The Rambler in North America: 1832-1833

Front matter

L, AND 3. SEELEY, WESTON GREEN, THAMES DITTON, 3URREV. IN NORTH AMERICA: MDCCCXXXII. — MDCCCXXXIII. BY CHARLES JOSEPH LATROBE, AUTHOR OF THE ' ALPENSTOCK,' ETC. CŒLUM, NON ANIMUM MUTANT QUI TRANS MARE CURRIJNT. Hor. Epist. VOL. I. PUBLISHED BV R. B. SEELEY AND W. BURNSIDE ; AND SOLD BY L. AND J. SEELEY, FLEET STREET, LONDON. MDCCCXXXV. TO WASHINGTON IRVING, ESQ. THESE VOLUMES ARE INSCRIBED IN TOKEN OF AFFECTIONATE ESTEEM •VND REMEMBRANCE, BI THE AUTHOR. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. Letter I. — Introduction, Page 1. Letter II. — French Quarantine. Departure from Europe. The Haven-Packet-Ship. The Voyage. Mates. Emigrants. Live Stock. Mocking-bird. The Bermu das. Sandy Hook. The Quarantine. Staten Island. The New World. Page 12. Letter III. — The New World. Renewal of Early Feelings. View from the heights of Staten Island.

The Bay of New York. Peculiar beauty of New York. Philadelphia. Baltimore. Washington. The Spring. Distinct Character of the Verdure in Europe and America. Maryland Strawberry-parties. Vale of the Patapsco. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The Point of Rocks. Harpur's Ferry. The River of the Woods. The Manor. Characteristics of American Scenery. Absence of the Picturesque. Presence of the Sublime. Page 21. Letter IV.— Quit New York for New England Vale of the Connecticut. Hartford. Northampton CONTENTS. Early History of the New England Colonies. Love of the early Settlers for the mother Country. The Colonies essentially Republican from their foundation. Boston. New Hampshire. Winnipisseogee Lake. The White Mountains. Spontaneous Vegetation. The Notch. Mount Washington. Scenery of the White Hills.

Vermont. The Green Hills. Royalton. Description of. Charac ter of the Inhabitants of New England. Saratoga. Niagara. Page 42. Letter V.— Absence of Nationality of Character in the United States. Sensitiveness to foreign Censure. The real claims of America to respect. Page 65. Letter VI. — Niagara. The past and present. Sce nery of the Falls. Lake Erie. A change of Plan. Removal of the Indians beyond the Mississippi. Cin cinnati. Pao-e 72. Page 72. Letter VIL— Settlement of the West. Character of the early Adventurers. Spirit of Restlessness in the World. The French in America. Boone and his Com rades. Original Scenery of Kentucky. The Dark and Bloody Ground. Emigration from the Settled States. Position of the Settlers. The Regulators. Camp Meet ings. Daniel Boone. Page 83. Letter VIIL— Cincinnati.

Letter II

You are aware when and how I left London for Paris in March 1832 ; having, in consequence of the appearance of the Cholera in England, determined to set sail from a French port in preference to an English one. You will doubtless remember also, how at the very outset, I found myself entrapped with a whole steamboat load of my migratory fellow countrymen, by our French neighbours at Calais, and that we were cooped up in durance vile, to perform unwilling qua rantine in an old dilapidated Fort without the town walls, in spite of reiterated protestations and expostu lations of ' Mais, Monsieur, je ne suis pas cholerique ! Mais, Monsieur, ma femme et moi sommes tres presses ! ' SfC. There is something ludicrous, as well as vexa tious, in disappointment, and there were certain among us, who did not fail to extract a good deal of amuse ment from the unquestionably disagreeable position into which we found ourselves suddenly transported, and which we had subsequently to endure for three long days.

