A DESCRIPTION OF THE BACKWOODS
The clearest insight into the days when Braddock’s Road was built, and the most vivid pictures of the country through which it wound its course, are given in certain letters of a British officer who accompanied Braddock. No treatise on Braddock’s expedition could be in any measure complete without reproducing this amusing, interesting, yet pitiful testimony to the difficulties experienced by these first English officers to enter the backwoods of America. This is given in a volume entitled Extracts of Letters from an officer in one of those Regiments to his friend in London, published in London in the year of Braddock’s Defeat:
“You desire me to let you know the Particulars of our Expedition, and an Account at large of the Nature of the Country, and how they live here; also of the Manner of the Service, and which Corps is the most agreeable to serve in, because it has been proposed to you to strive to buy a Commission here, and that you awaited my Advice to determine. Dear Sir, I love you so well that I shall at once tell you, I reckon the Day I bought my Commission the most unhappy in my Life, excepting that in which I landed in this Country. As for the Climate, it is excessive hot in Summer, and as disagreeably cold in Winter, and there is no Comfort in the Spring; none of those Months of gentle genial Warmth, which revives all Nature, and fills every Soul with vernal Delight; far from this, the Spring here is of very few Days, for as soon as the severe Frosts go off, the Heat of the neighbouring Sun brings on Summer at once, one Day shall be Frost, and the next more scorching or sultry and faint than the hottest Dog-Day in England. What is excessively disagreeable here is, that the Wealth of the Country consists in Slaves, so that all one eats rises out of driving and whipping these poor Wretches; this Kind of Authority so Corrupts the Mind of the Masters, and makes them so overbearing, that they are the most troublesome Company upon Earth, which adds much to the Uncomfortableness of the Place. You cannot conceive how it strikes the Mind on the first Arrival, to have all these black Faces with grim Looks round you, instead of being served by blooming Maid Servants, or genteel white Livery Men: I was invited to Supper by a rich Planter, and the Heat of the Climate, the dim Light of the Myrtle Wax-Candles, and the Number of black half-naked Servants that attended us, made me think of the infernal Regions, and that I was at Supper with Pluto, only there was no beautiful Proserpine, for the Lady of the House was more like one of the Furies; she had passed through the Education of the College of Newgate, as great Numbers from thence arrive here yearly; Most being cunning Jades, some pick up foolish Planters; this Lady’s Husband was far from a Fool, but had married, not only for the Charms of her Person, but because her Art and Skill was Quite useful to him in carrying on his Business and Affairs, many of which were worthy of an adept in the College she came from. Among others he made me pay for my Supper by selling me a Horse upon Honour, which, as soon as it was cool, shewed itself Dog-lame and Moon-blind.
“As for eating, they have the Names of almost every Thing that is delicious, or in Fashion in England, but they give them to Things as little like as Cæsar or Pompey were to the Negroes whom they call by those Names. For what they call a Hare is a Creature half Cat, half Rabbet, with white strong Flesh, and that burrows in rotten Trees; they call a Bird not much bigger than a Fieldfare, with hard, dry, strong Flesh, hardly eatable, a Partridge. The best Thing they have is a wild Turky, but this is only in Season one Month in the Year; the rest it is hard, strong, and dry. As for Beef, the Months of October and November excepted, it is Carrion; that is to say, so lean as it would not be called Meat in England; their Mutton is always as strong Goats’ Flesh; their Veal is red and lean, and indeed the Heat of the Summer and the pinching Frost of Winter, makes all like Pharaoh’s lean Kine. They brag of the Fruits, that they have such plenty of Peaches as to feed Hogs; and indeed that is true, they are fit for nothing else; I do not remember, among the Multitudes I have tasted, above one or two that were eatable, the rest were either mealy or choaky. Melons grow in Fields, and are plentier than Pumpkins in England, as large and as tasteless; there are such Quantities that the Houses stink of them; the Heat of the Country makes them at once mellow, so that they hardly ever have the fine racy Taste of an English good Melon, for in England you have many bad Melons to one good; but here the Heat makes all Fruits like us young fellows, rotten before they are ripe. With respect to Fish, they have neither Salmon, Carp, Trout, Smelts, nor hardly any one good Kind of Fish. They give the Name of Trout to a white Sea-fish, no more like a Trout than a Cat to a Hare; they have one good, nay excellent Kind of Fish, I mean a Turtle; but as Scarce as in England. With respect to public Diversions, the worst English Country Town exceeds all they have in the whole Province. As to Drink, Burgundy and Champaign were scarce ever heard of; Claret they have but poor Stuff, tawny and prick’d, for it cannot stand the Heat of the Summer, which also spoils the Port; the Madeira is the best Wine they have, but that only of the worst Growths, for the best are sent to Jamaica or England; their only tolerable Drink is Rum Punch, which they swill Morning, Noon, and Night. Their Produce is Tobacco; they are so attached to that, and their Avarice to raise it, makes them neglect every Comfort of Life; But the Intemperance of the Climate affects not only all the Cattle, Fruits, and Growths of the Country, but the human Race; and it is rare to see a native reach 50 Years of Age. I have heard from the best Judges, I mean the kind hearted Ladies most in Vogue, that a Virginian is old at 30, as an Englishman is at 60. The Ladies I speak of are well experienced, and for most of them the Public have for peculiar Merit paid the Passage, and honoured with an Order for Transportation on Record. I would not deceive you so have told you the truth; I have not exaggerated, but have omitted many disagreeable Circumstances, such as Thunder Storms, Yellow Fevers, Musketoes, other Vermin, &c with which I shall not trouble you. The Ship is just going.”
