In southwestern Indiana, in 1818, Faux "saw nothing ... but miserable log holes, and a mean ville of eight or ten huts or cabins, sadly neglected farms, and indolent, dirty, sickly, wild-looking inhabitants." (Faux's Journal, Nov. 1, 1818, ib. xi, 213-14.) He describes Kentucky houses as "miserable holes, having one room only," where "all cook, eat, sleep, breed, and die, males and females, all together." (Ib. 185, and see 202.)
[511] For shocking and almost unbelievable conditions of living among the settlers see Faux's Journal, E. W. T.: Thwaites, xi, 226, 231, 252-53, 268-69.
[512] "We landed for some whiskey; for our men would do nothing without." (Woods's Two Years' Residence, ib. x, 245, 317.) "Excessive drinking seems the all-pervading, easily-besetting sin." (Faux's Journal, Nov. 3, 1818, ib. xi, 213.) This continued for many years and was as marked in the East as in the West. (See Marryat, 2d Series, 37-41.)
There was, however, a large and ever-increasing number who hearkened to those wonderful men, the circuit-riding preachers, who did so much to build up moral and religious America. Most people belonged to some church, and at the camp meetings and revivals, multitudes received conviction.
The student should carefully read the Autobiography of Peter Cartwright, edited by W. P. Strickland. This book is an invaluable historical source and is highly interesting. See also Schermerhorn and Mills: A Correct View of that part of the United States which lies west of the Allegany Mountains, with regard to Religion and Morals. Great Revival in the West, by Catharine C. Cleveland, is a careful and trustworthy account of religious conditions before the War of 1812. It has a complete bibliography.
[513] Flint's Letters, E. W. T.: Thwaites, 153; also Schermerhorn and Mills, 17-18.
[514] "Nature is the agriculturist here [near Princeton, Ind.]; speculation instead of cultivation, is the order of the day amongst men." (Thomas Hulme's Journal, E. W. T.: Thwaites, x, 62; see Faux's Journal, ib. xi, 227.)
[515] Faux's Journal, ib. 216, 236, 242-43.
[516] Ib. 214.
[517] See vol. i, chap, vii, of this work.