Letters from North America, written during a tour in the United States and Canada

Front matter

ri^iTB u C opied from a.n£nqravin<j in the Archctolotjia. -Americans, . ' LETTERS FROM NORTH AMERICA, WRITTEN During a Œout IN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA. By ADAM HODGSON. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: PRINTED FOR HURST, ROBINSON, __ CO. AND A. CONSTABLE & CO. EDINBURGH. 1824. LIVERPOOL: .PRINTED BV GEORGE SM.TH, FRENCH's-BUILD INGS, Tithebarn-street. TO Œt)c Memory OF THE LATE HONB..E WILLIAM LOWNDES, MEMBER OF CONGRESS FOR SOUTH CAROLINA, THE FOLLOWING VOLUMES ARE RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED BT THE AUTHOR.

Preface

. -HAVING been for some years extensively engaged in the American Trade, I visited the United States with commercial views, at the close of 1819, and remained sixteen months on the other side of the Atlantic. In the course of that time, I travelled nearly 8000 miles, comprehending in my route, the States of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Ten nessee, and Upper and Lower Canada. Being much interested with the objects which I saw, and the society with which I mingled,

PREFACE.

. in the course of my Tour, I communicated my impressions, from time to time, to the different members of my domestic circle, in all the con fidence and careless freedom of unreserved and intimate correspondence. On my return home, I found that my letters had been preserved and collected, in order to be copied, if I should give permission. On looking them over, I was induced to believe, that those on the subject of emigration, contained some particulars which might be useful at that time, when so many persons were leaving their country to seek subsistence in the Western wilds ; and under this impression, I sent three or four letters to a respectable periodical publication, in which they were in serted, — and, agreeably to my express injunc tion, without my name. A faint hope, that a few sketches of the state of society in the United States, and especially of the best society, might contribute to dissipate those prejudices, with respect to America, which I observed with much regret

PREFACE.

. V to prevail in Great Britain ; and might possibly tend, in some degree, to induce a better tone of feeling between the two countries, led me, at a later period, to transmit several more to the same periodical work. — When the series was completed, I received solicitations, from different quarters, to republish them in a separate volume; but an unwillingness to appear in a character so foreign to my ordinary avocations, and a reluctance, without the prospect of greater utility than I could venture to anticipate, to sacrifice so much of the scanty leisure of an active life as would be absorbed in preparation for the press, determined me to decline it. I was confirmed in my decision by the conviction that much of the interest with which some of my friends had perused the original letters, was derived from the near view of the interior structure of American society, presented to them by minute delineations and little details of the social and domestic circle, which, however proper for a familiar letter, could

PREFACE.

. VI not be exhibited to the public, consistently with that delicate regard to private feeling which I was most solicitous to observe. Early in the present year, however, I found that those letters which had appeared anony mously in the periodical work, to which I have alluded, had been republished in America, in a very imperfect form, with my name, and with some little additions or omissions, which, while they did not materially alter their sense, imparted to them, in one or two instances, a tone and spirit which I should be unwilling to adopt. And as I had received an intimation from the London booksellers, whose application to reprint my Letters, I had declined, that if they should appear in America, they might be republished from the American copy, without my permission, and with my name, I resolved immediately to prevent such an imperfect publication ; and of two evils, to choose the least — that of publishing them myself.

PREFACE.

. VII I immediately began to revise them, amidst numerous interruptions of the little leisure which I could command, (leisure much cur tailed by long and unavoidable absence from home,) and I have added to them a few notes, which are extracted principally from the blank leaves of my manuscript copy, into which I had transcribed any particulars which struck me in the course of my reading, as calculated to illustrate the principal subjects which had interested me in America. Under these circumstances, the following Work is presented to the public ; and had I had the remotest idea, that the communica tions of private friendship would ever meet the public eye, I would have endeavoured, by a collection of more minute details, on many subjects of general interest, to send it forth with less slender pretensions to public appro bation. For botanical or mineralogical researches, I had neither leisure nor information ; and although I contemplated with the most

PREFACE.

. intense interest, the magnificent scenery of the Western World, my attention was directed rather to the study of man than of nature; and especially to the manners, customs, and institutions of a country, respecting which I had read such contradictory accounts. Con scious, therefore, that the following Letters will be found deficient in information on many of those points which aprofe..sed traveller might be expected to elucidate, I am yet tempted to believe, that as some part of the country through which I travelled, and some of the Indian tribes which I visited, are little known in England — and that as an intimate and extensive intercourse both in Washington and in the commercial cities, afforded me a very favourable opportunity of forming an estimate of American society and manners — their publi cation will not be without interest to some of my countrymen. If the statements which I have made, and the impressions I have communicated in the following Letters, (which have no pretensions

PREFACE.

. IX whatever of a literary nature,) shall contribute, in the slightest degree, to dissipate error and prejudice ; to cherish those more liberal and friendly feelings, which are at length beginning to subsist between England and America, — and which it is most important to the general interests of humanity, should ever connect two countries standing in such an interesting relation to each other, and the world at large, — I shall derive from the reflection, a purer gratification than any literary distinction could possibly impart. LIVERPOOL, 1st May, 1824. PAGB 1— C CONTENTS OF VOLUME THE FIRST.

Letter I

Voyage — Passengers — Occupations at sea — Arrival at New York.