I might amuse you with sundry pictures of men and manners as they then moved before me; rejoicing your English heart with sly remarks upon our Gallic FRENCH QUARANTINE. 13 neighbours. I might tell you how, on our approach to the wharf, the French craft, great and small, and the rogues in them, got out of our way, as if we had been a fire-ship ; how busily fumigation was carried on by a bunch of sanatory officers, peering out of a temporary hut, while, baboon-like, they made a cat's-paw of a poor doctor ; how we were given over by the medical authority to the civil — by the civil to the military — and finally handed over to no authority at all, but shut up pell-mell in the old dismantled fort, to live or die, as it might happen, under the protection of the yellow flag. I might describe the miser able state of all within the forlorn enclosure : how rude barracks of boards formed the sole accommodation, — and how for these we were indebted to the pestilence defying cupidity of the hotel-keepers of the town alone, the government having provided absolutely no shelter.

These huts were capable of housing but thirty out of the hundred sufferers of all ranks, shut up together, and were, of course, filled to suffocation. It would excite your commiseration to learn, how ' first come,' was ' first served,' while the rest had to lie on the grass of the ramparts, under the lee of the counterscarp, or where ever they could ; how moreover it rained : —how where the rats gamboled in long undisturbed possession five days before, milor and milady were now glad to lay their dainty heads. The scramble for beds was only equalled by the scramble for board. Sorrow, but not surprise, might be elicited on reading that some of my wise-headed countrymen insulted the health-inspecting dignitaries at their noon-tide visit, threatened an appeal to the British government, for the national outrage perpetrated on our sacred persons, and that in consequence the time of sorrow was lengthened instead of abridged.

You would have been amused to see our motley band of men and women, of all nations and degrees, English, French, Belgians, and Americans : and you would have marvelled to hear how the English maundered, grumbled, and groaned together ; to see the Belgians play at dominoes and chuck-farthing from morning to night ; to listen to the French singing, smoking, and jesting, repeating constantly ' d la guerre com me d la guerre ; ' and lastly to watch the American lie from morning to night on his back in the straw, abstracted and speculative, with the rain dropping into his ears. Moreover, I might tell you how my post was upon the seaward bastion ; overlooking the comic scene of petty misery and amusement on one side, and, on the other, the troubled Straits, and the long, white sea wall of my own land, and show you how many a warm and anxious thought winged its way thither but all this is foreign to my present purpose.

The same observation will apply to any detailed notice of my release— journey to Paris — sojourn there — and final departure with M. de Pourtales from the port of Havre de Grace, in the second week in April, in company with Washington Irving, our future com panion in many a day's adventure. A voyage to America is no longer a circumstance worth signalizing as a marvel. It is, as you know, literally an every-day occurrence. Hundreds, nay thousands of white sails now bespangle that wide, blue and restless ocean, which, a few centuries ago, was, in truth, a solitary sea ; and, though I write to one who was never yet out of the limits of the British Isles, I cannot persuade myself that a sheet full of ex tracts from ' my log ' will add much either to his amusement or instruction. The Havre, such was the name of the stout New-York packet-ship in which we sailed, was a fine vessel, in no whit inferior to the others of her class, in build, or in the commodious arrangements of her interior.

She was commanded by a high-spirited, generous-hearted, gentlemanly seaman. He was one whose character could not fail to im press the mind favourably with regard to the service and land to which he belonged. He was accused, but wrongfully I think, of having a tendency, in sailor's phrase, to ' spin a long yarn' now and then, or, in other words, to exaggerate. You may contrive to swallow a tale of considerable size at sea. We were upwards of two hundred on board, and of these, one hundred and seventy were steerage passengers. You will doubtless know that on a prosperous pas sage, — and such in fact we had, though not a quick or a direct one ; adverse winds, and now and then a rough gale, producing a fearful destruction of the ship's crockery, extraordinary sights and events are hardly to be looked for.

A week or two was sufficient to make us ' au fait,' as to every phase of our position. The ability to read, with any degree of steadiness on ship-board, is not granted to every one, and I must say, that, to me, a voyage is in that respect nearly lost time. The study of character however, both of rational and irrational beings around you, may afford a never-failing source of amusement, and, in this instance was truly such to us. None of us have forgotten the first mate, little D. a round, fat, good-humoured man — an off-set of the hardy stock of Nantucket, or Martha's vineyard, I forget which — a narrator of incredible stories about whales. He was proud of bearing the same patronymic as a ci-devant president of Yale College. He had scraped a good deal of information together, and had a very laudable desire to add to the stock — was much given to walk the deck, smoke, and philosophize ; and was altogether an unexceptionable character, though he owned that he had been bred a quaker, but had clipped his broad-brim and painted it white the day he came of age.

