Rambles in the Mammoth Cave, during the Year 1844 / By a Visiter

LOUISVILLE, KY.: MORTON & GRISWOLD. 1845.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1845, by MORTON & GRISWOLD, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Kentucky.
Printed by MORTON & GRISWOLD.
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They are well furnished, and, without question, if good and comfortable accommodations, pure air, and uniform temperature, could cure the pulmonary consumption, the invalids in the Cave ought to be cured.
To meet the calls so frequently made upon as by intelligent visitors to our City, for some work descriptive of the Mammoth Cave, we are, at length, enabled to present the public a succinct, but instructive narrative of a visit to this Wonder of Wonders, from the pen of a gentleman, who, without professing to have explored ALL that is curious or beautiful or sublime in its vast recesses, has yet seen every thing that has been seen by others, and has described enough to quicken and enlighten the curiosity of those who have never visited it.
Aware of the embarrassment which most persons experience who design visiting the Cave, owing to the absence of any printed itinerary of the various routes leading to it, we have supplied, in the present volume, this desideratum, from information received from reliable persons residing on the different roads here enumerated. The road from Louisville to the Cave, and thence to Nashville, is graded the entire distance, and the greater part of it M'Adamized. From Louisville to the mouth of Salt river, twenty miles, the country is level, with a rich alluvial soil, probably at some former period the bed of a lake. A few miles below the former place and extending to the latter, a chain of elevated hills is seen to the South-East, affording beautiful and picturesque situations for country seats, and strangely overlooked by the rich and tasteful. The river is crossed by a ferry, and the traveler is put down at a comfortable inn in the village of West Point. Two miles from the mouth of Salt river, begins the ascent of Muldrow's Hill. The road is excellent, and having elevated hills on either side, is highly romantic to its summit, five miles. From the top of this hill to Elizabethtown, the country is well settled, though the improvements are generally indifferent—the soil thin, but well adapted to small-grain, and oak the prevailing growth. Elizabethtown, twenty-five miles from the mouth of Salt river, is quite a pretty and flourishing village, built chiefly of brick, with several churches and three large inns. From this place to Nolin creek, the distance is ten miles. Here there is a small town, containing some ten or twelve log houses, a large saw and grist mill, and a comfortable and very neat inn, kept by Mr. Mosher. Immediately after crossing this creek, the traveler enters Yankee Street, as the inhabitants style this section of the road. For a distance of ten or twelve miles from Nolin toward Bacon creek, the land belongs, or did belong to the former Postmaster General, Gideon Granger, and on either side of the road, to the extent of Mr. G.'s possessions, are settlements made by emigrants from New York and the New England States. From Bacon creek to Munfordsville, eight miles, the country is pleasantly undulating, and here, indeed the whole route from Elizabethtown to the Cave, passes through what was until recently a Prairie, or, in the language of the country, Barrens, and renders it highly interesting, especially to the botanist, from the multitude and variety of flowers with which it abounds during the Spring and Autumn months. Munfordsville, and Woodsonville directly opposite, are situated on Green river, on high and broken ground. They are small places, in each of which, however, are comfortable inns. Boats laden with tobacco and other produce, descend from this point and from a considerable distance above, to New Orleans. About two and a half miles beyond Munfordsville, the new State road to the Cave, (virtually made by Dr. Croghan, at a great expense,) leaves the Turnpike, and joins it again at the Dripping Springs, eight miles below, on the route to Nashville. This road, in going from Louisville to Nashville, is not only the shortest by three and a half miles, but to the Cave it is from ten to twelve miles shorter than the one taken by visiters previous to its construction. It therefore lessens the inconvenience, delay and consequent expense to which travelers were formerly subjected. The road itself is an excellent one, the country through which it passes highly picturesque, and Dr. Croghan has entitled himself to the gratitude of the traveling community by his liberality and enterprise in constructing it.