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The absence of Mr. W. Hamilton deprived me of the pleasure of seeing him; notwithstanding, I went into his magnificent garden, situated upon the borders of the Schuylkill, about four miles from Philadelphia. His collection of exotics is immense, and remarkable for plants from New Holland; all the trees and shrubs of the United States, at least those that could stand the winter at Philadelphia, after being once removed from their native soil; in short, it would be almost impossible to find a more agreeable situation than the residence of Mr. W. Hamilton.

[23] CHAP. III

Departure from Philadelphia to the Western Country.Communications by land in the United States.- Arrival at Lancaster.- Description of the town and its environs. - Departure.- Columbia.- Passage from Susquehannah, York, Dover, Carlisle.- Arrival at Shippensburgh.- Remarks upon the state of agriculture during the journey.

THE states of Kentucky, Tennessea, and Ohio comprise that vast extent of country known in America by the name of the Western Country. Almost all the Europeans who have published observations upon the United States, have been pleased to say, according to common report, that this part of the country is very fertile; but they have never entered into the least particulars. It is true that, to reach these new settlements, one is obliged to travel over a considerable tract of uninhabited country, and that [24] these journies are tedious, painful, and afford nothing very interesting to travellers who wish to describe

The gardens of William Hamilton were at this time the most famous in the United States. They now form part of Woodlawn cemetery, West Philadelphia, where some rare trees planted by him still exist.- ED.

the manners of the people who reside in the town or most populous parts; but as natural history, and more especially vegetable productions, with the state of agriculture, were the chief object of my researches; my business was to avoid the parts most known, in order to visit those which had been less explored; consequently, I resolved to undertake the journey to that remote and almost isolated part of the country. I had nearly two thousand miles to travel over before my return to Charleston, where I was to be absolutely about the beginning of October. My journey had likewise every appearance of being retarded by a thousand common-place obstacles, which is either impossible to foresee, or by any means prevent. These considerations, however, did not stop me; accordingly I fixed my departure from Philadelphia on the 27th of June 1802: I had not the least motive to proceed on slowly, in order to collect observations already confirmed by travellers who had written before me on that subject; this very reason induced me to take the most expeditious means for the purpose of reaching Pittsburgh, situated at the extremity of Ohio; in consequence of which I took [25] the stage' at Philadelphia, that goes to Shippensburgh by Lancaster, York, and Carlisle. Shippensburgh, about one hundred and forty miles from Philadelphia, is the farthest place that the stages go to upon that road."

'Till the year 1802, the stages that set out at Philadelphia did not go farther South than to Petersburg in Virginia, which is about three hundred miles from Philadelphia; but in the month of March of that year, a new line of correspondence was formed between the latter city and Charleston. The journey is about a fortnight, the distance fifteen hundred miles, and the fare fifty piastres. There are stages also between Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, as well as between Charleston and Savannah, in Georgia, so that from Boston to Savannah, a distance of twelve hundred miles, persons may travel by the stages.-F. A. MICHAUX.

For historical sketch of Shippensburg, see Post's Journals, vol. i of this series, p. 238, note 76.- ED.

It is reckoned sixty miles from Philadelphia to Lancaster, where I arrived the same day in the afternoon. The road is kept in good repair by the means of turnpikes, fixed at a regular distance from each other. Nearly the whole of the way the houses are almost close together; every proprietor to his enclosure. Throughout the United States all the land that is cultivated is fenced in, to keep it from the cattle and quadrupeds of every kind that the inhabitants leave the major part of the year in the woods, which in that respect are free. Near towns or villages these [26] enclosures are made with posts, fixed in the ground about twelve feet from each other, containing five mortises, at the distance of eight or nine inches, in which are fitted long spars about four or five inches in diameter, similar to the poles used by builders for making scaffolds. The reason of their enclosing thus is principally through economy, as it takes up but very little wood, which is extremely dear in the environs of the Northern cities; but in the interior of the country, and in the Southern states, the enclosures are made with pieces of wood of equal length, placed one above the other, disposed in a zig-zag form, and supported by their extremities, which cross and interlace each other; the enclosures appear to be about seven feet in height. In the lower part of the Carolines they are made of fir; in the other parts of the country, and throughout the North, they are comprised of oak and walnut-tree; they are said to last about five and twenty years when kept in good repair.

The tract of country we have to cross, before we get to Lancaster, is exceedingly fertile and productive; the fields are covered with wheat, rye, and oats, which is a proof that the soil is better than that between New York and Philadelphia. The inns are very [27] numerous on

the road; in almost all of them they speak German. My fellow travellers being continually thirsty, made the stage stop at every inn to drink a glass or two of grog. This beverage, which is generally used in the United States, is a mixture of brandy and water, or rum and water, the proportion of which depends upon the person's taste.

Lancaster is situated in a fertile and well-cultivated plain. The town is built upon a regular plan; the houses, elevated two stories, are all of brick; the two principal streets are paved as at Philadelphia. The population is from four to five thousand inhabitants, almost all of German origin, and various sects; each to his particular church; that of the Roman Catholics is the least numerous. The inhabitants are for the most part armourers, hatters, saddlers, and coopers; the armourers of Lancaster have been long esteemed for the manufacturing of riflebarrelled guns, the only arms that are used by the inhabitants of the interior part of the country, and the Indian nations that border on the frontiers of the United States.

At Lancaster I formed acquaintance with Mr. Mulhenberg, a Lutheran minister, who, for twenty years past, had applied himself to botany. He shewed [28] me the manuscript concerning a Flora Lancastriensis. The number of the species described were upwards of twelve hundred. Mr. Mulhenberg is very communicative, and more than once he expressed to me the pleasure it would give him to be on terms of intimacy with the French botanists; he corresponds regularly with Messrs. Wildenow and Smith. I met at Lancaster Mr. W. Hamilton,

'Gotthilf Heinrich Ernest Muhlenberg was a brother of General Muhienburg of Revolutionary fame, and grandson of Conrad Weiser. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1753, educated at Halle, Germany, and on his return to America in 1774 was ordained as a Lutheran clergyman. He served charges in New Jersey and Philadelphia until 1779, when he settled at Lancaster, where he

whose magnificent garden I had an opportunity of seeing near Philadelphia. This amateur was very intimate with my father; and I can never forget the marks of benevolence that I received from him and Mr. Mulhenberg, as well as the concern they both expressed for the success of the long journey I had undertaken.

On the 27th of June I set out from Lancaster for Shippensburgh. There were only four of us in the stage, which was fitted up to hold twelve passengers. Columbia, situated upon the Susquehannah, is the first town that we arrived at; it is composed of about fifty houses, scattered here and there, and almost all built with wood; at this place ends the turnpike road.

It is not useless to observe here, that in the United States they give often the name of town to a group of seven or eight houses, and that the mode of constructing them is not the same everywhere. At [29] Philadelphia the houses are built with brick. In the other towns and country places that surround them, the half, and even frequently the whole, is built with wood; but at places within seventy or eighty miles of the sea, in the central and southern states, and again more particularly in those situated to the Westward of the Alleghany Mountains, one third of the inhabitants reside in log houses. These dwellings are made with the trunks of trees, from twenty to thirty feet in length, about five inches diameter, placed one upon another, and kept up by notches cut at their extremities. The roof is formed with pieces of similar length to those that compose the body of the house, but not quite so thick, and gradually sloped on each side. remained until his death in 1807. He was much interested in botany, and devoted all his leisure to that pursuit, being a member of the American Philosophical Society, and, as Michaux notes, in correspondence with many scientists.- ED.

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