June 21st.—We left Utica to-day in the three o’clock train for Auburn. About four miles from the city we passed a small town called Whitesborough, a pretty place, with two churches, an academy, and a building called the Oneida Institute. There is also here a manual labor school. A large unfinished building just outside of Utica, we learned was to be a lunatic asylum, calculated to accommodate one thousand patients—God pity them.
Several pretty towns lay upon our route: as Rome, Manlius, Canastola, etc. Sweet retreats from the confusion of a city without the solitude of the country. The canal and railroad which run through or near these towns present facilities for trade or travelling. Rome is a place of considerable importance, containing five churches, a court house, academy, several shops and dwellings. The population, five years since, amounted to 4,800. When arrived at Syracuse we drove up to a large good looking stone building bearing the name of Syracuse House. There we stopped to take tea. This place is sixty miles from Utica: enjoys considerable trade, but is still in its teens, having arisen since the canal passed through that part of the country. The Oswego canal joins the Erie here, which, with the salt works near, brings them much business. The population is 7,000. We observed in passing through it, several good churches, a pretty court house, substantial ware houses, numerous shops and dwellings, with a lyceum and high school, so that it would seem the inhabitants ought to be wealthy, refined, and well educated. The salt springs are at Salina, one mile and a half from Syracuse, where there are eighty manufactories of this material. These salt springs flow from beds of slate, in some places two hundred feet thick. Among the layers are masses of vermicular rock, whose interstices are supposed once to have been filled with salt. In this region of country are extensive gypsum beds; water lime is also found in profusion. Sandstone, generally old red, and lime-stones, are the prevailing formations of the county.
It was a beautiful evening when we left Syracuse. The sky, every where of a clear deep blue, paled gradually as it approached the west, where it was lost in a rich golden glow. The spires of the town behind us, reflected this brilliant hue, and the country as we passed, looked like one of Turner’s one colored pictures. Onondaga lake with the pretty village reposing upon its shore, and the rich fields around it, were all touched with this golden pencil. The fields were strewn with salt vats, where the salt was undergoing evaporation, which were covered with low sheds, probably taken off in the morning, as it was now late Saturday afternoon, and this might have been to protect them from the weather. It was quite dark when we reached Auburn. We left the cars at the railroad depot, and were provided with carriages to the American Hotel. Here, large commodious bed rooms, and luxurious mattresses, received your weary friends. I lingered a while to write you the events of the day, but must now hasten to bid you—adieu.
Sunday, June 22d.—This morning we visited the first presbyterian church, a large handsome edifice of brick. The pulpit was neat, and the seats and backs of the pews comfortably lined with horse hair. From Mr. Lathrop, the clergyman, we heard a very good discourse. The baptist and several other churches struck us as very neat and tasteful. The episcopal is in the gothic style, the interior lined with oak, and containing a handsome monument of Bishop Hobart, who died in this place. The hotels are showy handsome buildings, particularly the Auburn House, and the American, where we have taken up our quarters. This last is built of grey limestone from that neighborhood, and is surrounded by two rows of piazzas supported by handsome pillars. Opposite to it is the court house, quite a little palace in appearance. It is in the Parthenon form with a portico and high pillars, with the questionable addition of a large dome. From the cupola of an hotel, we obtained a charming view of this beautiful town and its environs. ‘A palace and a prison on each hand,’ I exclaimed as I glanced around, for behind was the grand court house, and in front arose the gloomy walls and towers of our famous State Prison. We saw from here the Theological Seminary, several handsome churches, hotels, elegant private dwellings, and streets of shops; while the outside of the circle presented a charming and varied range of fields, and hills, and groves and streams. It seemed indeed the loveliest village of the plain around, and I expressed my surprise at seeing so large and well built a town ‘so far off.’ My companion told me it was too near the commencement of our journey to be astonished yet, I had Rochester, and Buffalo, and Cincinnati to see. This town has a population of nearly 7,000, I do not know exactly, but refer you to the Gazetteers. Those of our friends whom we visited gave the place a fine character for good society, and told us they enjoyed all the conveniences and elegances of life, with good pastors and good books. In twenty-four hours any thing can reach them from New York. The prison presents an imposing appearance. It is built of dark stone with gothic ornaments, and consist of first, a high wall enclosing a large square, in the centre of which, rises a massive pile of building surmounted by a cupola. This building is arranged on three sides of a square, the centre 276, the other 242 feet long. In this are the eating rooms, hospital, chapel, and cells. The work shops are erected against the wall leaving a space for the keeper to walk around and gaze upon them through holes for the purpose, himself unseen. It is a dismal life these poor creatures lead, not only encarcerated from the world, but confined alone, and forbidden even to speak to a fellow prisoner when they meet at table or in the shops. They pass the life of La Trappe monks, except that it is against their will. At table they sit in rows with their faces one way, so that they cannot even see each other. However, this solitary and silent existence is said to be the best and most successful method of restraining and reforming the unhappy convict. In solitude they have time for reflection, and silence prevents corruption from their fellow criminals. They have religious instruction, which has converted several. I cannot but think it a very efficient arrangement. The guilty man is stopped in his mad career, and solitude, silence, and time for reflection, and religious counsel, are blessings placed in his path. In the mean while his bodily wants are attended to, he is supplied with nutritious food, well ventillated rooms, with nurses and physicians. He is obliged to work, and the fruits of his labor go to defray the prison expenses. We saw carriages, shoes, cabinet-ware, and various other articles made by them, offered for sale in the shops of the village.[1]
LETTER IV.
June 23d, 1840.
Dear E.—At ten o’clock, we entered the stage coach for Rochester, 70 miles distant. Among our passengers were two whom we had found extremely interesting, while journeying from Utica here—a clergyman of Massachusetts and his daughter. The Rev. N. T——r, was about seventy, but extremely active, and very cheerful. His conversation was instructive and agreeable and of course in a pious vein, for he had occupied the pulpit 47 years, as had his ancestors for 230 years back. There was such simplicity of heart about him, such piety, and kindness of manner, joined with elevated thought and deep learning that we lent a charmed ear to his discourse, during the whole day.
Our route lay through an exquisitely beautiful country, covered with cultivated farms and varied with pretty lakes and towns. The first lake we saw was Cayuga lake. It is from one to four miles broad, and thirty-eight long. It is a bright sheet of water, lying in a deep valley and from its surface its shores gently rise, covered with a fine farming country. We crossed the end of the lake over a bridge more than a mile long. So pure was the water that as we looked down upon it, we plainly beheld the trout swiming beneath.
Leaving the lake we passed through the pretty villages of Waterloo and Seneca Falls. Here the dark green Seneca river rushes foaming over a bed of rock, in a fall of forty seven feet. There are several mills and manufactories upon its borders, and we observed several churches, an academy, and many shops. Seneca! fair Seneca Lake, how can I describe the gentle beauties of thy varied shores, and of that pretty town which so adorns thy banks. This lake and its surrounding country, present a very lovely scene. There is nothing grand about the lakelet; you must not imagine it enclosed in the moutains of lakes George or Champlain; the style is petite and delicate. Its Indian name was Jensequa, which has been modernised into its present appellation. It is a placid, transparent sheet of water, of very great depth, 4 miles by 35 long, and is said never to be frozen over in the coldest winter. The road lay around the end of the lake, from whence the eye wound over its fair pellucid waters to its cultivated shores, adorned with handsome farm-houses, and country seats, and the massive buldings of the college which occupies a commanding elevation near the town—and the towers and steeples of the village peeping through the trees, as if to catch a glimpse of the waters below. We stopped at a small stage house in the lower and business end of the town, where we all descended from the stage while the operation of changing horses and stages was going on. A good sized parlor furnished with gay landscape paper received the female part of the passengers, while the restless mankind part, repaired to the shops, to inspect the manufactures of the town, or to refresh themselves at the soda-water, and ice-cream shops. Once more seated in our stage coach we ascended the hill, to the better portion of the town, where we passed through the principal avenue of the place, upon each side of which were arranged those pretty villas and gardens for which Geneva is so justly celebrated. There were several churches in view, and a new presbyterian half built. This, to us, was an interesting object, a token God was not forgotten by the busy people below, or the wealthy ones around us.