The young second mate was a special favourite, and was generally called ' right and left;' because, if he saw any fight among either sailors or steerage passengers, he dashed into it, and before asking a word of explanation, just knocked down the two men nearest him. Names, descriptive of some peculiarity in form or manner, were soon concocted by our little knot of humorists, for all the more noted characters before the mast. The position of the poor emigrants — men, women THE VOYAGE. and children, Jews, French and Germans, stowed a-midships, was at the best unpleasant. As long as the weather was fine, matters went on tolerably smoothly, and we had then chirrupping and singing enough : but a gale set them all at loggerheads, and rumours of fights and feuds not unfrequently came aft. Three Frenchmen, (Jews and sharpers if they were not maligned,) seemed to be just so many stumbling-blocks to the honest Germans ; and even the quality in the great cabin took a spite against them.

One of their number, from his oracular and star-bleached countenance, was dubbed Sidrophel, and it was whispered that they conjured up bad and adverse winds. The majority of the steerage pas sengers were Alsatians and Bavarians, and were speeding, with their little all collected around them to settle in a new land. They were most of them musically inclined, and when the level beams of the sun began to glance over the bows, they usually gathered in a knot round the mainmast and sang the songs of their native land, which they and theirs had now quitted for ever. Many a pleasant hour did we thus spend, as our vessel was gently heaving beneath us, and pressing towards the setting sun. Of our more immediate companions, I say nothing : they were in general too well-bred to excite much attention.

We had a proportion of females and pretty children among their number, and I add my testimony to that of many, as to the pleasant, chastened, THE VOYAGE. and agreeable air which their presence dispenses on ship-board. But this is not all — do not think I am going to pass by that most fertile field of harmless amusement, the dumb animals on board, among which we num bered a cow, ass, divers pigs ; and a numerous, but daily-decreasing horde of ducks, turkies, geese, and poultry — besides a snappish pointer with two whelps, and a setter ; not to forget a tom-cat, several canaries, and last but not least in favour, a mocking-bird. Tom seldom made his appearance till about night fall, and then he might be seen skulking slily along, close under the shadow of the spars lashed to the bulwarks, always contriving, however, to retreat if detected.

His movements were never quite free from suspicion— and he was no great favourite aft, in spite of its being alleged, in excuse of his vespernal ex cursions towards our end of the ship, that the mice frequenting our state rooms were his lawful perquisite : and it was soon found that Tom had, in fact, other ends in view. It was remarked that he had taken a particular fancy to haunt the purlieus of the large wicker cage in which our little musical favourite, the mocking bird, was confined — in preference to all the allurements held out to his attention by the plumper denizens of the coop ; and he was frequently detected in its immediate vicinity, sitting with an air of great meekness, eyes half shut, and as it were, quite lost to the world in sweet enhancement, while the pretty bird poured forth its melody.

But this was all a sham. He had in faith no more ear for music than the ship's counter, and, in fact, he was twice discovered in the attempt to make a meal of our playmate. The second time the whole cabin was in arms, and Tom received such summary punishment that he never visited the round-house again. We thus secured the merry little songster's safety. The latter was somewhat capricious, but very diverting — sang like the canary, quacked like the duck, chirped and cackled like the poultry, mewed like the cat, and finally tucked his little wings close to his side, and looked up to main mast-head like the Captain. I have told you that our voyage was protracted. After long trying to make our way to the northward, we stood to the south of the gulf-stream, and soon exchanged bleak blowing weather and stormy seas, for gentle breezes, blue skies, and tranquil waters.

I cannot forget how pleasingly the monotony of ourvoyage was broken about the middle of May, by our coming within sight of the Bermudas, that little stepping-stone in the vast ocean between the conti nents, and how every animate being on board seemed moved with the aspect and atmosphere ofthe land. To cut a long voyage and long letter short, I will close by noting the 21st of May as the day when the former ended, by our arriving off Sandy Hook, with the heights of Neversink to the left, Long Island to the right, and the deep outer bay of New York before us ; and when the sun set over the land, our ship might be seen with sails furled and STATEN ISLAND. anchor a-peak rocking on the threshold of the New World. The following morning, we advanced with wind and tide through the outer bay and the Narrows, till abreast of the prettiest quarantine ground under the sun, and dropped our anchor off the shore of Staten Island.

