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(Ibe Capitol, QClaſsbington, E). C.
AMERICA
| 0 /) / ^ -/
& * f
PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE
BY
J O E L COO K
AUTHolt of “ENGLAND, Picturesque AND DEscriptivit’’
“This is way own—my native ſand”
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. I
PHILADELPHIA
H E N R Y T. C. O A T E S & C O.
I 9 O O
CoPYRIGHT,
HENRY T. COATES & CO.,
1900.
~‘. ..t
w*-f,W
INTRODUCTION.
THE American is naturally proud of his country,
its substantial growth and wonderful development,
and of the rapid strides it is making among the fore-
most nations of the world. No matter how far else-
where the American citizen may have travelled, he
cannot know too much of the United States, its grand
attractions and charming environment. Though this
great and vigorous nation is young, yet it has a his-
tory that is full of interest, and a literature giving a
most absorbing story of rapid growth and patriotic
progress, replete with romance, poetry and a unique
folklore.
The object of this work is to give the busy reader
in acceptable form such a comprehensive knowl-
edge as he would like to have, of the geography,
history, picturesque attractionque attractions, peculiarities, pro-
ductions and most salient features of our great
country. The intention has been to make the book
not only a work of reference, but a work of art
and of interest as well, and it is burdened neither
with too much statistics nor too intricate prolixity
of description. It covers the Continent of North

(iii)
IV INTRODUCTION.
America, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from
the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian Dominion and
Alaska. It has been prepared mainly from notes
specially taken by the author during many years of
extended travel»ll over the United States and
Canada. “A method of treatment of the compre-
hensive subject has been followed which is similar to
the plan that has proved acceptable in “England,
Picturesque and Descriptive.” The work has been
arranged in twenty-one tours, each volume begin-
ming at the older settlements upon the Atlantic sea-
board; and each tour describing a route following
very much the lines upon which a travelling sight-
seer generally advances in the respective directions
taken. The book is presented to the public as a
contribution to a general knowledge of our country,
and with the hope that the reader, recognizing the
difficulties of adequate treatment of so great a sub-
ject, may find in the interest it inspires, an indulgent
excuse for any shortcomings.
J. C.
PHILADELPHIA, September, 1900.
II.
III.
IV.
VI.
VII.
CONTENTS
VOLUME I
TIIE ENVIRONMENT OF CIIESAPEAKE BAY,
THE GREAT THEATRE OF THE CIVIL WAR,
TIIE VALLEY OF THE DELAWARE,
CROSSING THE ALLEGLIENIES,
. VISITING THE SUNNY SouTII, . & (e.
TRAVERSING THE PRAIRIE LAND,
GLIMPSES OF THE GREAT NORTHWEST, * .
PAGE
99
143
275
343
401
447
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
VOLUME |
- PAGE
THE CAPITOL, WASHINGTON, D. C., . gº . Frontispiece
IN THE CONGRESSIONAL LIBRARY, WASHINGTON, D. C., . 24
TOMB of WASHINGTON, MoUNT VERNON, tº p , 44
NATURAL BRIDGE, VIRGINIA, . g e . . . 54.
STONE BRIDGE, BULL RUN, . . . . . . 102
WASHINGTON MonumENT, RICHMOND, VA., . * . 112
LITTLE ROUND Top, GETTYSBURG, . * g & . 128
PENN's LETITIA STREET House, REMOVED TO FAIRMOUNT
PARK, . ge e * wº e ſº ſº & . 152
INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA, . g e . 162
Loop of THE Schuyi,KILL FROM NEVERSINI, MoUNTAINS, 188 . .
BATTLE MONUMENT, TRENTON, N. J., . . . . 212
MAUCH CHUNK, gº sº e # º e * . 234
DELAWARE WATER GAP, . * ſº ge . 248
THE SUSQUEHANNA WEST OF F ALMoUTH, º g . 284
THE JUNIATA AT MILL CREEK, o º © te . 304
THE CONEMAUGH NEAR FLORENCE, g & & . 312
PITTSBURGH FROM MT. WASHINGTON. CONFLUENCE OF
THE ALLEGHENY AND MONONGAHELA, . º . 324
(vii)
viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
ON THE ASFILEY, NEAR CHARLESTON, S. C., .
GROVE of PALMs, FLORIDA,
ON THE OCKLAWAETA,
EUCLID AVENUE, CLEVELAND, O., .
LINCOLN Monum ENT, LINCOLN PARK, CFIICAGO,
MINNEHAHA FALLs, NEAR ST. PAUL,
MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGs, YELLOWSTONE, .
PAGE
352
366
382
420
432
472
FALLs of TEIE YELLOWSTONE, .
486
504
THE ENVIRONMENT OF CHESAPEAKE
BAY.
AMERICA,
PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
I.
THE ENVIRONMENT OF CHESAPEAKE BAY.
The First Permanent Settlement in North America—Captain
John Smith—Jamestown–Chesapeake Bay—The City of
Washington—The Capitol—The White House—Elaborate
Public Buildings—The Treasury—The State, War and Navy
Departments—The Congressional Library—The Smithsonian
Institution—Prof. Joseph Henry—The Soldiers' Home—Agri-
cultural Department—Washington Monument—City of Mag-
nificent Distances—Potomac River—Allegheny Mountains—
The Kittatinny Range—Harper's Ferry—John Brown—The
Great Falls — Alexandria—Mount Vernon — Washington’s
Home and Tomb–Washington Relics—Key of the Bastille—
Rappahannock River — Fredericksburg — Mary Ball, the
Mother of Washington—York River—The Peninsula—Wil-
liamsburg—Yorktown—Cornwallis’ Surrender—James River
—The Natural Bridge – Lynchburg — Appomattox Court-
House—Lee's Surrender—Powhatan –Dutch Gap—Warina—
Pocahontas—Her Wedding to Rolfe – Her Descendants, the
“First Families of Virginia”—Deep Bottom—Malvern Hill
—General McClellan’s Seven Days' Battles and Retreat—
Bermuda Hundred—General Butler—Shirley–Appomattox
River—Petersburg–General Grant's Headquarters—City
Point—Harrison's Landing—Berkeley—Westover—William
Byrd–Chickahominy River—Jamestown Island—Gold Hunt-
ing—The Northwest Passage—First Corn-Planting—Indian
Habits—First House of Burgesses—Tobacco-Growing—Vir.
ginia Planters—Importing Negro Slaves—Newport News—
( 3 )
4 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
Merrimac and Monitor Contest—Hampton Roads—Hampton
—Old Point Comfort—Fortress Monroe—Fort Algernon—
Fort Wool—Elizabeth River—Norfolk—Portsmouth—Great
Dismal Swamp—The Eastern Shore—The Oyster Navy—
William Claiborne–Kent Island–Lord Baltimore—The
Maryland Palatinate—Leonard Calvert's Expedition—St.
Mary's—Patuxent River—St. Inigoe’s—Severn River—An-
napolis—United States Naval Academy–Patapsco River—
Baltimore—Jones's Falls–Washington Monument—Battle
Monument—Johns Hopkins and his Benefactions—Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad—Druid Hill–Greenmount Cemetery—
Fort McHenry—The Star-Spangled Banner.
CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH.
WHEN Captain Christopher Newport's expedition
of three little ships and one hundred and five men,
sent out by the “Virginia Company ” to colonize
America, after four months' buffeting by the rough
winter storms of the North Atlantic, sought a harbor
of refuge in May, 1607, they sailed into Chesapeake
Bay. These three little ships were the “Susan Con-
stant,” the “Good Speed” and the “Discovery;” and
upon them came Captain John Smith, the renowned
adventurer, who, with Newport, founded the first per-
manent settlement in North America, the colony of
Jamestown. The king who chartered the “Virginia
Company ” was James I., and hence the name. As
’ as Smith called
the fleet sailed into the “fair bay,’
it, the headlands on either side of the entrance were
named Cape Charles and Cape Henry, for the king's
two sons. Their first anchorage was in a roadstead
of such attractive character that they mamed the ad-
CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH, 5
jacent land Point Comfort, which it retains to this
day; and farther inland, where Captain Newport
afterwards came, in hopes of getting news from
home, is now the busy port and town of Newport
News. Sir Walter Raleigh, in the previous century,
had sent out his ill-starred expedition to Roanoke,
which had first entered this great bay ; and at the
Elizabeth River, which they had named in honor of
Raleigh's queen, they found the Indian village of
Chesapik, meaning “the mother of waters;” and
from this came the name of Chesapeake Bay. Ra-
leigh had landed colonists here, as well as at Roanoke,
and when the “Virginia Company ” sent out New-
port's expedition it laid three commands upon those
in charge : First, they were to seek Raleigh's lost
colonists; second, they were to find gold; and third,
they were to search for the “northwest passage”
through America to the Pacific Ocean. So strong
was the belief in finding gold in the New World that
the only consideration King James asked for his
charter was the stipulation that the “Virginia Com-
pany ” should pay him one-fifth of the gold and silver
found in its possessions.
As none of Raleigh's colonists could be found, the
expedition sailed up the James River after consider-
able delay, and, selecting a better place for a settle-
ment, landed at Jamestown May 13, 1607, where
Smith became their acknowledged leader, and pre-
served the permanency of the colony. This famous
6 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
navigator and colonist was a native of Willoughby, in
Lincolnshire, England, born in January, 1579. When
scarcely more than a boy he fought in the wars of
Holland, and then he wandered through Europe and
as far as Egypt, afterwards returning to engage in
the conflict against the Turks in Hungary. Here he
won great renown, fighting many desperate combats,
and in one engagement cutting off three Turks' heads;
but he was finally wounded and captured. The sober,
investigating historians of a later day have taken the
liberty to doubt some of Smith's wonderful tales of
these remarkable adventures, but he must have done
something heroic to season him for the hardy work
of the pioneer who was the first to succeed in plant-
ing a colony in North America. After the Turks
made him a prisoner, he was sold as a slave in Con-
stantinople, being condemned to the hardest and most
revolting kinds of labor, until he became desperate
under the cruelties and escaped. Then he was for a
long time a wanderer through the wilderness, travers-
ing the forests of Russia, and pushing his way alone
across Europe, until, almost worn out with fatigue
and hardships, he arrived in England just at the time
Newport's expedition was being fitted out; and still
having an irrepressible love for adventure, he joined it.
CHESAPEAKE BAY.
There can be no better place for beginning a sur-
vey of our country than upon this great bay, which
CHESAPEAKE BAY. 7
Smith and his companions entered in 1607. Chesa-
peake Bay is the largest inland sea on the Atlantic
Coast of the United States. It stretches for two
hundred miles up into the land, between the low and
fertile shores of Virginia and Maryland, both of
which States it divides, and thus gives them valuable
navigation facilities. In its many arms and estu-
aries are the resting-places for the luscious oysters
which its people send all over the world. It is one
of the greatest of food-producers, having a larger
variety of tempting luxuries for the palate than prob-
ably any other region. Along its shores and upon
its islands are numberless popular resorts for fishing
and shooting, for its tender and amply-supplied
water-foods attract the ducks and other wild fowl in
countless thousands, and bring in shoals of the sea-
fishes, which are the sportsmen’s coveted game. Its
terrapin are famous, while its shores and border-
lands, particularly on the eastern side, are a series
of orchards and market-gardens, providing limitless
supplies of fruits, berries and vegetables for the
Northern markets. It receives in its generally placid
bosom some of the greatest rivers flowing down from
the Allegheny Mountains. The broad Susquehanna,
coming through New York and Pennsylvania, makes
its headwaters, and it receives the Potomac, divid-
ing Maryland from Virginia, and the James, in
Virginia, both of them wide estuaries with an enor-
mous outflow ; and also numerous smaller streams,
8 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
such as the Rappahannock, York, Patuxent, Patapsco,
Choptank and Elizabeth Rivers. Extensive lines of
profitable commerce, all large carriers of food-sup-
plies, have transport over this great bay and its
many arms and affluents. Canals connect it with
other interior waters, and leading railways with all
parts of the country, while there are several noted
cities upon its shores and tributaries.
º THE CITY OF WASHINGTON.
The most famous of all these cities of the Chesa-
peake region is Washington, upon the Potomac, and
we will therefore begin this story at the American
National Capital. The striking thing about Wash-
ington is that, unlike other capitals of great mations,
it was created for the sole purpose of a seat of gov-
ernment, apart from any question of commercial
rank or population. It has neither manufactures
mor commerce to speak of. After the adoption of
the Federal Constitution there was a protracted con-
flict in Congress over the claims of rival localities for
the seat of government, and this developed so much
jealousy that it almost disrupted the Union at its
inception. General Washington, then the President,
used his strong influence and wise judgment to com-
promise the dispute, and it was finally decided that
Philadelphia should remain the capital for ten years,
while after the year 1800 it should be located on the
Potomac River, on a site selected by Washington,
THE CITY OF WASHINGTON. 9
within a district of one hundred square miles, ceded
by Maryland and Virginia, and which, to avoid any
question of sovereignty or control, should be under
the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress. The location
was at the time nearly in the geographical centre of
the then thirteen original States. As the city was
designed entirely on the Maryland side of the
Potomac, the Virginia portion of the “Federal Dis-
trict of Columbia,” as it was called, was retroceded in
1826, so that the District now contains about sixty-
five square miles. The capital was originally called
the “Federal City,” but this was changed by law in
1791 to the “City of Washington.” The ground
plan of the place was ambitious, and laid out upon
an extensive undulating plateau bordered by rolling
hills to the northward and westward, and sloping
gently towards the Potomac River, between the
main stream and the eastern branch, or Anacostia
River. This plan has been well described as “a
wheel laid upon a gridiron,” the rectangular arrange-
ment of the ordinary streets having superimposed
upon it a system of broad radiating avenues, with
the Capitol on its hill, ninety feet high, for the
centre. The Indians called the place Comococheague,
or the “roaring water,” from a rapid brook running
through it, which washed the base of the Capitol
Hill, and was afterwards very properly named the
Tiber, but has since degenerated into a sewer. A
distinguished French engineer of the time, Major
10 AMERICA PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
L'Enfant, prepared the topographical plan of the
city, under the direction of Washington and Jeffer-
son, who was Secretary of State; and Andrew Elli-
cott, a prominent local surveyor, laid it out upon the
ground. The basis of the design was the topography
of Versailles, but with large modifications; and thus
was laid out the Capital of the United States, which
a writer in the London Times, some years ago, called
“the city of Philadelphia griddled across the city of
Versailles.” *
The original designers planned a city five miles
long and three miles broad, and confidently expected
that a vast metropolis would soon be created, though
in practice only a comparatively limited portion was
built upon, and this is not where they intended the
chief part of the new city to be. Of late years,
however, the newer portions have been rapidly ex-
tending. No man's name was used for any of the
streets or avenues, as this might cause jealousy, so
the streets were numbered or lettered and the ave-
nues named after the States. The corner-stone of
the Capitol was laid in 1793, its front facing east
upon the elevated plateau of the hill, and the town
was to have been mainly built upon this plateau in
front of it. Behind the Capitol, on its western side,
the brow of the hill descended rather sharply, and
here they laid out a wide and open Mall, westward
over the lower ground to the bank of the Potomac
River, more than a mile away. Off towards the
THE CITY OF WASHINGTON. 11
northwest, at the end of one of the diagonal ave-
nues, they placed the Executive Mansion, with its
extensive park and gardens stretching southward to
the river, and almost joining the Mall there at a right
angle. The design was to have the city in an ele-
vated and salubrious location, with the President
secluded in a comfortable retreat amid ample grounds,
but nearly a mile and a half distant in the rural re-
gion. But few plans eventuate as expected; and
such is the perversity of human nature that the peo-
ple, when they came to the new settlement, would
not build the town on Capitol Hill as had been
intended, but persisted in settling upon the lower
ground along and adjacent to the broad avenue lead-
ing from the Capitol to the Executive Mansion; and
there, and for a long distance beyond the latter to
the northward and westward, is the city of Washing-
ton of to-day. Pennsylvania Avenue, one hundred
and sixty feet wide, joining these two widely-sepa-
rated Government establishments and extending far
to the northwest, thus became the chief street of the
modern city. To Washington the Federal Govern-
ment was removed, as directed by law, in 1800, the
actual removal being conducted by Tobias Lear, who
had been President Washington’s private secretary,
and was them serving in similar capacity for President
John Adams. He packed the whole archives and
belongings of the then United States Government at
Philadelphia in twenty-eight wooden boxes, loaded
12 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
them on a sloop, sailed down the Delaware, around
to the Chesapeake, and up the Potomac to the new
capital, and took possession. The original Capitol
and Executive Mansion were burnt by the British
during their invasion in 1814, when Washington had
about ten thousand population; it now contains over
three hundred thousand, of whom fifty thousand are
army and navy officers and civil servants and their
families, and about eighty thousand are colored
people. - .
THE CAPITOL.
The crowning glory of Washington is the Capitol,
its towering dome, surmounted by the colossal statue
of America, being the prominent landmark, seen from
afar, on every approach to the city. The total height
to the top of the statue is three hundred and seventy-
five feet above the Potomac River level. The grand
position, vast architectural mass and impressive effect
of the Capitol from almost every point of view have
secured for it the praise of the best artistic judges of
all countries as the most imposing modern edifice in
the world. From the high elevation of the Capitol
dome there is a splendid view to the westward over
the city spread upon the lower ground beyond the
base of Capitol Hill. Diagonally to the southwest
and northwest extend two grand avenues as far as
eye can see—Maryland Avenue to the left leading
down to the Potomac, and carrying the line of the
Pennsylvania Railroad to the river, where it crosses
THE CAPITOL. 13
over the Long Bridge into Virginia; and Pennsylva-
nia Avenue to the right, stretching to the distant col-
omnade of the Treasury Building and the tree-covered
park south of the Executive Mansion. Between
these diverging avenues and extending to the Poto-
mac, more than a mile away, is the Mall, a broad en-
closure of lawns and gardens. Upon it in the fore-
ground is the Government Botanical Garden, and
behind this the spacious grounds surrounding the
Smithsonian Institution; while beyond, near the river
bank, rises the tall white shaft of the Washington
Monument, with its pointed apex.
On either side spreads out the city, the houses
bordering the foliage-lined streets, and having at fre-
quent intervals the tall spires of churches, and the
massive marble, granite and brick edifices that are
used for Government buildings. In front, to the west,
is the wide channel of the Potomac, and to the south
and southeast the Anacostia, their streams uniting at
Greenleaf's Point, where the Government Arsenal is
located. On the heights beyond the point, and across
the Anacostia, is the spacious Government Insane
Asylum. Far away on the Virginia shore, across the
Potomac, rises a long range of wooded hills, amid
which is Arlington Heights and its pillared edifice,
which was the home of George Washington Parke
Custis, the grandson of Mrs. Washington and General
Washington's adopted son, and was subsequently the
residence of General Robert E. Lee, who married
14 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
Miss Custis. Spreading broadly over the forest-clad
hills is the Arlington National Cemetery, where fif-
teen thousand soldiers of the Civil War are buried.
At the distant horizon to the left rises the spire of
Fairfax Seminary, and beyond, down the Potomac, is
seem the city of Alexandria, the river between being
dotted with vessels. To the northwest, behind the
Executive Mansion, is the spacious building of the
State, War and Navy Departments, having for a
background the picturesque Georgetown Heights,
just over the District boundary, their tops rising four
hundred feet above the river. Farther to the north-
ward is Seventh Street Hill, crowned with the build-
ings of Howard University, and beyond it the distant
tower of the Soldiers' Home. All around the view
is magnificent; and years ago, before the city ex-
pected to attain anything like its present grandeur,
Baron von Humboldt, as he stood upon the western
verge of Capitol Hill and surveyed this gorgeous pic-
ture, exclaimed : “I have not seen a more charming
panorama in all my travels.”
