TO NIAGARA 21 The roaring and foaming of the rapids for near a mile in full view before the river arrives at the preci- pice; the green tint of the water, edged all the way down by curling folds of snow white foam ; the imme- diate chasm of boiling snow into which the river pours ; the mist that eternally hovers over the gulf below, and through which you see at intervals the turbulence of the bottom ; the trees of the island which divides the falls, and which seem to descend even below the edge of the precipice itself; the immense interminable mass of wood, which fills the whole of the surrounding coun- try, and borders to the very edge, every part of the watery prospect ; and the rapidity with which the green and white current below drives along" as if in haste to escape from the horrible chasm in which it had been ingulfed, form altogether a scene of grandeur and of beauty, unrivalled. I felt content that I had taken the journey. It was worth the trouble. After having sufficiently contemplated the scene be- fore me, I was satisfied that I could well dispense with my intended tour to the American side ; and also with the troublesome descent down an unsafe ladder half a mile ofif, and a walk of near a mile over the rough rocks at the bottom, to get at the view below, and behind the sheet of water. It appeared to me that every thing that was worth seeing, might be seen in safety and in com- fort from the Table Rock; but those who have more youth, more leisure, and more curiosity than I had may like to see all that is to be seen. It is unpardonable in the tavern-keepers at Chippeway, whose establishments are to be maintained by the concourse of travellers, who come expressly to see the falls, that they do not provide at least a sound and safe ladder, and expend twenty or thirty dollars in laying the stones at the bot- tom in such a manner as to enable the female part of 22 A RIDE TO NIAGARA the visitants to contemplate the scene under the Table Rock, if they wish so to do : at present it is an under- taking too arduous and fatiguing for the female sex. Those who wish to descend will be directed to a house about half a mile from the flats, where a ladder is kept for the purpose. When I was there nobody had gone down it since the preceding season, and I was ad- vised not to try ; an advice which I readily complied with. From the flats where the habitations are, you can ascend again into the main road, which I think is about eighty or ninety feet perpendicular above the edge of the water. This, therefore, is the descent which forms the rapids of the river, before the perpen- dicular fall of one hundred and fifty feet commences. When you have again got upon the high road by an ascent at the further end of the flats, you see about a hundred yards before you a house, with a field before it, fenced with a worm fence. It is now occupied by Charles Wilson, but has lately been sold to a Mr. Shan- non. Do not go so far as the house, but skirt round the fence, and in about one hundred and fifty or two hundred yards, you will see two or three knolls or prom- inences on which you may again take your stand, and have perhaps a still more complete view of the whole scenery than from the Table Rock. There is an oak tree on the best brow that I found for the purpose, on which about four feet high I cut a small blaze with my penknife. A small island in the river on the American side, in the midst of the falls on the American side; a mill seat in the distance ; and the beauty of the smaller fall which is made by that island, are objects worth no- ticing, as adding to the picturesque of the scenery, after you have sufficiently contemplated the grand whole. I gave the man who went with me from Hardie's, the tanner, half a dollar, with which he was well content. A RIDE TO NIAGARA 23 He told me that land thereabout, unimproved, sold from three to four pounds sterling an acre, not far from the road, prime land. Hardie (a civil man) emigrated fifteen years ago from Lewistown, on the Juniata, be- fore Mifflin county was struck off from Cumberland. I mention this because I saw neither actual improve- ment in his situation, nor any means of improvement that might not have been made or obtained in the place he left. I intended originally to have gone from Buffaloe up the American side, to Schlosser's, but Landen at Buf- faloe informed me, the road was impassable. However, persons had been appointed to put it in order, and he was one, and about to set to work the next day, so that in a week or two it would be good. From Schlosser's northward to Lewistown there is a road, which forms the portage on the American side round the falls of seven miles, and thence from Lewistown to Niagara fort, a tolerable road of six miles. The river makes a bend toward the British side, so that the portage round the falls there is nine miles. The country on the Amer- ican side is good and will admit of thick settlement, but there are very few settlers from Niagara fort south- ward to Buffaloe. I cannot help thinking it would be well worth while to force a settlement along that fron- tier. 4^ Inquire for John Thompson's house ; it is a mile and a half off the road. You go past one Bateman's on the left hand of the road, where you may get some person not merely to direct, but to go with you to Thompson's, which is a good stone house near the river. At the back of his house there is a stony field, full of cedars and white pine; go to the bank, and you see a place they call the whirlpool, which is a truly pic- turesque scene. The river seems at least one hundred 24 A RIDE TO NIAGARA and fifty feet below you; narrow, rapid, foaming; in its haste it drives against a bay which forms nearly a cul de sac ; this occasions an eddy, which they call the whirl- pool. On some days it is comparatively still ; on others it roars as loud as the great falls, and may be well heard at three and four miles distance. It is an object not to be passed on such a tour. Volney notices it, but I had not Volney with me, and I had forgotten it. I heard of it by chance, from my condutor at the Table Rock telling me of some one who lived near the whirlpool. A traveller must inquire for himself, he need not count upon being told of any thing worth seeing at Chippe- way. The man who conducted me was a German ; he had lived for some years thereabout as a farming servant, at six dollars per month and board, which I mention as an item of the price of labour. lYo Returned from