JOURNEY ACROSS THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS.PITTSBURG.
The season continued to wear away
without any severe demonstration; and by the 19th
of February, the day on which I reached New York on
my way from Washington to Boston, I found the first
boat advertised for the passage, just open, to Providence,a
piece of good luck, by hitting which I was saved a
land journey of two hundred miles.
We were detained by a fog in the Sound
for a few hours, but reached Providence by three o’clock
P.M. next day, and were just ten hours going the forty
miles between that place and Boston; one extra bad
bit of about three miles took an excellent team exactly
two hours to pull through it. I could not conceive
the possibility of this road, which I had seen three
months before in a very fair condition, being so utterly
washed out; but the heavy snows of these Northern States
would penetrate ways of adamant, and will for ever
exclude them from attaining the perfection of a well-kept
turnpike.
A little after one o’clock A.M.
I was rattled up to the door of the Tremont; where,
late as the hour was, I found friends waiting up for
me, and experienced what at all times is a pleasure,
but more especially after such a cold jolting,a
warm welcome.
I was now a resident of this city
for a month, during which time I enjoyed a continued
series of the most friendly attentions. I found
three or four men, who, like myself, were fond of riding,
and together we rambled over the whole of the surrounding
country; and a beautiful country it is, with its island-gemmed
bay and gaily-painted country seats. One of these,
the house of Colonel Thomas Perkins, is seated within
grounds well kept and tastefully laid out, with a very
extensive range of noble hot-houses, within which,
at this season and in this latitude, the fruit and
flowers of the tropics were to be found in their freshest
bloom and beauty. I think these grounds are more
agreeably broken, offer a greater variety of soil,
and command a finer prospect of land and sea, than
any place I ever visited of equal dimensions.
We wanted nothing, on many of the
fine open mornings we now had, but a pack of good
foxhounds: the land is better cleared than it
is farther south, the covers smaller, with fewer swamps,
and no fencing that might not be crept round or got
over by even a moderate-going man.
I had heard a good many amusing anecdotes
of the infinite respect with which the country people
of New England view and address persons of their own
grade, and the utter disregard of decent ceremony which
they evince towards all others: there appeared
something so whimsically exaggerated in these stories,
that I never had received them as veritable history;
and when the Duke of Saxe Weimar told of the coachman’s
inquiring “Are you the man going to Portland?
because, if you are, I’m the gentleman that’s
a going to drive you,” I set it down for a good
joke, illustrative, perchance, of a brusquerie
of manner which did exist, but not in itself strictly
true. I have, however, during my present sojourn
here, received good corroborative evidence of its being
a veracious report.
I went out on one occasion to partake
of a fine black bear, that had been killed at a house
famous for the plenty, the quality, and cooking of
game. There were eight or nine men of the party,
some of whom had ridden out on horseback: in
going over a rail-fence close to the house we were
to dine at, the horse I rode struck both hind feet
and cast his shoes: as soon as I got into the
yard, where some of the party had already dismounted,
I inquired for the ostler. A good-humoured, active-looking
fellow immediately made his appearance, with whom,
being desirous to have my nag’s feet looked
after before we set out on our return, I was led into
the following dialogue.
“Pray, have you a smithy in this neighbourhood?”
“We’ve gotten a blacksmith or two, I guess.”
“At what distance is the nearest blacksmith’s
forge?”
“Well, I don’t ’no;
there is a shop about half a mile maybe, or ther’bouts.”
“Can you have this horse taken
down there to get the two hind shoes put on?”
“Guess not, ‘cept I car’ him down
myself.”
“Well, will you carry him down yourself?”
“Well, you see, I can’t
tell about that nohow at present. Guess I will,
if I can tho’, by an’ by.”
“But why can’t you say
whether you will or will not? I’ll pay you
for your trouble. Have you any objection to taking
the horse down?”
“Oh no! not at all, by no means.
I’ve no objection nohow to obleege you, if,
you see, I can find some other gentleman to look after
my horses whiles I go.”