After the British burnt the original Capitol, it was
rebuilt and finished in 1827; but the unexampled
growth of the country and of Congress soon demanded
an extension, which was begun in 1851. It is this
extension which supplied the wings and dome, de-
signed and constructed by the late Thomas U. Walter,
that has made the building so attractive. This grand
Republican palace of government, stretching over
THE CAPITOL. 15.
seven hundred and fifty feet along the top of the hill,
has cost about $16,000,000. The old central build-
ing is constructed of Virginia freestone, painted
white, the massive wings are of white marble from
Massachusetts, and the lofty dome is of iron. The
dazzling white marble gleams in the sunlight, and
fitly closes the view along the great avenues radiat-
ing from it as a common centre. The architecture is
classic, with Corinthian details, and, to add dignity
to the western front, which overlooks the city, a
magnificent marble terrace, eight hundred and eighty-
four feet long, has been constructed at its base on the
crest of the hill, which is approached by two broad
flights of steps. -
The Capitol is surrounded by a park of about
fifty acres, including the western declivity of the hill
and part of the plateau on top. Upon this plateau,
on the eastern front, the populace assemble every
fourth year to witness the inauguration of the Presi-
dent when he is sworn into office by the Chief Justice,
and delivers his inaugural address from a broad plat-
form at the head of the elaborate staircase leading up to
the entrance to the great central rotunda. In full view
of the President, as he stands under the grand Corin-
thian portico, is a colossal statue of Washington, seated
in his chair of state, and facing the new President,
as if in solemm warning. The rotunda is the most
striking feature of the Capitol interior; it is nearly
one hundred feet in diameter, and rises one hundred
16 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
and eighty feet to the ceiling of the dome, which is
ornamented with fine frescoes by Brumidi. Large
panelled paintings on the walls just above the floor,
and alti rilievi over them, represent events in the
early history of the country, while at a height of one
hundred feet a band nine feet wide runs around the
interior of the dome, upon which a series of frescoes
tell the story of American history from the landing :
of Columbus. But, most appropriately, the elaborate
decorations, while reproducing so much in Indian
legend and Revolutionary story, are not used in any
way to recall the Civil War. Away up in the top of
the dome there is a Whispering Gallery, to which a
stairway laboriously leads. - e
The old halls of the Senate and House in the origi-
nal wings of the Capitol are now devoted, the former
to the Supreme Court and the latter to a gallery of
statuary, to which each State contributes two sub-
jects, mostly Revolutionary or Colonial heroes. Be-
yond, on either hand, are the extensive new wings—
the Senate Chamber to the north and the Representa-
tives' Hall to the south. Each is surrounded by cor-
ridors, beyond which are committee rooms, and there
are spacious galleries for the public. Each member
has his chair and desk, the seats being arranged in
semicircles around the rostrum. In practice, while
the House is in session, the members are usually
reading or writing, excepting the few who may watch
what is going on, because they are specially inter-
THE CAPITOL 17
ested in the matter under consideration ; and the
member who may have the floor and is speaking is
actually heard by very few, his speech being gener-
ally made for the galleries and the official stenog-
raphers and newspaper reporters. Debate rarely
reaches a point of interest absorbing the actual at-
tention of the whole House, most of the speech-
making seeming to be delivered for effect in the
member's home district, this method being usually.
described as “talking for Buncombe.” The other
members read their newspapers, write their letters,
clap their hands sharply to summon the nimble pages.
who run about the hall upon their errands, gossip in
groups, and otherwise pass their time, move in and
out the cloak- and committee-rooms, and in various
ways manage not to listen to much that goes on.
Nevertheless, business progresses under an iron-clad
code of procedure, the Speaker being a despot who
largely controls legislation. The surroundings of the
Senate Chamber are grander than those of the House,
there being a gorgeous “Marble Hall,” in which
Senators give audience to their visitors, and mag-
mificently ornamented apartments for the Presi-
dent and Vice-President. The President's Room
is only occupied during a few hours in the closing
scenes of a session, this small but splendid apart-
ment, which has had $50,000 expended upon its
decoration, being a show place for the remainder of
the year.
VoI. I.-2
18 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
THE WHITE HOUSE.
The most famous building in Washington, though
one of the least pretentious, is the Executive Man-
sion, popularly known as the “White House,” being
constructed, like the older part of the Capitol, of
freestone, and painted white. It stands within a
park at some distance back from the street, a semi-
circular driveway leading up to the Ionic colonnade
supporting the front central portico. It is a plain
building, without pretensions in anything but its
august occupancy, and the ornamental grounds
stretch down to the Potomac River, which flows
about two hundred yards below its southern front.
It is two stories high, about one hundred and seventy
feet long, and eighty-six feet deep. This building,
like the Capitol, was burnt in the British invasion of
1814 and afterwards restored. Unlike the nation, or
the enormous public buildings that surround and
dwarf it, the White House has in no sense grown,
but remains as it was designed in the lifetime of
Washington. It is nevertheless a comfortable man-
sion, though rigid in simplicity. The parlor of the
house, the “East Room,” is the finest apartment, oc-
cupying the whole of that side, and is kept open for
visitors during most of the day. The public wander
through it in droves, walk upon the carpets and re-
cline in the soft chairs, awaiting the President's
coming to his almost daily reception and handshak-
THE WHITE HOUSE. 19
ing; for they greatly prize this joint occupancy, as
it were, and close communion with their highest
ruler. This is an impressive room, and in earlier
times was, the scene of various inauguration feasts,
when Presidents kept open house for their political
friends and admirers.
The “East Room '' was a famous entertainment
hall in President Jackson's time. On the evening of
his inauguration day it was open to all comers, who
were served with orange punch and lemonade. The
crowds were large, and the punch was mixed in bar-
rels, being brought in by the bucketful, the thirsty
throngs rushing after the waiters, and in the turmoil
upsetting the punch and ruining dresses and carpets.
The punch receptacles were finally taken out into the
gardens, and in this way the boisterous crowds were
drawn off, and it became possible to serve cake and
wine to the ladies. Various traditions are still told
of this experience, and also of the monster cheese, as
big as a hogshead, that was served to the multitude
at Jackson's farewell reception. It was cut up with
long saw-blades, and each guest was given about a
pound of cheese, this feast being the talk of the time.
Jackson's successor was Martin Van Buren, who
came from New York, the land of big cheeses.
Being bound to emulate his predecessor, an even
larger cheese was sent him, and cut up in the “East
Room.” The crowds trampled the greasy crumbs
into the carpets and hangings, and all the furniture
20 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
and fittings were ruined. Now no guest comes un-
bidden to dine at the White House; but the change
in the fashion aided in defeating Van Buren, who
was a candidate for a second election in 1840. He
stopped keeping open house in order to save the fur-
niture and get some peace, and during several months
preceding the election many persons arrived at the
White House for breakfast or dinner and threatened
to vote against Van Buren unless they were enter-
tained. This, with the fact moised abroad that he had
become such an aristocrat that his table service in-
cluded gold spoons, them an unheard of extravagance,
proved too much for him. Van Buren was beaten
for re-election by “Old Tippecanoe"—General Wil-
liam Henry Harrison. •
A corridor leads westward from the “East Room,”
through the centre of the White House, to the con-
servatories, which are prolonged nearly two hundred
feet farther westward. A series of fine apartments,
called the Green, Blue and Red Rooms, from the
predominant colors in their decorations, are south
of this corridor, with their windows opening upon
the gardens. These apartments open into each
other, and finally into the State Dining Hall on the
western side of the building, which is adjoined by a
conservatory. North of the corridor the first floor
contains the family rooms, and on the second floor
are the sleeping-rooms and also the public offices.
The Cabinet Room, about in the centre of the build-
ELABORATE PUBLIC BUILDINGS. 21
ing, is a comparatively small apartment, where the
Cabinet meetings assemble around a long table. On
one side of it, at the head of a broad staircase, are
the offices of the secretaries, over the East Room ;
and on the other side, the President's private apart-
ment, which is called the Library. Here the Presi-
dent sits, with the southern sun streaming through
the windows, to give audience to his visitors, who
are passed in by the secretaries. One of the desks,
which is usually the President's personal work-table,
has a history. The British ship “Resolute,” years ago,
after many hardships in the fruitless search for Sir
John Franklin, had to be abandoned in the Arctic
seas. Portions of her oaken timbers were taken back
to England, and from these, by the Queen's command,
the desk was made and presented to President Grant,
and it has since been part of the furniture in the
Library. An adjacent chamber, wherein the Prince
of Wales slept on his only visit to America, and the
chamber adjoining, are the two sleeping-rooms which
have been usually occupied by the greatest Presidents.
The accommodations are so restricted, however, that a
movement is afoot for constructing another presiden-
tial residence, on higher land in the suburbs, so that the
White-House may be exclusively used for the execu-
tive offices.
ISLABORATE PUBLIC BUILDINGS.
The great public buildings used for Government
purposes are among the chief adornments of Wash-
22 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
ington. To the eastward of the White House is the
Treasury Building, extending over five hundred feet
along Fifteenth Street, enriched by a magnificent
Ionic colonnade, three hundred and fifty feet long,
modelled from that of the Athenian Temple of Minerva.
Each end has an elaborate Ionic portico, while the
western front, facing the White House, has a grand
central entrance. This was the first great building
constructed for a Government department, and is the
headquarters of the Secretary of the Treasury. Upon
the western side of the White House is the most
splendid of all the department buildings, accommo-
dating three of them, the State, War and Navy De-
partments. It is Roman Doric, built of granite, four
stories high, with Mansard and pavilion roofs and
porticoes, covering a surface of five hundred and
sixty-seven by three hundred and forty-two feet.
The Salom of the Ambassadors, or the Diplomatic
Reception Room, is its finest apartment, and is the
audience chamber of the Secretary of State, who oc-
cupies the adjoining Secretary’s Hall, also a splendid
room. This great building is constructed around two
large interior courts, the Army occupying the north-
ern and western wings, and the Navy the eastern
side, where among the great attractions are the
models of the famous warships of the American Navy.
To the northward of the White House park and fur-
mishing a fine front view is Lafayette Square, con-
taining a bronze equestrian statue of General Jack-
ELABORATE PUBLIC BUILDINGS. 23
son by Clark Mills; beyond, on the western side, is
the attractive Renaissance building of the Corcoran
Art Gallery, amply endowed by the late banker,
William W. Corcoran, and containing his valuable
art collections, which were given to the public. The
foundation of his fortune was laid over a half-century
ago, when he had the pluck to take a Government
loan which seemed slow of sale. His modest banking
house still exists as the Riggs Bank, facing the
Treasury.
The most admired of the newer public buildings in
Washington is the Congressional Library, on the
plateau southeast of the Capitol, an enormous struc-
ture in Italian Renaissance, a quadrangle four hun-
dred and seventy feet long and three hundred and
forty feet wide, enclosing four courts and a central
rotunda. It was finished in 1897, and cost about $6,-
200,000. Its elevated gilded dome and lantern are
conspicuous objects in the view. This great Library,
the largest in the country, is appropriately orna-
mented, and its book-stacks have accommodations for
about five millions of volumes, the present number
approximating one million, with nearly three hun-
dred thousand pamphlets. The Pension Building is
another huge structure, northwest of Capitol Hill,
built around a covered quadrangle, which is used
quadrennially for the “Inauguration Ball,” a promi-
ment Washington official-social function, which was
adopted to relieve the White House from the former
24 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
feasting on the inauguration might. This house, ac-
commodating the army of pension clerks, has running
around the walls, over the lower windows, a broad
band, exhibiting in relief a marching column of
troops, with representations of every branch of the
service. Seventh Street, which crosses Pennsylvania
Avenue about midway between the Capitol and the
Treasury, has to the northward the imposing Corin-
thian Post-office Building, formerly the headquarters
of the postal service. Behind this is the Department
of the Interior, popularly known as the Patent Office,
as a large part of it is occupied by patent models.
This is a grand Doric structure, occupying two blocks
and embracing about three acres of buildings, the
main entrance being a magnificent portico, seen from
Pennsylvania Avenue. The new General Post-office
Department Building is on Pennsylvania Avenue,
covering a surface of three hundred by two hundred
feet, and having a tower rising three hundred feet.
It has just been completed. The Government Print-
.ing Office, where the public printing is done, and
the Treasury Bureau of Engraving and Printing,
where all the Government money issues and revenue
stamps are made, are large and important buildings,
though not specifically attractive in architecture.
TIIE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.
Upon the Mall stands the Smithsonian Institution,
of world-wide renown, one of the most interesting
iſit the Congressional Library, UClagba
ington, E. C.

THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 25
public structures in Washington, its turrets and
towers rising above the trees. The origin of this
famous scientific establishment was the bequest of an
Englishman, James Smithson, a matural son of Hugh
Smithson, Duke of Northumberland, born in 1765.
He was known as Louis Macie at Oxford, graduating
under that name; early developed scientific tastes;
was a Fellow of the Royal Society, the friend and
associate of many of the most learned men of his
time, and lived usually in Paris, where in the latter
part of the last century he took the family name of
his father. He died in Italy in 1829. In Washing-
ton's Farewell Address, issued in 1796, there occurs
the phrase, “An institution for the increase and dif-
fusion of knowledge,” and it was well known that the
Father of his Country cherished a project for a
national institution of learning in the new Federal
City. This was evidently communicated to Smith-
son by one of his intimates in Paris, Joel Barlow, a
noted American, who was familiar with Washing-
ton's plan, and in this way originated the residuary
bequest, which was contained in the following clause
of Smithson's will: “I bequeath the whole of my
property to the United States of America, to found
at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian
Institution, an establishment for the increase and dif-
fusion of knowledge among men.” Upon the death
of Smithson's nephew, without heirs, in 1835, this
bequest became operative, and the United States
26 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
Legation in London was motified that the estate, then
amounting in value to about £100,000, was held in
possession of the Accountant-General of the Court
of Chancery. This was something novel in America,
and when the facts became public opposition arose in
Congress to accepting the gift, eminent men, headed
by John C. Calhoun, arguing that it was beneath the
dignity of the United States to receive presents.
Others, however, led by John Quincy Adams, ar-
dently advocated acceptance. The latter carried the
day; Richard Rush was sent to London, as agent, to
prosecute the claim in the Court of Chancery, in the
name of the President of the United States; and the
legacy was obtained and delivered at the Mint in
Philadelphia, September 1, 1838, in the sum of 104,-
960 British sovereigns, and was immediately recoined
into United States money, producing $508,318.46,
the first installment of the legacy. There were sub-
sequent additional installments, and the total sum in
1867 reached $650,000. This original sum was de-
posited in the Federal Treasury in perpetuity, at six
per cent. interest, and the income has been devoted
to the erection of the buildings, and, with other sub-
sequently added sums, to the support of the vast es-
tablishment which has grown from the original gift.
The Smithsonian Institution was formally created
by Act of Congress, August 10, 1846, the corpora-
tion being composed of the President, Vice-President,
members of the Cabinet and Chief Justice, who are
THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 27
“establishment,” made responsible
constituted the
for the duty of “the increase and diffusion of knowl-
edge among men.” The Institution is administered
by a Board of Regents, including in addition three
Senators, three members of the House, and six citi-
Zems appointed by Congress; the presiding officer,
called the “Chancellor,” being usually the Chief Jus-
tice, and the secretary of the board is the Executive
Officer. The late eminent Professor Joseph Henry
was elected secretary in 1846, and he designed the
plan and scope of the Institution, continuing as its
executive head until his death in 1878. His statue
stands in the grounds near the entrance. Two other
secretaries followed him, Spencer F. Baird (who was
twenty-seven years assistant secretary), and upon his
death Samuel P. Langley, in 1888. The ornate
building of red Seneca brownstone, a fine castellated
structure in the Renaissance style, was designed in
1847 and finished in 1855. Its grand front stretches
about four hundred and fifty feet, and its mine towers
and turrets, rising from seventy-five to one hundred
and fifty feet, stand up prettily behind the groves of
trees. This original building contains a museum of
natural history and anthropology. In connection with
it there is another elaborate structure over three
hundred feet square—the National Museum—con-
taining numerous courts, surrounding a central ro-
tunda, beneath which a fountain plashes. This is
under the same management, and directly supported
28 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
by the Government, the design being to perfect a col-
lection much like the British Museum, but paying
more attention to American antiquities and products.
This adjunct museum began with the gifts by foreign
Governments to the Philadelphia Centennial Expo-
sition in 1876, most of them being still preserved
there. The Smithsonian Trust Fund now approxi-
mates $1,000,000, and there are various other gifts
and bequests held in the Treasury for various scien-
tific purposes similarly administered.
Briefly stated, the plan of Professor Henry was to
“increase knowledge" by original investigations and
study, either in science or literature, and to “diffuse
knowledge” mot only through the United States, but
everywhere, and especially by promoting an inter-
change of thought among the learned in all mations,
with no restriction in favor of any one branch of
knowledge. A leading feature of his plan was “to
assist men of science in making original researches,
to publish them in a series of volumes, and to give a
copy of them to every first-class library on the face
of the earth.” There is said to be probably not a
scientific observer of any standing in the United
States to whom the Institution has not at some time
extended a helping hand, and this aid also goes liber-
ally across the Atlantic. As income grew, the scope
has been enlarged. In the various museums there is
a particularly good collection of American ethnology,
and a most elaborate display of American fossils,
THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 29
z
minerals, animals, birds and antiquities. There are
also shown by the Fish Commission specimens of the
fishing implements and fishery methods of all nations,
an exhibition which is unexcelled in these special de-
partments. Many specifically interesting things are
in the National Museum. The personal effects of
Washington, Jackson and General Grant are there.
Benjamin Franklin's old printing-press is preserved
in a somewhat dilapidated condition, and there is also
the first railway engine sent from England to the
United States, the original “John Bull,” built by
Stephenson & Son at Newcastle-on-Tyne in June,
1831, and sent out as “Engine No. 1" for the
Camden and Amboy Railroad crossing New Jersey,
now a part of the Pennsylvania Railroad. It weighs
ten tons, and has four driving-wheels of fifty-four
inches diameter. This relic, after being used on the
railroad for forty years, until improved machinery
superseded it, has been given the Government as a
national heirloom. Among the anthropological col-
lections is a chronologically arranged series illus-
trating American history from the period of the
discovery to the present day. This includes George
Catlin's famous collection of six hundred paintings,
illustrating the manners and customs of the North
American Indians. One of the most important fea-
tures of the work of this most interesting establish-
ment is its active participation in all the great
International Expositions by the loan to them of
30 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE
valuable exhibits under Government direction and
control. -
THE SOLDIERS' HOME AND WASHINGTON MONUMENT.
The city of Washington, with progressing years,
is becoming more and more the popular residential
city of the country. It is one of the most beautiful.
and attractive, the admirable plan, with the wide
asphalted streets, lined with trees, opening up vista
views of grand public buildings, statues, monuments
or leafy parks, making it specially popular. The
northern and northwestern sections, on the higher
grounds, have consequently spread far beyond the
Executive Mansion, being filled with rows of elabo-
rate and costly residences, the homes of leading pub-
lic men. The streets are kept scrupulously clean,
while at the intersections are “circles,” triangles and
little squares, which are availed of for pretty parks,
and usually contain statues of distinguished Ameri-
cans. Among the noted residence streets are Ver-
mont, Massachusetts and Connecticut Avenues and K
Street and Sixteenth Street, all in the northwestern
district. Among the many statues adorning the small
parks and “circles” are those of Washington, Far-
ragut, Scott, Thomas, McPherson, Dupont, Logan,
Franklin, Hancock, Grant, Rawlins and Martin Lu-
ther, the latter a replica of the figure in the Refor-
mation Monument at Worms.
To the northward the suburbs rise to Columbia
SOLDIERS' HOME–WASHINGTON MONUMENT. 31
Heights, with an elevated plateau beyond, where
there is a Government park covering nearly a square
mile of rolling surface, and surrounding one of the
noted rural retreats on the borders of the Capital, the
“Soldiers' Home.” This is an asylum and hospital
for disabled and superammuated soldiers of the Ameri-
can regular army, containing usually about six hun-
dred of them, and founded by General Winfield
Scott, whose statue adorns the grounds. Its cottages
have been favorite retiring-places of the Presidents
in the warm weather. Amid lovely surroundings the
veterans are comfortably housed, and in the adjacent
cemetery thousands of them have been buried.
Scott's statue stands upon the southern brow of the
plateau, where a ridge is thrust out in a commanding
situation; and from here the old commander of the
army forty and fifty years ago gazes intently over
the lower ground to the city three miles away, with
the lofty Capitol dome and Washington Monument
rising to his level, while beyond them the broad and
placid Potomac winds between its wooded shores.
This is the most elevated spot near Washington,
overlooking a wide landscape. In the cemetery at
the Soldiers' Home sleeps General Logan, among the
thousands of other veterans. To the westward the
beautiful gorge of Rock Creek is cut down, and be-
yond is Georgetown, with its noted University,
founded by the Jesuits in 1789, and having about
seven hundred students. In the Oak Hill Cemetery,
32 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
at Georgetown, is the grave of John Howard Payne,
the author of “Home, Sweet Home,” who died in
1852. Far away over the Potomac, in the Arling-
ton National Cemetery, are the graves of Generals
Sherman and Sheridan. *
Down mear the Potomac, on the Mall, to the west-
ward of the Smithsonian turrets, is the extensive
brick and brownstone building representing the dom-
inant industry of the United States, which gives the
politicians so much anxiety in catering for votes—
the Agricultural Department. Here are spacious
gardens and greenhouses, an arboretum and herba-
rium, the adjacent buildings also containing an agri-
cultural museum. As over three-fifths of the men in
the United States are farmers and farm-workers, and
many others are in the adjunct industries, it has be-
come a popular saying in Washington that if you
wish to scare Congress you need only shake a cow's
tail at it. This department has grown into an
enormous distributing office for seeds and cuttings,
crop reports and farming information. Among its
curiosities is the “Sequoia Tree Tower,” formed of
a section of a Sequoia or Big Tree of California,
which was three hundred feet high and twenty-six
feet in diameter at the base. -
Behind the Agricultural Department, and rising
almost at the river bank, and in front of the Execu-
tive Mansion, is the noted Washington Monument,
its pointed apex elevated five hundred and fifty-five
SOLDIERS' HOME–WASHINGTON MONUMENT. 33
feet. This is a square and gradually tapering shaft,
constructed of white Maryland marble, the walls
fifteen feet thick at the base and eighteen inches at
the top, the pyramidal apex being fifty-five feet high
and capped with a piece of aluminum. Its construc-
tion was begun in 1848, abandoned in 1855, resumed
in 1877 and finished in 1884, at a total cost of $1,–
300,000. The lower walls contain stones contributed
by public corporations and organizations, many being
sent by States and foreign nations, and bearing suit-
able inscriptions in memory of Washington. A
fatiguing stairway of nine hundred steps leads to the
top, and there is also a slow-moving elevator. From
the little square windows, just below the apex, there
is a grand view over the surrounding country. Afar
off to the northwest is seen the long hazy wall of
the Blue Ridge or Kittatinny Mountain range, its
prominent peak, the Sugar Loaf, being fifty miles
distant. To the eastward is the Capitol and its sur-
mounting dome, over a mile away, while the city
spreads all around the view below, like a toy town,
its streets crossing as on a chess-board, and cut into
gores and triangles by the broad, diagonal avenues
lined with trees, the houses being interspersed with
many foliage-covered spaces. Coming from the
northwest the Potomac passes nearly at the foot of
the monument, with Arlington Heights over on the
distant Virginia shore, and the broad river channel
flowing away to the southwest until lost among the
VOL. I.-3
34 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
winding forest-clad shores below Alexandria. From
this elevated perch can be got an excellent idea of
the peculiarities of the town, its vast plan and long
intervals of space, so that there is quite plainly shown
why the practical Yankee race calls it the “City of
Magnificent Distances.” Possibly one of the best
descriptions of Washington and its characteristics is
that of the poet in the Washington Post:
A city well named of magnificent distances;
Of boulevards, palaces, fountains and trees;
Of Sunshine and moonlight whose subtle insistence is—
“Bask in our radiance I Be lulled by our breeze ſ”
A city like Athens set down in Arcadia;
White temples and porticoes gleaming 'mid groves;
Where nymphs glide and smile as though quite unafraid o'
you, # .