“I Sent a Letter to you by Captain Johnson bound for Bristol, with a full Account of the Country, by which you will see the Reasons why it will be highly improper for you to buy into the Troops here; I send this by a Ship bound for London.
“They make here a Division between the Settlements and the Woods, though the Settlements are what we should call very woody in Europe. The Face of the Country is entirely different from any Thing I ever saw before; the Fields have not the Appearance of what bears that Name in Europe, instead of ploughed Grounds or Meadows, they are all laid out in Hillocks, each of which bears Tobacco Plants, with Paths hoed between. When the Tobacco is green it looks like a Coppice; when pulled the Ground looks more like Hop-Yards than Fields, which makes a very disagreeable Appearance to the Eye. The Indian Corn also, and all their Culture runs upon hilling with the Hoe, and the Indian Corn grows like Reeds to eight or nine Feet high. Indeed in some Parts of the Country Wheat grows, but Tobacco and Indian Corn is the chief.
“From the Heart of the Settlements we are now got into the Cow-Pens, the Keepers of these are very extraordinary Kind of Fellows, they drive up their Herds on Horseback, and they had need do so, for their Cattle are near as wild as Deer; a Cow-Pen generally consists of a very large Cottage or House in the Woods, with about four-score or one hundred Acres, inclosed with high Rails and divided; a small Inclosure they keep for Corn, for the Family, the rest is the Pasture in which they keep their Calves; but the Manner is far different from any Thing you ever saw; they may perhaps have a Stock of four or five hundred to a thousand Head of Cattle belonging to a Cow-Pen, these run as they please in the great Woods, where there are no Inclosures to stop them. In the Month of March the Cows begin to drop their Calves, then the Cow-Pen Master, with all his Men, rides out to see and drive up the Cows with all their new fallen Calves; they being weak cannot run away so as to escape, therefore are easily drove up, and the Bulls and other Cattle follow them; then they put these Calves into the Pasture, and every Morning and Evening suffer the Cows to come and suckle them, which done they let the Cows out into the great Woods to shift for their Food as well as they can; whilst the Calf is sucking one Tit of the Cow, the Woman of the Cow-Pen is milking one of the other Tits, so that she steals some Milk from the Cow, who thinks she is giving it to the Calf; as soon as the Cow begins to go dry, and the Calf grows Strong, they mark them, if they are Males they cut them, and let them go into the Wood. Every Year in September and October they drive up the Market Steers, that are fat and of a proper Age, and kill them; they say they are fat in October, but I am sure they are not so in May, June and July; they reckon that out of 100 Head of Cattle they can kill about 10 or 12 Steers, and four or five Cows a Year; so they reckon that a Cow-Pen for every 100 Head of Cattle brings about 40£ Sterling per Year. The Keepers live chiefly upon Milk, for out of their vast Herds, they do condescend to tame Cows enough to keep their Family in Milk, Whey, Curds, Cheese and Butter; they also have Flesh in Abundance such as it is, for they eat the old Cows and lean Calves that are like to die. The Cow-Pen Men are hardy People, are almost continually on Horseback, being obliged to know the Haunts of their Cattle.
“You see, Sir, what a wild set of Creatures our English Men grow into, when they lose Society, and it is surprising to think how many Advantages they throw away, which our industrious Country-Men would be glad of: Out of many hundred Cows they will not give themselves the trouble of milking more than will maintain their Family.”