I did stay by him for four days and nights; but his doom was sealed. His mind continued in a state of wild delirium till a few minutes before his death. I stood gazing at his face, when a sudden change came over him: the agitated and disturbed look of insanity had passed—a quiet pallor had come over his countenance, leaving it calm and peaceful. He opened his eyes, and, as if waking from sleep, looked on me with an aspect of recognition. His lips moved, and he pronounced the name of his wife: she came, with all the feelings of youth and love—ay, and of hope, too, in her heart. She bent over him: he raised his feeble and emaciated arms and clasped her to his heart: he gave her one kiss, and passed to another life!
The summer of 1816 was probably the coldest that has been known in this century. In New England—from Connecticut to Maine—there were severe frosts in every month. The crop of Indian corn was almost entirely cut off: of potatoes, hay, oats, &c., there was not, probably, more than half the usual supply. The means of averting the effects of such a calamity—now afforded by railroads, steam navigation, canals, and other facilities of intercommunication—did not then exist. The following winter was severe, and the ensuing spring backward. At this time I made a journey into New Hampshire, passing along the Connecticut river, in the region of Hanover. It was then June, and the hills were almost as barren as in November. I saw a man at Orford who had been forty miles for a half-bushel of Indian corn, and paid two dollars for it!
Along the seaboard it was not difficult to obtain a supply of food, although every article was dear. In the interior it was otherwise: the cattle died for want of fodder, and many of the inhabitants nearly perished from starvation. The desolating effects of the war still lingered over the country, and at last a kind of despair seized upon some of the people. In the pressure of adversity many persons lost their judgment, and thousands feared or felt that New England was destined, henceforth, to become a part of the frigid zone. At the same time, Ohio—with its rich soil, its mild climate, its inviting prairies—was opened fully upon the alarmed and anxious vision. As was natural under the circumstances, a sort of stampede took place from cold, desolate, worn-out New England, to this land of promise.
I remember very well the tide of emigration through Connecticut on its way to the West, during the summer of 1817. Some persons went in covered wagons—frequently a family consisting of father, mother, and nine small children, with one at the breast—some on foot, and some crowded together under the cover, with kettle, gridirons, feather-beds, crockery, and the family Bible, Watts's Psalms and Hymns, and Webster's Spelling book—the lares and penates of the household. Others started in ox-carts, and trudged on at the rate of ten miles a-day. In several instances I saw families on foot—the father and boys taking turns in dragging along an improvised hand-wagon, loaded with the wreck of the household goods—occasionally giving the mother and baby a ride. Many of these persons were in a state of poverty, and begged their way as they went. Some died before they reached the expected Canaan; many perished after their arrival, from fatigue and privation; and others from the fever and ague, which was then certain to attack the new settlers.
It was, I think, in 1818, that I published a small tract, entitled, "T'other Side of Ohio," that is, the other view, in contrast to the popular notion that it was the paradise of the world. It was written by Dr. Hand, a talented young physician of Berlin, who had made a visit to the West about this time. It consisted mainly of vivid but painful pictures of the accidents and incidents attending this wholesale migration. The roads over the Alleghanies, between Philadelphia and Pittsburg, were then rude, steep, and dangerous, and some of the more precipitous slopes were consequently strewn with the carcases of wagons, carts, horses, oxen, which had made ship-wreck in their perilous descents. The scenes on the road—of families gathered at night in miserable sheds, called taverns—mothers frying, children crying, fathers swearing, were a mingled comedy and tragedy of errors. Even when they arrived at their new homes, along the banks of the Muskingum, or the Scioto, frequently the whole family—father, mother, children—speedily exchanged the fresh complexion and elastic step of their first abodes, for the sunken cheek and languid movement, which mark the victim of intermittent fever.
The instances of homesickness, described by this vivid sketcher, were touching. Not even the captive Israelites, who hung their harps upon the willows along the banks of the Euphrates, wept more bitter tears, or looked back with more longing to their native homes, than did these exiles from New England; mourning the land they had left, with its roads, schools, meeting-houses; its hope, health, and happiness! Two instances, related by the traveller, I must mention. He was one day riding in the woods, apart from the settlements, when he met a youth some eighteen years of age, in a hunting-frock, and with a fowling-piece in his hand. The two fell into conversation.
"Where are you from?" said the youth, at last.
"From Connecticut," was the reply.
"That is near the old Bay State?"
"Yes."