Thompson's to (three miles) Queenstown. This is situated at the bottom of the hill ; that is from one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet below the road which leads from Lake Erie. This road has a gentle descent all the way from Lake Erie hither; but here it falls abruptly into a bottom thus much below its own level. It is highly probable that at some far remote period, the great falls were at this place ; for here is the commencement or the termination (call it which you will) of the higher level. The river here begins to widen, and admits of being ferryed ; but even the ferrying place has several eddies in it. Queenstown is a pleasant village of about sixteen or eighteen houses. I stopped at Banister's, a civil man, from Massachusetts. I got a pint of excellent port, which more majorum I find to be the fashionable wine among the Anglo Canadians. This is a place of trade, being the commencement of the portage round the falls. Banister pays about twelve A RIDE TO NIAGARA 25 shillings sterling a year for direct taxes of all kinds. The military and judiciary are paid by the crown. Judge Hamilton, who died lately, and had very large prop- erty, was assessed at no more. The imported goods come by way of Montreal. For tea they give one dol- lar and a half per pound, loaf sugar three shillings (Newyork currency). For my wine he charged me five shillings, but it was good. At Batavia I got Mr. Elli- cott to change my Pennsylvania notes, for the notes current in Newyork state ; but I found notes of no kind current in Canada. They trade for coin. They have no bank ; and they dislike our notes. No wonder. After dinner I rode (eight miles) to Newark, Fort St. George. The road excellent. The ride along the Niagara beautiful. The country well settled. In fact it may be regarded as a continued village from the ferry opposite the Black Rock for thirty-three or thirty- four miles down to Newark. I stopped at Emery's, a very good tavern. I wished to see Captain Lee who is collector at the American port of Niagara ; but no ferry is kept at either place. I hired a boat for the purpose. The boatmen here, as in England, use the two pegs in the side as points d'appui, and feather their oars. I was sorry to see the American town and fort of Niag- ara, so inferior in external appearance, at least, to the British town of Newark and Fort St. George. This being the extent of my proposed journey out- w^ard, I returned (eight miles) to Banister's at Queens- town, where I slept. By his persuasion, and it being also a new route. I determined to go by Lewistown, (a shabby American settlement opposite Queenstown.) I arose, therefore at five o'clock, and crossed the ferry to Lewistown. Hence (six miles) to Hopkins's. About three miles and a half from Lewistown, and about two miles to the right, is a settlement of Tuscaroras on a 26 A RIDE TO NIAGARA reserve of five miles square. I met several of them shooting in the woods. 28 To Walsworth's. There are two or three baiting places between, but I have not noted them. By great industry I arrived here about three o'clock. I intended to have gone on to Batavia, eighteen miles further, for between Queenstown and Batavia, on this road, no one would willingly stop longer than was necessary; but my horse fell lame the last stage, probably from over-feed- ing before he was cool, and I was obliged to stay where I was. About two miles and a half from Walsworth's is the settlement of Seneca Indians, on the Tonnewanta reserve of twelve miles square. They are not more than about one hundred and fifty in number. 13 Wednesday, May 17. Through the Indian re- serve ; of course no house all the way. Part of the road (five miles) over plains. From Lewistown hither all the stones is siliceous on the road ; though there is a ridge of limestone parallel with the road about three miles ofif. About the middle of the plains you meet with limestone again, which continues (intermixed) to Ba- tavia. Arrived at Durham's and fed my horse. 5 To Batavia, where ends this abominable road, of which three-fourths consist of swamps and bogholes, to say nothing of stumps innumerable. When the canal shall be cut from the Forks of the Tonnewanta to the Forks of Mud Creek, through the Tonnewanta swamp, and the Indian claim to the reserves extinguished, then will this very fine tract of country be open for settlement and become, as it ought to be, the residence of civilized beings. I called on the Messrs. Ellicott's, who were so good as to send me to squire Eddy who lives in town- ship number nine of the seventh range ; and he made me a present of some Indian ornaments that he happened to have with him, dug up about three feet below the A RIDE TO NIAGARA 27 surface in one of his fields where they abound. Three small figures of baked earth, foxes' and dogs' heads ; a small human head of chalk, with a helmet on ; copper bells silvered, &c. He says they find spear heads of flint and stone daggers in great abundance, also some very large bones. Wanting to get on, I could not spend any time with him. 12 To Ganson's, a very good house. The lameness of my horse compelled me to stop here. 12 Thursday, i8th May, with great difficulty to the widow Barry's, over the Genesee, where I took three quarts of blood from my horse, and turned him out to pasture. Friday, 19th. Hired a horse of a Mr. Osmer to go to the mouth of the Genesee river, at fourteen shillings York currency, for two days. 5 To Templin's an Englishman from Sussex. Came in the year 1795. I asked him how he liked the coun- try. He said he liked America very wiell for a poor man such as himself, but he would not stay here if he had money enough to spend. Col. Wardsworth and his brother have about two hundred and thirty head of cattle under this man's care, on twelve hundred acres of flats on this part of the river, which Templin says are worth thirty dollars an acre in their present state unim- proved. 