Re-entering our carriage, we drove down to Fulton, a town about two miles from Cincinnati, but which may be called a part of it, as the road is one long street leading to it, containing iron founderies, water works, lumber yards, &c. Omnibuses are constantly passing and re-passing along this street. We observed here several large steamboats upon the stocks, some of which were copper bottomed, as a guard against snags. Fulton looks pretty at a distance, seated at the foot of a round, soft green hill. After tea, we passed through the city, to the river, along whose bank, is a very pretty road. This is the fashionable evening drive, and we passed several carriages, containing ladies and children, and young persons on horseback, enjoying the bland evening air. Although the heat had been excessive during the day; it was now perfectly cool, which is usually the case here. Kentucky looked very lovely, as the setting sun tinged its hill tops, and threw a rosy haze over its groves, and fields and pretty cottages. The broad river looked placid and lustrous, as if rejoicing in the pretty reflections which lay upon its surface. A small fort opposite, we were told was erected in honor of the hero of Tippicanoe, Gen. Harrison, who is much beloved here, and whom they expect to be the next President of the United States.
July 20th.—I am happy to inform you the state of religion and morals in this place, are such as would please every lover of Jesus and of good order. One fact speaks for itself, there are here thirty churches. There are also twelve public schools, and between two and three thousand scholars, who are there educated. What a blessed thing is it to see a city, instead of lavishing its surplus wealth upon theatres and places of dissipation, erecting schools, and such respectable, nay, elegant houses of public worship as we see in Cincinnati. The consequences are seen in the circumstances and behaviour of the people. Here is no haunt of vice, no Faubourg St. Antoine, no five points, the people keep the Sabbath, and are respectable and happy. Sunday morning we attended service at Christ Church, where we heard the beautiful episcopal service read by their pastor, the Rev. Mr. Brooks, who afterwards gave us a very good discourse. This is a very handsome church, in the gothic form, abounding in spires and abutments, it is a grey brick edged with stone. The interior is very elegant. The pews are all lined and cushioned with blue, while the pulpit, and chancel, and reading desk, are a dazzling mass of bronze, and crimson, and gold; they are of bronze and gilt Gothic open work, lined with crimson velvet. Some antique chairs, and benches of oak, carved, lined and cushioned with velvet, stand here, while the whole is surrounded with a railing, and kneeling cushion of the same material and lining. The lamps and chandaliers are profuse and rich, and the organ beautifully built of bronze. In the same street is another episcopal church called St. Pauls, which is in the Grecian style, with a pediment in front, supported by columns. There are six presbyterian churches here, some of which we visited, and which are handsome and well attended.
In the evening we went to the church of the Rev. Mr. Lynde, a baptist clergyman, whose church is in a very flourishing condition, he having baptised five hundred new members last winter. This chapel is in Ninth street, and is a large brick building having a tall white spire. Every thing within is plain but neat. The seats are in the sofa style, edged with mahogany, lined and cushioned with horse hair, and having, several of them, the owner’s name in brass plates upon the door, as in some of our churches. The lamps and chandaliers, as in the episcopal church, are more in number and richer than I have ever seen in our best churches. We were quite pleased with Mr. L. His manner had a dignity and firmness, as if thoroughly convinced of the truths he advanced; and his address to his people came with the power of one who spoke with authority. How pleasant it is to find this region, which so lately resounded with savage merriment or war cries, now echoing the truth as it is in Jesus.