The home of the Muses, the Graces, the Loves;
The centre of Politics, Letters and Sciences;
Elysium of Arts, yet the Lobbyist's Dream ;
Where gather the clans whose only reliance is
Gold and the dross that sweeps down with its stream ;
An isle of the lotus, where every-day business
Sails on its course all unvexed by simoons;
No bustle or roar, no mad-whirling dizziness
O'er velvety streets like Venetian lagoons;
A town where from nothing whatever they bar women,
From riding a bicycle—tending a bar;
Ex-cooks queen society—ladies are charwomen—
For such the plain facts as too often they are.
A city where applicants, moody, disconsolate,
Swoop eager for office and senseless to shame ;
The “heeler” quite certain of getting his consulate,
Although, to be sure, he can't sign his name;
A town where all types of humanity congregate ;
The millionaire lolling on cushions of ease;
THE POTOMAC AND. THE ALLEGHENIES. 35
The tramp loping by at a wolfish and hungry gait;
And mankind in general a’ go as you please.
A city in short of most strange inconsistencies;
Condensing the history of man since the fall;
A city, however, whose piece de resistance is
This—'tis the best and the fairest of all.
THE POTOMAC AND THE ALLEGFIENIES.
The Potomac is one of the chief among the many
rivers draining the Allegheny Mountains. It origi-
mates in two branches, rising in West Virginia and
uniting northwest of Cumberland; is nearly four
hundred miles long; has remarkably picturesque
scenery in the magnificent gorges and reaches of its
upper waters; breaks through range after range of
the Alleghenies, and after reaching the lowlands be-
comes a tidal estuary for a hundred miles of its final
course, broadening to six and eight and ultimately
sixteen miles wide at its mouth in the Chesapeake.
Washington is near the head of tidewater, one hun-
dred and twenty-five miles from the bay; and for
almost its entire course the Potomac is an interstate
boundary, between Maryland and West Virginia and
Virginia. Its name is Indian, referring to its use in
their primitive navigation, the original word “Peto-
mok” meaning “they are coming by water”—“they
draw near in canoes.” The Alleghenies, where this
noted river originates, are a remarkable geological
formation. The Atlantic Coast of the United States
has a general trend from the northeast to the south-
36 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
west, with bordering sand beaches, and back of them
a broad band of pines. Then, towards the north-
west, the land gradually rises, being formed in suc-
cessive ridges, with intervening valleys, until it
reaches the Alleghenies. The great ranges of this
mountain chain, which is geologically known as the
Appalachian System, run almost parallel to the coast
for over a thousand miles, from the White Mountains
of New Hampshire down to Alabama. They are
noted mountains, not very high, but of remarkable
construction, and are said to be much older in geo-
logical formation than the Alps or the Andes. They
are composed of series of parallel ridges, one beyond
the other, and all following the same general course,
like the successive waves of the ocean. For long
distances these ridges run in perfectly straight lines,
and them, as one may curve around into a new direc-
tion, all the others curve with it. The intervening
valleys are as remarkable in their parallelism as the
ridges enclosing them. From the seaboard to the
mountains the ranges of hills are of the same general
character, but with less elevation, gentler slopes, and
in most cases marrower and much more fertile val-
leys. - -
The South Mountain, an irregular and in some
parts broken-down ridge, is the outpost of the Alle-
ghenies, while the great Blue Ridge is their eastern
buttress. The latter is about twenty miles north-
west of the South Mountain, and is the famous Kit-
THE POTOMAC AND THE ALLEGIHENIES. 37
tatinny range, named by the Indians, and in their
figurative language meaning “the endless chain of
hills.” It stretches from the Catskills in New York
southwest to Alabama, a distance of eight hundred
miles, a veritable backbone for the Atlantic seaboard,
its rounded ridgy peaks rising sometimes twenty-five
hundred feet north of the Carolinas, and much higher
in those States. It stands up like a great blue wall
against the northwestern horizon, deeply notched
where the rivers flow out, and is the eastern border
for the mountain chain of numerous parallel ridges
of varying heights and characteristics that stretch
in rows behind it, covering a width of a hundred
miles or more. Within this chain is the vast store
of minerals that has done so much to create Ameri-
can wealth—the coal and iron, the ores and metals,
that are in exhaustless supply, and upon the surface
grew the forests of timber that were used in building
the seaboard cities, but are now nearly all cut off.
The great Atlantic Coast rivers rise among these
mountain ridges, break through the Kittatinny and
flow down to the ocean, while the streams on their
western slopes drain into the Mississippi Valley.
The Hudson breaks through the Kittatinny outcrop
at the West Point Highlands, the Delaware forces a
passage at the Water Gap, the Lehigh at the Lehigh
Gap, below Mauch Chunk; the Schuylkill at Port
Clinton, the Susquehanna at Dauphin, above Harris-
burg, and the Potomac at Harper's Ferry. All these
38 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
rivers either rise among or force their winding pas-
Sages through the various ranges behind the great
Dlue Ridge, and also through the South Mountain
and the successive parallel ranges of lower hills that
are met on their way to the coast, so that all in their
courses display most picturesque Valleys.
HARPER'S FERRY AND JOHN BROWN.
The Potomac, having flowed more than two hun-
dred miles through beautiful gorges and the finest
scenery of these mountains, finally breaks out at
Harper's Ferry, receiving here its chief tributary,
the Shenandoah, coming up from Virginia, the Poto-
mac River passage of the Blue Ridge being described
by Thomas Jefferson as “one of the most stupendous
' The Shenandoah—its name mean-
scenes in mature.’
ing “the stream passing among the spruce-pines”—
flows through the fertile and famous “Valley of Vir-
ginia,” noted for its many battles and active move-
ments of troops during the Civil War, when the rival
forces, as fortunes changed, chased each other up and
down the Valley; and Harper's Ferry, at the con-
fluence of the rivers, and the towering Maryland
Heights on the northern side and the Loudon
Heights on the Virginia side, the great buttresses
of the river passage, being generally held as a
morthern border fortress. These huge mountain
walls rise fifteen hundred feet above the town, which
has a population of about two thousand.
IIARPER'S FERRY AND JOHN BROWN. 39
Harper's Ferry was also the scene of “John
Brown's raid,” which was practically the opening act
of the Civil War, although actual hostilities did not
begin until more than a year afterwards. “Old John
Brown of Osawatomie ’’ was a tanner, an unsettled
and adventurous spirit and foe of slavery, born in
Connecticut in 1800, but who, at the same time, was
one of the most upright and zealous men that ever
lived. In his wanderings he migrated to Kansas in
1855, where he lived at Osawatomie, and fought
against the pro-slavery party. His house was burnt
and his son killed in the Kansas border wars, and he
made bloody reprisals. Smarting under his wrongs,
he became the master-spirit of a convention which
met at Chatham, Canada, in May, 1859, and organ-
ized an invasion of Virginia to liberate the slaves.
Having formed his plans, he rented a farmhouse in
July about six miles from Harper's Ferry, and gath-
ered his forces together. On the night of October
16th, with twenty-two associates, six being negroes,
he crossed the bridge into Harper's Ferry, and cap-
tured the arsenal and armory of the Virginia militia,
intending to liberate the slaves and occupy the
heights of the Blue Ridge as a base of operations
against their owners. A detachment of United States
marines were next day sent to the aid of the militia,
and, after two days’ desultory hostilities, some of his
party were killed, and Brown and the survivors were
captured and given up to the Virginia authorities for
40 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
trial. His final stand was made in a small engine-
house, known as “John Brown's Fort,” which was
exhibited at the Chicago Exposition in 1893. Brown
and six of his associates were hanged at the county-
seat, Charlestown, seven miles southwest of Harper's
Ferry, on December 20, Brown facing death with the
greatest serenity. His raid failed, but it was poten-
tial in disclosing the bitter feeling between the North
and the South, and it furnished the theme for the
most popular and inspiring song of the Civil War:
“John Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave,
But his soul goes marching on.”
THE GREAT FALLS AND ALEXANDRIA.
The Potomac continues its picturesque course
below Harper's Ferry, and passes the Point of Rocks,
a promontory of the Catoctin Mountain, a prolonga-
tion of the Blue Ridge. There were battles fought
all about, the most noted being at South Mountain and
Antietam, to the northward, in September, 1862;
while it was at Frederick, fifteen miles away, during
this campaign, that Barbara Frietchie was said to
have waved the flag as Stonewall Jackson marched
through the town, immortalized in Whittier's poem.
Here is buried Francis Scott Key, author of the
“Star-Spangled Banner,” who died in 1843, and a
handsome monument was erected to his memory in
1898. The Potomac reaches its Great Falls about
fifteen miles above Washington, where it descends
THE GREAT FALLS AND ALEXANDRIA. 41
eighty feet in about two miles, including a fine cata-
ract thirty-five feet high. Below this is the “Cabin
John Bridge,” with one of the largest stone arches in
the world, of two hundred and twenty feet span,
built for the Washington Aqueduct, carrying the city
water supply from the Great Falls. On Wesley
Heights, to the northward, the new American Uni-
versity of the Methodist Church is being constructed.
Below Washington, the river passes the ancient
city of Alexandria, a quaint old Virginian town,
which was formerly of considerable commercial im-
portance, but is now quiet and restful, and cherishing
chiefly the memory of George Washington, who lived
at Mount Vernon, a few miles below, and was its
almost daily visitor to transact his business and go to
church and entertainments. The tradition is that
Madison, who was chairman of the Committee of Com-
gress, selected Alexandria for the “Federal City,”
intending to erect the Capitol on Shooters' Hill, a
mile out of town, as grand an elevation as the hill in
Washington; but he was overruled by the President
because the latter hesitated to thus favor his native
State. Had Madison had his way, the town probably
would not now be so sleepy. The modest little steeple
of Christ Church, where Washington was a vestry-
man, rises back of the town, and his pew, No. 5,
is still shown, for which, when the church was built
and consecrated in 1773, the records show that he
paid thirty-six pounds, ten shillings. To construct
42 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
this church and another at the Falls, the vestry of
Fairfax parish, in 1766, levied an assessment of
31,185 pounds of tobacco, and the rector's salary was
also paid in tobacco. After the Revolution, to help
support the church, Washington and seven others
signed an agreement in the vestry-book to each pay
five pounds annual rental for the pews they owned.
Robert E. Lee was baptized and confirmed and at-
tended Sunday-school in this old church, and tablets
in memory of Washington and Lee were inserted in
the church wall in 1870. At the Carey House, near
the river, Washington, in 1755, received from Gen-
eral Braddock, who had come up there from Hamp-
ton Roads, his first commission as an aide to that
commander, with the rank of Major, just before start-
ing on the ill-starred expedition into Western Penn-
sylvania. Alexandria has probably fifteen thousand
people, and on the outskirts is another mournful relic
of the Civil War, a Soldiers' Cemetery, with four
thousand graves. Below Alexandria, the Hunting
Creek flows into the Potomac, this stream having
given Washington's home its original name of the
“Hunting Creek Estate.”
WASHINGTON's HOME AND TOMB.
Mount Vernon, the home and burial-place of George
Washington, is seventeen miles below the city of
Washington, the mansion-house, being in full view,
standing among the trees on the top of a bluff, rising
WASHINGTON'S HOME AND TOMB. 43
about two hundred feet above the river. As the
steamboat approaches, its bell is tolled, this being the
universal custom on nearing or passing Washington's
tomb. It originated in the reverence of a British
officer, Commodore Gordon, who, during the invasion
of the Capital in August, 1814, sailed past Mount
Vermom, and as a mark of respect for the dead had
the bell of his ship, the “Sea Horse,” tolled. The
“Hunting Creek Estate’’ was originally a domain
of about eight thousand acres; and Augustine Wash-
ington, dying in 1743, bequeathed it to Lawrence
Washington, who, having served in the Spanish
wars under Admiral Vernon, named it Mount Vernon
in his honor. George Washington was born in 1732,
in Westmoreland County, farther down the Potomac,
and when a boy lived near Fredericksburg, on the
Rappahannock River. In 1752 he inherited Mount
Vernon from Lawrence, and after his death the estate
passed to his nephew, Bushrod Washington, subse-
quently descending to other members of the family.
Congress repeatedly endeavored to have Washing-
ton's remains removed to the crypt under the rotunda
of the Capitol originally constructed for their recep-
tion, but the family always refused, knowing it was
his desire to rest at Mount Vermon. The grounds
and buildings being in danger of falling into dilapi-
dation, and the estate passing under control of
strangers, a patriotic movement began throughout
the country for the purchase of the portion contain-
44 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
ing the tomb and mansion. The Virginia Legisla-
ture, in 1856, passed an act authorizing the sale, and
under the auspices of a number of emergetic ladies
who formed the “Mount Vernon Association,” assisted
by the oratory of Edward Everett, who traversed
the country making a special plea for help, a tract of
two hundred acres was bought for $200,000, being
enlarged by subsequent gifts to two hundred and
thirty-five acres. These ladies and their successors
have since taken charge, restoring and beautifying
the estate, which is faithfully preserved as a patri-
otic heritage and place of pilgrimage for visitors from
all parts of the world.
The steamboat lands at Washington’s wharf at the
foot of the bluff, where he formerly loaded his barges
with flour ground at his own mill, shipping most of it
from Alexandria to the West Indies. The road from
the wharf leads up a ravine cut diagonally in the face
of the bluff, directly to Washington's tomb, and along-
side the ravine are several weeping willows that were
brought from Napoleon's grave at St. Helena. Wash-
ington's will directed that his tomb “shall be built of
brick,” and it is a plain square brick structure, with
a wide arched gateway in front and double iron gates.
Above is the inscription on a marble slab, “Within
this enclosure rests the remains of General George
Washington.” The vault is about twelve feet square,
the interior being plainly seem through the gates. It
has upon the floor two large stone coffins, that on the
(Lomb of UÇlagbington, (Iſlount lºermom

WASHINGTON'S HOME AND TOMB. 45
right hand containing Washington, and that on the
left his widow Martha, who survived him over a
year. In a closed vault at the rear are the remains
of numerous relatives, and in front of the tomb
monuments are erected to several of them. No
monument marks the hero, but carved upon the
coffin is the American coat-of-arms, with the single
word “Washington.”
The road, farther ascending the bluff, passes the
original tomb, with the old tombstone antedating
Washington and bearing the words “Washington
Family.” This was the tomb, them containing the
remains, which Lafayette visited in 1824, escorted by
a military guard from Alexandria to Mount Vernon,
paying homage to the dead amid salvos of cannon
reverberating across the broad Potomac. It is a
round-topped and slightly elevated oven-shaped
vault. The road at the top of the bluff reaches the
mansion, standing in a commanding position, with a
fine view over the river to the Maryland shore. It
is a long wooden house, with an ample porch facing
the river. It is built with simplicity, two stories
high, and contains eighteen rooms, there being a
small surmounting cupola for a lookout. The central
portion is the original house built by Lawrence
Washington, who called it his “villa,” and afterwards
George Washington extended it by a large square
wing at each end, and when these were added he
gave it the more dignified title of the “Mansion.”
46 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
The house is ninety-six feet long and thirty feet
wide, the porch, extending along the whole front,
fifteen feet wide, its top being even with the roof,
thus covering the windows of both stories. Eight
large square wooden columns support the roof of the
porch. Behind the house, on either side, curved
colonnades lead to the kitchens, with other outbuild-
ings beyond. There are various farm buildings,
and a brick barn and stable, the bricks of which it is
built having been brought out from England about
the time Washington was born, being readily carried
in those days as ballast in the vessels coming out for
Virginia tobacco. The front of the mansion faces
east, and it has within a central hall with apartments
on either hand. At the back, beyond the outbuild-
ings and the barn, stretches the carriage road, which
in Washington's time was the main cntrance, off to
the porter's lodge, on the high road, at the boundary
of the present estate, about three-quarters of a mile
away. Everything is quiet, and in the thorough re-
pose befitting such a great man's tomb ; and this is
the modest mansion on the banks of the Potomac that
was the home of one of the noblest Americans.
THE WASI [INGTON RELICS.
As may be supposed, this interesting building is
filled with relics. The most valuable of all of them
hangs on the wall of the central hall, in a small glass
case shaped like a lantern—the Key of the Bastille—
THE WASHINGTON RELICS. 47
which was sent to Washington, as a gift from Lafay-
ette, shortly after the destruction of the noted prison
in 1789. This is the key of the main entrance, the
Porte St. Antoine, an old iron key with a large handle
of peculiar form. This gift was always highly prized
at Mount Vernon, and in sending it Lafayette wrote:
“It is a tribute which I owe as a son to my adopted
father; as an aide-de-camp to my general; as a mis-
sionary of liberty to its patriarch.” The key was
confided to Thomas Paine for transmission, and he
sent it together with a model and drawing of the
Bastille. In sending it to Washington Paine said:
“That the principles of America opened the Bastille
is not to be doubted, and therefore the key comes
to the right place.” The model, which was cut from
the granite stones of the demolished prison, and the
drawing, giving a plan of the interior and its ap-
proaches, are also carefully preserved in the house.
The Washington relics are profuse—portraits,
busts, old furniture, swords, pistols and other
weapons, camp equipage, uniforms, clothing, books,
autographs and musical instruments, including the
old harpsichord which President Washington bought
for two hundred pounds in London, as a bridal present
for his wife's daughter, Eleanor Parke Custis, whom
he adopted. There is also an old armchair which
the Pilgrims brought over in the “Mayflower” in
1620. Each apartment in the house is named for a
State, and cared for by one of the Lady-Regents of the
48 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
Association. In the banquet-hall, which is one of the
wings Washington added, is an elaborately-carved
Carrara marble mantel, which was sent him at the
time of building by an English admirer, Samuel
Vaughan. It was shipped from Italy, and the tale is
told that on the voyage it fell into the hands of pirates,
who, hearing it was to go to the great American
Washington, sent it along without ransom and unin-
jured. Rembrandt Peale's equestrian portrait of
Washington with his generals covers almost the entire
end of this hall. Here also is hung the original proof-
sheet of Washington's Farewell Address. Up stairs
is the room where Washington died; the bed on
which he expired and every article of furniture are
preserved, including his secretary and writing-case,
toilet-boxes and dressing-stand. Just above this
chamber, under the peaked roof, is the room in which
Mrs. Washington died. Not wishing to occupy the
lower room, after his death, she selected this one,
because its dormer window gave a view of his tomb.
The ladies who have taken charge of the place de-
serve great credit for their complete restoration;
they hold the annual meeting of the Association in
the mansion every May. -
As the visitor walks through the old house and
about the grounds, solemn and impressive thoughts
arise that are appropriate to this great American
shrine. From the little wooden cupola there is seen
the same view over the broad Potomac upon which
MARY, THE MOTHER OF WASHINGTON. 49
Washington so often gazed. The noble river, two
miles wide, seems almost to surround the estate with
its majestic curve, flowing between the densely-
wooded shores. Above Mount Vernon is a project-
ing bluff, which Fort Washington surmounts on the
opposite shore—a stone work which he planned—
hardly seeming four miles off, it is so closely visible
across the water. In front are the Maryland hills,
and the river then flows to the southward, its broad
and winding reaches being seem afar off, as the south-
ern shores slope upward into the forest-covered hills
of the sacred soil of the proud State of Virginia.
And then the constantly broadening estuary of the
grand Potomac stretches for more than a hundred
miles, far beyond the distant horizon, until it becomes
a wide inland sea and unites its waters at Point
Lookout with those of Chesapeake Bay.
MARY, THE MOTHER OF WASHINGTON.