In consequence of the casual indisposition of my comrade, it was thought advisable to stay on board the Havre for a few days, instead of accompany ing our fellow-passengers to the city : and it is very comprehensible that both curiosity and six weeks imprisonment on board, made me glad to while away a few of the hours of detention in a ramble on the green shores and wooded heights, which were directly in front of our anchorage.

Letter III

The New World ! You may imagine, but you cannot feel the degree of curiosity with which I first set foot upon it. It may be readily granted that the emotion of interest with which an American steps upon the shores of Europe, must be of a higher char acter ; yet to me, this change of position from countries where the forms of external nature had in a great measure become familiar, and lost the charm of novelty, to another in which she was to appear clothed in a different garb, and develope other phenomena, was nevertheless an epoch in my existence. It was the renewal of youth and boyhood. Many a sens ation, to which I had been a stranger for years, returned to the breast after it might have seemed to have left me for ever. I felt all that excess of prying curiosity into the productions of nature, which had been a strong principle of my soul twenty years be fore, when we used to explore the vallies of the Air, Wharf, and Calder in concert, bring home pockets stuffed with plants and stones, and heads filled with supposed discoveries.

Such they were indeed to us. These fresh and natural feelings of excitement, which STATEN ISLAND. had been of course weakened or lost, when every object had become familiar, and there were no more discoveries to make, now stimulated me as warmly as ever; and while eagerly examining every tree, shrub, bud, and reptile, that came across my path during my first solitary stroll, I could almost smile at my boyish and buoyant feeling. The spring had been tardy in appearance, and unfriendly in its character ; yet as I rose from the margin of the bay, and surmounted the first slope, covered with the straggling village, the lively green of the enclosures, the blossoming peach, and other trees, and the budding forest were all delightful to the eye after the monotony of the ocean. The scenery pre sented by the outer Bay of New York is not striking, and however we had been pleased to approach the green shores, and gaze upon the fixed and firm land; we had hardly been able to chime in with the enthu siastic expressions of admiration uttered by our American fellow-passengers, as we sailed up the Bay, at the peculiar beauty of their native country.

Yet, when, after an interrupted climb, I gained the highest point of the wooded range above the Narrows, and looked forth upon the wide extended view then spread before me, I did them justice. The knoll upon which I stood rose above the wooded skirts of the hills, and immediately overlooked the Narrows to the right, with its forts and the long, green, cultivated shores of Long Island beyond. To the south-west the eye gained a glimpse, over the back of the Island, of the STATEN ISLAND. strait separating it from the main shore of New Jersey, the undulating outline of which formed the horizon in that direction. Directly over the village below, rising with its clean white edifices on the margin of the Bay, you saw spread before you, the capacious inner harbour, with the distant city, and the entrance to the Hudson, stretching far inland in the perspective, a broad expanse of water dotted with innumerable sails.

The wind was fair for the passage of the Narrows, and many a noble ship was passing the Quarantine ground, and steering under their white cloud of canvass for the distant outlet into the Ocean, which appeared distinctly to the southward, over the long, low point of Sandy Hook. The features of the landscape, whose mere outlines I have pourtrayed, were quite devoid of boldness of character, but they were such as to im press me greatly. And it may here be observed, that when exactly two years after, by a singular coincidence, we again entered the same port on returning from Vera Cruz, having in the interval penetrated into every part of the Union, and latterly gazed upon many a scene of tro pical and 'mountain magnificence in Mexico, I was anew constrained to admit the propriety of the epithet ' beautiful,' being attached to the Bay of New York.

