The cultivated lands in this country are mostly parcelled out in small portions; there are no persons here, as on the other side of the mountains, possessing large farms; nor are there any eminently distinguished by their education or knowledge from the rest of their fellow citizens. Poverty also is as much unknown in this country as great wealth. Each man owns the house he lives in and the land which he cultivates, and every one appears to be in a happy state of mediocrity, and unambitious of a more elevated situation than what he himself enjoys.
The free inhabitants consist for the most part of Germans, who here maintain the same character as in Pennsylvania and the other states where they have settled. About one sixth of the people, on an average, are slaves, but in some of the counties the proportion is much less; in Rockbridge the slaves do not amount to more than an eleventh, and in Shenandoah County not to more than a twentieth part of the whole.
Between Fincastle and the Patowmac there are several towns, as Lexington, Staunton, Newmarket, Woodstock, Winchester, Strasburgh, and some others. These towns all stand on the great road, running north and south behind the Blue Mountains, and which is the high road from the northern states to Kentucky.
LEXINGTON.
As I passed along it, I met with great numbers of people from Kentucky and the new state of Tennessee going towards Philadelphia and Baltimore, and with many others going in a contrary direction, “to explore,” as they call it, that is, to search for lands conveniently situated for new settlements in the western country. These people all travel on horseback, with pistols or swords, and a large blanket folded up under their saddle, which last they use for sleeping in when obliged to pass the night in the woods. There is but little occasion for arms now that peace has been made with the Indians; but formerly it used to be a very serious undertaking to go by this route to Kentucky, and travellers were always obliged to go forty or fifty in a party, and well prepared for defence. It would be still dangerous for any person to venture singly; but if five or six travel together, they are perfectly secure. There are houses now scattered along nearly the whole way from Fincastle to Lexington in Kentucky, so that it is not necessary to sleep more than two or three nights in the woods in going there. Of all the uncouth human beings I met with in America, these people from the western country were the most so; their curiosity was boundless. Frequently have I been stopped abruptly by one of them in a solitary part of the road, and in such a manner, that had it been in another country, I should have imagined it was a highwayman that was going to demand my purse, and without any further preface, asked where I came from? if I was acquainted with any news? where bound to? and finally, my name?—“Stop, Mister! why I guess now you be coming from the new state.” “No, Sir,”—“Why then I guess as how you be coming from Kentuc[[25]].” “No, Sir.”—“Oh! why then, pray now where might you be coming from?” “From the low country.”—“Why you must have heard all the news then; pray now, Mister, what might the price of bacon be in those parts?” “Upon my word, my friend, I can’t inform you.”—“Aye, aye; I see, Mister, you be’n’t one of us; pray now, Mister, what might your name be?”—A stranger going the same way is sure of having the company of these worthy people, so desirous of information, as far as the next tavern, where he is seldom suffered to remain for five minutes, till he is again assailed by a fresh set with the same questions.
[25]. Kentucky.
The first town you come to, going northward from Bottetourt County, is Lexington, a neat little place, that did contain about one hundred houses, a court-house, and gaol; but the greater part of it was destroyed by fire just before I got there. Great numbers of Irish are settled in this place. Thirty miles farther on stands Staunton. This town carries on a considerable trade with the back country, and contains nearly two hundred dwellings, mostly built of stone, together with a church. This was the first place on the entire road from Lynchburgh, one hundred and fifty miles distant, and which I was about ten days in travelling, where I was not able to get a bit of fresh meat, excepting indeed on passing the Blue Mountains, where they brought me some venison that had been just killed. I went on fifty miles further, from Staunton, before I got any again. Salted pork, boiled with turnip tops by way of greens, or fried bacon, or fried salted fish, with warm sallad, dressed with vinegar and the melted fat which remains in the frying-pan after dressing the bacon, is the only food to be got at most of the taverns in this country; in spring it is the constant food of the people in the country; and indeed, throughout the whole year, I am told, salted meat is what they most generally use.
In every part of America a European is surprised at finding so many men with military titles, and still more so at seeing such numbers of them employed in capacities apparently so inconsistent with their rank; for it is nothing uncommon to see a captain in the shape of a waggoner, a colonel the driver of a stage coach, or a general dealing out penny ribbon behind his counter; but no where, I believe, is there such a superfluity of these military personages as in the little town of Staunton; there is hardly a decent person in it, excepting lawyers and medical men, but what is a colonel, a major, or a captain. This is to be accounted for as follows: in America, every freeman from the age of sixteen to fifty years, whose occupation does not absolutely forbid it, must enrol himself in the militia. In Virginia alone, the militia amounts to about sixty-two thousand men, and it is divided into four divisions and seventeen brigades, to each of which there is a general and other officers. Were there no officers therefore, excepting those actually belonging to the militia, the number must be very great; but independent of the militia, there are also volunteer corps in most of the towns, which have likewise their respective officers. In Staunton there are two of these corps, one of cavalry, the other of artillery. These are formed chiefly of men who find a certain degree of amusement in exercising as soldiers, and who are also induced to associate, by the vanity of appearing in regimentals. The militia is not assembled oftener than once in two or three months, and as it rests with every individual to provide himself with arms and accoutrements, and no stress being laid upon coming in uniform, the appearance of the men is not very military. Numbers also of the officers of these volunteer corps, and of the militia, are resigning every day; and if a man has been a captain or a colonel but one day either in the one body or the other, it seems to be an established rule that he is to have nominal rank the rest of his life. Added to all, there are several officers of the old continental army neither in the militia nor in the volunteer corps.
Winchester stands one hundred miles to the northward of Staunton, and is the largest town in the United States on the western side of the Blue Mountains. The houses are estimated at three hundred and fifty, and the inhabitants at two thousand. There are four churches in this town, which, as well as the houses, are plainly built. The streets are regular, but very narrow. There is nothing particularly deserving of attention in this place, nor indeed in any of the other small towns which have been mentioned, none of them containing more than seventy houses each.