3 Scots at Allen Creek. ey. To Black Creek. y/i To the commencement of the rapids. I saw four deer at a small distance ; the only ones I have observed since I came out. Considering the flat character of the country, I wonder I have seen no more of them. About half a mile from the beginning of the rapids is a sulphur spring in the river near the west bank. The wild pidgeons resort to it much when the water is low. 28 • A RIDE TO NIAGARA 3 To the twenty feet falls. When Col. Wardrop and I were here in 1796, there was a mill, which is now fallen down and in perfect ruins ; but it appears to me the best site for a mill seat I ever saw. It commands the whole of the Genesee river; is perfectly secure from being washed away; and large boats might easily unload in the mill itself. As the falls begin here, every other situ- ation below requires a portage. The rapids do not ob- struct the navigation so far as this mill seat. ^ Of a mile to Hartford's mill. This also from mis- management is out of business and going to decay. This is on the great falls of ninety-six feet, well seen from the road. The whole river tumbles down this height in one sheet. This is also a perfectly secure mill seat ; commanding any portion of the river that may be wanted. The mill, as it is, cost Hartford about one thousand dollars ; for this and two hundred acres of land adjoining, he was offered three thousand dollars cash, but asked three thousand five hundred, at which price no one has yet bought it. The only disadvantage is the necessity of somewhat better than half a mile of portage. 2^ To Daly's, no longer a tavern as the man is going to leave the country. His daughter has been troubled wnth the ague ; the only person this time of my coming into the country whom I heard complain of this disorder. What the fall produces now I cannot say. I saw very few sick in the Genesee in the fall of 1796. The Genesee fever, which was an intermittent degenerating into typhus, was occasioned in 1793, 1794, and 1795, by the new settlers fixing themselves on their lowest and richest of land ; and clearing away the wood from about the moist and swampy ground. Had they built and settled on the open white-oak flats, and never gone into the bottom land, but for the mere purpose of clearing A RIDE TO NIAGARA 29 it, the country would not have produced that mahgnant disorder; but it appears to me now sufficiently healthy. A mile before you reach Daly's, you cross a wooden bridge thrown over a very deep hollow in which a small stream runs, that joins the lower falls. About fifty yards after you have passed this bridge, there is to the right, a path, not very plain indeed, but to be discov- ered by looking attentively. This path leads to a part of the bank, where young and active persons may de- scend for the purpose of viewing the lower falls. The two upper falls can be suf^ciently seen from the road. As this descent is rather rough and difihcult, I chose to go on to M'Dermot's or Daly's, where there is usually a boat kept. I gave a man half a dollar to row me from thence a mile up to the lower falls of Genesee. These falls are fifty-seven feet perpendicular; the whole river is here again precipitated. I calculated the breadth of the river here at about fifty rods wide : the general width of the river for some miles above the rapids seems about sixteen rod from bank to bank, when the river is moderately full. The dimensions above given would make the total fall of the river one hundred and seventy- three feet ; add about thirty or forty feet for the three miles of rapids which are by no means so precipitous as at Niagara and the total amount of fall will be about the same at both places. This strengthens the conjecture, that the stratum at Niagara falls is the same as at the falls of Genesee. I know of nothing to oppose to this, except that the Table Rock is perfect limestone, which abounds also in that part of the country; whereas I saw no symptom of this stone through the whole course of the Genesee, from Hartford to its mouth. It is prob- able, however, that the bed of the Genesee may be lime- stone, if it be true that lead ore is found there in various places. I saw no specimen of it. 30 A RIDE TO NIAGARA After the falls of Niagara, these are decidedly the grandest, as well as the most beautiful thing of the kind 1 have seen, heard or read of. The excavated amphi- theater, allows the eye to take in a circumference of nearly half a mile, though the falls themselves are not more than the breadth I have assigned to the river. But the variegated colour of the strata, red and white, now contrasted, now softened into each other, intermixed with the green foliage of the cedar above, below, and interspersed here and there in the midst of the rock, afiford a contrast of object and of tint, so warm and cheerful, so rich and glowing, that I know of nothing to be compared with it. The eye takes in this delightful scene at the same time with the immense cascade that terminates the view. A view so intermingling the beautiful with the sublime, that it will well bear the con- templation of an amateur even after the falls of Niagara. The strata near the falls opposite the station for viewing them, below the cedars on the surface, seemed to me as follow, i. A gray loamy soil (warm tint) about six feet. 2. Whitish siliceo-argillaceous schistus in laminae of from nine to eighteen inches. This seems to occupy about twelve feet. 3. Reddish siliceo-argilla- ceous stone, approaching to a reddle, but not so soft. Of the softer kinds of this stone the inhabitants in the neighbourhood make a kind of red paint. This stratum appears to occupy about sixteen feet. 4. White argilla- ceous shale about eight feet. 5. Loose gravelly soil to the bottom, about thirty feet. This guess-work meas- urement allows about fifteen feet for the height of the bank to the surface of the river, but I think it is hardly so much. Tlie cedars are in masses, at the top and at the bot- tom, and here and there beautifully growing out of the middle strata, suspended by their roots. There v/ere A RIDE TO NIAGARA 31 half a dozen men and boys catching fish close to the falls. They had caught, in about two hours before T came there, three sturgeon, a few large pike, and about twenty perch-bass, a fish weighing generally about three quarters of a pound, and, in external appearance, very like a rock fish of the same size. The sturgeon are without scales. The largest was gutted and cleaned and its head cut off. I lifted it in that state, and agreed to the common conjecture that it weighed about sixty pounds. This was sold in my presence for six shillings, York money. The catch also in the spring, very com- monly, catfish from ten to twenty-five pounds weight,* which are esteemed as the best fish these waters fur- nish. They have here also a white fish, so called, but of its qualities I had no means of judging. The pick- erell, the salmon-trout, the perch-bass, the pike and the catfish, I know by experience to be very good. I have already observed that I met with no lime- stone on or immediately near to any part of the Genesee river. The falls furnish none. I examined the under- pinning of Hartford's mill, and the stone of his mill race. It is a hard, blue, siliceous grit : or rather the texture is minutely splintery. I heard that the rapids ran over limestone, but I saw no trace of it. They say that lead ore in small pieces is found all along the bed of the river from the head of the rapids to the falls. The people in the neighbourhood suspected there was silver, but none has been found ; although a right or patent for digging it in the Genesee river has been applied for by some per- son there more sanguine than the rest. 4. To Latta's at the mouth of Genesee. When I was here before in 1796, there was only one house or cabin. * I have been told on good authority, of a catfish of ninetj^ pounds weight caught in the Alleghany, and brought to Pittsburg market. 