My companions, who had been enjoying
this cross-examination of my equivocal friend, now
laughed outright, and heartily did I join in the guffaw:
they were to “the manner born,” and it
was my puzzled expression that so tickled them; to
me, after the first surprise was over, the whole thing
was indescribably droll. I caught instantly “another
gentleman,” an idler about the public-house door,
who, for a shilling, found the cast shoes, and undertook
to do for the horses whilst the first gentleman, of
the stable, led my nag away to the forge.
This was a very fair specimen, but
we were to be favoured with another and a better.
Mr. T. P s, a son of the Colonel’s,
one of the foremost citizens of this State, was driven
out in his English landau, with certain delicacies
not to be expected where we dined. As the coachman,
who was a servant of the old Colonel’s, drew
up by the inn-door, he was immediately recognised,
and saluted most cordially by the landlord; who, addressing
him by his name,Jenkins, or whatever it
was,hoped he was quite well, and was “uncommon
glad to see him.” During this ceremony,
Mr. P s had alighted; and, in order
to be particularly civil, observed with great good-humour
to the landlord,
“Ah, my friend, what you remember Jenkins, do
you?”
“Why yes, I guess I ought,”
replied our host of the game; “I’ve know’d
Muster Jenkins long enough, seein’ he’s
the gentleman as used to drive old Tom P ’s
coach.”
The fact was, the man knew the Colonelor
old Tom P s, as he styled himquite
well, but had forgotten Mr. P s,
who had been much in Europe, and was, moreover, put
quite out of his latitude by the English landau Mr.
Jenkins was driving: he guessed, I suppose, that
this gentleman had hired a new master, and
had consequently turned off the family of his old
one.
Odd as all this sounds, the strangest
part of the matter is, that there appears no disrespect,
nor churlishness of manner, conveyed or implied by
this reversal of conventional distinctions. I
can at least answer for the ostler, who required some
other gentleman as aide, turning out
on this, and on other occasions, a most assiduously
civil fellow; and as for our host, he served up the
steaks of his bear as though it might never have danced
to any but the “genteelest o’ tunes,”
and himself have been its instructor.
He certainly gave us, in a plain but
comfortable way, the best game dinner possible, including
trout and codling of the finest flavour. Let
me add, that I liked the bear vastly; and, after assisting
to pick his ribs, carried away the skin which had
once covered them,not the least delicate
portion of this bruin, by the way, for it was the blackest
and richest fur, of the kind, I ever saw.
I quitted this hospitable city on
the 10th of March, and remained in New York until
the 20th, when I departed for Pittsburg via
Philadelphia; although, from the little I had seen
of stageing, I would have given a trifle to have been
off the engagement, which I had made without contemplating
the difficulties to be expected in a stage journey
of three hundred miles over the Alleghanies at this
early season. I had latterly, however, heard
enough of the condition of this route, or line as
it is called; but the intelligence was of a colour
anything but cheering.
At Philadelphia I took my place for
Pittsburg, in the “Good Intent line,”
professing to carry only six inside; but this excellent
intention of the worthy proprietors must be consigned
to the commissioners of pavement in a certain unmentionable
place, since it was never fulfilled. We commenced
our journey with seven, the book-keeper making it a
favour that we should take in one gentleman who was
greatly pressed for time. I perceived, as we
started, another person get outside, which made us
eight.
We were very soon transferred to the
Columbia rail-road, which was in progress and now
travelled upon for about twenty-one miles: along
this I was rolled over the viaduct whose commencement
I had noted, and, I believe, regretted. According
to Mitchell’s description, it crosses the Schuylkill
at a place called Peter’s Island; is one thousand
and forty-five feet long and forty-one wide, being
thirty feet above water-mark. Of the elevation,
when I crossed on this occasion, we had an excellent
opportunity of forming an opinion; for, except a pathway
in the centre, the spaces between the beams had not
yet been filled in, so that we looked through on to
the water running beneath: the workmen were hard
at it covering over and filling up; but it was passable
in its present state, and therefore, “Go a-head
was the word:”there’s no time
lost here, i’faith! Immediately on crossing
this viaduct, you come on an inclined plane two thousand
eight hundred and five feet long: this struck
me as being admirably contrived.