July 21st.—We arose early, and walked out to see the markets. There are three, well built. The one on Broadway was filled with a profusion of meats, fruits and vegetables, which last were uncommonly fine. The streets around the market, were blocked up with wagons loaded with country produce. During our rambles through the streets I was struck by the sight of a building, the oddest I ever beheld. It was a huge ugly thing, being a strange mixture of styles, and an attempt at Gothic, Turkish, and Moorish. This was Mrs. Trollop’s erection, built for a house of pleasure, and rooms were constructed for balls, refreshment, and dressing rooms, while below were to be shops. These balls were to be in the style of Almacks, quite exclusive. It is now a ‘Mechanic Institute,’ and when not using their rooms for the exhibitions, let them out to lecturers, exhibition of pictures, or a fair. The front is of brick adorned with Gothic arches, and the roof surmounted with Gothic ornaments. A square tower rises from the back of the building having a row of brick pillars in front, this contains a room having windows all around; on the top of this tower is another, a round one, having as I said, a sort of moorish top. We saw the time approach for leaving the ‘Queen City,’ with regret. We left it in the steamboat Agnes, a new and pretty boat, but small, ‘calculated to run any where it was moist,’ as the river is too low for the larger boats to ascend to Wheeling. The river’s greatest rise here is sixty-three feet, and it then runs with a current of six miles an hour. When out in the river we looked sadly back at Cincinnati, which appears Queen like indeed, while majestically reposing upon her throne of stately hills, with the glorious river at her feet. Cincinnati is built upon two plains which rise in gentle slopes from the river. Fifty years ago, fort Washington stood here, and now there is a large city of forty-five thousand inhabitants, containing churches, lyceums, colleges, and doing a business of six million dollars. There are a great many manufactories, and forges, and the steel and iron business is carried on to a considerable amount, ‘from ponderous beam of steam engine, cylenders and steam machinery, to household articles.’ Its doings in the pork line you have heard of, several of the largest ware-houses were pointed out to us as ‘pork ware-houses.’ The Miami canal comes into the Ohio at Cincinnati, thus bringing to it the produce from lake Erie. The little Miami railroad is also to terminate here. A bend in the river, and the ‘Queen of the West’ is lost to our eyes. The river scenery is very beautiful to day, lined with thriving farms, dotted with pretty villas and towns, having a back ground of those peculiar green hills which occur upon this river called the Ohio hills. Among the towns we passed were New Richmond, twenty-one miles from Cincinnati, Moscow, Mechanicsville, Augusta &c. &c. Maysville is quite a large town in Kentucky which looked very gay as the sun, setting over the shadowy hills lighted up its scarlet brick houses and gave a brighter tint to the cotton wood groves with which they were surrounded.
July 21st.—When we left our state-room we found ourselves near Portsmouth, the largest town we had seen since leaving Cincinnati. It is seated upon a platform elevated above the river at the foot of a group of pretty ‘Ohio hills.’ Every one looked very busy here, the shops displayed a goodly show of merchandise, two large hotels seemed full of people, drays were travelling about, water carts were being filled in the river, and little boys and girls were hastening down to come on board and sell their cakes and fruit. I did not go on shore, as we were to stay only a short time, but amused myself gazing about, and eating black and whortleberries which the little buckeye girls sold for ‘a fip a quart.’ This town is the southern termination of the Ohio canal whose northern outlet we had passed at Cleaveland upon lake Erie. The Scioto river also enters the Ohio here. It is a pretty stream 175 miles long. In the country through which it flows is much iron; and forges and founderies are established in many places around Portsmouth, which is a market for their produce. The hills opposite this place are of a grander character than any we had seen upon the Ohio, and now, with the lights and shades of early summer morning upon them, formed a charming picture for the inhabitants of Portsmouth. I remarked several pretty dwellings surrounded by shrubbery, which showed there were many here who were ‘well to do in the world.’ What delightful residences must these Ohio towns be, for persons of small fortune, or to tradesmen. All the comforts of life can be obtained with little expense, while good air, and good laws, shed health and peace around. Our passengers and freight exchanged for others, we turned our course from the shore, and followed the bends of La Belle riviere, (worthy of its name) as it wound through a well settled country, its shadowy hills now appearing more frequently, giving a more varied character to the scenery. The water grows purer as we ascend, and shallower, so that we can at times distinguish the sand and stones at the bottom. The Buckeye tree is seen in large groves, or pretty groups or copses, giving a very cultivated air to the shores, as we had been used to see it, ornamenting our streets, under the ugly name horse-chesnut. But although much alike in external appearance our tree is a transplanted one, originally from Asia, the Æsculus Hippocastinum, while this tree is a native of Ohio, designated by the botanist as the Æsculus Ohioensis. There are here seven species of this tree, which from their deep green glossy leaves, and pretty flowers are a great ornament to the groves of Ohio. It is an useful tree, and from the softness of its wood is easy to cut. In the early days of Ohio, when the settlers were in want of many articles of household furniture, they resorted to the buckeye. After building their log cabins of its branches, they formed, according to Dr. Drake, cradles, tables, bowls, platters, spoons, and troughs for gathering maple sap. The covering of the nut can be used as soap, while starch and medicine are also procured from it. The nut being brown, with a round white spot upon it, is called buckeye; and in consequence of their frequent use, and constant praises of this tree, the people of Ohio received from their neighbors the soubriquet of Buckeyes. The western people are fond of these nicknames. I told you the Illinoisians were called Suckers, the Missourians are Pukes; the Kentuckians, Corncrackers; Virginians, Tuckahoes; Indianians, Hoosiers; Michiganians, Wolverines, &c.
While sailing, or rather to use the customary phrase here, riding along these western rivers, one is struck with the destruction of trees. What magnificent forests we passed to-day, where the huge and towering sycamore, the dark green buckeye, the lighter cotton wood, the tall and graceful shaft of the sugar maple, the white elm, with its beautifully arranged branches and purple flowers, the silvery white maple, the oak, the beech, woven together by missletoe and other creepers, on the Ohio shore; and on the Kentucky bank, the blue ash, the coffee tree, stately tulip, yellow locust, dark leaved hackberry, basswood, and hundreds of others, make a mass of glorious forest scenery, such as I am sure earth cannot surpass. But the great rise and fall, and changes of this river, and its shores, destroy hundreds of these noble creations in a year. Countless numbers we saw along the banks, with all their roots exposed, holding but by one slight one, which any blast of wind might loosen, when it falls and is washed away. The shores were strewed with them in all stages; many struck down in youth, with their young foliage about them; others in the sere and yellow leaf, while others again stripped of leaf and bark, are piled in great ‘wreck heaps,’ where the current has hurled them, or floating down the stream, in time to become a snag and lie in wait to impale some unconscious vessel. While looking upon them in their innocence and beauty, I could not but pity their vampire fate, so soon to be transformed into malicious snags, to destroy the passing voyager. The quantity of yellow clay marl which occurs along the shores, contributes to their destruction, as it easily crumbles away. This also gives the peculiar rounded form to the Ohio hills, as the marl is washed down, giving the hills a smooth round shape.
At Sandy river, a stream which runs one hundred and sixty miles through Virginia, we bade adieu to old Kentuck. The rich and fertile plains of Kentucky were the favorite hunting grounds of the Aborigines of the surrounding regions, as there the buffalo, elk, deer, &c. roved in large herds. Extremely unwilling to surrender it to the white intruders, the Indians fought long and bravely for it, and so many severe battles took place there, that Kentucky acquired among the Indians the name of ‘the dark and bloody ground.’ The inhabitants have long been celebrated for their valor. Some of the scenery of Kentucky is the most beautiful in the States, and some of the land the most fertile. It is four hundred miles long, and contains twenty-six million acres. The wonderful caverns which occur in the limestone formations, you have heard of. Population, between six and seven hundred thousand. Virginia, the land of the cavaliers, and of Pocahontas, looked very inviting, as we sailed past it; her pretty hills lending beauty to every view. At Guyandot, we landed a party to visit the Sulphur Springs in Virginia, which are now quite fashionable. Our springs at Saratoga and Ballston, lose many southern and western visitors, since these, and so many others have been discovered in those regions.