32 A RIDE TO NIAGARA There is now another building- of the same description where Latta lives. A frame building is also putting up by a captain Eadus. This is a port of entry and collection for the United States. — Latta was the collector here for two or three years, but lately he has been displaced and is of course very angry at the administration. From his conversa- tion I collected that there are about fifteen vessels, partly open boats and partly schooners, employed in the transportation of American produce along lakes Ontario and Erie, principally salt from Oswego. These craft are from twenty-five to seventy tons. They take up at Oswego about 15000 barrels of salt annually (five bushels of 56 lbs. to the bushel) for the consumption of the American settlements on the south shores of the lakes. They export likewise flour, pork, and whiskey to the American forts of Niagara and Detroit. — But the principal trade is with Kingston on the British side of the lake, to which they can run in about sixteen or eigh- teen hours. In the year 1806 about 30,000 dollars worth of produce came down the Genesee river: in 1807 about $70,000 worth ; and in 1808 notwithstanding the embargo, at least $100,000 worth of wheat, pork, whiskey, and potash was sent off from the mouth of the Genesee, and Gerundagut. chiefly to Kingston. As soon as the intercourse is opened, the Genesee river and Gerundagut will supply at least $200,000 worth of exports annually, and this of course will be on the con- tinual increase. Two large boats are now constantly employed in the trade from the mouth of Genesee. There is as yet no store there ; nor indeed do they seem much in want of one, considering the paucity of inhab- itants. The future market for the whole western dis- trict of Newyork will be Kingston. The British do not employ so many craft on the lakes as the Americans, A RIDE TO NIAGARA 33 but the amount of tonnage is about equal. The United States have a twenty g-un vessel completely equipped, called the Jefferson ; it lies at Osweg"o. Carriage of goods from Montreal to Erie on the British side, two dollars per cwt. Salt at the mouth of Genesee three dollars per barrel of five bushels. 56 lbs. to the bushel. 29. Saturday May 20th. Returned from the mouth of the Genesee to the widow Berry's tavern. ID. Sunday 21. To Chenesee or Big Tree. Colonel W. Wadsworth who is unmarried, lives with his brother, Mr. James Wadsworth. The former is the farmer, the latter attends to the estate generally, and to his agency for part of governor Hornby's property. The particu- lars of this noble farm are briefly as follows : — The house (a double house of five windows in front, with good sized rooms) is placed on an eminence at the farther end of the village of Cheneseo which contains about a dozen other houses. There is a gentle descent of cleared land in front of the house for about three quarters of a mile to the edge of the flats. The flats are a mile and a quarter across. Of these, full in view from the windows of the house, colonel Wadsworth and his brother own 1700 acres, all cleared and laid down in timothy and clover. Beside these 1700 acres of flats, they have three or four hundred acres of cleared upland in front and around the house. They grow no grain but for the immediate con- sumption of the family; converting the whole of their land as far as possible into a grazing farm. Their pres- ent stock is twelve hundred sheep, with between six and seven hundred lambs ; of these lambs sixty-eight are half blood Merinos, and two hundred half bred Bakewell's. They purchased a full blooded Merino ram from chan- cellor Livingston, from the ram presented to him by M. Chaptal out of the emperor's flock at Rambouillet. 34 A RIDE TO NIAGARA To this ram they put seventy-six ewes. They have be- sides, about half a dozen rams and ewes of the half breed, and as many of Bakewell's breed. They are much in want of the large, long-wooled Lincolnshire ram, on account of the quantity of wool given by that breed. No doubt the flats of the Genesee would sup- port this species of sheep as well as the fens of Lin- colnshire ; and blankets are as necessary as superfine cloth or good wool hats ; but I cannot help thinking, the quality of merino wool, is of more consequence than the quantity of Lincolnshire. Nor is the merino breed deficient in quantity when well kept, which is very necessary during the winter. A half blooded merino ram purchased by Joseph Priestley, esquire, of Doctor Logan, gave 11^4 lb. of excellent wool, unwashed.* Stockings made of this wool, I can as easily distinguish from the best Germantown, by handling them, as I can distinguish silk velvet from cotton velvet. I should have no doubt of such land as I have been describing, being understocked at two sheep per acre. Beside these sheep, Messrs. Wadsworth keep on the same farm two hundred mules. The mules they import young from Connecticut, improve them here, and send them when full grown to the southern states, where they fetch from sixty to one hundred and twenty dollars a piece. They have also here a stud of forty horses : but they do not find ready sale for this kind of stock. They mean gradually to occupy the whole of their land as a sheep and dairy farm. On this tract they have three dairies, let out on shares. They furnish each tenant with a house and buildings and with forty cows. The tenant takes care * In Spain however the merino wool is so greasy that by the time it is thoroughly cleansed, it will lose 35 per cent, and upwards, 16 ann. agr. 225. A