We got back to Lexington on Monday, 3d August, in time for breakfast, which I partook of at the publick table of the Traveller’s Inn, merely for curiosity, but notwithstanding the apparent elegance of the house, my other landlord’s (Wilson) suffered nothing in the comparison.
I whiled away the day in expectation of the post, which was to decide whether or not I should have the pleasure of my friend A——’s company on my return to Pittsburgh, but owing to some unaccountable irregularity, which is a cause of general complaint in this country against the post-office department, it did not arrive until ten at night, although it was due at eleven in the morning. Another very just cause of complaint against the same department is the slowness with which the mail is conveyed. A trifling improvement and a very small additional expence, would forward the mails through the whole western country, where the roads are comparatively good, and the climate very fine, at the rate of fifty or sixty miles a day, except during floods in the winter, where, for want of bridges, the roads are sometimes impassable in particular spots for a few days, whereas, now, in the best season, the average progress of the mails, does not exceed thirty miles daily.
Mr. A—— having an engagement, the day would have passed very heavily, had it not been for the coffee house, where I amused myself with the wonderful mass of political contradiction to be found in forty different newspapers, where scarcely any two editors coincided in opinion.
FOOTNOTES:
[128] Leestown, laid out by Hancock Lee in 1775, was one of the earliest settlements in Kentucky. Because of its location on the Kentucky River, it seemed destined to become a town of importance. In Cuming’s time, however, it had dwindled to a mere hamlet, and has since long ceased to exist.—Ed.
[129] For a sketch of the history of Frankfort, see F. A. Michaux’s Travels, vol. iii of this series, p. 200, note 39. Daniel Weiseger was a prominent Frankfort citizen, who assisted in laying out the town and was one of the commissioners chosen for the erection of the second Kentucky state-house, 1814.—Ed.
[130] This was the first permanent Kentucky state-house, built in 1794, and destroyed by fire in 1813. For a cut, see Collins, History of Kentucky (Covington, 1874), ii, p. 246.—Ed.
[131] William Hunter was a native of New Jersey, who had been captured at an early age by a French man-of-war, and carried to France, where he learned the trade of printing. In 1793 he returned to America, and formed a partnership with Matthew Carey at Philadelphia. Two years later, he removed west, and after attempting newspapers in several towns finally established The Palladium at Frankfort in 1798, where he was also State printer. Later in life he removed to Washington, where he died in 1854.—Ed.
[132] Christopher Greenup, third governor of Kentucky, was Virginia born (1750), and served in the Revolution, attaining the rank of colonel. In 1783, he migrated to Kentucky, and having already studied law was, two years later, chosen as clerk of the chief court for Kentucky District. His first service for the State was in Congress, 1792-97. After his gubernatorial experience (1804-08), he retired to his home near Maysville, where he died in 1818.—Ed.