I was very sorry when we were once
again to be re-packed in our stage. Though one
gets accustomed to anything in time, I never exactly
brought myself to view these frequent transfers as
a part of travelling to be rejoiced in. Our system
of running a coach through a journey is not yet adopted
here; they still stick to the old plan,every
proprietor his own vehicle; consequently you are for
ever trundling from one to another, to your own great
discomfiture, and to the destruction of any but the
toughest sort of trunks.
I forget how often we changed coach
on this journey; indeed, I fancy that, during the
third night out, I might have effected a transfer or
two in my sleep; but I recollect that they were vexatiously
frequent, and would have been more grievous had the
weather been less generally fair.
My fellow passengers were, luckily,
with one exception, thin spare fellows, all citizens
of the frontier State of Illinois; the fat subject
was a countryman of my own, who had been for many years
a resident at Pittsburg, and was a merry, contented
son of Erin as ever jolted over these rough roads,
which he informed me he did once at least in every
season.
We soon shook into shape: the
condition of the turnpike, after the woful accounts
I had received, appeared to me exceedingly passable;
indeed, it was infinitely better than any part of
the one between Washington and Baltimore, or than
the Boston and Providence turnpike, as I had last
experienced it. The country through which we rode
was under excellent cultivation; the barns attached
to the roadside houses were all large, brick-built,
and in the very neatest condition. The approach
to Lancaster, a fine town about forty miles from Philadelphia,
was very beautiful, and bespoke the people rich in
agricultural wealth. I have seldom seen a finer
valley, or one under more careful cultivation.
The next large place we arrived at
was Harrisburg, the capital of the State of Pennsylvania:
it was midnight when we reached it; but I immediately
walked to look at the State-house, where the legislature
assembles, and about which are ranged the public offices.
The mass appeared large; and the effect
of the buildings with their lofty classic pórticos,
viewed under the influence of a fine starlight night,
was imposing enough: the situation is well chosen,
appearing like a natural elevation in the midst of
a plain, and overlooking the waters of the Susquehannah,
above whose banks the city is built.
One always feels something like disappointment
on entering one of these capitals, although previously
aware that the site is selected with regard only to
the general convenience of the community, and without
reference to the probabilities of its ever becoming
important for its trade or of monstrous size.
A European accustomed to seek in the capital of a
country the highest specimens of its excellence in
art, and the utmost of its refinement in literature,
and indeed, in all which relates to society, is necessarily
hard to reconcile to these small rustic cities, whose
population is doubled by villages he has only heard
named for the first time whilst journeying on his
way to the Liliputian mistress of them all. As
places of meeting for the legislature, I am of those
who think the smallness of the population an advantage.
Firstly, the members are freed from the expense consequent
upon living in large cities; and next, the chambers
are removed from having their deliberations overawed
or impeded by any of those sudden outbreaks of popular
madness to which all people are prone, and to which
the nature of this government more immediately exposes
it, without possessing any power quickly to arrest
or even control such licence.
Harrisburg is highly spoken of for
the salubrity as well as the beauty of its site, and
gives promise of becoming important in point of population;
at present its inhabitants are about four thousand.
From this we steered away to the southward,
until at Chambersburg we struck the direct road leading
from Baltimore to Pittsburg. We had a rough night
of it; but a halt of an hour at Chambersburg in the
morning, enabled me to make a comfortable toilet and
get an excellent breakfast. Here we took the
first spur of the mountains, and from this were on
a continual ascent.
Up the longer and steeper hills I
constantly walked, and was often an hour in advance
of the stage. This mountain region is certainly
a very fine one, and I do not think its grandeur has
ever been done justice to in description. Its
attributes are all gigantic: it has the picturesque
ruggedness of the Appenines, without their barrenness;
since the valleys lying between the ridges, wherever
they have been cleared, give evidences of the richest
soil. A view from any hill top, however, shows
these clearings to be mere specks in the surrounding
forest, which yet clothes richly the sides of each
interminable ridge you cross, fringes their most rugged
summits, and waves over the loftiest peaks.