RIDE TO NIAGARA 35 of the buildings, cuts the grass for hay, and retains half the butter and cheese. The other half goes to the land- lords who also retain all the calves, which are allowed to suck two months. They had when I was there about two ton of cheese yet on hand out of their share of the dairy, but it was of middling quality. In this country, cheese must be managed somewhat different from the English practice. If it be made wholly of unskimmed milk, it will be ripe in half the time here that it will in England. It is also apt to crack and become rotten. But if a pressure, more gradual, longer continued, and more heavy than usual, be applied, cheese may be thus made equal to any produced in England. I wonder the Schapzgar cheese so much in use in our cities, is not made at home. The colour and the flavour is certainly given by the common trefoil melilot (melilotus com- monis officinatis) a plentiful and unpleasant weed in England. This is all the stock these gentlemen have on the home farm. Lower down on the Genesee river below the bridge, under the care of Tamplin as I observed before they have about two hundred and thirty head of horned cattle. These with the produce of their dairy farm, allow them very conveniently to sell about one hundred head of horned cattle yearly. They complain of want of capital to stock the land fully. There is full sale at half a doHar per pound for all the common wool. Hatters give from a dollar to two dollars for merino wool. Mr. James Wadsworth has arranged a very well chosen library of about six hundred volumes of the best modern books; doubtless the best room in this neat and well furnished house. — The estal)lishment in all its parts seems to give a full and a favourable picture 36 A RIDE TO NIAGARA of that truly respectable character, an active, intelligent, industrious gentleman farmer. They have no land of their own on the flats for sale. What they possess the family mean to retain. Mr. Wadsworth informed me, that the flats on Connecticut river, certainly not superior to the Genesee flats, (for what land can be superior?) are frequently let out for hemp* at twenty and thirty dollars an acre for the sea- son; and even then they are manured at ten load per acre. This may be the case no doubt, but it must arise from that accuracy of cultivation which can only be exerted on a small scale. The adjoining township on the river, above, con- taining twenty-five thousand acres was purchased by col. Fitzhugh, col. Rochester and Mr. Caryll of Balti- more, from capt. Williamson, but it remains yet unim- proved. I went to meeting with the family in the after- noon and remained with them that evening. lo. Monday 22. Returned to Berry's. N. B. There is a circulating library at Hartford : thirty subscribers at five dollars originally, and twenty-five cents each an- nually. The day very rainy; but I got (wet through) as far as 14. Eccleston's a very indifferent house. 10. Tuesday, May 23. To Canandaigua, wet through again : my horse very lame. The day cold, windy and rainy. Staid at Taylor's. * I wonder hemp is not more cultivated in this country considering how very necessary, and how very profitable a crop it is. Whenever it shall be cultivated as it ought to be, the French process, of boiling it for two hours in a close copper vessel, with a small quantity of soft soap in the water, will most assuredly be substituted for water rot- ting, b}' those who know how to attend to their own interest. The fibres of the bark are held together by a gum resin ; two ounces of the bark yielded to spirits of wine, forty eight grains of resinous ex- tract, and to water 85 grains of gummous extract. A RIDE TO NIAGARA 37 1 8. Wednesday 24. To judg'e Potter's by the post road along the Canandaigua to the Crooked Lake. The road on the other side of the Crooked Lake by which I came from Bath to Snell's town, was not a good one : this is a worse. Mrs. Potter was so good as to provide me dinner. Old Mr. Potter was stirring about, cheer- ful, and with all his faculties good at the age of eighty- six. The house is one of the most respectable in ap- pearance both within and without of any I have seen on this journey. Mrs. Potter recommended me to Brown's, four miles off. She told me Jemima Wilkin- son lived not more than a mile from Brown's, who was generally glad to see strangers. I went to Brown's, one of those uncomfortable half public half private houses, where you are received as if it were a great favour done to you. — Brown himself was not at home at first, but his wife was cold, careless, dirty, vulgar and disobliging. I found however good hay for my horse. I walked toward Jemima Wilkinson's, who lives at the end of a long descending lane. At the top of the lane, I met a woman and inquired civilly where about Jemima Wilkinson's house was. She replied she knew no such person ; "the friend" lived a little piece below. I went to her house, nearly at the foot of a mountain. Externally it is a mean looking frame building; but clean and com- fortable within. I sent up my name by a Miss Willan or Millan, aged about thirty or thirty-two, who with her sister six years younger, has long lived with the "Friend." They seemed sensible and well behaved. In about half an hour the friend herself made her appear- ance : a corpulent woman, masculine featured, her hair (nearly gray) combed back, her age fifty-nine, dressed in a kind of minister's gown or cassock of dark coloured jean, neither her tone of voice nor manner bespoke much intercourse with the world, and nothing with the 38 A RIDE TO NIAGARA polite part of it. I inquired how long she had lived there, what was the religious description and extent of the society over which she presided, &c. To all this she readily answered. She said she had no more connexion with the quakers, than with other denominations; her society consisted of persons of almost all persuasions; that she stood with them in the character of universal friend. She had no particular place of worship, but generally preached every seventh and every first day at home; occasionally too, but not regularly, at other houses of appointed meeting. She had family prayer at home every evening, at which, any who chose might attend. She said her doctrine was no other than what was contained in the scriptures, and she allowed the necessity of being called by the Spirit of God from sin to holiness. I suggested that this was the old Cal- vinistic doctrine of the 17th article of