To the southward of the Potomac a short distance,
and flowing almost parallel, is another moted river of
Virginia, the Rappahannock, rising in the foothills
of the Blue Ridge, and broadening into a wide estu-
ary in its lower course. Its chief tributary is the
stream which the colonists named after the “good
Queen Anne,” the Rapid Ann, since condensed into
the Rapidan. The Indians recognized the tidal es-
tuary of the Rappahannock, for the name means
“the current has returned and flowed again,” re-
VoI. I.-4
50 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
ferring to the tidal ebb and flow. Upon this stream,
southward from Washington, is the quaint old city
of Fredericksburg, which has about five thousand in-
habitants, and five times as many graves in the great
National Cemetery on Marye's Heights and in the Con-
federate Cemetery, mournful relics of the sanguimary
battles fought there in 1862–63. The town (lates
from 1727, when it was founded at the head of tide-
water on the Rappahannock, where a considerable
fall furnishes good water-power, about one hundred
and ten miles from the Chesapeake. But its chief
early memory is of Mary Ball, the mother of Wash-
ington, here having been his boyhood home. A
monument has been erected to her, which it took the
country more than a century to complete. She was
born in 1706 on the lower Rappahannock, at Epping
Forest, and Sparks and Irving speak of her as “the
belle of the Northern Neck” and “the rose of Epping
Forest.” In early life she visited England, and the
story is told that one day while at her brother's
house in Berkshire a gentleman's coach was over-
turned nearby and its occupant seriously injured.
He was brought into the house and carefully nursed
by Mary Ball until he fully recovered. This gentle-
man was Colonel Augustine Washington, of Virginia,
a widower with three sons, and it is recorded in the
family Bible that “Augustine Washington and Mary
Dall were married the 6th of March, 1730–31.” He
brought her to his home in Westmoreland County,
WILLIAMSBURG AND YORKTOWN. 51
where George was born the next year. His house
there was accidentally burnt and they removed to
Fredericksburg, where Augustine died in 1740; but
she lived to a ripe old age, dying there in 1789.
When her death was announced a national move-
ment began to erect a monument, but it was per-
mitted to lapse until the Washington Centenary in
1832, when it was revived, and in May, 1833, Presi-
dent Jackson laid the corner-stone with impressive
ceremonies in the presence of a large assemblage of
distinguished people. The monument was started
and partially completed, only again to lapse into
desuetude. In 1890 the project was revived, funds
were collected by an association of ladies, and in
May, 1894, a handsome white marble obelisk, fifty
feet high, was created and dedicated. It bears the
simple inscription, “Mary, the Mother of Wash-
ington.”
WILLIAMSBURG AND YORKTOWN.
Again we cross over southward from the Rappa-
hammock to another broad tidal estuary, an arm of
Chesapeake Bay, the York River. This is formed
by two comparatively small rivers, the Mattapomy
and the Pamunkey, the latter being the Indian name
of York River. It is quite evident that the Indians
who originally frequented and named these streams
did not have as comfortable lives in that region as
they could have wished, for the Mattapony means
“no bread at all to be had,” and the Pamunkey means
52 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
’ To the southward
“where we were all sweating.’
of York River, and between it and James River, is
the famous “Peninsula,” the locality of the first set-
tlements in Virginia, the theatre of the closing scene
of the War of the Revolution, and the route taken
by General McClellan in his Peninsular campaign of
1862 against Richmond. Williamsburg, which stands
on an elevated plateau about midway of the Penin-
sula, three or four miles from each river, was the
ancient capital of Virginia, and it has as relics the
old church and magazine of the seventeenth century,
and the venerable College of William and Mary,
chartered in 1693, though its present buildings are
mainly modern. This city was mamed for King
William III., and was fixed as the capital in 1699,
the government removing from Jamestown the next
year. In 1780 the capital was again removed to
Richmond. This old city, which was besieged and
captured by McClellan in his march up the Peninsula
in May, 1862, now has about eighteen hundred in-
habitants.
Down on the bank of York River, not far from
Chesapeake Bay, with a few remains of the British
entrenchments still visible, is Yorktown, the scene
of Cornwallis's surrender, the last conflict of the
American Revolution. Sir Henry Clinton, the Brit-
ish commander-in-chief in 1781, ordered Lord Corn-
wallis to occupy a strong defensible position in Vir-
ginia, and he established himself at Yorktown on
WILLIAMSBURG AND YORKTOWN. 53
August 1st, with his army of eight thousand men,
supported by several warships in York River, and
strongly fortified not only Yorktown, but also Glou-
cester Point, across the river. In September the
American and French forces effected a junction at
| Williamsburg, marching to the investment of York-
town on the 28th. Washington commanded the
besieging forces, numbering about sixteen thousand
men, of whom seven thousand were Frenchmen.
Upon their approach the British abandoned the out-
works, and the investment of the town was completed
on the 30th. The first parallel of the siege was es-
tablished October 9th, and heavy batteries opened
with great effect, dismounting numerous British guns,
and destroying on the might of the 10th a frigate and
three large transports. The second parallel was
opened on the 11th, and on the 14th, by a brilliant
movement, two British redoubts were captured. The
French fleet, under Count De Grasse, in Chesapeake
Bay, prevented escape by sea, and Cornwallis's posi-
tion became very critical. On the 16th he made a
sortie, which failed, and on the 17th he proposed
capitulation. The terms being arranged, he surren-
dered October 19th, this deciding the struggle for
American independence. When the British troops
marched out of the place, and passed between the
French and American armies, it is recorded that their
bands dolefully played “The World Turned Upside
Down.” Considering the momentous results follow-
54 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
ing the capitulation, this may be regarded as pro-
phetic. Yorktown was again besieged in 1862 by
McClellan, and after several weeks was taken in
May, the army then starting on its march up the
Peninsula.
THE NATURAL BRIDGE.
The chief river of Virginia is the James, a noble
stream, rising in the Alleghenies and flowing for four
hundred and fifty miles from the western border of
the Old Dominion until it falls into Chesapeake Bay
at Hampton Roads. Its sources are in a region noted
for mineral springs, and the union of Jackson and
Cowpasture Rivers makes the James, which flows to
the base of the Blue Ridge, and there receives a
smaller tributary, not inappropriately mamed the
Calfpasture River. The James breaks through the
Blue Ridge by a magnificent gorge at Balcony Falls.
Seven miles away, spanning the little stream known
as Cedar Brook, is the famous Natural Bridge, the
wonderful arch of blue limestone two hundred and
fifteen feet high, ninety feet wide, and having a span
of a hundred feet thrown across the chasm, which
has given to the county the name of Rockbridge.
Overlooking the river and the bridge and all the
country roundabout are the two noble Peaks of Otter,
rising about four thousand feet, the highest moun-
tains in that part of the Alleghenies. This wonder-
ful bridge is situated at the extremity of a deep
chasm, through which the brook flows, across the top
(Ibe ſºlatural J3ríðge, lºitginia

THE NATURAL BRIDGE. 55
of which extends the rocky stratum in the form of a
graceful arch. It looks as if the limestone rock had
originally covered the entire stream bed, which then
flowed through a subterranean tunnel, the rest of the
limestone roof having fallen in and been gradually
washed away. The bridge is finely situated in a
grand amphitheatre surrounded by mountains. The
crown of the arch is forty feet thick, the rocky walls
are perpendicular, and over the top passes a public
road, which, being on the same level as the imme-
diately adjacent country, one may cross it in a coach
without noticing the bridged chasm beneath. Vari-
ous large forest trees grow beneath and under the
arch, but are not tall enough to reach it. On the
rocky abutments of the bridge are carved the names
of many persons who had climbed as high as they
dared on the steep face of the precipice. Highest
of all, for about seventy years, was the name of
Washington, who, in his youth, ascended about
twenty-five feet to a point never before reached;
but this feat was surpassed in 1818 by James Piper,
a college student, who actually climbed from the foot
to the top of the rock. In 1774 Thomas Jefferson
obtained a grant of land from George III. which in-
cluded the Natural Bridge, and he was long the
owner, building the first house there, a log cabin
with two rooms, one being for the reception of
strangers. Jefferson called the bridge “a famous
place that will draw the attention of the world;”
56 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
Chief Justice Marshall described it as “God’s great-
’ and Henry Clay said it was
est miracle in stone;’
“The bridge not made with hands, that spans a
river, carries a highway, and makes two moun-
tains one.”
THE JAMES RIVER AND POWHATAN.
Following down James River, constantly receiving
accessions from mountain streams, we soon come to
Lynchburg, most picturesquely built on-the-sloping
foothills of the Blue Ridge, and having fine water-
power for its factories, a centre of the great tobacco
industry of Virginia, supporting a population of
about twenty thousand people. Lynchburg was a
chief source of supply for Lee's army in Eastern
Virginia until, in February, 1865, Sheridan, by a
bold raid, destroyed the canal and railroads giving it
communication ; and, after evacuating Richmond,
Lee was endeavoring to reach Lynchburg when he
surrendered at Appomattox, about twenty miles to
the eastward, on April 9, 1865, thus ending the Civil
War. The little village of Appomattox Court House
is known in the neighborhood as Clover Hill. When
Lee surrendered, casualties, captures and desertions
had left him barely twenty-seven thousand men, with
only ten thousand muskets, thirty cannon and three
hundred and fifty wagons.
The James River, east of the Blue Ridge, drains
a grand agricultural district, and its coffee-colored
THE JAMES RIVER AND POWHATAN. 57
waters tell of the rich red soils through which it
comes in the tobacco plantations all the way past
Lynchburg to Richmond. In its earlier history this
noted river was called the Powhatan, and it bears
that name on the older maps. Powhatan, the original
word, meant, in the Indian dialect, the “falls of the
stream ” or “the falling waters,” thus named from
the falls and rapids at Richmond, where the James,
in the distance of mine miles, has a descent of one
hundred and sixteen feet, furnishing the magnificent
water-power which is the source of much of the
wealth of Virginia's present, capital. The old Indian
sachem whose fame is so intertwined with that of
Virginia took his name of Powhatan from the river.
His original name was Wahunsonacock when the
colonists first found him, and he then lived on York
River; but it is related that he grew in power, raised
himself to the command of no less than thirty tribes,
and ruled all the country from southward of the James
to the eastward of the Potomac as far as Chesapeake
Bay. When he became great, for he was unques-
tionably the greatest Virginian of the seventeeth
century, he changed his name and removed to the
James River, just below the edge of Richmond,
where, mear the river bank, is now pointed out his

home, still called Powhatan. It was here that the
Princess Pocahontas is said to have interfered to
| save the life of Captain John Smith. Here still
stands a precious relic in the shape of an old chim-
58 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
mey, believed to have been originally built for the
Indian king's cabin by his colonist friends. It is of
Solid masonry, and is said to have outlasted several
successive cabins which had been built up against it
in Southern style. A number of cedars growing
alongside, tradition describes as shadowing the very
stone on which Smith's head was laid. It may not
be generally known that early in the history of the
colony Powhatan was crowned as a king, there
having been brought out from England, for the spe-
cial purpose, a crown and “a scarlet cloke and ap-
parrell.” The writer recording the ceremony says
quaintly : “Foule trouble there was to make him
kneele to receive his crowne. At last, by leaning
hard on his shoulders, he a little stooped, and three
having the crowne in their hands, put it on his head.
To congratulate their kindnesse, he gave his old
shoes and his mantell to Captaine Newport, telling
him take them as presents to King James in return
for his gifts.” -
THE INDIAN PRINCESS POCATIONTAS.
The James River carries a heavy commerce below
Richmond, and the channel depths of the wayward
and very crooked stream are maintained by an
elaborate system of jetties, constructed by the Gov-
ernment. Both shores show the earthworks that are
relics of the war, and Drewry’s Bluff, with Fort Dar-
ling, the citadel of the Confederate defence of the
THE INDIAN PRINCESS POCAHONTAS. 59
river, is projected across the stream. Below is
Dutch Gap, where the winding river, flowing in a
level plaim, makes a double reverse curve, going
around a considerable surface without making much
actual progress. Here is the Dutch Gap Canal,
which General Butler cut through the narrowest part
of the long neck of land, thus avoiding Confederate
batteries and saving a detour of five and a half
miles; it is now used for navigation. Just below is
the large plantation of Varina, where the Indian
Princess Pocahontas lived after her marriage with
the Englishman, John Rolfe. Its fine brick colonial
mansion was the headquarters for the exchange of
prisoners during the Civil War.
The brief career of Pocahontas is the great romance
of the first settlement of Virginia. She was the
daughter and favorite child of Powhatan, her name
being taken from a running brook, and meaning the
“bright streamlet between the hills.” When the In-
dians captured Captain John Smith she was about
twelve years of age. He made friends of the Indian
children, and whittled playthings for them, so that
Pocahontas became greatly interested in him, and
the tale of her saving his life is so closely interwoven
with the early history of the colony that those who
declare it apocryphal have not yet been able to
obliterate it from our school-books. Smith being
afterwards liberated, Pocahontas always had a long-
ing for him, was the medium of getting the colonists
60 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
food, warned them of plots, and took an interest in
them even after Smith returned to England. The
tale was then told her that Smith was dead. In
1614 Pocahontas, about nineteen years old, was kid-
mapped and taken to Jamestown, in order to carry
out a plan of the Governor by which Powhatam, to
save his daughter, would make friendship with the
colony, and it resulted as intended. Pocahontas
remained several weeks in the colony, made the ac-
quaintance of the younger people, and fell in love
with Master John Rolfe. Pocahontas returned to
her father, who consented to the marriage; she was
baptized at Jamestown as Lady Rebecca, and her
uncle and two brothers afterwards attended the
wedding, the uncle giving the Indian bride away in
the little church at Jamestown, April 5, 1614. A
peace of several years' duration was the consequence \sk

/ >
of this union. Two years afterwards Pocahontas and
her husband proceeded to England, where she wasſ
an object of the greatest interest to all classes of
people, and was presented at Court, the Queen
warmly receiving her. Captain Smith visited her in
London, and after saluting him she turned away her
face and hid it in her hands, thus continuing for over
two hours. This was due to her surprise at seeing
Smith, for there is no doubt her husband was a party
to the deception, he probably thinking she would
never marry him while Smith was living. The
winter climate of England was too severe for her,
SHIRLEY, BERKELEY AND WESTOVER. 61
and when about embarking to return to Virginia she
suddenly died at Gravesend, in March, 1617, aged
about twenty-two. She left one son, Thomas Rolfe,
who was educated in London, and in after life went
to Virginia, where he became a man of note and
influence. From him are descended the famous
the “First Families of Vir-
ginia”—the Randolph, Bolling, Fleming and other
families.
children of Pocahontas
SHIRLEY, BERKELEY AND WESTOVER.
The winding James flows by Deep Bottom and
Turkey Bend, and one elongated neck of land after
another, passing the noted battlefield of Malvern
Hill, which ended General McClellan's disastrous
“Seven Days” of battles and retreat from the Chicka-
hominy swamps in 1862. The great ridge of Mal-
vern Hill stretches away from the river towards the
northwest, and in that final battle which checked the
Confederate pursuit it was a vast amphitheatre ter-
raced with tier upon tier of artillery, the gunboats in
the river joining in the Union defense. Below, on
the other shore, are the spacious lowlands of Ber-
muda Hundred, where, in General Grant's significant
phrase, General Butler was “bottled up.” Here, on
the eastern bank, is the plantation of Shirley, one of
the famous Virginian settlements, still held by the
the Carters. The
wide and attractive old brick colonial house, with its
descendants of its colonial owners
: •|
2
62 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
hipped and pointed roof, stands behind a fringe of
trees along the shore, with numerous outbuildings
constructed around a quadrangle behind. It is built
of bricks brought out from England, is two stories
high, with a capacious front porch, and around the
roof are rows of dormer windows, above which the
roof runs from all sides up into a point between the
tall and ample chimneys. The southern view from
Shirley is across the James to the mouth of Appo-
mattox River and City Point.
The Appomattox originates in the Blue Ridge near
Lynchburg, and flows one hundred and twenty miles
castward to the James, of which it is the chief tribu-
tary. It passes Petersburg twelve miles southwest
of its point of union with the James, this union being
at a high bluff thrust out between the rivers, with
abrupt slopes and a plateau on the top, which is well
shaded. Here is the house—the home of Dr. Epps
—used by General Grant as his headquarters during
the operations from the south side of the James
against Petersburg and Lee's army in 1864–65.
Grant occupied two little log cabins on top of the
bluff, just east of the house; one his dwelling and
the other his office. One is still there in dilapida-
tion, and the other is preserved as a relic in Fair-
mount Park, Philadelphia. A short distance away
is the little town of City Point, with its ruined
wharves, where an enormous business was then done
in landing army supplies. To the eastward the
SHIRLEY, BERKELEY AND WESTOVER. 63
James flows, a steadily broadening stream, past the
sloping shores on the northern bank, where, at Har-
rison's Landing, McClellan rested his troops after the
“Seven Days,” having retreated there from the bat-
tle at Malvern Hill. His camps occupied the planta-
tions of Berkeley and Westover, the former having
been the birthplace of General William Henry Har-
rison, who was President of the United States for a
few weeks in 1841, the first President who died in
office. The Berkeley House is a spacious and com-
fortable mansion, but it lost its grand shade-trees
during the war. A short distance farther down is
the quaint old Queen Anne mansion of red brick, with
one wing only, the other having been burnt during
the war; with pointed roof and tall chimneys, stand-
ing at the top of a beautifully sloping bank—West-
over House, the most famous of the old mansions on
the James. It was the home of the Byrds—grand-
father, father and son—noted in Virginian colonial
history, whose arms are emblazoned on the iron gates,
and who sleep in the little graveyard alongside.
The most renowned of these was the second, the
“Honourable William Byrd of Westover, Esquire,”
who was the founder of both Richmond and Peters-
burg.
William Byrd was a man of imposing personal ap-
pearance and the highest character, and his full-
length portrait in flowing periwig and lace ruffles,
after Van Dyck, is preserved at Lower Prandon,
64 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
farther down the river. He inherited a large landed
and ample for-
estate—over fifty thousand acres
tume, and was educated in England, where he was
called to the bar at the Middle Temple, and made a
Fellow of the Royal Society. The inscription on
his Westover tomb tells that he was a friend of the
learned Earl of Orrery. He held high offices in Vir-
ginia, and possessed the largest private library then
in America. In connection with one Peter Jones, in
1733, he laid out both Richmond and Petersburg on
lands he owned, at the head of navigation respec-
tively on the James and the Appomattox. He left
profuse journals, published since as the Westover
Manuscripts, and they announce that Petersburg was
gratefully named in honor of his companion-founder,
Peter Jones, and that Richmond's name came from
Byrd’s vivid recollection of the outlook from Rich-
mond Hill over the Thames in England, which he
found strikingly reproduced in the soft hills and far-
stretching meadows adjoining the rapids of the
James, with the curving sweep of the river as it
flowed away from view behind the glimmering woods.
He died in 1744. Westover House was McClellan’s
headquarters in 1862. The estates have gone from
Byrd’s descendants, but the house has been com-
pletely restored, and is one of the loveliest spots on
the James. Major Augustus Drewry, its recent
owner, died in July, 1899, at an advanced age.
Coggins Point projects opposite Westover, and noted
THE COLONY OF JAMESTOWN. 65
plantations and mansions line the river banks, bear-
ing, with the counties, well-known English names.
Here is the ruined stone Fort Powhatan, a relic of
the War of 1812, with the Unionist earthworks of
1864–65 on the bluff above it. Then we get among
the lowland swamps, where the cypress trees elevate
their comical knees and roots above the water. The
James has become a wide estuary, and the broad
Chickahominy flows in between low shores, draining
the swamps east of Richmond and the James. This
was the “lick at which turkeys were plenty,” the
Indians thus recognizing in the name of the river
the favorite resort of the wild turkey.
THE COLONY OF JAMESTOWN.
We have now come to the region of earliest Eng-
lish settlement in America, where Newport and
Smith, in 1607, planted their colony of Jamestown
upon a low yellow bluff on the northern river bank.
It is thirty-two miles from the mouth of the James
River, and the bluff, by the action of the water, has
been made an island. The location was probably
selected because this furnished protection from at-
tacks. The later encroachments of the river have
swept away part of the site of the early settlement,
and a portion of the old church tower and some
tombstones are now the only relics of the ancient
town. The ruins of the tower can be seen on top of
the bluff, almost overgrown with moss and vines.
VOL. I.-5
66 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
Behind is the wall of the graveyard where the first
settlers were buried. A couple of little cabins are
the only present signs of settlement, the mansion of
the Jamestown plantation being some distance down
the river. - -
When the English colony first came to Jamestown
in 1607, they were hunting for gold and for the
“northwest passage” to the East Indies. In fact,
most of the American colonizing began with these
objects. They had an idea in Europe that America
was profuse in gold and gems. In 1605 a play of
“Eastward, Ho" was performed in London, in which
one of the characters said: “I tell thee golde is
more plentifull in Virginia than copper is with us,
and for as much redde copper as I can bring, I will
have thrice the weight in golde. All their pannes
and pottes are pure gould, and all the chaines with
which they chaine up their streetes are massie gould;
all the prisoners they take are fettered in golde; and
for rubies and diamonds they goe forth in holidays
and gather them by the seashore to hang on their
children's coates and sticke in their children's caps
as commonally as our children wear saffron, gilt
brooches, and groates with hoales in them.” The
whole party, on landing at Jamestown, started to
hunt for gold. Smith wrote that among the English
colonists there was “no talk, no hope, no work, but
dig gold, wash gold, refine gold, loade gold.” They
found some shiming pyrites that deceived them, and
THE COLONY OF JAMESTOWN. 67
therefore the first ship returning to England carried
away a cargo of shining dirt, found entirely worth-
less on arrival. The second ship, after a long de-
bate, they more wisely sent back with a cargo of
cedar. They hunted for the “northwest passage,”
first going up the James to the falls at the site of
Richmond, but returning disappointed. It was this
same hunt for a route to the Pacific which after-
wards took Smith up the Chickahomimy, where
he got among the swamps and was captured by the
Indians.