At Bedford Springs there is a most
excellent inn; but the one at a miserable village
called Macconnelville, presented an aspect anything
but inviting: the precaution of Mr. Head, however,
had made me independent of supplies. On quitting
the Mansion-house he had fitted up a small basket
with sundry comforts, which were of infinite use to
myself and comrades, they served as a speedy introduction
and a durable cement to our friendship.
I like these Western men; their off-hand
manner makes you at once at your ease with them:
they abound in anecdote growing out of the state in
which they live, full of wild frolic and hardy adventure,
and they recount these adventures with an exaggeration
of figure quite Oriental, in a phraseology peculiar
to themselves, and with a manner most humorous.
Much amongst strangers, they have
a quick appreciation of character; and, where they
take a dislike, are, I have no doubt, mighty troublesome
customers; they are, however, naturally courteous,
and capable of genuine and inbred kindness, as a little
anecdote of my present trip will serve to illustrate.
On the morning of our second night
out, I observed the Major and his friends holding
a council just as we were stepping into the coach.
We were eight persons, which gave three sitters to
two of the seats and two to the third; by way of relief,
my servant or myself frequently mounted the box, enabling
the parties to separate,a luxury of no
mean importance. On this occasion I noticed,
on being about to take my seat, which was the front
one, that it was unoccupied, Sam being on the box,
and three persons on each of the other seats.
On requesting that one of the sitters by my fat friend
would share the vacant front with me, the Major informed
me that the arrangement was preconcerted, as they knew
I was not quite so well used to rough roads as they
were, and had work before me on getting to my journey’s
end; begging me to fix myself comfortably on the seat,
and try and sleep for an hour or two.
This being a piece of unpurchasable,
unthought-for consideration and civility, I conceived
it as well worth notice as the many instances of brutality
which ill-used travellers put on record; but it is
by no means the only example I have seen of these
rough subjects’ innate kindness, and, I may
add, good-breeding. There is, with them, a give-and-take
system whilst thus roughing it in company, they seek
no exclusive advantage, and evince no selfishness;
but they are quick-sighted and shrewd observers, and
I would recommend any who desire to travel comfortably
with them, to carefully suppress any exhibition of
over-regard for self.
With this precaution, let a stranger,
and a British subject, be only known as such, and
if a preference should occur, I will answer for his
standing a good chance of getting it.
Here I enjoyed my first lesson in
what is familiarly termed riding a rail; and from
all such railways I hope to be spared henceforward.
The term is derived from a fence-rail being occasionally
used to supply the place of a broken thoro’-brace,
by which all these stages are hung; and these are,
in fact, the only sort of spring that would endure
the load and the “rough breaks” their
virtue must go through.
We broke down by a sudden plump, into
a hole, that would have shaken a broad-wheeled waggon
into shavings. Our driver did not approve of any
of the fence-rails in the vicinity, so plunged into
the wood, accompanied by one of my Western companions;
and in ten minutes they returned, bearing a young
hickory pole, that the driver assured us was “as
tough as Andrew Jackson himself, and as hard to
break, though it might give a leetle under a heavy
load.” This was shoved under the body of
the carriage, and rested upon the fore and hind axles:
it was lashed fast, and the spare part of the spar
was left sticking out behind, like the end of the
main boom of a smack. The coach body, when rested
upon this, was found to have a considerable list to
port; but to have brought it to an even keel would
have been a work of time,not that such
a thing was contemplated for a moment. The driver
was enabled by this ingenious substitute for a carriage-spring
to “go ahead:” the rest was luxury,
which the “Good-intent line” did not bargain
for; so we were left to trim ship to our liking.
Contrary to all my experience, I insisted that the
heaviest part of our cargo should be stowed at the
bottom, for to have had my countryman’s eighteen
stone of solid stuff to prop up, for twenty miles,
would have required the shoulders of Atlas.