That is its characteristic, whether the observer looks down upon it from the elevated point I had chosen, or from the neighbourhood of the city. And yet it is difficult to define where the main charm lies. The BAY OF NEW YORK. aspect of the latter is far from being picturesque on a near approach. You see a long line of level wharfs, and slips crowded by endless tiers of shipping, and tall brick warehouses peering over them ; a few uninteresting church-steeples rearing themselves from the central parts of the city, which rises so gradually from the water's edge, that, at a distance, it seems to be built on a dead flat. There is neither beauty nor sublimity in such an object. Then the adjacent shores of Long Island, and New Jersey opposite, though well wooded, are not particularly bold; the small low islands scattered over the nearer portions of the Bay, are far from being either well clothed, or dignified by handsome structures ; the swelling back of Staten Island, is too distant to form a prominent object in the landscape ; still, come from what quarter you may, you are struck with the air of beauty.

Much is doubtless to be attributed to the extreme mellowness and transparency of the atmosphere, which gives colour to every object on land or water. In this, the climate of New York is truly Italian. There is a freshness in the verdure that covers the sloping and gentle shores, a harmony in. the outlines, — aud above all, there is a life in the aquatic scenery, which I never witnessed elsewhere in an equal de gree. An air of gaiety and festal enjoyment, which contrasts singularly with the unholiday appearance of men and things in the interior of the country, reigns on the waters of the bays and rivers in the vicinity of the cities to a surprising degree. NEW YORK. 25 At all times of the tide, at every hour of the day, whatever may be the wind, the Bay and its outlets appear alive with craft and shipping, from the dark mass of the frigate, or line-of-battle ship, which often lay moored abreast of the city, and the colossal steam-boats hourly seen careering over its surface, to the light skilfully-managed wherry of the Whitehaller.

But we will not for the present linger in New York, where I only passed a single week subsequent to landing. This city, and its rivals on the waters of the Atlantic, have been frequently described, and they may therefore be passed over with few remarks. The acquaintance which my comrade and myself had begun with Mr. Irving at Havre, and cemented on ship-board, was resumed ashore, and led to that series of common projects and common wanderings, which kept us bound together as a trio for the greater part of the summer and autumn of this year. To him all was new again, after seventeen years' absence from his native country. The month of June was employed in visiting Phila delphia, Baltimore, and Washington, previous to the assumption of our more extended projects for the summer. The arrangements for public convenience in travel ling by steam-boat and rail-road, along the whole line of interior communication, from Rhode Island into the very heart of Virginia, demand the admiration of every stranger, and that of an Englishman more than any other, he being of all travellers, the most. vol. i. c NEW YORK. impatient and unable to endure the loss of precious time with equanimity.

Each of the cities named, though resembling each other in many points, has its own distinctive marks. New York is the most bust ling ; Philadelphia the most symmetrical ; Baltimore the most picturesque ; and Washington the most be wildering. At New York you pass hours with delight under the trees on that beautiful breezy promenade, which the good taste of the citizens has preserved at the ex treme point of their island. You follow the example of more illustrious travellers in doing justice to the ample tables of your hotel or friends, not forgetting to pass judgment on rock fish, American oysters, and above all, on shad-fish, if in season. You enjoy many a stroll along the gay and cheerful pavement of Broadway, the principal street, running for miles through the heart of the city, with its handsome edifices, shops, and public buildings.

You admire the commodious disposition of the interior of family mansions, with their folding-doors, clean, cool, indian-matted floors, and the groups of pretty faces by which they are adorned. You marvel at the incessant bustle and proofs of flourishing commerce visible in all the narrower streets devoted to business, diverging right and left towards the North and East rivers ; and on the crowded slips and wharfs. You step into a steam-boat, and cross over to Brooklyn, or to the Jersey shore, where you may immediately bury yourself in the delicious walks of Hoboken, where PHILADELPHIA: the squirrel climbs as free, and apparently as undis turbed among the grape-vines, as in the depths of the forest. You glance up the Hudson, which laves the grassy margin of the promenade, and see him walled in by the perpendicular pallisadoes and green shores of Manhatten Island, covered with sloops and steamers — and own that in your brightest moment of fancy, you never dreamed of the creation of an equally glorious river, or a city whose position is more strongly marked by all those characteristics which are desirable in a great commercial emporium.