The Jamestown colonists met with great dis-
couragements. Most of them were unfitted for pio-
neers, and the neighboring swamps gave them mala-
ria in the hot summer, so that nearly half perished.
Smith, by his courage and enterprise, however, kept
the colony alive and took charge, being their leader
until captured by the Indians, and also afterwards,
until his return to England. Among the first con-
structions at Jamestown were a storehouse and a
church. These, however, were soon burnt, and a
second church and storehouse were erected in Sep-
tember, 1608. This church was like a barn in ap-
pearance, the base being supported by crotched
stakes, and the walls and roof were made of rafts,
sedge and earth, which soon decayed. When Smith
left Jamestown for England in 1609 the place con-
tained about sixty houses, and was surrounded by a
stockade. Smith early saw the necessity of raising
68 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
food, and determined to begin the growing of maize,
or Indian corn. Consequently, early in 1608 he pre-
vailed upon two Indians he had captured to teach the
method of planting the corn. Under their direction
a tract of about forty acres was planted in squares,
with intervals of four feet between the holes which
received the Indian corn for seed. This crop grew
and was partly harvested, a good deal of it, however,
being eaten green. Thus the Indian invented the
method of corn-planting universally observed in the
United States, and this crop of forty acres of 1608
was the first crop of the great American cereal grown
by white men. Wheat brought out from England
was first planted at Jamestown in 1618 on a field of
about thirty acres, this being the first wheat crop
grown in the United States.
Captain John Smith, before he left Jamestown,
estimated that there were about fifty-five hundred
Indians within a radius of sixty miles around the
colony, and in his works he enumerates the various
tribes. Describing their mode of life, he wrote that
they grew fat or lean according to the season. When
food was abundant, he said, they stuffed themselves
might and day; and, unless unforeseen emergencies
compelled them to arouse, they dropped asleep as
soon as their stomachs were filled. So ravenous
were their appetites that a colonist employing an In-
dian was compelled to allow him a quantity of food
double that given an English laborer. In a period of
THE COLONY OF JAMESTOWN. 69
want or hardship, when no food was to be had, the
warrior simply drew his belt more tightly about his
waist to try and appease the pangs of hunger. The
Indians, when the colonists arrived, were found to
divide the year into five seasons, according to its
varying character. These were, first, Cattapeuk,
the season of blossoms; second, Cohattayough, the
season when the sun rode highest in the heavens;
third, Nepenough, the season when the ears of maize
were large enough to be roasted; fourth, Taquetock,
the season of the falling leaves, when the maize was
gathered; and fifth, Cohonk, the season when long
lines of wild geese appeared, flying from the morth,
uttering the cry suggesting the name, thus heralding
the winter.
The colony was very unfortunate, and in 1617
was reduced to only five or six buildings. The
church had then decayed and fallen to the ground,
and a third church, fifty by twenty feet, was after-
wards built. Additional settlers were sent out from
England in the next two years, and the Virginians
were granted a government of their own, the new
Governor, Sir George Yeardley, arriving in the spring
of 1619. The Company in London also sent them a
communication “that those cruell laws, by which the
ancient planters had soe long been governed, were
now abrogated in favor of those free laws which his
majesties subjects lived under in Englande.” It
continued by stating “That the planters might have
70 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
a hande in the governing of themselves yt was granted
that a generall assemblie should be held yearly once,
whereat to be present the governor and counsell with
two burgesses from each plantation, freely to be
elected by the inhabitants thereof, this assemblie to
have power to make and ordaine whatsoever laws
and orders should by them be thought good and
profitable for their subsistence.” The Governor con-
sequently summoned the first “House of Burgesses”
in Virginia, which met at Jamestown, July 30, 1619,
the first legislative body in America. Twenty-two
members took their seats in the new church at James-
town. They are described as wearing bright-colored
silk and velvet coats, with starched ruffs, and as
having kept their hats on as in the English House of
Commons. The Governor sat in the choir, and with
him were several leading men who had been ap-
pointed by the Company on the Governor's Council.
They passed various laws, chiefly about tobacco and
taxes, and sent them to England, where the Company
confirmed them, and afterwards, in 1621, granted the
“Great Charter,” which was the first Constitution of
Virginia.
The colonists got into trouble with the Indians in
1622, and having killed an Indian who murdered a
white man, Jamestown was attacked and the inhabit-
ants massacred, three hundred and forty-five being
killed. Governor Butler, who visited the place not
long after the massacre, wrote that the houses were
THE COLONY OF JAMESTOWN. 71
the “worst in the world,” and that the most wretched
cottages in England were equal, if not superior, in
appearance and comfort to the finest dwellings in the
colony. The first houses were mostly of bark, imi-
tating those of the Indian; and, there being neither
sawmills to prepare planks nor mails to fasten them,
the later constructions were usually of logs plastered
with mud, with thatched roofs. The more preten-
tious of these were built double—“two pens and a
passage,” as they have been described. As late as
1675 Jamestown had only a few families, with not
more than seventy-five population. Labor was
always in demand there, and at first the laborers
were brought out from England. There was no
money, and having early learnt to raise tobacco from
the Indians, this became the chief crop, and, being
sure of sale in England, became the standard of value.
Tobacco was the great export, twenty thousand
pounds being exported in 1619, forty thousand in
1620 and sixty thousand in 1622. Everything was
valued in tobacco, and this continued the practical
currency for the first century. They imported a
lot of copper, however, with which to make small
coins for circulation. As the tobacco fluctuated in
price in England, it made a very unstable standard
of value. Gradually, afterwards, large amounts of
gold and silver coin came into Virginia in payment
for produce, thus supplanting the tobacco as a
standard.
72 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
THE VIRGINIAN PLANTERS.
Land was cheap in Virginia in the early days.
In 1662 the King of Mattapomy sold his village and
five thousand acres to the colonists for fifty match-
coats. During the seventeenth century the value
of land reckoned in tobacco, as sold in England,
averaged for cleared ground about four shillings per
acre, the shilling then having a purchasing power
equal to a dollar now. It was at this time that most
of the great Virginian estates along James River
were formed, the colonists securing in some cases
large grants. Thus, John Carter of Lancaster took
up 18,570 acres, John Page 5000 acres, Richard
Lee 12,000 acres, William Byrd 15,000 acres, after-
wards largely increased; Robert Beverley 37,000
acres and William Fitzhugh over 50,000 acres.
These were the founders of some of the most famous
Virginian families. The demand for labor naturally
brought Virginia within the market of the slave
trader, but very few megroes were there in the earlier
period. The first negroes who arrived in Virginia
were disembarked at Jamestown from a Dutch pri-
vateer in 1619—twenty Africans. In 1622 there
were twenty-two there, two more having landed;
but it is noted that no negro was killed in the James-
town massacre. In 1649 there were only three
hundred negroes in Virginia, and in 1671 there were
about two thousand. In the latter part of the seven-
THE VIRGINIAN PLANTERS. 73
teenth century the arrivals of negro slaves became
more frequent
labor being in demand. The records
show that the planters had great difficulty in supply-
ing them with names, everything being ransacked
for the purpose—mythology, history and geography
and hence the peculiar names they have conferred
in some cases on their descendants. In 1640 a
robust African man when sold commanded 2700
pounds of tobacco, and a female 2500 pounds, aver-
aging, at the then price of tobacco, about seventeen
pounds sterling for the men. Prices afterwards ad-
vanced to forty pounds sterling for the men. In
1699 all newly arrived slaves were taxed twenty
shillings per head, paid by the master of the vessel.
As the colony developed, the typical dwelling be-
came a framed log building of moderate size, with a
big chimney at each end, there being no cellar and
the house resting on the ground. The upper and
lower floors were each divided into two rooms. Such
a house, built in 1679, measuring forty by twenty
feet, cost twelve hundred pounds of tobacco. Finally,
when more prosperity came in the eighteenth cen-
tury, the houses were developed and enlarged into
more pretentious edifices, built of bricks brought out
from England. These were the great colonial houses
of the wealthy planters, so many of which exist
until the present day. The most prosperous time in
colonial Virginia was the period from 1710 until
1770. The exports of tobacco to England and flour
74 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
and other produce to the West Indies made the for-
tunes of the planters, so that their vast estates and
large retinues of slaves made them the lordly barons
whose fame spread throughout Europe, while their
wealth enabled them to gather all the luxuries of fur-
niture and ornament for their houses them attainable.
It was in these noble colonial mansions, surrounded
by regiments of negro servants, that the courtly Vir-
ginians of the olden time dispensed a princely hos-
pitality, limited only by their ability to secure what-
ever the world produced. The stranger was always
welcome at the bountiful board, and the slave children
grew up amid plenty, hardly knowing what work was.
This went on with more or less variation until the
Civil War made its tremendous upheaval, which
scattered both whites and blacks. But the typical
Virginian is unchanged, continuing as open-hearted
and hospitable, though his means now are much less.
To all he has, the guest is welcome; but it is usually
with a tinge of regret that he recalls the good old
time when he might have done more.
FIAMIPTON ROADS AND FORTRESS MONROE.
The constantly broadening estuary of the James
assumes almost the proportions of an inland sea, and
in the bays encircled by the low shores are planted
the seed oysters, which are gathered by fleets of
small vessels for transplanting into salt-water beds.
In front, near the mouth of the river, is thrust out
HAMPTON ROADS AND FORTRESS MONROE. 75
the long point of Newport News, with its grain ele-
vators and shipyards, dry-docks and iron-works, the
great port of the James River, which is the busy ter-
minal of railways coming from the West. Here is a
town of thirty thousand people. It was almost op-
posite, that in the spring of 1862 the Confederate
ram “Merrimac’’ (then called the “Virginia”), ar-
mored with railroad rails, came suddenly out from
Norfolk, and sank or disabled the American wooden
naval vessels in Hampton Roads; the next day,
however, being unexpectedly encountered by the
’ which had
novel little turret iron-clad “Monitor,'
most opportunely arrived from the upper Hudson
River, where Ericsson had built her. The “Merri-
mac” was herself soon disabled and compelled to
retire. This timely and dramatic appearance of
“the little Yankee cheese-box on a raft’ made a
sudden and unforeseen revolution in all the naval
methods and architecture of the world. Around the
point of Newport News the James River debouches
into one of the finest harbors of the Atlantic Coast,
Hampton Roads, named from the town of Hampton
on the northern shore. This is the location of a
Veteran Soldiers' Home, with two thousand immates,
an extensive Soldiers' Cemetery, and of the spacious
buildings of the Normal and Agricultural Institute for
Negroes and Indians, where there are eight to nine
hundred scholars, this being a foundation originally
established by the Freedmen's Bureau, the chief ob-
76 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
ject being the training of teachers for colored and
Indian schools.
The little peninsula of Old Point Comfort, which
makes the northern side of the mouth of the James
and juts out into Chesapeake Bay, has upon it the
largest and most elaborate fortification in the United
States—Fortress Monroe. It is related that when
Newport and Smith first entered the bay in 1607,
and were desirous of ascending the James, they
coasted along the southern shore and found only
shallow water. Starting out in a boat to hunt for a
channel up which their ships could pass, they rowed
over to the northern shore and discovered deeper
water entering the James, close to this little peninsula,
there being twelve fathoms depth, which so encouraged
Smith that it confirmed him in naming the place
Point Comfort. This channel, close inshore, could be
readily defended, as it was the only passage for vessels
of any draft, and consequently when the colony got
established at Jamestown they built Fort Algernon at
Point Comfort to protect the entrance to the James.
In 1611 this fort was described as consisting of stock-
ades and posts, without stone or brick, and containing
seven small iron guns, with a garrison of forty mem.
After the British invasion of Chesapeake Bay, in
1814, when they burnt the Capitol and White House
at Washington, it was quickly decided that no foreign
foe should be again permitted to do such a thing, and
that an elaborate work should be built to defend the
HAMPTON ROADS AND FORTRESS MONROE. 77
entrance to the bay. General Simon Bernard, one
of Napoleon's moted engineers, offered his services to
the United States after the downfall of the Emperor,
and he was placed in charge, with the duty of con-
structing, at the mouth of James River, a fortification
which would command the channel into that river
and to the Norfolk Navy Yard, and at the same time
be a base of operations against any fleet attempting
to enter the bay and menace the roadstead. Bernard
built in 1819, and several following years, an elabo-
rate fortress, with a broad moat and outlying water-
battery, enclosing eighty acres, the ramparts being
over two miles in circumference. It was called Fort-
ress Monroe, after the then President James Monroe,
of Virginia. Out upon an artificial island, known as
the Rip-raps, built upon a shoal some two miles off-
shore, and in the harbor entrance, the smaller works
of Fort Wool were subsequently constructed, and the
two make a complete defense for the Chesapeake Bay
entrance. During all the years this fortress has ex-
isted it has never had occasion to fire a gun at an
enemy, but its location and strength were invaluable
to the North, who held it during the Civil War. It
is the seat of the Artillery School of the army. To
the southward, at the waterside, are the hotels of Old
Point Comfort, which is one of the favorite seaside
watering-places of the South. In front is the great
Hampton roadstead, usually containing fleets of wind-
bound vessels and some men-of-war.
78 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
NORFOLIX AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD.
Over on the southern side of Chesapeake Bay is
the Elizabeth River, in reality a tidal arm of the sea,
curving around from the south to the east, and hav-
ing Norfolk on its northern bank and Portsmouth op-
posite. The country round about is flat and low-
lying, and far up the river are Gosport and the
Navy Yard, the largest possessed by the United
States. There are probably sixty thousand popula-
tion in the three towns. The immediate surround-
ings are good land and mostly market gardens, but
to the southward spreads the great Dismal Swamp,
covering about sixteen hundred square miles, in-
tersected by various canals, and yielding cypress,
juniper and other timber. It is partly drained by
the Nansemond River, on which, at the edge of the
swamp, is the little town of Suffolk, whence the
Jericho Run Canal leads into Lake Drummond, a
body of water covering eighteen square miles and
twenty-one feet above tidewater. Mrs. Harriet
Beecher Stowe has woven much of the romance of
this weird fastness and swamp into her tale of Dred.
The Dismal Swamp Canal, twenty-two miles long,
and recently enlarged and deepened, passes through
it from Elizabeth River to the Pasquotank River of
North Carolina, and the Albemarle Canal also con-
nects with Currituck Sound. This big swamp was
first explored by Colonel William Byrd, of Westover,
NORFOLR AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD. 79
in 1728, when he surveyed the boundary between
Virginia and North Carolina.
All about the Norfolk wharves are cottom bales,
much timber, tobacco and naval stores, and immense
quantities of food and garden products, not forget-
ting a profusion of “goobers,” all awaiting shipment,
for this, next to Savannah, is the greatest export
port for food and other supplies on the Southern At-
lantic. The “goober,” or peanut, is the special
crop of this part of Virginia and Carolina. The
cottom compresses do a lively business in the cottom
season, the powerful hydraulic pressure squeezing
the bale to barely one-fourth its former size, and
binding it firmly with iron bands, thus giving the
steamers increased cargo. In the spring the ship-
ment North of early fruits and vegetables is enor-
mous, vast surfaces being devoted to their growth,
the strawberry beds especially covering many acres.
The oyster trade is also large. The settlement of
Norfolk began in 1680, and in 1736 it was made a
borough. Portsmouth was established later, but the
starting of the navy yard there, which has become
so extensive, gave it great impetus. Portsmouth
claims that in the Civil War, in proportion to size, it
sent more soldiers to the Southern armies and had
more dead than any other city. The capacious naval
hospital and its fine grove of trees front Portsmouth
towards the harbor. Norfolk has St. Paul’s Church,
founded in 1730, as its chief Revolutionary relic—an
*
80 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
ancient building, with an old graveyard, and having
in its steeple the indentation made by a cannon-shot,
when a British fleet in 1776 bombarded and partly
burnt the town. An old-fashioned round ball rests
in the orifice; not, however, the one originally sent
there by the cannoneers. Relic-hunters visiting the
place have a habit of clandestinely appropriating the
cannon-ball, so the sexton, with an eye to business,
has some on hand ready to put into the cavity, and
thus maintain the old church's patriotic reputation.
A novel sight in Norfolk is its market, largely served
by negroes—old “mammies” with bright bandannas
tied about their heads and guarding piles of luscious
fruits; funny little pickaninnies who execute all man-
ner of athletic gyrations for stray pennies, queer old
market wagons, profusions of flowers, and such a col-
lection of the good things of life, all set in a picture
so attractive that the sight is long remembered.
THE EASTERN SHORE.
Northward from Old Point Comfort and Hampton
Roads the great Chesapeake Bay stretches for two
hundred miles. It bisects Virginia and Maryland,
and receives the rivers of both States, extending
within fourteen miles of Pennsylvania, where it has
as its head the greatest river of all, the Susquehanna,
“great
which the Indians appropriately called their
island river.” Its shores enclose many islands, and
are indented with innumerable bays and inlets, the
THE EASTERN SHORE. 81
alluvial soils being readily adapted to fruit and vege-
table growing, and its multitudes of shallows being
almost throughout a vast oyster bed. It has, all
about, the haunts of wild fowl and the nestling-places
of delicious fish. These shores were the home—
first on the eastern side and afterwards on the
western—of the Nanticokes, or “tidewater Indians,”
who ultimately migrated to New York to join the
Iroquois or Five Nations, making that Confederacy
the “Six Nations.” From Cape Charles, guarding
the northern entrance to the Bay, extends northward
the well-known peninsula of the “Eastern Shore,” a
land of market gardens, strawberries and peaches,
which feeds the Northern cities, and having its rail-
road, a part of the Pennsylvania system, running for
miles over the level surface in a flat country, which
enabled the builders to lay a mathematically straight
pair of rails for nearly minety miles, said to be the
longest railway tangent in existence.
Chesapeake Bay is now patrolled by the oyster
fleets of both Virginia and Maryland, each State
having an “oyster navy" to protect its beds from
predatory forays; and occasionally there arises an
“oyster war ’’ which expands to the dignity of a
newspaper sensation, and sometimes results in blood-
shed. The wasteful methods of oyster-dredging are
said to be destroying the beds, and they are much
less valuable than formerly, although measures are
being projected for their protection and restoration
VOL. I. —6
82 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
under Government auspices. We are told that a
band of famished colonists who went in the early
days to beg corm from the Indians first discovered
the value of the oyster. The Indians were roasting
what looked like stones in their fire, and invited the
hungry colonists to partake. The opened shells dis-
closed the succulent bivalve, and the white men
found there was other good food besides corn. All
the sites of extinct Indian villages along the Chesa-
peake were marked by piles of oyster shells, show-
ing they had been eaten from time immemorial.
The English colonists at Jamestown were told by
the Indians of the wonders of the “Mother of
Waters,” as they called Chesapeake Bay, about the
many great rivers pouring into it, the various tribes
on its shores, and the large fur trade that could be
opened with them ; so that the colonists gradually
came to the opinion that the upper region of the
great bay was the choicest part of their province.
Smith explored it and made a map in 1609, and
others followed him, setting up trading-stations upon
the rivers as far as the Potomac and the Patuxent.
Soon this new country and its fur trade attracted the
cupidity of William Claiborne, who had been ap-
pointed Treasurer of Virginia, and was sent out
when King James I. made it a royal province, the
king telling them they would find Claiborne “a per-
son of qualitie and trust.” He was also agent for a
London Company the king had chartered to make
CALVERT AND MARYLAND. 83
discoveries and engage in the fur trade. Claiborne,
in 1631, established a settlement on Kent Island, the
largest in the bay, about opposite Annapolis, and one
hundred and thirty miles north of the James, which
thrived as a trading station and next year sent its
burgesses to the Assembly at Jamestown.
CALVERT AND MARYLAND.