Whilst walking up the mountains, I
frequently overtook settlers moving with all their
worldly goods over to the great Western valley.
I generally exchanged a few words with them, and with
the more communicative now and then had a considerable
long talk. Most of them were small farmers and
mechanics from the Northern States, who followed here
in the wake of kindred or neighbours, their plan arranged
and their location determined upon. One or two
heads of families, however, told me they were just
going to look about, and did not know rightly where
they might set up.
I overtook one old couple attending
a single-horse waggon up Laurel-hill; and surely,
if any laurels awaited them at the summit, they were
hardly enough won. The appearance of this pair
attracted me as I approached the rocky platform where
for a moment they had halted to breathe: the
woman was a little creature, dressed in an old-fashioned
flowered gown, with sleeves tight to the elbows, met
by black mittens of faded silk, and a very small close
bonnet of the same colour. She had small brass
buckles in her shoes; a cane, like those borne by running
footmen, in one hand, and upon the other arm a small
basket, rolled up within which lay a tabby cat, with
which she held a conversation in what sounded to me
like broken French and English.
The man was a son of Anak in altitude,
somewhat bent by years, but having a soldierlike air.
His white hair was combed back, and gathered behind
into a thick club: he wore a long greatcoat, which,
if made for him, gave testimony to a considerable
falling-off in his proportions, for it hung but loosely
about him; had a very broad-leaved hat set jauntily
on one side of his head; and supported his steps upon
a sturdy stick.
I saluted this singular-looking pair,
and was by the lady honoured with an especially gracious
curtsey, whilst the gaunt old man bade me good day
in an accent decidedly foreign. I patted the cat
of the basket, addressing it in French, and was in
a moment overwhelmed by the delights of its mistress,
who ciel’d, and mon-Dieu’d,
and quel-plaisir’d, until, if her tall
mari had not stepped in to the rescue, I do
not know to what lengths her delight might not have
carried her.
The horse was sufficiently rested;
the man who drove it was ready to proceed; and the
ancient Parisienne, for such she was, had once
more to ensconce herself beneath the canvass covering
of the waggon, into which I had the honour of assisting
herself and her cat, amidst thanks and excuses blended
with all the graceful volubility of a well-bred Frenchwoman,for
well-bred she was, beyond a doubt.
“My poor little woman!”
said the old giant, as, after the twentieth adieu,
I joined him where he waited a little in advance of
the waggon, and quickened my pace to keep up with
his strides,“she is made too happy
for to-day to hear a gentleman address her in her own
language, and by whom she can be understood;”
adding, “You are not a Frenchman, sir?”
“I am not,” said I, smiling;
“but should imagine you are, by the compliment
you so adroitly infer.”
“No, sir,” rejoined mine
ancient, “I am a Biscayan; bred a ship-builder,
but at present a house-carpenter.”
“But you speak English like
a native: how is that?” inquired I, desirous
of continuing the dialogue thus begun.
“I have been forty years in
this good country, and have made better progress than
my poor little woman, though she is well educated and
I have no learning to help me.”
“Madame, then, is not Spanish?”
“No, sir, she is of Paris; and,
what is very odd, that is nearly all she ever told
me of herself. It was in the winter of 1792 that
I first met my poor little woman: I had slept
within a few miles of Havre, and was just turned away
from the cabaret, when a little boy joined me, requesting
that I would let him walk with me to the town.
We fell into chat, when I discovered that my new friend
had no passport, but that he had money, and was desirous
to escape from France, no matter to what place.
He was in great trouble; cried much; said he had lost
all his friends, and begged me not to desert him.
“It would be too long a story
to tell you all the trouble I had to get him on board
ship with me; but, sir, that little boy is now in the
waggon where you handed him.”
“Your wife!” exclaimed
I, affecting surprise, and really greatly interested.
“But when did she disclose her sex to you?”
