On 8th January 1807, I left Philadelphia on foot, accompanying a wagon which carried my baggage. I preferred this mode of travelling for several reasons. Not being pressed for time I wished to see as much of the country as possible; the roads were in fine order, and I had no incentive to make me desirous of reaching any point of my intended journey before my baggage. With respect to expence, there was little difference in my travelling in this manner, or on horseback, or in the stage, had I been unincumbered with baggage; for the delay on the road, awaiting the slow pace of a loaded wagon, which is not quite three miles an hour, and not exceeding twenty-six miles on a winter’s day, will occasion as great expence to a traveller in a distance exceeding two such days’ journey, as the same distance performed otherwise in less than half the time, including the charge of horse or stage hire.
The first object which struck me on the road, was the new bridge over the Schuylkill which does honour to its inventor for its originality of architecture, and its excellence of mechanism. There are two piers, the westernmost of which is a work perhaps unexampled in hydraulick architecture, from the depth to which it is sunk; the rock on which it stands being forty-one feet nine inches below common {10} high tides. Both piers were built within cofferdams: the design for the western was furnished by William Weston, esq. of Gainsborough in England, a celebrated hydraulick engineer. Eight hundred thousand feet of timber, board measure, were employed in and about it. Mr. Samuel Robinson of Philadelphia, executed the work of the piers under the directions of a president and five directors, who also superintended the mason work done by Mr. Thomas Vickers, on an uncommon plan, which has answered the intention perfectly well. The walls of the abutments and wings are perpendicular without buttresses, and supported by interior offsets. The eastern abutment is founded on a rock, the western on piles. There are near eight thousand tons of masonry in the western pier, many of the stones in it, as well as in the eastern, weighing from three to twelve tons. Several massive chains are worked in with the masonry, stretched across the piers in various positions; and the exterior is clamped and finished in the most substantial manner.
The frame of the superstructure was designed and erected by Mr. Timothy Palmer of Newburyport in Massachusetts, combining in its principles, that of ring posts and braces with a stone arch. The platform for travelling rises only eight feet from a horizontal line. The foot ways are five feet in width, elevated above the carriage ways, and neatly protected by posts and chains.
The whole of the bridge is covered by a roof, and the sides closed in, to preserve the timber from the decay occasioned by exposure to the weather. The side covering is done in imitation of masonry by sprinkling it with stone dust, while the painting was fresh: this is a novel mode of ornamenting and protecting the surfaces of wooden work exposed to weather, which from its goodness and cheapness will probably be brought into general use. The work of the {11} roof and covering was done by Mr. Owen Biddle, house carpenter in Philadelphia.
The bridge was six years in building, was finished in 1805, and cost in work and materials two hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars. The scite was purchased from the corporation of Philadelphia for forty thousand dollars.
This is the only covered wooden bridge we know of, excepting one over the Limmat in Switzerland, built by the same carpenter who erected the so much celebrated bridge of Schauffhausen, since destroyed, the model of which I have seen, and I think this of Schuylkill deserves the preference both for simplicity and strength. It is 550 feet long, and the abutments and wing walls are 750, making in all 1300 feet; the span of the middle arch is 195 feet, and that of the other two 150 each; it is 42 feet wide; the carriage way is 31 feet above the surface of the river, and the lower part of the roof is 13 feet above the carriage way; the depth of the water to the rock at the western pier is 42 feet, and at the eastern 21 feet.—The amount of the toll, which is very reasonable, was 14,600 dollars the first year after it was finished, which must increase very much in a country so rapidly improving. The proprietors are a company who have built commodious wharves on each side of the river, both for protection to the abutments of the bridge, and for the use of the city.[1]
{12} The Schuylkill is a fine river nearly two hundred yards broad at the bridge. It rises in the Cushetunk mountains about a hundred and twenty miles to the N. W. of Philadelphia. It is navigable for flat boats from the populous town of Reading about fifty miles above Philadelphia, but its navigation is impeded by falls about eight miles above the city, and by others about five miles above it, to which latter ones the tide flows, from its conflux with the Delaware four miles below Philadelphia. It supplies the city with water, pumped by steam[2] from a reservoir, with which {13} the river communicates by a canal near the bridge, into a cistern, from whence it is conveyed by pipes through the streets and to the houses, plugs being fixed at convenient distances for supplying the fire engines, for which there are too frequent use, from the quantity of timber still used in building, and from the fuel, which is chiefly wood.
The banks of the Schuylkill being hilly, afford charming situations for country houses, in which the wealthy citizens of Philadelphia find a secure retreat from the unhealthy air of the town during the heats of summer. A good house, a spacious green house, fine gardens and a demesne formerly owned by the late Robert Morris, esq.[3] are a fine termination to the view up the river from the bridge.
There is a turnpike road of sixty-six miles from Philadelphia to Lancaster, which my wagonner left at Downingstown about half way, keeping to the right along a new road, which is also intended for a turnpike road to Harrisburgh, and which passes through New Holland, where he had some goods to deliver. Downingstown is a village of about fifty middling houses.[4] The east branch of Brandywine creek crosses the road here, as the west branch does about eight miles further.—These two branches unite twelve or fourteen miles below, and fall into the Delaware near Wilmington, about twenty miles below their junction. The Brandywine is noted for a battle fought on its banks near its confluence with the Delaware, between the British army under Sir William Howe and the American under General Washington, who endeavoured to oppose the progress of the enemy to Philadelphia, from the head of Chesapeak bay where they had landed. The conflict was obstinate, but the British being in great force, the Americans {14} were obliged to retreat, after heavy loss on both sides.
The Brandywine runs through a rich and well settled country, and abounds with mills, where a vast quantity of flour is manufactured for exportation.—Pequea creek which falls into the Susquehannah, crosses the road about four miles from the west branch of Brandywine. Five miles further accompanying my wagonner, I turned to the left from the Harrisburgh turnpike road, and in six miles more came to New Holland, which is a long straggling town of one hundred and fifty houses in one street, from whence it is seven miles to Conestoga creek. From the hill just above, I was struck with the romantick situation of a fine bridge over the creek below, more particularly as I came upon it unexpectedly. The creek is about eighty yards wide, tumbling its rapid current, over an irregular rocky bottom and disappearing round the foot of a wooded hill, almost as soon as seen. The man who built the bridge lives on the opposite side. The toll not answering his expectations, he would have been a great sufferer, had not the state taken it off his hands and reimbursed his expences; since when, the toll has been taken off.—It is five miles from this bridge to Lancaster.