Re turning, you hear the cry of fire, and repair to the scene of disaster, but go home disappointed, because you find that the good people of New York never give a fire a fair chance, but knock down the house to preserve it from the flames. You walk out on a Sunday evening, and are fairly elbowed into the gutter by the broad-spread bonnets and gigot de mouton of the sable beauties, who, with their beaux, have then the possession of the pavement. At Philadelphia, ' the city of Brotherly Love,' you are struck with the regularity of the streets, — their num berless handsome mansions, — the lavish use of white and grey marble, — pleasant avenues and squares, — noble public institutions, — markets, — the abundance of water, — and the general attention to dress visible in every one you meet. As in New York and Balti more, you are surprised with the great proportion of handsome female faces and delicately moulded forms which crowd the public walks and saloons, like so C WASHINGTON. many sweet fresh May flowers.

You make the usual visits right or left, dictated by taste or reverence ; in cluding the romantic scene at Fairmount, and the spot where the celebrated treaty was concluded between Penn and the Delawares ; and you taste that hospitality and frank unostentatious kindness which, with all their faults, proved or imputed, the American ever offers to a stranger who conducts himself courteously. At Baltimore, "the city of Monuments," snugly shel tered within its deep bay, and rising from an oblong basin of the Patapsco towards the amphitheatre of wooded hills on the west, you marvel to hear how, from a period of time within the memory of some yet living, the small village of a dozen houses has sprung up into a large capital, overspreading an ex tended area, abounding with noble public and private edifices, and possessing an increasing commerce with every port under the sun.

You admire the neat style of building, — the bustle ofthe Bay, — the beauty of the shipping, — and the lovely scenery in the environs. You welcome a southern climate in the perfume of many odorous flowers, and, more than all, the delightful society for which Maryland is pre-eminent — frank, polished, and unaffected. At Washington, 'the city of magnificent Dis tances,' with the haste and eagerness of a new comer you visit the lions; — ascend to the capitol; — criticise its architecture, whether properly authorised to do so or not, — listen to the proceedings in either House for an hour or two, — pay your respects to the President, — visit BALTIMORE. 29 the country-seat and grave of our great and good oppo nent Washington. You plan, but do not execute, an excursion to the Falls ofthe Potomac,— get more and more bewildered with the study of the city, which seems to have .been contrived with an eye for the especial advantage of the hackney coachmen ; — get squeezed out of all equanimity at a Presidental levee; — retain your appetite, but lose your patience at a scrambling dinner in Gadsby's Hotel,— and finally, retrace your steps to Baltimore as we did, with a resolution not to return to Washington till there should be a less suffocating heat in the places of public resort, less dust in Pennsylvania avenue, more water in the Tiber, and more elbow-room in the hotels.

I have, however, no hesitation in saying, that our first impressions of America, were every way pleasing, both as to men and things. We saw the country and the society under the best auspices ; and the season at which we made our first journey, was also one which naturally incited us to contented enjoyment. In returning northward, we made a halt of a fort night in Baltimore and its neighbourhood. Many of the country-seats which stud the environs upon the upland slope, at various points and distances from the city, are singularly well-situated and taste fully arranged ; and I look back with unalloyed gratification to the hours spent among them, and the hospitality there enjoyed. Rural fetes are ordinarily given in these villas at this beautiful season of the year, when every tree and shrub appears in BALTIMORE. its freshest green, and every natural object cites to amusement and recreation.

The numberless white four-petalled flowers of the dog-wood, which we had left, in the latitude of New York, in full beauty, had, it is true, become discoloured, and half hidden by the green foliage which they precede, but the Catalpa was in blossom in the vicinity of the country-seats ; the shrubberies were in their beauty, and on the margin of the forest, which generally thickened to the back of these villas, the evening air was perfumed with the rich odour of the Magnolia, whose snow-white blossom peeped out from its covert of glossy leaves. A thousand beautiful trees, either transported from their concealment in the woods, or tastefully preserved for the purposes of ornament, surrounded the lawns in front of the open colonnade. It was not till my return to Europe, in the height of summer, after a very short passage, that I was struck with the totally different character of the ver dure, both of the field and forest, on the two Con tinents.