the church of England, .and the modern doctrine of the methodists, particularly of the Calvinistic denomination : and that it occasioned some doubt whether being called or not depended on any goodness of disposition or rectitude of conduct of the man himself. She said these were deep subjects which she should be glad to discuss with me by and by; but that much harm had been done by atheistical writers such as Dr. Priestley and Thomas Paine. I endeavoured to explain to her, that Paine was not an atheist but a deist; and that Dr. Priestley was a strenuous defender of Christianity, and one of the sect of Christians, who were called Socinians or Unitarians; but who rested their faith upon the scrip- tures according to the sense it seemed to bear to them, full as much as she did. She pressed me to spend the evening at her house which I declined. Her conversa- tion at length became unpleasantly parenetic and didac- tic, abounding with scripture phraseology applied some- A RIDE TO NIAGARA 39 what at random, and strongly savouring of what seemed to me affected mysticism. I rose, and took my leave. Her people are not numerous, but they seem much attached. In the year 1794 they bought a township on the Seneca Lake, where they made what was called the "Friend's" settlement. Much of this she claims as her own ; though the part of it she claims, as well as all bequests made to her, she will not consent to hold or to be made under any other denomination of herself, than "The universal Friend." But as some doubts have been lately made, whether the law is likely to know any such person, they are now made in all cases to the elder miss Willan or Millan, who also transacts her temporal concerns. Brown, who was many years at law with her, fur- nished me with some of the above particulars. He says she is an ambitious, troublesome and litigious, but a good moral woman in all her conduct. She was orig- inally a quaker, born in Connecticut ; but aspiring to more power, and becoming more forward than the meeting approved, she pretended at one time to faint, to have died, and to have risen again with a commis- sion from God to preach as the universal friend of man- kind. She is evidently a woman of strong features, mental and bodily; fanatically religious and ambitious. By no means well read, or well informed, or of manners exhibiting either the exterior of politeness, or knowl- edge of the world. On the other hand there is good reason to believe that she is sincerely religious ; her moral conduct is irreproachable, and she is remarked as being habitually civil and hospitable toward stran- gers. The district over which she presides is called Jerusalem; Snell's town, or Pen Yang, at the outlet of the Crooked Lake, formerly belonged to her commu- 40 A RIDE TO NIAGARA nity; but that filling up with persons not of her per- suasion, she quitted that place, as she had done the friend's settlement near Hopetown on the Geneva or Seneca Lake. 27. Thursday, May 25. From Brown's to Bath along- a rough dreary road. 7. Friday 26. To judge Falkner's at Mud Creek. 12. To Irwin's the Painted Post. 4. To Bonham's near the Canisteo or Canistier. 8. To judge Linby's, whose house and farm viewed out of his windows, are Big Tree in miniature. Much hellebore in the ground, hence to the next stage : after that much wild garlic. Syi. Saturday 27. To widow Berry's on the Tioga. 19. To Bloss's at Peters's camp. Rain. Exam- ined again the specimens of his coal and iron ore : but the latter is not rich, and the vein of coal is not more as yet than sixteen inches thick. 10^. To Higley's at the Block House. The road extremely wet and difficult. Sunday, May 28th. 15. To Reynolds's. Much thunder, lightning and heavy rain, attended with a most violent gust of wind, so that I was compelled to stay all night. 13. Monday, 29th May. To Williamsport, whence I set out. The wind had thrown down a very great number of trees. I counted thirty across the road, with- in about five miles from Reynold's. I was detained till some of them were cut through. A RIDE TO NIAGARA 41 Table of stages from Philadelphia to the Falls of Niagara. miles From Philadelphia to Read- ing Reading to Sunbury Sunbury to Williamsport To Reynold's To Higley's at the Block House To Bloss's at Peter's camp To Jenning's To widow Berry's on Tioga To Judge Linby's To Irwin's the Painted Post To Dr. Falkner's Mud Creek To Wm. Spring's at Bath To Tuples's To Rice's at Pen Yang To Powell's at Geneva To Powell's at the Sulph. Springs To Taylor's at Canandaigua To Gen. Hall's miles Brought forward 35ii 56 To Mrs. Berry's at Hartford 12 74 To major Smith's 4* 44 To Marvin's 12 14 To Key's at Batavia 8 To Vandeewinder's 18 15 To Ransom's 14 10 To Landin's at Buffaloe 8 9 To Black Rock 3 10 8 To Chippeway 15 To Niagara falls 2 12 To the Whirlpool 6 12 6 20 Back to the road li To Queenstown 3* 12 To Newark on lake Ontario 8 IS From Philadelphia to New- 12^ ark 467 10 If the falls of Genesee be 12 taken in the rout it will add 60 3515 Total 527 Roads. From Reynolds's on the Lycoming creek, fourteen miles beyond Williamsport to judge Linby's, at the junction of the Cawaneska and the Tyoga, fifty-four miles, the road is very bad. It seems like a state pro- hibition to emigration, and, what is worse, to the en- trance of any produce from Newyork state into Penn- sylvania. Much of the cattle that comes to Philadel- phia market is brought from the Genesee country along this most abominable road. A carriage cannot travel upon it above a mile and a half an hour; and it requires great judgment and incessant caution to drive it at all. On entering New York state, the road becomes very much improved. There are indeed two portions of it that are bad, viz. from Bath to Geneva, and from Ba- tavia to Vandeewinder's : but no part of this is so ex- ecrable as the major part of the way from Reynolds's 42 A RIDE TO NIAGARA to Peters's camp. All the rest of the road over which I travelled in Newyork state, (about one hundred and fifty miles) is an excellent carriage road. To be sure, siliceous grit, chert, flint and limestone, are very de- sirable materials for the purpose. The contrast be- tween the roads made, and projected to be made, in the states of Newyork and Pennsylvania is still stronger, as may be seen by M'Alpin's map of the turnpike roads of Newyork state. But enough is not done even there. Whenever the state road along the pebble ridge that runs parallel to lake Ontario at the distance of about five