Sir George Calvert, who had been private secre-
tary to Lord Cecil in Queen Elizabeth's reign, and
also held office under King James, upon retiring was
created Baron of Baltimore in Ireland, and purchased
part of Newfoundland, which he called Avalon. He
sent out a colony and afterwards visited Avalon; but,
being discouraged by the cold climate, he abandoned
the colony, and persuaded the next king, Charles I.,
to give him land on both sides of Chesapeake Bay
north bf the Potomac. Before the deed was signed,
however, Baron Baltimore died, and his son, Cecilius
Calvert, succeeded him and received the grant. This
was one of the greatest gifts of land ever made, ex-
tending northward from the Potomac River, includ-
ing all Maryland, a broad strip of what is now Penn-
sylvania, all of Delaware, and a good deal of West
Virginia. The charter made the grant a Palatinate,
giving Lord Baltimore and his heirs absolute control
of the country, freedom to trade with the whole
world and make his own laws, or allow his colonists
to do this. The price was the delivery of two In-
84 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
dian arrows a year at the Castle of Windsor, and
one-fifth of all the gold and silver found. This grant
was dated on June 20, 1632, and the mame first in-
tended by Calvert for his colony was Crescentia;
but in the charter it was styled Terra Mariae, after
Queen Henrietta Maria, or “Mary's Land.” The
expedition came out the following winter, leaving the
Isle of Wight in November in two vessels, named
the “Ark” and the “Dove,” under command of
Leonard Calvert, Cecil's brother, there being two
hundred emigrants, nearly all Roman Catholics, like
their chief, and mostly gentlemen of fortune and re-
spectability. While the colony was Catholic, Cecil
Calvert inculcated complete toleration. In his letter
of instructions he wrote: “Preserve unity and peace
on shipboard amongst all passengers; and suffer no
offence to be given to any of the Protestants; for
this end cause all acts of the Roman Catholic religion
’ and he also told
to be done as privately as may be ;’
his brother, the Governor, “to treat all Protestants
with as much mildness and favor as justice would
permit,” this to be observed “at land as well as at
sea.” In March, 1633, they entered the Chesapeake
and sailed up to the Potomac River, landing at an
island and setting up a cross, claiming the country
for Christ and for England.
The “Ark” anchored, and the smaller “ Dove”
was sent cruising along the shore of the Potomac
above Point Lookout, “to make choice of a place
CALVERT AND MARYLAND. 85
probable to be healthfull and fruitfull,” which might
be easily fortified, and “convenient for trade both
with the English and savages.” The little “ Dove”
sailed some distance up the Potomac, examining the
shore, and encountered various Indians, who were
astonished when they saw the vessel, diminutive, yet
so much larger than their canoes, and said they would
like to see the tree from which that great canoe was
hollowed out, for they knew nothing of the method
of construction. The colonists talked with the In-
dians, having an interpreter, and Leonard Calvert
asked a chief: “Shall we stay here, or shall we go
back º’ To this a mysterious answer was made :
“You may do as you think best.” Calvert did not
like this, and decided to land nearer the bay, so his
vessel dropped down the river again, and they finally
landed on a stream where they found the Indian vil-
lage of Yoacamoco. The Indians were very friendly,
sold part of their village for some axes and bright
cloth, gave up their best wigwams to Calvert and his
colonists, and in one of these the Jesuit fathers held
a solemn service, dedicating the settlement to St.
Mary; and thus was founded the capital of the new
Palatinate of Maryland. Under Calvert's wise rule
the colony prospered, kept up friendliness with the
Indians, enjoyed a lucrative trade, and, after a long
struggle, ultimately managed to make Claiborne
abandon the settlement on Kent Island, which be-
came part of Maryland. To the northward of them
86 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
was the estuary of the Patuxent River, meaning
“the stream at the little falls.” St. Mary’s County
is the peninsula between the Patuxent and the Poto-
mac, terminating at Point Lookout, and a quiet and
restful farming country to-day. Leonardstown, on
the Patuxent, named after Leonard Calvert, is the
county-seat; but the ancient village of St. Mary’s,
the original colony and capital, afterwards superseded
by Annapolis, still exists, though only a few scattered
bricks remain to mark the site of the old fort and
town. At St. Inigoe's is the quaint colonial home
of the Jesuit fathers who accompanied Calvert, and
its especial pride is a sweet-toned bell, brought out
from England in 1685, which still rings the Angelus.
At Kent Island scarcely a vestige remains of Clai-
borne's trading-post and settlement.
THE MARYLAND CAPITAL.
The settlers of Maryland were not all Roman
Catholics, however, for Puritan refugees came in
there. Above the Patuxent is the estuary of the
Severn River, and here, in a beautiful situation, is
Annapolis, the capital of Maryland, which has about
eight thousand inhabitants, and was originally colon-
ized in 1649 by Puritans driven from the James
River in Virginia by the Episcopalians in control
there. The settlement was at first called Provi-
dence, and Richard Preston, the eminent Quaker,
was long its commander. Afterwards it was named
THE MARYLAND CAPITAL. 87
Anne Arundel Town, after Lady Baltimore, which
still is the name of its county, although the town
came to be finally known as Annapolis, from Queen
Anne, at the beginning of the eighteenth century,
who gave it valuable presents. It is now best known
as the seat of the United States Naval Academy,
which has a fine establishment there, founded by
George Bancroft, the historian, when he was Secre-
tary of the Navy, in 1845. Its ancient defensive
work, Fort Severn, has been roofed over, and is the
Academy gymnasium. The city was made the capi-
tal of Maryland in 1794, the government being then
removed from St. Mary’s, and the State Capitol is a
massive brick structure, standing on an eminence,
with a lofty dome and cupola, from which there is a
fine view of the surrounding country and over Chesa-
peake Bay. In the Senate Chamber General Wash-
ington surrendered his Commission to the American
Colomial Congress which met there in December,
1783, and in it also assembled the first Constitu-
tional Convention of the United States, in 1786.
In front of the building is a colossal statue of
Chief Justice Taney, of the Supreme Court of the
United States, a mative of Maryland, who died in
1864. Annapolis formerly had an extensive com-
merce and amassed much wealth, until eclipsed by
the growth of Baltimore, and now its chief trade,
like so many of the towns of the Chesapeake, is
in oysters.
88 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
THE MONUMENTAL CITY.
The head of Chesapeake Bay, on either side of the
Susquehamma River, is composed of various broad
estuaries, with small streams entering them. To the
eastward the chief is Elk River, and to the westward
are the Gunpowder and Bush Rivers, with others.
Not far above the Severn is the wide tidal estuary
of the Patapsco, so named by the Indians to describe
its peculiarity, the word meaning “a stream caused
by back or tidewater containing froth.” A few miles
up this estuary is the great city and port of the
Chesapeake, Baltimore, so named in honor of Lord
Baltimore, and containing, with its suburbs, over six
hundred thousand people. The spreading arms of
the Patapsco, around which the city is built, provide
an ample harbor, their irregular shores making plenty
of dock room, and the two great railways from the
north and west to Washington, which go under the
town through an elaborate system of tunnels, give it
a lucrative foreign trade in produce brought for ship-
ment abroad. From the harbor there are long and
marrow docks, and an immer “Basin '' extending into
the city, and across the heads of these is Pratt Street.
This highway is famous as the scene of the first
bloodshed of the Civil War. The Northern troops,
hastily summoned to Washington, were marching
along it from one railway station to the other on
April 19, 1861, when a Baltimore mob, sympathizing
THE MONUMENTAL CITY. 89
with the South, attacked them. In the riot and con-
flict that followed eleven were killed and twenty-six
were wounded. A creek, called Jones's Falls, com-
ing down a deep valley from the northward into the
harbor, divides the city into two almost equal sec-
tions, and in the lower part is walled in, with a street
on either side. Colonel David Jones, who was the
original white inhabitant of the north side of Balti-
more harbor, gave this stream his name about 1680,
before anyone expected even a village to be located
there. A settlement afterwards began eastward of
the creek, known as Jonestown, while Baltimore was
not started until 1730, being. laid out westward of
the creek and around the head of the “Basin,” the
plan covering sixty acres. This was called New
Town, as the other was popularly termed Old Town,
but they subsequently were united as Baltimore,
having in 1752 about two hundred people.
Baltimore is rectangular in plan and picturesque,
covering an undulating surface, the hills, which are
many, inclining either to Jones's Falls or the harbor.
Its popular title is the “Monumental City,” given
because it was the first American city that built fine
monuments. At the beginning of the nineteenth
century the State of Maryland erected on Charles
Street a monument to General Washington, rising
one hundred and ninety-five feet, a Doric shaft of
white marble surmounted by his statue and upon a
base fifty feet square. This splendid monument
90 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
stands in a broadened avenue and at the summit of
a hill, surrounded by tasteful lawns and flower gar-
dens, with a fountain in front. It makes an attrac-
tive centre for Mount Vermon Place, which contains
one of the finest collections of buildings in the city,
and presents a scene essentially Parisian. Here are
the Peabody Institute and the Garrett Mansion, both
impressive buildings. Baltimore has a “Battle
Monument,” located on Calvert Street, in Monument
Square, a marble shaft fifty-three feet high, marking
the British invasion of 1814, and erected in memory
of the men of Baltimore who fell in battle just outside
the city, when the British forces marched from Elk
River to Washington and burnt the Capitol, and the
British fleet came up the Patapsco and shelled the
town. The city also has other fine monuments, so
that its popular name is well deserved.
The City Hall is the chief building of Baltimore, a
marble structure in Renaissance, costing $2,000,000,
its elaborate dome rising two hundred and sixty feet,
and giving a magnificent view over the city and
harbor. There are two noted churches, the Mount
Vernon Methodist Church, of greenstone, with buff
and red facings and polished granite columns, being
the finest, although the First Presbyterian Church,
nearby, is regarded as the most elaborate specimen
of Lancet-Gothic architecture in the country, its spire
rising two hundred and sixty-eight feet. The Roman
Catholic Cathedral is an attractive granite church,
THE MONUMENTAL CITY. 91
containing paintings presented by Louis XVI. and
Charles X. of France. Cardinal Archbishop Gib-
bons, of Baltimore, is the Roman Catholic Primate
of the United States. The greatest charities of the
city are the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Johns
Hopkins University, endowed by a Baltimore mer-
chant who died in 1873, the joint endowments being
$6,500,000. Hopkins was shrewd and penurious,
and John W. Garrett persuaded him to make these
princely endowments, much of his fortune being in-
vested in the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, of which
Garrett was President in its days of greatest pros-
perity. This railroad is the chief Baltimore institu-
tion, giving it a direct route to the Mississippi Val-
ley, and was the first started of the great American
trunk railways, its origin dating from 1826, when
the movement began for its charter, which was
granted by the Maryland Legislature the next year.
This charter conferred most comprehensive powers,
and the story is told that when it was being read in
that body one of the members interrupted, saying:
“Stop, man, you are asking more than the Lord's
' The reply was that it was all necessary,
Prayer.’
and the more asked, the more would be secured.
The interrupter, convinced, responded: “Right,
” The corner-stone of the railway was
man ; go on.
laid July 4, 1828, beginning the route from Balti-
more, up the Potomac and through the Alleghenies
to the Ohio River.
92 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
DRUID HILL AND FORT M'HENRY.
Baltimore is proud of the great art collection of
Henry Walters in Mount Vermon Place, exhibited
for a fee for the benefit of the poor; and it also has
had as a noted resident Jerome Bonaparte, brother
of Napoleon, who married, and then discarded by
Napoleon's order, Miss Patterson, a Baltimore lady.
Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes has remarked that three
short American poems, each the best of its kind,
were written in Baltimore : Poe's Raven, Randall's
Maryland, My Maryland, and Key's Star-Spangled
Banner. It is also proud of its park—“Druid Hill”
a splendid pleasure-ground of seven hundred acres,
owing much of its beauty to the fact that it had been
preserved and developed as a private park for a
century before passing under control of the city.
The route to it is by the magnificent Eutaw Place,
and the stately entrance gateway opens upon an
avenue lined on either hand by long rows of flower
vases on high pedestals, laid out alongside Druid
Lake, the chief water-reservoir. The Park has an
undulating surface of woodland and meadow, with
grand old trees and splendid lawns, making a scene
decidedly English, not overwrought by art, but
mainly left in its matural condition. The mansion-
house of the former owner, now a restaurant, occu-
pies a commanding position, and on the northern
side the land rises to Prospect Hill, with an expan-
DRUID HILL AND FORT M HENRY. 93
sive view all around the horizon and eastward to
Chesapeake Bay. -
In this beautiful park the higher grounds are used
for water-reservoirs. Baltimore has the advantage
of receiving its supply by gravity from the Gun-
powder River to the northward, where a lake has
been formed, the pure water being brought through
a tunnel for seven miles to the reservoirs, of which
there are eight, with a capacity of 2,275,000,000
gallons, and capable of supplying 300,000,000 gal-
lons daily. These reservoirs appear as pleasant
lakes, Montebello and Roland, with Druid Lake,
being the chief. Across the ravine of Jones's Falls
is Baltimore's chief cemetery, Greenmount, a pretty
ground, with gentle hills and vales. Here, in a spot
selected by herself, is buried Jerome's discarded
wife, Madame Patterson-Bonaparte, whose check-
ered history is Baltimore's chief romance. Here
also lie Junius Brutus Booth, the tragedian, and his
family, among them John Wilkes Booth, who mur-
dered President Lincoln.
The most significant sight of Baltimore, however,
is its old Fort McHenry—down in the harbor, on the
extreme end of Locust Point, originally called Whet-
stone Point, where the Patapsco River divides—built
on a low-lying esplanade, with green banks sloping
almost to the water. It was the strategic position of
this small but strong work, thoroughly controlling the
city as well as the harbor entrance, that held Balti-
94 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
more during the early movements of the Civil War,
and maintained the road from the North to Washing-
tom. Its greatest memory, however, and, by the as-
sociation, probably the greatest celebrity Baltimore
enjoys, comes from the flag on the staff now quietly
waving over its parapets. Whetstone Point had
been fortified during the Revolution, but in 1794
Maryland ceded it to the United States, and the peo-
ple of Baltimore raised the money to build the pres-
ent fort, which was named after James McHenry,
who had been one of the framers of the Federal Con-
stitution and was Secretary of War under President
Washington. When Admiral Cockburn's British
fleet came up the Chesapeake in September, 1814,
the Maryland poet, Francis Scott Key, was an aid to
General Smith at Bladensburg. An intimate friend
had been taken prisoner on board one of the ships,
and Key was sent in a boat to effect his release by
exchange. The Admiral told Key he would have to
detain him aboard for a day or two, as they were
proceeding to attack Baltimore. Thus Key re-
mained among the enemy, an unwilling witness of
the bombardment on September 12th, which con-
tinued throughout the night. In the early morning
the attack was abandoned, the flag was unharmed,
and the British ships dropped down the Patapsco.
Key wrote his poem on the backs of letters, with
a barrel-head for a desk, and being landed next
day he showed it to friends, and them made a fresh
DEFENCE OF FORT M HENRY. 95
copy. It was taken to the office of the Baltimore
American and published anonymously in a handbill,
afterwards appearing in the issue of that newspaper
on September 21, 1814. The tune was “Anacreon
in Heaven,” and there was a brief introduction de-
scribing the circumstances under which it was written.
It was first sung in the Baltimore Theatre, October
12th of that year, and afterwards became popular.
The flag which floated over Fort McHenry on that
memorable might is still preserved. Fired by patri-
otic impulses, various ladies of Baltimore had made
this flag, among them being Mrs. Mary Pickersgill,
who is described as a daughter of Betsy Ross, of
Philadelphia, who made the original sample-flag dur-
ing the Revolution. The Fort McHenry flag con-
tains about four hundred yards of bunting and is
nearly square, measuring twenty-nine by thirty-two
feet. It has fifteen stars and fifteen stripes, which
was then the official regulation, there being fifteen
States in the American Union. The poem of the Star-
Spangled Banner, thus inspired and written, has become
the great American patriotic anthem, and has carried
everywhere the fame of the fort, the city, and the
flowery flag of the United States. The following is the
song, with title and introduction, as first published:
DEFENCE OF FORT M'HENRY.
TUNE– “Anacreon in Heavem.”
O ! Say can you see by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
96 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the Rockets' red glare, the Bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our Flag was still there;
O! Say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave 2
On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes;
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully glows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream.
'Tis the star-Spangled banner, O ! long may it wave
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the bravel
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more ?
Their blood has washed out their foul steps pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-Spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave
O ! thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lov’d homes and the war's desolation,
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the Heav'n rescued land,
Praise the Power that hath made and preserv'd us a nation
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this is our motto : “In God is our Trust.”
And the star-Spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the bravel
THE GREAT THEATRE OF THE
CIVIL WAR.
VoI. I.-7
II.
THE GREAT THEATRE OF THE CIVIL WAR.
On to Richmond—Horace Greeley’s Editorial Standard—The
Conflict’s Ebb and Flow—The Two Battles of Bull Run—
Arlington—Manassas–McDowell against Beauregard–Lee
and Jackson against Pope—Antietam—The Emancipation
Proclamation–Fredericksburg–Burnside against Lee–Chan-
cellorsville—Lee and Jackson against Hooker—Death of
Stonewall Jackson—Guinney Station—The Wilderness—Mine
Rum—Grant's Southern March—Battles of the Wilderness—
Spottsylvania—Iſanover Court-House—Ashland–Richmond
—The Capitol—Washington’s Statues—Stonewall Jackson's
Statue—Confederate White House—General Lee's House—
The First House—St. John's Church—Patrick Henry—Libby
Hill and Prison—Belle Isle—Rocketts—Hollywood Cemetery
—Noted Graves–McClellan's Siege of Richmond—Drewry’s
Bluff—Chickahominy Swamps—Fair Oaks—Seven Days' Bat-
tles–Gaines' Mill—Cold Harbor—Malvern Hill—Harrison's
Landing—Grant's Siege of Richmond—Second Battle of Cold
Harbor – Bermuda Hundred—Petersburg—Capture of Rich-
mond–Kilpatrick's Raid—Piedmont—Charlottesville–Uni-
versity of Virginia—Monticello—Thomas Jefferson—Shen-
andoah Valley – Cross Keys—Jackson's Exploits—Cedar
Mountain — General Sheridan — Cedar Creek — Sheridan
against Early–Luray Cavern–Battlefield of Gettysburg—
Lee Marches into Pennsylvania—Hooker Resigns—Meade
against Lee—Gettysburg Topography—Seminary Ridge—
Cemetery Ridge—The Round Tops—Confederate Advance to
Carlisle and the Susquehanna—Three Days' Battle–Rey-
nolds Killed—The Round Tops Attacked—General Sickles
Wounded in Peach Orchard–Ewell Repulsed at Cemetery—
Pickett's Charge and Repulse—Cushing and Armistead Killed
—High-Water Mark Monument—Lee Retreats—Gettysburg
(99)
100 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
Monuments—Jenny Wade—National Cemetery—Lincoln's
Immortal Dedication—Valley of Death—Massachusetts Color-
|Bearer—The Reumited Union,
ON TO RICHMOND.
Lay down the Axe ; fling by the spade :
Leave in its track the toiling plough ;
The rifle and the bayonet blade *
For arms like yours were fitter now ;
And let the hands that ply the pen
Quit the light task, and learn to wield
The horseman's crooked brand, and rein
The charger on the battlefield.
THUS trumpeted William Cullen Bryant in “Our
Country's Call,” while the most powerful American
editor of the time of the Civil War, Horace Greeley,
raised his standard at the head of the New York
Tribune's editorial page early in 1861 with the words
” The region between Washing-
“On to Richmond.
ton and Richmond, and much of the adjacent coun-
try stretching southward beyond James River and
northward into Pennsylvania, will always be historic
because of the momentous movements, sanguinary
conflicts and wonderful strategy of the great Ameri-
can Civil War from 1861 to 1865. We have de-
scribed the environment of Chesapeake Bay, and
now proceed to a consideration of this noted region
west of the bay, where the tide of battle repeatedly
ebbed and flowed. The first northern invasion of
the Virginia Peninsula and the abortive siege of
Richmond in the summer of 1862 were followed by
THE TWO BATTLES OF BULL RUN. 101
McClellan's retreat, Pope's defeat and the southern
invasion of Maryland, which was checked at Antie-
tam in the autumn. The northern attacks at Fred-
ericksburg in December and at Chancellorsville in
the spring of 1863 were followed by the invasion of
Pennsylvania, checked at Gettysburg, the “high-
water mark” of the rebellion ; and Grant’s march
down through “the Wilderness” in 1864, followed
by his gradual advances south of the James, forced
the evacuation of Richmond, and Lee's final sur-
render at Appomattox in 1865.
THIE TWO BATTLES OF BULL RUN.
The main route from Washington to the South
crossed the Potomac, then as now, by the “Long
Bridge,” passing in full view of the yellow Arlington
House, fronted by its columned porch. This historic
building was the home of General Robert E. Lee in
his early life, the chief Confederate Commander
during the Civil War. The estate is now a vast
cemetery, and upon it and all about to the westward
are the remains of the forts and earthworks erected
for the defence of Washington. After the war
began, in April, 1861, the Northern troops were
gradually assembled in and around Washington; but
there came an imperative demand from the country
that they should go forth and give the Confederates
battle and capture Richmond before their Congress
could meet, the opening of the session being fixed
102 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
for July 20th. The Southern armies were entrenched
at Mamassas Junction, west of Washington, and at
Winchester to the northwest, and they were making
forays almost in sight of Washington. General
McDowell, with nearly forty thousand men, marched
out of the Washington fortifications on July 17th to
attack General Beauregard at Manassas. The Com-
federates brought their Winchester army hastily
down, and took position along the banks of Bull
Run, a tributary of the Occoquan, their lines stretch-
ing for about eight miles. McDowell attacked on
the morning of the 21st, each side having about
twenty-eight thousand available men. The conflict
lasted with varying success most of the day, McDowell
being finally beaten and retreating to Washington.
