Departure from Lexington—Bryan’s station—Wonderful fertility of soil—Paris—Sameness of prospect—Simplicity of election of state representatives—Frank bird—Hasten on—Violent attack of fever at May’s-lick—Washington—Occasional remarks on hospitality—Maysville—Good effects of fortitude and abstinence.
I left Lexington on Tuesday the 4th August, by a different road to that by which I had first entered it, now taking the stage and post road direct to Paris.
The morning was fine, the road good, and the country well settled and improved, but the want of the company of my worthy friend A——, to which I had now been so long accustomed, was felt by me so sensibly as to make the miles appear uncommonly long.
At four miles I passed a celebrated old military post, called Bryan’s station, where the first settlers of the state, repelled a desperate attack of the Indians, who soon after in their turn, ambushed and cut off Col. Todd’s little army at the Blue licks, as before mentioned. This post is now the pleasant seat and fine farm of a Mr. Rogers.[133]
I soon after overtook an Irishman named Gray, who was one of the first settlers. He rode two miles with me, and was intelligent and communicative. He informed me that the usual produce of an acre of this wonderfully luxuriant soil, is from forty to fifty bushels of shelled corn, or from twenty to thirty-seven of wheat clean from the threshing floor. And here I must observe, that I have not seen, nor heard of any of the threshing machines now so common in the British European Isles, in any part of America. As they save so much labour, I am astonished that {176} they have not yet made their way across the Atlantick.—They would be of incalculable utility to the very wealthy farmers of Kentucky.
Crossing the North fork of Elkhorn, and Hewetson’s branch of Licking, both good mill streams, I entered Paris, eighteen miles from Lexington. It is situated on Stoner’s fork of Licking, and contains eighty-seven dwelling houses mostly good ones, several of them of brick, and six or seven building.
It is compact, in three small parallel streets, with a square in the centre, on which is a stone meeting house, a neat brick court-house, a small but strong gaol, and a market house. It is the seat of justice of Bourbon county, and has much appearance of prosperity. From the cupola of the court-house, there is an extensive view of a very rich country as far as the eye can reach in every direction, but though it is a country of hills and dales, there is too great a sameness to please the eye.
Perhaps there is not on the earth a naturally richer country than the area of sixteen hundred square miles of which Lexington is the centre, yet there is a something wanting to please the eye of taste—a variety, like the fertile plains of the Milanese, contrasted with the neighbouring Alpine scenery, and studded with the noble lakes, and streaked with the meandering rivers of that delightful region, which has given such inimitable taste and execution to the pencils of so many eminent painters.
It was the day of election for representatives in the legislature of the state. The voting was very simple. The county clerk sat within the bar of the court-house, and the freeholders as they arrived, gave him their names and the names of those they voted for, which he registered in a book.—That done, the voter remounted his horse and returned to his farm.
The hostler at Buchanan’s inn, where I stopped to breakfast, is a free negro man named Frank Bird. {177} He was formerly owned by the great and good Washington, whom he accompanied and served in all his campaigns. He had learned farriery, cooking and hairdressing in England in his youth, so that he must have been a useful servant. He was liberated and got some land near Mount Vernon, by the general’s will, and now at the age of fifty-seven, he is hostler here, and enjoys such health and strength, that a few days ago he carried eight bushels of salt, exceeding four hundred pounds weight. The old man repaid my complaisance in listening to him, by recounting as much of his own memoirs as my time would permit me to hear.