or six miles from it, shall be completed, there will be an excellent conveyance from Albany to Niagara. I expect this will be done about the year 1812.' From Lewistown to Batavia the road is very bad, but the pub- lic do not want it.' The Holland Company ought to make it for their own interest. It passes through ex- cellent land. The canal from Tonewanta to Mud creek, will probably be made, as there is a report of the legislature in its favour. This will open the navigation between the river Niagara and Albany, and drain all the country afi^ected by the Tonewanta swamp. The Newyork turnpikes, like those of Newengland, are made merely by clearing out the stumps, ditching on each side the road, and elevating it in the middle by means of the dirt thrown out of the ditches. This en- ables the people to complete so many more of them than there are in Pennsylvania; for neither the same time nor the same capital is required for the purpose in that state as with us. Our roads are far too expensive ; they are extravagant ; they require much capital, and pay so little interest, that the exertions of the people are paralyzed. Our roads ought to be made as much as possible on the principle of the Newyork roads : m A RIDE TO NIAGARA 43 which case the expense of making them, would not ex- ceed twelve hundred dollars a mile upon a high average, instead of eight thousand, as the Lancaster turnpike cost. It is true, such a road would not long stand our five horse wagons. Nor will any road. These machines threaten absolute destruction to the whole turnpike system, especially running as they do upon narrow wheels. In England a four horse wagon must have six inch wheels. By the general turnpike act, it is directed that no compensation shall be taken for narrow wheels. In that country they are alive to the evil, and are upon their guard against it ; we ought to be so too, or we shall have to renounce the only beneficial and the only fair system on which roads can be made. It is of in- finite importance to the country that it should succeed, that it should be permanent, and therefore that it should be moderately productive : but it cannot be so while five and six horse teams grind to the very botttom of the road by their weight however hard the materials, no toll they pay is a compensation for this. Through- out Newengland and Newyork states, wagons with more than three horses are, I believe, almost un- known. Generally they are two horse wagons. Hence v the roads want little repair : hence they are productive : hence they are numerous, and the remotest township is brought comparatively near to the capital. Nor is there a fact in the whole range of economics better established than that four horses in four separate carts, will haul a greater weight than six horses in a wagon. The induction of particulars to establish this in the Annals of Agriculture XIII. 22, 43, 404. XXIV. 18. XXVII 338. XXIX. 142 is complete: and the practice is extending in England to such a degree as to threaten the annihilation of heavy wagons. I most heartily wish the papers I have just referred to, were 44 A RIDE TO NIAGARA published together, and universally read. The author- ities are of the very first rate, in point of rank, talents, and knowledge. After all, the turnpike system, though as yet in its infancy here, is of incalculable benefit to the public. From Philadelphia to Pittsburgh is three hundred miles, of which a very small portion is turnpike, the expense of carriage is six dollars per cwt. or 45s. From Philadelphia to Northumberland is one hun- dred and thirty-two miles : the expense of bringing goods that distance is los per cwt. for at least one- third is turnpiked. The usual moderate load is 35 cwt. From Philadelphia to Columbia, seventy-six miles, the carriage is 3s. 3d. per cwt. and the load is 26 and 27 barrels of flour or about 2^ ton; so that the time and the expense are very considerably lessened by turn- pikes, and the loads carried by the same power are in- creased. The price of carriage over the most travelled road in the state, but rough and not turnpiked is 15s. per one hundred miles : over a road about ^ turnpiked 7s: over a good turnpike road 4s 23^d. These facts speak for themselves. Soil. From the Newyork line on the Cawaneska, to Geneva and Canandaigua, all the land not immedi- ately mountainous is tillable, but by no means of first rate quality. Certainly not equal to Lancaster county for instance. About Canandaigua, and thence to the Genesee river it becomes better. For fifty or sixty miles from the mouth of Genesee up the river, a great proportion of the land, adjoining the river, is of the very first quality the earth can produce. The flats of Big Tree, Williamsburgh, those opposite Squaque hill, &c. &c. consist of mould 15 feet deep, extremely rich, and a mile across in many places. I remember riding A RIDE TO NIAGARA 45 along the Indian path throug-h the flats of Big Tree in 1796, and pulhng up two blades of wild grass as I rode along (the whole flats being then thickly covered with it). On my return home I measured them, and one was eight feet four inches, the other nine feet two inches high. From Genesee river within five miles of Batavia the land is good. From Batavia, or ten miles to the east of it, to lake Erie, to lake Ontario and to Niagara is the Flanders of this part of America. One continued flat country with no mountain and hardly a hill for 50 miles square, all excellent land. It must be the grazing country of America, particularly for sheep. For there are no mountains or rising grounds from the Genesee river to the Lakes in which any vermin, destructive of sheep, can harbour : while from the Lakes of Canan- daigua and Geneva to the Pennsylvania line, particular- ly from Bath downwards; the hills are full of wolves, foxes, panthers, wild cats and racoons. — Deer are great nuisances. They tempt wolves to remain in a country. In this fifty miles square, I have not seen or heard of one acre of untillable land : and by far the greater part is not only tillable, but very good. I am inclined from information to think the same of the land fifty miles south of Ontario, from Geneva westward, to the Black river, the German flats, and perhaps even to Schenec- tady eastward. I have heard of no body of land of equal value on the American continent ; and it is yet cheap. But there are many parts of this flat country, where water is scarce in summer time, and not good. I re- member being at