“Why, sir, there was no great
need of disclosure after we once got to sea; her cowardice
told her story, but I kept her secret till we arrived
at Philadelphia, where we married; and in the lower
part of this State we have lived ever since quietly
enough, until lately.”
“And what, at your age, could
induce you to cross the mountains, my friend?”
“Why, sir, work was scarce in
our country place, and I’m told there’s
a heap of building raising about Pittsburg, that’s
one reason; but the truth is that our politics have
changed a good deal in Pennsylvania of late.
In a scuffle at the bar of our hotel, this last election,
I got knocked down and trodden on; my arm was broken,
and I a good deal hurt; and my poor woman took such
a horror of the little bit of mobbing we had that
she would make me pull up stakes, and here we are on
our last move.”
We walked on side by side, until the
waggon was left far behind and the coach came up.
We had a long talk on the subject of politics; and,
although a stanch American and a republican, I found
my friend was opposed to “the removal of the
deposits,”the universal test of the
day,and by no means a whole-hog man.
But he said, “It is a fine country and a fine
people; I am a citizen, have lived here forty years,
and hope to die here.”
Wishing that his desire might have
a late fulfilment, I shook the honest veteran’s
hand; and we parted for ever, after an intercourse
of three hours had created a sort of fellowship between
us. Here was an humble chapter from the romance
of real life, gleaned, where such an adventure was
least expected, in one of the passes of the Alleghanies.
The walk up this hill was, independent
of the good companionship I enjoyed, in itself fine:
the road circling about dark ravines, from whose thickly-wooded
deeps rose the hollow murmur of closely-pent currents,
whose waters had rarely reflected the rays of the sun;
and in other places clinging to the steep precipice,
from whose side it had been cut, and which was yet
burthened with the half-burnt trunks of hundreds of
noble trees that had fallen to make place for it.
The view, too, from the summit was glorious; and I
thought as I looked below, northward and eastward,
where two wide openings gave a boundless stretch of
valley to the eye, that my journey was well repaid:
but it was not over yet; and, before we reached Pittsburg,
I do not know but that there were moments when I would
have retracted this burst of enthusiasm.
The third afternoon and night it rained
incessantly; the road from Youngstown, or Greensburg,
being nearly as bad as that memorable Washington turnpike.
The delays, too, were unnecessary and frequent; at
some of the changing-places the servants had to be
roused, and this was no easy task. Now and then,
an extra independent hand refused to get up, or denied
us help when he was up; in which case the poor devil
of a driver was left to his own resources, with, now
and then, the aid of a half-naked, wretched negro.
The travelling of the “Good
Intent,” taking the roads into consideration,
was a capital pace, the horses excellent; but I have
set down, that, on a pretty fair estimate, making
allowance for the exaggerations of discomfort and
ill-humour, about nine hours on the whole line were
lost for want of the commonest attention, and the
passengers greatly inconvenienced without any advantage
accruing to the proprietors.
At length we emerged from the slough,
and about daylight on the third morning were rumbled
over the pave of Pittsburg.
The inn was closed; but the rough
assault of my Western friends soon roused the bar-keeper,
who got his door open just in time to save his lock
from a huge paving-stone, with which the angry Major
purposed to test its power of resistance.
“Why, you’re in an uncommon
hurry,” exclaimed the half-awakened bar-keeper.
“That’s more than we can
say of you, stranger,” retorted the Major.
“What was you about that you didn’t hear
the coach? Maybe it was the rain made such a
noise you couldn’t?”
“No; does it rain that hard,
though?” gaped the matter-of-fact mixer of liquids.
“I guess it does; and if it
wasn’t that you’ve got the key of the
liquor, it would be only right to put you out into
it for an hour; for you are the hardest-hearted white-man
I ever come across, this side the mountains, or you’d
a’ moved quicker to let in a dog on such a night.”
A rousing fire and some hot whisky
and water soon restored our good-humour: a bed
was quickly arranged for me by a good-natured negro,
who had, I verily believe, just crawled out of it;
a fire was lighted in the little hole it occupied;
and in half an hour I was fast asleep on the banks
of la belle rivière.