Thirteen months later, after McClellan's retreat
from Richmond, was fought in almost the same place,
on August 29 and 30, 1862, the second battle of
Bull Run. General Pope had a considerable force in
Northern Virginia, and when McClellan, whom Pope
superseded, retreated from before Richmond, and
started on his return from James River, Lee moved
nearly his whole army up from Richmond, hoping to
fall upon Pope before McClellan could join him. On
August 22d the opposing forces confronted each
other along the Rappahannock, when General Stuart,
with the Confederate cavalry, made a raid around
Pope's lines to the rear, reaching that general's head-
quarters and capturing his personal baggage, in which
§tone $5tíðge, JBull iſ un

THE Two BATTLES OF BULL RUN, 103
was his despatch book describing the position of the
whole Northern army. This gave Lee such valuable
information that on the 25th he sent Stonewall Jack-
son with thirty thousand men, who, by a forced
march, went around the western side of the Bull
Run Mountains, came east again by the Thorough-
fare Gap, and on the night of the 27th was in Pope's
rear, and had cut his railroad connections and cap-
tured his supplies at Mamassas. Pope, discovering
the flanking movement, began falling back towards
Mamassas, and Jackson them withdrew towards the
Gap, waiting for Lee to come up. There were vari-
ous strategic movements afterwards, with fighting on
the 29th ; and on the 30th the Confederate wings
had enclosed as in a vise Pope's forces to the west
of Bull Run, whem, after some terrific combats, Pope
retreated across Bull Run towards Washington. Pope
had about thirty-five thousand men and Lee forty-six
thousand engaged in this battle. During the might
of September 2d Jackson made a reconnoissance
towards Washington, in which the Union Generals
Stevens and Kearney were killed at Chantilly, and
the authorities became so apprehensive of an attack
upon the Capital that they ordered the whole army
to fall back behind the Washington defenses. Pope
was then relieved, at his own request, and the com-
mand restored to McClellan. The Confederates
marched northward across the Potomac and McClel-
lan followed, ending with the battles of South Moun-
104 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
tain and Antietam, later in September, when Lee re-
treated and recrossed the Potomac into Virginia on
the 18th. The significant result of this conflict and
withdrawal was the issue of the famous Emancipa-
tion Proclamation. President Lincoln had made a
vow that if Lee was driven back from Maryland he
would issue a proclamation abolishing slavery, which
was done September 22, 1862.
FREDERICKSBURG AND THE WILDERNESS.
The route from Washington to Richmond skirts
the Potomac for a long distance south of Alexandria,
winding among hills and forests, crossing various
broad creeks and bayous, among them the Occoquan,
the outlet of Bull Run, and then diverges towards
the Rappahannock. This is more historic ground,
for the terrible battle of Fredericksburg was fought
here in December, 1862, and the battle of Chancel-
lorsville, to the westward, in May, 1863, where Stone-
wall Jackson lost his life. The “Wilderness” is to
the southward of the Rappahannock, occupying about
two hundred square miles, a plateau sloping to culti-
vated lowlands on every side. The original forests
were long ago cut off, and a dense growth of scrub
timber and brambles covered nearly the whole sur-
face, with an occasional patch of woodland or a clear-
ing. After the battle of Antietam the anxiety for
another forward movement to Richmond led the Ad-
ministration to remove McClellam, and then General
FREDERICKSBURG AND THE WILDERNESS. 105
Burnside took command. His troops crossed the
Rappahannock in December to attack General Lee's
Confederate position on the Heights of Marye, where
they were strongly entrenched; but the attack failed,
the shattered army after great carnage withdrawing
to the north bank of the river, and it lay there for
months in winter quarters. Burnside was superseded
by General Hooker, and in May, 1863, the Northern
army again crossed the Rappahannock at several
fords above Fredericksburg and started for Rich-
mond. Lee quickly marched westward from Freder-
icksburg, and Lee and Hooker faced each other at
Chancellorsville. Then came another of Stonewall
Jackson's brilliant flank movements. Chancellors-
ville is on the eastern border of the Wilderness, and
Jackson, making a long detour to the south and west
through that desolate region, got around and behind
Hooker's right flank, surprised him, and sent General
Howard's entire corps in panic down upon the rest
of the Union forces, making the greatest surprise of
the war. During that same might Jackson, after his
victory, was accidentally shot by his own men, a
blow from which the Confederacy never recovered.
Twelve miles south of Fredericksburg, at Guinney
Station, is the little house where Jackson died. He
and his aides, after reconnoitering, had returned with-
in the Confederate lines, and the pickets, mistaking
them for the enemy, fired into the party. Several
of his escort were killed and Jackson was shot in
106 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
three places, an arm being shattered. Being put
upon a litter one of the bearers stumbled, and Jack-
son was additionally injured by being thrown to the
ground. The arm was amputated, but afterwards
pneumonia set in, which was the immediate cause of
his death. He lingered a week, dying May 10th, in
his fortieth year, his last words, dreamily spoken,
being: “Let us cross over the river and rest under
the shade of the trees.” It is said this loss of his
ablest lieutenant had such an effect upon Lee that he
afterwards aged rapidly, and his hair quickly
whitened. The spot where Jackson was shot is
alongside the Orange Plank Road, and is marked by
a granite monument. Jackson is buried at Lexington,
Virginia, where he had previously been a professor
in the Military Academy. Hooker withdrew across
the Rappahannock, Lee started northward, Hooker
was succeeded by Meade, and the battle of Gettys-
burg was fought at the beginning of July.
Then came another movement towards Richmond,
late in the year 1863. Meade marched down to the
Wilderness in November, had heavy skirmishing and
fought the battle of Mine Run on its western border,
and then went back and into winter quarters. Gen-
eral Grant came from the West, took command, and
early in May, 1864, started on his great march to
Richmond through the Wilderness, with Lee con-
stantly fighting on his right flank and front. There
followed during that month a series of sanguinary
FREDERICKSBURG AND THE WILDERNESS. 107
battles, in this inhospitable region, in which the losses
of the two armies exceeded sixty thousand mem.
While moving southward, Grant faced and fought
generally westward. It took him ten days to pro-
gress a dozen miles, and he could only move during
the lulls in the fighting, the advance being usually
made by changing one corps after another from the
right to the left by marching in the rear of the main
body, thus gradually prolonging the left wing south-
ward through the forbidding country. Lee pressed
forward into the vacated space, fortifying and fight-
ing, his object being to force Grant eastward and
away from Richmond, which was towards the south.
“More desperate fighting has not been witnessed
upon this Continent,” said Grant of this struggle in
the Wilderness; and later he wrote to Washington
the famous declaration of his intention “to fight it
out on this line if it takes all summer.” The whole
of this desolate region south and west of Fredericks-
burg and down to Spottsylvania is filled with the re-
mains of the fortifications constructed in these memor-
able battles. Grant said that “In every change of
position or halt for the might, whether confronting
the enemy or not, the moment arms were stacked
the men entrenched themselves,” adding, “It was
wonderful how quickly they could construct defenses
of considerable strength.” Thus the way was worked,
by shovel and shell and musket and axe, through the
Wilderness. There is a plan afoot for acquiring
108 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
these battlefields and the connecting roads, so as
to preserve this historic ground as a public reserva-
tion.
The railway route to Richmond goes through the
Wilderness, thinly peopled, sparsely cultivated, and
exhibiting a few negro settlements, where they sun
themselves alongside their cabins and watch the
trains go by. There is an occasional horse or cow,
but almost the only animals visible are the mimble-
footed and hungry-looking “razor-backed”
hogs
that range the scrub timber in search of a precarious
living. Once in awhile is seen an old homestead
that has survived the ruin of the war, but the few
buildings are generally most primitive, the favorite
style being a small wooden cabin set alongside a
huge brick chimney. It is said the chimney is first
built, and if the draught is all right they then build
the little cabin over against it and move in the family.
The agriculture does not appear much better until
Richmond is approached, where the surface of the
country improves. At Hanover Court House are
more signs of battlefields, for here McClellan had his
early conflicts in besieging Richmond in 1862, while
Grant came down from the Wilderness and had the
battles of the North Anna near the end of May, 1864,
and of Cold Harbor in June, after which he moved
his army to the south side of James River. Ashland,
sixteen miles north of Richmond, is in an attractive
region, and is a favorite place of suburban residence.
THE CITY OF RICHMOND. 109
This was the birthplace of Henry Clay, in 1777, and
is the seat of Randolph Macon College.
THE CITY OF RICHMOND.
Richmond, the capital of Virginia, has about one
hundred and thirty thousand population, and occu-
pies a delightful situation. The James River flows
around a grand curve from the northwest to the south,
and pours over falls and rapids, which display many
little cascades among a maze of diminutive islands.
There are on the northern bank two or three large
hills and several smaller ones, and Richmond is built
upon these, it is said like Rome upon her seven hills.
The State Capitol and a broad white penitentiary
crown two of the highest. The town was founded at
the falls of the James in 1737, and the capital of Vir-
ginia was moved here from Williamsburg in 1779,
when there was only a small population. The place
did not have much history, however, until it became
the Capital of the Confederacy, and then the strong
efforts made to capture it and the vigorous defence
gave it world-wide fame. Beginning in 1862 it was
made an impregnable fortress, and its fall, when the
Confederate flank was turned in 1865 through the
capture of Petersburg, resulted from General Lee's
retreat westward and his final surrender at Appo-
mattox. When Lee abandoned Petersburg there was
a panic in Richmond, with riot and pillage; the
bridges, storehouses and mills were fired, and nearly
110 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
one-third of the city burnt. It has since, however,
been rebuilt in better style, and has extensive manu-
factures and a profitable trade.
The centre of Richmond is a park of twelve acres,
surrounding the Capitol, a venerable building upon
the summit of Shockoe Hill, and the most conspicu-
ous structure in the city. It was built just after the
American Revolution, the plan having been brought
from France by Thomas Jefferson, and modelled from
the ancient Roman temple of the Maison Carrée at
Nismes, the front being a fine Ionic portico. From
the roof, elevated high above every surrounding
building, there is an excellent view, disclosing the
grand sweep of the river among the islands and
rapids, going off to the south, where it disappears
among the hills behind Drewry’s Bluff, below the
town. The square-block plan with streets crossing
at right angles is well displayed, and the abrupt sides
of some of the hills, where they have been cut away,
disclose the high-colored, reddish-yellow soils which
have been so prolific in tobacco culture, and give the
scene such brilliant hues, as well as dye the river a
chocolate color in times of freshet. The city spreads
over a wide surface, and has populous suburbs on the
lower lands south of the James. This Capitol was
the meeting-place of the Confederate Congress, and
the locality of all the statecraft of the “Lost Cause.”
It contains the battle-flags of the Virginia troops and
other relics, and in a gallery built around the rotunda
THE CITY OF RICHMOND. 111
are hung the portraits of the Virginia Governors and
of the three great military chiefs, Lee, Johnston and
Jackson. Upon the floor beneath is Houdon's famous
statue of Washington, made while he was yet alive.
In 1785, the talented French sculptor accompanied
Franklin to this country to prepare the model for the
statue, which had been ordered by the Virginia Gov-
ernment. He spent two weeks at Mount Vermon
with Washington, taking casts of his face, head and
upper portion of the body, with minute measure-
ments, and then returned to Paris. The statue was
finished in 1788, and is regarded as the most accu-
rate reproduction of Washington existing. A statue
of Henry Clay and a bust of Lafayette are also in
the rotunda.
On the esplanade north of the Capitol is Craw-
ford's bronze equestrian statue of Washington upon
a massive granite pedestal, one of the most attractive
and elaborate bronzes ever made. The horse is
half thrown upon his haunches, giving the statue ex-
ceeding spirit, while upon smaller pedestals around
stand six heroic statues in bronze of Virginia states-
men of various periods—Patrick Henry, Thomas
Jefferson, Thomas Nelson, George Mason, Andrew
Lewis and Chief Justice John Marshall—the whole
adorned with appropriate emblems. This artistic
masterpiece was constructed at a cost of $260,000.
In the centre of the esplanade is Foley's bronze
statue of Stonewall Jackson, sent from London in
112 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
1875 by a number of his English admirers as a gift
to the State of Virginia. It is of heroic size, stand-
ing upon a pedestal of Virginia granite, and is a
striking reproduction. The inscription is: “Pre-
sented by English gentlemen as a tribute of admira-
tion for the soldier and patriot, Thomas J. Jackson,
and gratefully accepted by Virginia in the name of
the Southern people.” Beneath is inscribed in the
granite the remark giving his sobriquet, which was
made at the first battle of Bull Run in 1862, where
Jackson commanded a brigade. At a time when the
day was apparently lost, his troops made so firm a
stand that some One, in admiration, called out the
words that became immortal: “Look, there is Jack-
son standing like a stone wall !” A short distânce
from the Capitol is the “Confederate White House,”
a square-built dwelling, with a high porch in the rear
and a small portico in front. Here lived Jefferson
Davis during his career as President of the Con-
federacy; it is now a museum of war relics. Nearby
is St. Paul's Episcopal Church, where Davis was at-
tending service on the eventful Sunday morning in
April, 1865, when he was brought the fateful tele-
gram from General Lee which said that Richmond
must be immediately evacuated. In the central part
of the residential quarter, on Franklin Street, is the
plain brick house which during the Civil War was
the home of General Lee. It is related that after
the Appomattox surrender, when he returned to this
(Ulaghington (II) Omument, ificbmono, ll)a.

THE CITY OF RICHMOND. 113
house, the people of Richmond got an idea that he
was suffering privations and his family needed the
necessaries of life. His son, Fitz Hugh Lee, after-
wards said that the people them vied with each other
in sending him everything imaginable. So generous
were the gifts that the upper parts of the house were
filled with barrels of flour, meats and many other
things, and the supplies became so bountiful that
Lee directed their distribution among the poor. This
house is now occupied by the Virginia. Historical
Society. A magnificent equestrian statue of General
Lee was erected on Park Avenue in 1890. -
Some Richmond memorials, however, antedate the
Civil War. Its “first house ’’
stone cabin on the Main street, said to have been
a low, steep-roofed
there when the town site was first laid out—is an ob-
ject of homage. The popular idea is that the Indian
King Powhatan originally lived in this house, but it
was probably constructed after his time. Not far
away, upon Richmond or Church Hill, stands St.
John's Church among the old gravestones in a
a little
wooden church with a small steeple. Here the first
spacious churchyard. It was built in 1740
Virginian Convention was held which paved the way
for the Revolution in 1775, and listened to Patrick
Henry's impassioned speech--‘‘Give me liberty or
give me death.” The pew in which he stood while
speaking is still preserved. An adjoining eminence
is called Libby Hill, where lived Luther Libby, who
VOL. I.-8
114 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
owned most of the land thereabout. Under its
shadow was the Libby Prison of the Civil War, since
removed to Chicago for exhibition. It had been a
tobacco warehouse, occupied by Libby & Co., but
during the war it held at various times over fifty
thousand Northern prisoners. All the captured
soldiers were first taken to Libby, the commissioned
officers remaining there, while the privates were sent
to points in the interior. The most noted event in
the history of this prison was the boring of a tunnel
through the eastern wall, in February, 1864, by which
one hundred and mine prisoners, led by Colonel
Streight, managed to escape into an adjoining stable
and storehouse, and though more than half of them
were recaptured, the others got safely out of Richmond
and into the Union lines.
The water power of the James River supplies
huge flour mills and other factories, and alongside
the stream are the extensive Tredegar Iron Works
at the base of Gamble Hill, one of the largest iron
and steel works in the Southern States. Here were
made the Confederate cannon, shot and shell, and
the primitive armor plates for their few warships.
This hill also overlooks the James River and Kana-
wha Canal, an interior water way going westward
beyond the Alleghenies. In mid-river above is Belle
Isle, a broad, flat island, which during the war was
a place of imprisonment for private soldiers, but upon
it is now an iron mill. Along the lower river are the
THE CITY OF RICHMOND. 115
wharves and shipping, in the section called Rock-
etts, and here are also the tobacco storehouses and
factories, the chief Richmond industry, for it is the
world’s leading tobacco mart, receiving and distribut-
ing most of the product of the rich soils of Virginia,
Kentucky and Carolina. The pungent odor gener-
ally pervades the town, for whichever way the wind
may blow it wafts the perfume of a tobacco or ciga-
rette factory. The Tobacco Exchange is the business
centre, and this industry is of the first importance.
The modern-built City Hall, adjacent to the Capitol
Park, is one of Richmond's finest buildings.
In the western suburbs, upon the river bank, and
in a lovely position, is the famous Hollywood Ceme-
tery, the terraced sides of its ravines being occupied
by mausoleums and graves, while in front the rushing
rapids roar a requiem for the dead. The foliage is
luxuriant; and, while occupying only about eighty
acres, it is a most beautiful burial-place. Here are
interred two Virginia Presidents—James Monroe and
John Tyler. An elaborate monument marks the
former, and a magnificent tree is planted at Tyler's
grave—his daughter, buried nearby, having for a
monument a tasteful figure of the Virgin. The
Hollywood Cemetery Association is to place a monu-
ment on Tyler's grave. Here are also buried Con-
federate Generals A. P. Hill, J. E. B. Stuart, the
dashing cavalryman, and George E. Pickett, who led
the desperate Confederate charge of the Virginia
116 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
Division at Gettysburg. It also contains the graves
of the eccentric John Randolph of Roanoke; Com-
modore Maury, the navigator; Henry A. Wise, Gov-
ernor of Virginia when the State seceded, and
Thomas Ritchie, long editor of the Richmond En-
quirer, a most powerful writer and political leader in
the early part of the nineteenth century, who is re-
garded in Virginia as the “Father of the Democratic
Party.” There are crowded into this cemetery in
one place twelve thousand graves of Confederate
soldiers, and in the centre of the ghastly plot there
rises a huge stone pyramid, ninety feet high,
crected as a memorial by the Southern women.
Vines overrumming it almost conceal the rough joints
of the stones. No name is upon it, for it was built
as a monument for the unnamed dead. On three
sides are inscriptions; on one “To the Confederate
Dead;” on another “Memoria in AEterna,” and on a
third “Numini et Patriae Asto.” As they fell on
the adjacent battlefields or died in the hospitals, un-
claimed, they were brought here and buried in rows.
In one urgent, terrible season, time not being given
to prepare separate graves, the bodies were interred
on the hillside in long trenches. This sombre pyra-
mid and its immediate surroundings are impres-
sive memorials of the great war. From any of the
Richmond hills can be seen other grim mementos.
Almost all the present city parks were then army
hospitals or cemeteries; all the chief highways lead
M’CLELLAN’S SIEGE OF RICHMOND. 117
out to battlefields, and most of them in the suburbs
are bordered with the graves of the dead of both
armies. All around the compass the outlook is upon
battlefields, and on all sides but the north upon
cemeteries.
M’CLELLAN's SIEGE OF RICHMOND.
The great memory of Richmond for all time will
be of the Civil War, when for three years battles
raged around it. The first movement against the
city was McClellan's siege in 1862, and the environs
show abundant remains of the forts, redoubts and
long lines of earthworks by which the Confederate
Capital was so gallantly defended. The earliest at-
tack was by Union gunboats in May, 1862, against
the batteries defending Drewry's Bluff on James
River, seven miles below the town, the defensive
works being so strong that little impression was
made, but enough was learned to prevent any sub-
sequent maval attack there. McClellan came up the
Peninsula between James and York Rivers, ap-
proached Richmond from the east, and extended his
army around to the north, enveloping it upon a line
which was the arc of a circle, from seven miles east
to five miles north of the city. . The Chickahominy
flows through a broad and swampy depression in the
table-land north and east of Richmond, bordered by
meadows, fems and thickets of underbrush. It thus
divided McClellan's investing army, and the first
118 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
great battle near Richmond was begun by the Con-
federates, who took advantage of a heavy rain late
in May which had swollen the river and swamps.
They fell upon the Union left wing on May 31st, and
the indecisive battle of Fair Oaks, in which the
losses were ten thousand men, was fought southwest
of the Chickahominy. General Joseph E. Johnston,
the Confederate Commander, was badly wounded,
and General Lee succeeded him, continuing in com-
mand until the war closed. Extensive cemeteries
now mark this battlefield among the swamps. Dur-
ing June the heat and malaria filled McClellan's hos-
pitals with fever cases, and he had to move the
greater portion of his army to higher ground north
of the Chickahomimy, where he erected protective
earthworks. These still exist, with the formidable
ranges of opposing Confederate works on the south
side of the river.
One of the most brilliant Confederate movements
of the war followed. McClellan’s right wing stretched
around to the village of Mechanicsville, five miles
north of Richmond, and Lee determined to over-
whelm this wing. Stonewall Jackson had been driv-
ing the Union troops out of the Shenandoah Valley
northwest of Richmond, and late in June began a
combined movement with Lee's army at Richmond.
Longstreet and Hill crossed the Chickahominy above
Mechanicsville and attacked the Union right, begin-
ning the “Seven Days' Battles,” lasting from June
M’CLELLAN’S SIEGE OF RICHMOND. 119
25 to July 1, 1862. Jackson was to have got down
the same day from the Shenandoah Valley, but his
march was delayed, and this gave time for McClellan
to withdraw his wing and extensive baggage trains
across the swamps below, the stubborn defense by
his rear guards making the fierce conflict of Gaines'
Mill, on the second day, during which Jackson,
coming from the northward and joining the others,
compelled the Union lines to change front, the con-
test thus turning into the first battle of Cold Harbor,
in which the rear held their ground until the retreat
was completed across the Chickahominy, and with-
drew, destroying roads and bridges behind them.
