Journeying West Before 1840

From William Priest's Travels in the United States of America, 1802, pgs 34-43:


Philadelphia, March 12th, 1794

Dear Friend,

The price of labour in the country is very great, owing to the prospect an industrious man has of procuring an independence by cultivating a tract of the waste lands; many millions of acres of which are now on sale by government; to say nothing of those held by individuals. The money arising from the sale of the former is appropriated to the discharge of the national debt.

During my residence in Jersy, I was at no little pains to inform myself of the difficulties attending a back settler. We will suppose a person making such an attempt to possess one hundred pounds, though many have been successful with a much less sum; his first care is to purchase about three hundred acres of land, which, if it is in a remote western settlement, he will procure for about nineteen pounds sterling: he may know the quality of the land by three trees, with which it is entirely covered. The hickory and the walnut are an infallible sign of a rich, and every species of fir, of a barren, sandy, and unprofitable soil. When his land is properly registered, his next care is to provide himself with a horse, a plough, and other implements of agriculture; a rifle, a fowling piece, some ammunition, and a large dog of the blood-hound breed, to hunt deer. We will suppose him arrived at the place of his destination in spring, as soon as the ground is clear of frost. No sooner is the arrival of a new settler circulated, than, for many miles round, his neighbours flock to him: they all assist in erecting his hut; this is done with logs; a bricklayer is only wanting to make his chimney and oven. He then clears a few acres by cutting down the large timber for railing fences, and sets fire to the rest upon the spot; ploughs round the stumps of the large timber and in May plants maize, or Indian corn. In October he has a harvest of eight hundred or a thousand fold. This is every thing to him and his family. Indian corn, ground and made into cakes, answers the end of bread, and when boiled with meat, and a small proprtion of a sort of kidney-bean (which it is usual to sow with this grain), it makes an excellent dish, which they call hominy. They also coarsely pound the Indian corn, and boil it for five hours; this is by the Indians called mush; and, when a proportion of milk is added, forms their breakfast. Indian corn is also the best food for horses employed in agriculture in this climate: black cattle, deer, and hogs are very fond of it, and fatten better than on any other grain. It is also excellent food for turkies, and other poultry.

When this harvest is in, he provides himself with a cow, and a few sheep and hogs; the latter run wild in the woods. But for a few years he depends chiefly on his rifle, and faithful dog; with these he provides his family with deer, bear, racoon, &c.; but what he values most are the black, and gray squirrels; these animals are large and numerous, are excellent roasted, and make a soup exceedingly rich and nourishing.

He gradually clears his land, a few acres every year, and begins to plant weat, tobacco, &c. These, together with what hogs, and other increase of his stock he can spare, as also the skins of deer, bear, and other animals he shoots in the woods, he exchanges with the nearest storekeeper, for clothing, sugar, coffee, &c.

In this state he suffers much for want of the comforts and even necessaries of life. Suppose him afflicted with a flux or fever, attacked by a panther, bitten by a rattlesnake, or any other of the dreadful circumstances peculiar to his situation: But, above all, suppose a war to break out between the Indians, and him and his whole family scalped, and their plantations burnt!

The following extract form an American work very feelingly describes him under these cruel apprehensions: --

"You know the position of our settlement; therefore I need not describe it. To the west it is enclosed by a chain of mountains, reaching to ----------. To the east, the country is yet by very thinly inhabited. We are almost insulated, and the houses are at a considerable distance from each other. From the mountains we have but too much reason to expect our dreadful enemy, the Indians; and the wilderness is a harbour, where it is impossible to find them. It is a door through which they can enter our country at any time; and as they seem determined to destroy the whoe frontier, our fate cannot be far distant. From lake Champlain almost all has been conflagrated, one after another. What renders these incursions still more dreadful is, that they most commonly take place in the dead of night. We never go to our fields, but we are seized with an involuntary fear, which lessens our strength, and weakens our labour. No other subject of discourse intervenes between the different accounts which spread through the country, of successive acts of devastation; and these, told in chimney corners, swell themselves in our affrighted imaginations into the most terrific ideas. We never sit down either to dinner, or supper, but the least noise spreads a general alarm, and prevents us from enjoying the comforts of our meals. The very appetite proceeding from labour and peace of mind is gone! Our sleep is disturbed by the most frightful dreams! Sometimes I start awake, as if the great hour of danger was come; at other times the howling of our dogs seems to announce the arrival of the enemy: we leap out of bed, and run to arms; my poor wife, with panting bosom, and silent tears, takes leave of me, as if we were to see each other no more. She snatches the youngest children from their beds, who suddenly awakened, increase by their innocent questions the horror of the dreadful moment! She tries to hide them in the cellar, as if our cellar was inaccessible to the fire! I place all my servants at the window, and myself at the door, where I am determined to perish. Fear industriously increases every sound; each communicates to each other his fears and conjectures. We remain thus, sometimes for whole hours, our hearts and our minds racked by the most anxious suspense! What a dreadful situation! A thousand times worse than that of a soldier engaged in the midst of a most severe conflict! Sometiems feeling the spontaneous courage of a man, I seem to wish for the decisive minute; the next instant a message from my wife, sent by one of the children, quite unmans me. Away goes my courage, and I descend again into the deepest despondency: at last, finding it was a false alarm, we return tonce more to our beds; but what good can the sleep of nature do us, when interrupted by such scenes?"

But we will suppose our planter to have escaped the scalping knife and tomahawk; and in the course of years situate in a thick, settled neighbourhood of planters like himself, who have struggled through all the foregoing difficulties: he is now a man of some consequence, builds a hosue by the side of his former hut, which now serves him for a kitchen; and as he is comfortably situate, we will leave him to the enjoyment of the fruits of his industry.

Such a being has often ideas of liberty, and a contempt of vassalage and slavery, which do honour the human nature.

The planter I endeavoured to describe, I have supposed to be sober and industrious: but when a man of opposite description makes such an attempt, he often degenerates into a demisavage; he cultivates no more land than will barely supply the family with bread, or rather makes his wife, and children perform that office. His whole employment is to procure skins, and furs, to exchange for rum, brandy, and ammunition; for this purpose he is often for several days together in the woods, without seeing a human being. He is by no means at a loss; his rifle supplies him with food, and at night he cuts down some boughs with his tomahawk, and constructs a wigwam in which he spends the night, stretched on the skins of those animals he has killed in the course of his excursion. This manner of living he learned form his savage neighbours, the Indians, and like them calls every other state of life slavery. It sometimes happens, that an unsuccessful back settler joins the Indians at war with the states. When this is the case, it is observed he is, if possible, more cruel than his new allies; he eagerly imbibes all the vices of the savages, without a single spark of their virtues. Farewell.

Yours &c.