col. Wadsworth's in 1796, when they were digging a well at the back of the house : I took some of the stones suspecting them to be of the nature of stone coal, but they were merely impregnated with 46 A RIDE TO NIAGARA mineral bitumen in such quantity as to blaze in the fire. The water however at present is well tasted. Buildings. These are almost all frame. Geneva and Canandaigua are beautiful towns : frame houses paint- ed. Nothing in Pennsylvania so light and so elegant externally. I saw in Bloomfield, two brick houses, a brick store, and a brick meeting house. I hardly recol- lect any other brick or stone building from Williams- port in Pennsylvania, to Buffaloe on lake Erie : or in- deed to Niagara. Yet from the outlet of the Crooked lake at Snell'stown, limestone is to be found every where along the rout : and if the houses are painted as often as they ought to be, even for the mere purpose of preservation, frames will be found dearer in the end than either brick or stone. But some mode must be found of disposing of the timber; and the Newengland steady habits, have contributed to introduce frame buildings in Newyork state. Handsome as these frames are externally, when well painted, few are finished with- in side. As they accumulate property, this will be rem- edied. Inhabitants. There are few Pennsylvanians, few Germans, few English, few Irish, in this part of the country. There are some emigrants from Newjersey; but the settlers seem to come chiefly from the eastern states, and from the settled part of Newyork state. They are a civil people, decent in their manners ; but it is a formal, comfortless, civility, not like English, Irish, or Pennsylvanian. You are not at home in their taverns. All the innkeepers, though reasonably atten- tive, seem too much on an equality with their guests. There is no attention paid to the choice or taste of their guests either in eating or drinking. The month of May to be sure is a scarce time for fresh pro- visions in every part of the back country. Hence it was A RIDE TO NIAGARA 47 that I eat fresh meat but four times from the sixth to the twenty-ninth of May. I found wine once at Bath, owing to the tavernkeeper being- a Pennsylvanian ; Imt it was not good. I drank no more till I came to Chippeway on the British side. You meet sometimes with brandy of inferior quality; and sometimes with gin, whiskey is to be found everywhere : but the common tavern bev- erage is rum. The bottle is set before you, and you take what you please. The charges at the better taverns are two and six pence per meal, and one shilling, for your bed. Painted floor cloths seem more plentiful than car- pets, particularly at Bloomfield. I have mentioned a book society at Hartford. There is another in Bloomfield (that is not in the town, but township of Bloomfield). I doubt much whether taste or morals be much improved by the general style of reading prevalent in most parts of the back country that I have seen. The frequent intermixture of re- ligion and novels, does not promote either. The As- sembly's Catechism and Watt's plasms, I have more than once seen on the same shelf with Lewis's Monk and Kotzebue's stupid plays. Indeed throughout America, men and women, boys and girls, read too much of de- votional bigotry as a matter of reluctant duty, and then wash down the bitter potion, with the intoxicating draught of sentimental love stories and tales of wonder. I believe however that book societies, being managed by a committee, whose selections are observed and re- marked on, will have a tendency to counteract the de- praved taste, which has crept into so many families of the back country. These people (except in county towns) seem to have little propensity to gather in towns and villages. The houses from Geneva to Batavia, may be reckoned at 48 A RIDE TO NIAGARA one to every quarter of a mile, for the average of each side of the road. But there is no such thing as a town or village in the English or Pennsylvanian sense of the word. I regard this as a misfortune. Half the benefits arising from civilized society are owing to towns. Dr. Price and a much superior man, the count de Mirabeau in his monarchic Prussianne, have talked a great deal of nonsense on this subject. Granting that the mortality is greater in large towns than in the country, it does not lessen the population, for the demand is increased and more people are raised : it is like Irish and Scotch emi- gration : it promotes the manufacture of human beings by increasing the demand for them. But suppose peo- ple do die sooner upon the average in large towns; if they do not live longer by the month or year, they live more : they live longer by the real calculation of life. There is more intercourse in towns than in the country, and therefore more pleasure, intellectual and sensual : and therefore also more mind, more energy, more im- provement, more character, because more stimulus. All the resources of mind and body, are brought out, and if the man be in some instances a he is in many a much better and more useful member of society. The inelegant and unwholesome practice of feeding on salt provisions the whole year, prevails in such a state of society, because there are no assemblages of people contiguous to each other, to maintain a butcher. The taverns have no wine because social parties are only to be found in congregations of people : and private fam- ilies content themselves with spirituous beverage for the same reason. Hence also, the wholesome nourish- ing malt liquor, is almost unknown in such a country. Elegance and neatness in private dwellings will always be scarce articles there comparatively, for we are care- less when we have nobody's eyes to please but our own. A RIDE TO NIAGARA 49 The same remark may l)e extended even to personal cleanliness. From the same cause, education also is dear and defective. In fact a country cannot be half civil- ized that does not abound in towns. If they are the sources of vice and disease, they are so of virtues and of knowledge of all kinds: and they are the chief instru- ments of human improvement and comfort, and the nurse of all our social pleasures. I cannot help thinking therefore that the mode of settlement in Newengland, and the western district of Newyork, radically wrong in a social point of view, for many other reasons also of minor consideration to those I have mentioned. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS I Ml I ii II III! I {{ 014 1073990 *^