My road now led through a thick wood, much impeded by copse and briers, and it being a dead flat, the whole of it was a complete slough, in some places deep enough to mire my horse to the saddle skirts for several hundred yards together, so that I made slow progress, for the first six miles, in an easterly {309} direction, which had been the course of the road from doctor Flowers’s.
I met a man on foot, of a very suspicious appearance, labouring through the mire. He was a stout active fellow, very ragged, and his face disfigured by a large scar across his mouth. I passed him however peaceably, and soon after leaving a Mr. Carter’s plantation on the right, I entered the most beautiful plain I had seen in this country. It was a savanna or prairie, about six miles long, and from half a mile to a mile wide, skirted by woods, and a few plantations, and abounding with clumps of oak, ash, mulberry, poplar and other indigenous trees, affording between them beautiful vistas of various character, while large herds of cattle and horses appeared here and there, to enliven the scene, which had additional interest from two men galloping after and noosing some wild horses.
I stopped and dined at the house of Richard Dewal, esq. on the plain. Mr. Dewal is an Englishman, and alcalde of the quarter. He was absent, but Mrs. Dewal received me with politeness and hospitality.
Leaving the plain, the road soon became as bad as possible, to be capable of being travelled. Three and a half miles of it brought me to Droghen’s plantation in a wretched solitude, from whence I had five miles farther of equally bad road, without an inhabitant to Fridges, a Scotchman. In the next three miles I passed three plantations, and then came to the bank of the Mississippi at Mrs. O’Brien’s very pleasantly situated farm, from whence is a view down the river past Montesano to Baton Rouge.
A mile farther, parallel to the river bank, brought me to Montesano. This has been lately laid out for a town by Mr. Wm. Herreis from London, who is the proprietor, but I do not think he will succeed in his plan, as the country around is not sufficiently inhabited to support a town, and besides it is too near {310} to Baton Rouge, the seat of government, of the western division of West Florida. There is some prospect of his succeeding better in a saw and grist mill he is erecting, which is to be wrought by steam. It is on a large scale, and a vast deal of money has already been laid out on it (I have been informed, upwards of thirty thousand dollars) yet it does not seem to be in great forwardness.[215]
It is called only four miles from hence to Baton Rouge, but the badness of the road made me think it eight, perhaps six may be the true distance. I passed some small neglected French plantations on the left on the summit of a range of low hills, which extend from Montesano, while on the right I had a swamp, out of which the cypress has been cut, between me and the river, the road being very bad, through a natural savanna of coarse grass, intersected by deep ravines, and miry sloughs.
FOOTNOTES:
[213] Andrew Ellicott was an American engineer of note. Born in Pennsylvania (1754) of Quaker ancestry, he passed his early life in Maryland, devoting himself especially to mathematical studies. In Baltimore and Philadelphia he became a friend of Washington and Franklin; and at their suggestion was employed to define the boundary between Virginia and Pennsylvania, and later that between New York and Pennsylvania. In 1792, he was appointed surveyor-general of the United States. He also assisted in laying out the national capital. While acting as commissioner for adjusting the southern boundary of the United States with Spain, according to the treaty of 1795, Ellicott encountered serious diplomatic difficulties, and alienated a party of the English inhabitants of the Natchez district. Claiborne’s animadversions, however, in his Mississippi, seem hardly borne out by the facts. In 1808, Ellicott was appointed secretary of the Pennsylvania land-office; and four years later, professor of mathematics at West Point, where he died in 1820. His journal during his employment in the Southwest, is valuable as a record of conditions in that region.
Stephen Minor was a Pennsylvanian by birth, educated at Princeton, and early came west to explore the new country. At St. Louis he was persuaded to convey some dispatches to the governor-general of Louisiana at New Orleans, who, fancying the frank but politic young American, offered him a position in the Spanish army. Minor served the Spaniards with address and fidelity. Taking no advantage of his position, he remained loyal to Spain, at the same time becoming popular with the English-speaking inhabitants of the Natchez district, where he was stationed. He was finally promoted to the governorship of Natchez, which he retained until its surrender to the United States (1798), when he became an American citizen, and died at Concord, Mississippi.—Ed.
[214] The province of West Florida was settled during the British occupation (1764-83), and its population was of the same character as that of Mississippi, to the north of it—chiefly American colonists with an admixture of English, Irish, and Scotch emigrants. Feliciana was not erected into a Louisiana parish until 1811, but under the Spanish régime was made a district subordinate to the Baton Rouge province. In 1810 the inhabitants threw off the yoke of Spain, and declared themselves annexed to Louisiana.