CHAPTER VIII
DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY ABOUT NEW HARMONY IN INDIANA, AND WINTER RESIDENCE THERE FROM OCTOBER 19TH, 1832, TO MARCH 16TH, 1833
New Harmony on the Wabash—The Environs—Forests—Animals—Geological Formation—Climate—Aborigines—Remains of the former Population—The present Indians—The White Usurpers—Cultivation of the Country—Productions—Breed of Cattle—Buffaloes—The Naturalists at Harmony—Excursions—Fox River—Black River—Long Pond—The present sanitary State of the Country.
New Harmony was founded by Mr. Rapp, and his Swabian followers, in a wooded plain on the left or east bank of the Wabash, about fifteen or twenty miles distant from any other place. As Duke Bernhard of Saxe Weimar has already spoken on this subject, I need not give any further account of the history of this settlement; I will only add that Mr. Owen, a Scotchman, bought the whole of Mr. Rapp, but afterwards disposed of it to Mr. William Maclure, President of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.[83] At the time of our visit, Harmony had fallen into decay, and the people whom Mr. Maclure had settled there, were in part dispersed. Two sons of Mr. Owen were, however, still here, and also Mr. Thomas Say, and Mr. Lesueur; the first, well known as having accompanied Major Long in his two journeys into the interior, and the second, by his voyage round the world with Captain Baudin, and the celebrated Piron. Though Mr. Maclure did not appear to take any active part in the management of Harmony, because the climate did not agree with him, and he therefore resided in Mexico, he took care to furnish Mr. Say with a fine library of books on Natural History, which was constantly enriched with the most valuable new works published in Europe. He likewise had here a printing press, a copper-plate press, and an engraver. Mr. Maclure had purchased in France all the plates of Audebert and Vieillot's splendid ornithological works, which are preserved in the library.[84] Mr. Say has undertaken the superintendence of Mr. Maclure's property on the Wabash, but lives in a very retired manner, devoted to the study of natural history, and to literary pursuits.
75 Harmony is now a large village, with about 600 inhabitants; the buildings, which are partly of brick, are detached from each other; the streets are at right angles, broad, and unpaved. The church built by Mr. Rapp has been transformed into an amateur theatre. The situation of Harmony is by no means unpleasant. The Wabash, a fine river, as broad as the Moselle, winds between banks which are now cultivated, but were lately covered with thick forests. A hilly tract, covered with woods, bounds the valley of the Wabash, which is frequently overflowed by the river, and thereby gains in fertility. The place itself lies rather higher than the valley, surrounded by orchards, and is not exposed to inundations. The Wabash divides at Harmony into two arms, the eastern of which is called Cutoff River,[85] and further down into several branches, forming many wooded islands, the largest of which are inhabited.
New Harmony,[86] is surrounded on all sides by fields, which are from 600 to 800 paces in diameter; all around are lofty forests, where settlers have everywhere cultivated detached patches. These people are generally called backwoodsmen, who live like half savages, without any education or religious instruction. The forests which they inhabit are very extensive, and the soil extremely fertile: vegetation is much more luxuriant than to the east of the Alleghanys; and, therefore, a short description of the natural productions of the country will not be out of place here.
Some remarkable peculiarities strike the observer when he looks at the forests on the Wabash; one of these is the want of evergreens, if we except the Viscum flavescens, Pursh, Bignonia cruciata, Equisetum hyemale, and Miegia macrosperma. The leaves of that bignonia, for the most part, remain green in the winter, as well as those of the miegia, and the stalks of the Equisetum hyemale, at least, in mild winters, which often grow to the height of eight or ten feet in the dry forests. The planes often attain an enormous size, and are then generally hollow, and divided into several colossal branches. We measured several of these trees, and found one that was forty one feet five inches in circumference. The hollow inside was twelve feet in diameter, so that in our winter excursions we used to light a fire in it, where we sheltered from the wind. Tall tulip trees shoot up straight as masts, blossom, and bear seeds at their summits, unseen by human eye. Maples of great height and circumference, many species of oak, especially the mossy overcap oak (Q. macrocarpa), with its large acorns, which, at this time, lay on the ground, stand crowded together. A great many species of trees are mixed together; among them the Gymnocladus Canadensis, or Guilandina Bonduc, with its broad pods, the divers kinds of walnut trees, the Gleditschia tricanthos, with its formidable thorns; and many climbing plants twine round the trunks, and among them, the most beautiful of all, the Bignonia radicans.
In the forests of Indiana the ground is covered with a thick undergrowth, fifteen, twenty, or thirty feet high, consisting chiefly of the papaw tree, the spinewood (Laurus Benzoin), and the red bud; the flowers of the two latter precede the leaf. Under these lower trees, shrubs cover 76 the ground. No pine, rhododendron, kalmia, azalea, magnolia, nor even the chestnut tree, are found in these forests; but they seem to be especially the native country of the beautiful catalpa tree, of which it was not known in what part of America it properly grew wild, and which here attains a considerable height and size.
These lofty forests re-echo with the hammering of the numerous woodpeckers; and, during the winter, the scarlet cardinal (Fring. cardinalis) shines in the distance; and the titmouse (Parus. bicolor, and Atricapillus), and the nuthatch (Sitta Carolinensis), everywhere seek for insects and nuts.
The inhabitants of these forests would never be in want of an ample supply of wood for fuel and for timber, if they had been at all careful. The black walnut and cherry tree wood are the best for cabinet work; and for fuel, the hickory, which affords more heat than beech wood. The price of wood, at Harmony, was one dollar for a cord; but the price is already rising, because the forest in the neighbourhood of the village is gradually cleared, and the carriage is more expensive.