Letter II

Wasliington — Visit to the Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, and Secretary at War — Drawing-room at the President's — Society of Washington — Senate and House of Representatives — Congress — Visit to Mount Vernon — Colonization Society 7—17

Letter III

Journey from Washington to the South — Mode of Travelling — Alexandria — Fredericksburg — Richmond — Face of the Country — Log-houses — Black Population — Petersburg — Taverns — Cultivation of Tobacco — Land Proprietors in Virginia — Oak and Pine Lands — Raleigh — Fayetteville — Clearing of Land — Girdled Trees — Pine Barrens — Collection of Tar and Turpentine Frog Concerts — Swamps — Arrival at Charleston 18 — CONTENTS. XII

Letter IV. I'ac

a Visit to a Rice Plantation — Negroes — Live Oaks — Society of Charleston — Habits of the Carolinian Planters — Yellow Fever —Sale of Slaves 43—48

Letter V

Society at Washington — British Charge d'Affr ires — Party at Mr. L 's Mr. and Mrs. Monroe — Mr. J. Q. Adams — Mr. Crawford — Mr. Calhoun— Mr. Clay — Mr. Forsyth — Mr. Pinckney — Mr. Rufus King — Visits at Charleston 49 — 96

Letter VI

Prison at Charleston — Murderer of Dr. Ramsay — Mrs. Ramsay — Journey from Charleston to Savannah — Augusta — Visit to a Planter— Journey to Mobile — Negro Congregation — Milledgeville — Fort Hawkins — Indian Agency 97 — 1 1 6

Letter VII

Creek Indians — Night-scene in the Forest — Indian Town of Co-se-ta— Ouchee Bridge — Conquered Tribe of the Ouchees. 117 — 126

Letter VIII

Fort Bainbridge — Lewis — Government of the Creek Indians — Mackintosh — Green Corn Dance — Manners and Customs of the Indians — Tecumseh — Lime Creek — Point Comfort- Swamps — Flooded Creeks — Fort Dale — Indian Path — Mur. der Creek — Reservation of Public Lands for Schools — Hurricane — Alligators — Fire-flies — Blakely — Mobile 127 — 150

Society in the vicinity of Natchez — Slavery Cultivation of Cotton — Peculiarities attending Slave-cultivation 184 210

Letter XII

Visit to a Plantation — Deer hunt — Departure from Natchez— Choctaw Indians — Mourning for the Dead — Ceremony of thc Pole pulling — Indian Dance and Ball Play — Tattooing — Mode of Killing Cattle among the Indians, and of Summoning the Herds from the Neighbouring Woods — Indian Guide 211 — 225

Letter XIII

Missionary Settlement at Elliot — Rattlesnakes — Indian Tumuli. 226 — 240

Letter XIV

Half-breed Choctaw, on the borders of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations— Ancient Customs of the Indians — Indian Families ; Panther Family, Racoon Family, &c. — Indian Marriages and Religious Opinions — Attachment of some old Choctaws to the British — Path through the Woods — Kentucky Trace — Description o£ the House of a half-breed Chickasaw Indian — Indian Sepulture 241 — 260

Knoxville — Boatyard — Abingdon — German Settlers 289 — 297

Letter XVIII

East Tennessee — Summit of the Alleghany Mountains — Valley ofthe Shenandoah — Blue Mountains of Virginia, and the Peaks of Otter — Natural Bridge — Habits of the Country — Black Population — Waynesborough — Rockfish Gap 298 — 312

Letter XIX

Vis^t to Mr. Jefferson, at Monticello — Tecumseh — Arrival at Richmond 313 — 321

Letter XX

Richmond — Alexandria — Washington — Its Deserted Appearance contrasted with its Aspect in the Winter — Baltimore — Visit to the Manor of C Estimate of the Length and Expense of the Equestrian Journey from Natchez to Richmond 322—328

Letter XXI

Journey from Baltimore to New York — Sail up the Hudson River, to .A 'ban; -Magnificent Scenery — West Point — Falls of the Mohawk — Journey from Albany to Niagara Schenectady — Little Falls — German Flats — Herkimer Oneida Lake — Onandago — Utica — Cayuga Lake — Seneca Lake — CONTENTS. XV PAGE 368—384 385—391 Geneva — Canandaigua — Rapid Settlement of that Part of the State of New York — Buffalo — Lake Erie — Niagara Charac ter of Mr. Lowndes — York, in Upper Canada — Niagara Fort — Lake Ontario 329 359

Letter XXII

Genessee River — Rochester — Carthage Bridge — Sacket's Harbour-— Lake of the Thousand Isles — Ogdensburgh — Sail down the Rapids — La Chine — Arrival at Montreal 360 — 367

Letter XXIII

Montreal — Excessive Heat — Liberal use of Ice — St. Lawrence contrasted with the Mississippi — Lord Dalhousie — The Duke of Richmond — Sir Peregrine and Lady Maitland — Mansion House — Lord Selkirk — Sail to Quebec — Banks of the St. Lawrence — Falls of Montmorenci — Indian Village of Lorette —Falls of the Chaudiere — Observations of an Indian Chief.

Letter XXIV

Departure from Quebec — Scotch Emigrants — Sorel — Starlight sail in a Canoe across the St. Lawrence, from Montreal to Longneil La-Prairie — Lake Champlain — Plattsburgh — Crown Point Ticonderoga — Lake George — Burlington ...