McClellan then made a further retreat, for which
these obstructive tactics gave time, across the White
Oak Swamp down the river, moving on a single road,
leading to higher ground, which was held by hasty
defenses. The Confederate attacks upon this new
line made the battles of Savage Station, Charles City
Cross Roads, and Frazier's Farm, the pursuit being
checked long enough to permit another retreat and
the formation of lines of defense on Malvern Hill,
fifteen miles southeast of Richmond, adjoining James
River. The Confederates again attacked, but met a
disastrous check; and, wearied by a week of battles
and marches, they them desisted, closing the seven
days’ fighting, in which both sides were worn out,
and the losses were forty thousand men. McClel-
lan's army, having retreated from around Richmond,
120 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
afterwards withdrew farther down James River to
Harrison's Landing, and here they rested. Subse-
quently they were removed by vessels to Washing-
ton for the later campaign which resulted in the
second battle of Bull Run, McClellan being super-
seded for a brief period by Pope. This brilliant
Confederate movement against McClellan raised the
siege and relieved Richmond, emboldening them to
make their subsequent aggressive campaigns across
the Potomac, which were checked at Antietam and
at Gettysburg.
GRANT's SIEGE OF RICHMOND.
There were no Union attacks directly against
Richmond in 1863. The second great movement
upon the Confederate Capital began in June, 1864,
when Grant came down through the Wilderness, as
already described, and attacked the Confederates at
Cold Harbor. Lee was entrenched there in almost
the same defensive position occupied by McClellan's
rear when protecting his retreat across the Chicka-
hominy two years before. Grant made little impres-
sion, but in a brief and bloody battle lost fifteen
thousand men. He them turned aside from this
almost impregnable position to the northeast of Rich-
mond, went south to the James River, and, crossing
over, started a new attack from a different quarter.
This removed the seat of war to the South of Rich-
mond, and in September, 1864, General Butler's
GRANT'S SIEGE OF RICHMOND. 121
Unionist troops from Bermuda Hundred captured
Fort Harrison, a strong work on the northeast side
of the James, opposite Drewry’s Bluff, and not far
from Malvern Hill. The campaign then became one
of stubborn persistence. Throughout the autumn
and winter Grant gradually spread his lines west-
ward around Petersburg, so that the later movements
were more a siege of that city than of Richmond.
City Point, at the mouth of the Appomattox, flowing
out from Petersburg to the James, became his base
of supplies. As the Union lines were extended
steadily westward, one railway after another, leading
from the far South up to Petersburg and Richmond,
was cut off, and Lee was ultimately starved out, forc-
ing the abandonment of Petersburg in the early
spring of 1865, and the evacuation of Richmond on
April 3d, with the retreat of Lee westward, and the
final surrender at Appomattox six days later, caus-
ing the downfall of the Confederacy, and ending the
war. -
From the top of Libby Hill in Richmond the route
is still pointed out by which the swiftly moving
Union troops, after that fateful Sunday of the evacu-
ation, advanced over the level lands from Petersburg
towards the burning city. The bridges across the
James were burnt, and acres of buildings in the
business section were in flames when they came to
the river bank and found that the greater portion of
the affrighted people had fled. The Yankees quickly
122 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
laid a pontoon bridge, crossed to Shockoe Hill,
rushed up to the Capitol, and raised the Union
“Stars and Stripes” on the roof, replacing the Com-
federate “Stars and Bars.” Then they went vigor-
ously to work putting out the fires, and the new infu-
sion of life given the city by its baptism of blood
imparted an energy which has not only restored it,
but has given it an era of great prosperity. It is a
curious fact that the nearest approach any Northern
troops made to Richmond during the progress of the
war was in March, 1864. A precursor to Grant's
march through the Wilderness was a dashing cavalry
raid from the northward, the troopers crossing the
Chickahominy, then unguarded, and advancing to a
point about one mile from the city limits. Here they
met some resistance, and, learning of defensive works
farther ahead, General Kilpatrick, who commanded
the raiders, retreated. General Lee's troops were
then fifty miles away from Richmond, guarding the
lines along the Rappahannock.
PIEDMONT AND THE SHENANDOAH WALLEY.
In the great strategic movements of the opposing
armies of the Civil War they repeatedly traversed
a large part of Virginia and Maryland to the north-
west of the route between Washington and Rich-
mond. Like the general coastal formation east of
the Alleghemics, Virginia rises into successive ridges
parallel with the mountains. The first range of low
DIEDMONT AND THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY. 123
broken hills stretching southwest from the Potomac
are called in different parts the Kittoctin, Bull Run
and other mountains extending down to the Carolina
boundary. From these, what is known as the Pied-
mont district stretches all across the State, and has a
width of about twenty-five miles to the base of the
Blue Ridge, being a succession of picturesque val-
leys and rolling lands, the general elevation gradu-
ally increasing towards the northwest, where it is
bordered by the towering Blue Ridge and its many
spurs and plateaus, with passages through at various
gaps. The Blue Ridge is elevated about fifteen hum-
dred feet at the Potomac, but Mount Marshall, at
Front Royal, rises nearly thirty-four hundred feet,
and the Peaks of Otter, farther southwest, are much
higher. Beyond this is the great Appalachian Wal-
ley, which stretches from New England to Alabama,
the section here being known as the “Valley of Vir-
ginia,” and its northern portion as the Shenandoah
Valley. This is a belt of rolling country, with many
hills and vales, diversified by streams that wind
among the hillsides, and having a varying breadth
of ten to fifty miles in different parts. Beyond it, to
the northwest, are the main Allegheny Mountain
ranges. The opposing troops marched and fought
over all this country in connection with the greater
military movements, and here was the special thea-
tre of Stonewall Jackson's exploits and his wonder-
ful marches and quick manoeuvres which made his
124 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
troops proudly style themselves his “foot cavalry.”
The memory of Jackson is cherished by the South-
ern people more than that of any other of their
leaders in the Civil War, and his brilliant exploits
and inopportune death have made him their special
hero.
In the Piedmont region, to the southeast and in
front of the Blue Ridge, are the towns of Leesburg,
Manassas, Warrenton, Culpepper, Orange and Char-
lottesville, all well known in connection with the op-
posing military movements. Charlottesville, about
sixty-five miles northwest of Richmond, in a beauti-
ful situation, was an important Confederate base of
supplies. Here are now about six thousand people,
and the town has its chief fame as the seat of the
University of Virginia and the home of Thomas
Jefferson. The University was founded mainly
through the exertions of Jefferson, and has some
five hundred students. Its buildings are a mile out
of town, and the original ones were constructed from
Jefferson’s designs and under his supervision, the
chief being the Rotunda, recently rebuilt, and the
modern structures for a Museum of Natural History
and an Observatory. Jefferson was proud of this
institution, and in the inscription which he prepared
for his tomb described himself as the “author of the
Declaration of Independence, and of the statute of
Virginia for religious freedom, and father of the
University of Virginia.” Among its most famous
PIEDMONT AND THE SHENANDOAH WALLEY. 125
students was Edgar Allan Poe, and a fine bronze
bust of him was unveiled at the University in 1899,
on the fiftieth anniversary of his death. Thomas
Jefferson lived at Monticello, the old house being
an interesting specimen of early Virginia archi-
tecture, and standing on a hill southeast of the town.
Here he died just fifty years after the Declaration
was promulgated, July 4, 1826, and he is buried in
the family graveyard near the house. Monticello is
now celebrated for its native wines.
The Shenandoah Valley during the war was noted
for the way in which the opposing forces chased each
other up and down, with repeated severe battles.
Here was fought, in June, 1862, the battle of Cross
Keys, near the forks of the Shenandoah. Jackson
had previously retreated up the Valley, but by a
series of brilliant movements, begun after the battle
of Fair Oaks before Richmond, he was able to meet
and defeat in detail the various armies under Banks,
Fremont, McDowell and Shields, thus managing to
foil or hold in check seventy thousand men, while his
own troops were never more than twenty thousand.
Then coming southward out of the Valley, he joined
in turning McClellan's right wing before Richmond
at the end of June, afterwards following up Banks
in August, and defeating him at Cedar Mountain, near
Culpepper; then joining in the defeat of Pope at the
second battle of Bull Run; then capturing Harper's
Ferry and eleven thousand men September 15th,
126 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
and finally taking part in the battle of Antietam two
days later. When Grant began his siege of Rich-
mond after the second battle of Cold Harbor, in 1864,
he made General Sheridan commander of the troops
in the Shenandoah Valley, and fortune turned.
Sheridan opposed Early, and in September and Oc-
tober had a series of brilliant victories, the last one
at Cedar Creek, where he turned a rout' into a vic-
tory by his prompt movements. Sheridan had been
in Washington, and came to Winchester, “twenty
miles away,” where he heard “the terrible grumble
and rumble and roar ’’ of the battle, and made his
moted ride, the exploit being so conspicuous that he
received the thanks of Congress. Early in 1865 he
made a cavalry raid from Winchester, in the Valley,
down to the westward of Richmond, around Lee's
lines, and rejoined the army at Petersburg, having
destroyed the James River and Kanawha Canal and
cut various important railway connections in the Com-
federate rear. The Shenandoah Valley to-day is
very much in its primitive condition of agriculture,
but has been opened up by railway commections which
develop its resources, and its great present attraction
is the Cave of Luray. This cavern is about five
miles from the Blue Ridge, and some distance south-
west of Front Royal. It is a compact caverp, well
lighted by electricity, and is more completely and
profusely decorated with stalactites and stalagmites
than any other in the world. Some of the chambers
THE BATTLEFIELD OF GETTYSBURG. 127
are very imposing, and all the more important for-
mations have been appropriately named. The
scenery of the neighborhood is picturesque, and
the cavern has many visitors.
THE BATTLEFIELD OF GETTYSBURG.
In considering the great theatre of the Civil War,
attention is naturally directed to the chief contest of
all, and the turning-point of the rebellion, the battle
of Gettysburg, fought at the beginning of July,
1863. After the victory at Chancellorsville in May
the Confederates determined to carry the war north-
ward into the enemy's country. Gettysburg is seven
miles north of the southern boundary of Pennsylvania,
and over forty miles from the Potomac River. To
the westward is the long curving range of the South
Mountain, and beyond this the great Appalachian
Valley, a continuation of the Shenandoah Valley,
crossing Central Pennsylvania in a curve, and here
called the Cumberland Valley. In the latter are two
prominent towns, Chambersburg in Pennsylvania,
and Hagerstown in Maryland, on the Potomac.
General Lee, in preparation for the march morth-
ward, gathered nearly ninety thousand men at Cul-
pepper in Virginia, including Stuart's cavalry force
of ten thousand. General Hooker's Union army,
which had withdrawn across the Rappahannock after
Chancellorsville, was then encamped opposite Freder-
icksburg, and one hundred and fifty miles south of
128 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
Gettysburg. Lee started northward across the Po-
tomac, but Hooker did not discover it for some days,
and then rapidly followed. The Confederates crossed
between June 22d and 25th, and concentrated at
Hagerstown, in the Cumberland Valley, up which
they made a rapid march, overrunning the entire
valley to the Susquehanna River, and appearing op-
posite Harrisburg and Columbia. Hooker, being
late in movement, crossed the Potomac lower down
than Lee, on June 28th, thus making a northern
race, up the curving valleys, with Lee in advance,
but on the longer route of the outer circle. There
was a garrison of ten thousand men at Harper's
Ferry on the Potomac, and Hooker asked that they
be added to his army; but the War Department de-
clined, and Hooker immediately resigned, being suc-
ceeded by General George G. Meade, who thus on
the eve of the battle became the Union commander.
There are two parallel ridges bordering the plain
on which Gettysburg stands. The long Seminary
Ridge, stretching from north to south about a mile
west of the town, gets its name from the Lutheran
Theological Seminary standing upon it; and the
Cemetery Ridge to the south of the town, which
partly stretches up its slopes, has on its northern
flat-topped hill the village cemetery, wherein the
principal grave then was that of James Gettys, after
whom the place was named. There is an outlying
eminence called Culp's Hill farther to the east, mak-
Tiittle Roumo Cop, Gettysburg


THE BATTLEFIELD OF GETTYSBURG. 129
ing, with the Cemetery Ridge, a formation bent
around much like a fish-hook, with the graveyard at
the bend and Culp's Hill at the barb, while far down
at the southern end of the long straight shank, as the
ridge extends for two miles away, with an interven-
ing rocky gorge called the Devil's Den, there are
two peaks, formed of tree-covered crags, known as
the Little Round Top and the Big Round Top.
These long parallel ridges, with the intervale and
the country immediately around them, are the battle-
field, which the topographical configuration well dis-
plays. It covers about twenty-five square miles, and
lies mainly southwest of the town.
It was on June 28th that General Meade unex-
pectedly assumed command of the Union army, and
he was then, near the Potomac. General Ewell with
the Confederate advance guard had gone up the
Cumberland Valley as far as Carlisle, and his troopers
were threatening Harrisburg. Nobody had opposed
them, and the Confederate main body, which had
got much ahead of Hooker, was at Chambersburg.
Lee being far from his base, and hearing of the Union
pursuit, then determined to face about and cripple
his pursuers, fixing upon Gettysburg as the point of
concentration. He ordered Ewell to march south
from Carlisle, and the other commanders east from
Chambersburg through the mountain passes. The
Union cavalry advance under General Buford reached
Gettysburg on June 30th, ahead of the Confederates,
VOL. I.-9
130 AMERICA, I’ICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
and Meade's army was then stretched over the
ground for more than forty miles back to the Po-
tomac, all coming forward by forced marches. As
soon as Meade became aware of Lee's changed tac-
tics he concluded that this extended formation was
too risky, and decided to concentrate in a strong
position upon the Pipe Creek hills in Maryland, about
fifteen miles south of Gettysburg, and issued the
necessary orders. Thus the battle opened, with each
army executing a movement for concentration.
THE GREAT IBATTLE.
The battle began on July 1st, the Union Cavalry,
which had gone out to the west and north of Gettys-
burg, becoming engaged with the Confederate ad-
vance approaching the town from the passes through
the South Mountain. The cavalry, at first victori-
ous, was soon overwhelmed by superior numbers,
and infantry supports arrived, under General Rey-
molds; but he was killed, and they were all driven
back and through Gettysburg to the cemetery and
Culp's Hill, which were manned by fresh troops that
had come up. Meade was then at Pipe Creek, lay-
ing out a defensive line, but when he heard of Rey-
molds’ death and the defeat, he sent General Hancock
forward to take command, who decided that the
Cemetery Ridge was the place to give battle. Ewell
had in the meantime extended the Confederate left
wing around to the east of Culp's Hill and held
THE GREAT BATTLE. 131
Gettysburg, but active operations were suspended,
and the might was availed of by both sides to get
their forces up and into position, which was mainly
accomplished by morning. -
When the second day, July 26, opened, the armies
confronted each other in line of battle. The Union
troops were along the Cemetery Ridge and the Con-
federates upon the Seminary Ridge, across the inter-
vale to the west, their lines also stretching around
through Gettysburg to the north of the cemetery,
and two miles east along the base of Culp's Hill. In
the long intervening valley, and in the ravimes and
upon the slopes of the Cemetery Ridge and Culp's
Hill, the main battle was fought. The attack began
by General Longstreet advancing against the two
Round Tops, but after a bloody contest he was re-
pulsed. General Sickles, who held the line to the
south of the Little Round Top, then thought he could
improve his position by advancing a half-mile into
the valley towards the Seminary Ridge, thus making
a broken Union line, with a portion dangerously
thrust forward. The enemy soon took advantage
of this, and fell upon Sickles, front and flank, almost
overwhelming his line in the “Peach Orchard,” and
driving it back to the adjacent “Wheat Field.” Re-
inforcements were quickly poured in, and there was
a hot conflict, Sickles being seriously wounded and
his troops almost cut to pieces. About the same
time Ewell made a terrific charge out of Gettysburg
132 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
upon the Cemetery and Culp's Hill, with the “Louisi-
ana Tigers” and other troops, effecting a lodgement,
although the defending soldiers wrought great havoc
by a heavy cannonade. The Union gunners on Lit-
tle Round Top ultimately cleared the “Wheat Field,”
and then the combatants rested. Lee was much in-
spirited by his successes, and determined to renew
the attack next morning. -
Upon the third and last day, July 3d, General
Meade opened the combat early in the morning by
driving out Ewell's forces, who had effected a lodge-
ment on Culp's Hill. General Lee did not learn of
this, but he was full of the idea that both the Union
centre and right wing had been weakened the pre-
vious day, and during the might he planned an attack
in front, to be accompanied by a cavalry movement
around the Union right to assail the rear, thus fol-
lowing up Ewell's supposed advantage. To give
Stuart with the cavalry time to get around to the
rear, the front attack was not made until afternoon.
During the morning each side got cannon into posi-
tion, Lee having one hundred and twenty guns along
Seminary Ridge, and Meade eighty in the Cemetery
and southward, along a low, irregular stone pile,
forming a sort of rude wall bordering the road lead-
ing from Gettysburg south to Taneytown, in Mary-
land. The action began about one o’clock in the
afternoon, when the Confederates opened fire, and
the most terrific artillery duel of the war took place
THE GREAT BATTLE. 133
across the intervening valley, six guns being dis-
charged every second. The troops suffered little, as
they kept down in the ground, but several Union
guns were dismounted. After two hours deafening
cammomade Lee ordered his grand attack, the cele-
brated charge by General Pickett, a force of fourteen
thousand men with brigade front advancing across
the valley. They marched swiftly, and had a mile
to go, but before they were half-way across all the
available Union guns had been trained upon them.
Their attack was directed at an umbrella-shaped
clump of trees on the Cemetery Ridge at a low place
where the rude stone wall made an angle, with its
point outside. General Hancock commanded this
portion of the Union line. The grape and canister
of the Union cannonade ploughed furrows through
Pickett's ranks, and when his column got within three
hundred yards, Hancock opened musketry fire with
terrible effect. Thousands fell, and the brigades
broke in disorder; but the advance, headed by Gen-
eral Armistead on foot, continued, and about one
hundred and fifty men leaped over the stone piles at
the angle to capture the Union guns. Lieutenant
Cushing, mortally wounded in both thighs, ran his
last serviceable gun towards the wall, and shouting to
his commander, “Webb, I will give them one more
shot!” he fired the gun and died. Armistead put his
hand on the cannon, waved his sword, and called
out, “Give them the cold steel, boys!” them, pierced
134 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
by bullets, he fell dead alongside of Cushing. Both
lay near the clump of trees, about thirty yards inside
the wall, their corpses marking the farthest point to
which Pickett's advance penetrated. There was a
hand to hand conflict; Webb was wounded, and also
Hancock, and the slaughter was dreadful. The Com-
federates were overwhelmed, and not one-fourth of
the gallant charging column, composed of the flower
of the Virginia troops, escaped, the remnant retreat-
ing in disorder. Stuart's cavalry failed to coöperate
as intended, having met the Union cavalry about
four miles to the east of Gettysburg, and the conflict
ensuing prevented their attacking the Union rear.
After Pickett's retreat there was a general Union ad-
vance, closing the combat.
The point within the angle of the stone wall where
Cushing and Armistead fell has been commemorated
by what is known as the “High-Water Mark Monu-
ment,” for it was placed at the point reached by the
top of the flood-tide of the rebellion, as afterwards
there was a steady ebb. During the might of July
3d Lee began a retreat, and aided by heavy rains,
usually following great battles, the Confederates next
day withdrew through the mountain passes towards
Hagerstown, and afterwards escaped across the Po-
tomac. Upon the day of Lee's retreat, Vicksburg
surrendered to General Grant, and these two events
began the Confederacy's downfall. There were en-
gaged in the battle of Gettysburg about eighty thou-
THE GETTYSBURG MONUMENTS. 135
sand men on each side, the Union army having three
hundred and thirty-nine cannon and the Confeder-
ates two hundred and ninety-three. It was the larg—
est battle of the Civil War in the actual numbers en-
gaged, and ome of the most hotly contested. The
Union loss was twenty-three thousand and three
killed, wounded and prisoners, and the Confederate
loss twenty-three thousand seven hundred and sixty-
eight. *
- THE GETTYSBURG MONUMENTS.
The battlefield of Gettysburg is better marked,
both topographically and by monuments, than prob-
ably any other battlefield in the world. Over a mil-
lion dollars have been expended on the grounds and
monuments. The “Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial
Association,” representing the soldiers engaged, has
marked all the important points, and the tracts along
the lines, over four hundred and fifty acres, have been
acquired, so as to thoroughly preserve all the land-
marks where the most important movements were
executed. There are some five hundred monuments
upon the field, placed with the utmost care in the
exact localities, and standing in woods or on open
ground, by the roadsides, on stony heights and ridges
in gardens, and of all designs, executed in bronze,
marble, granite, on boulders and otherwise. Marking-
posts also designate the positions of the various or-
ganizations in the opposing armies. To the north
and west of Gettysburg is the scene of the first day's
136 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
contest, but the more interesting part is to the south-
ward. Ascending the Cemetery Hill, there is passed,
by the roadside, the house of Jenny Wade, the only
woman killed in the battle, accidentally shot while
baking bread. The rounded Cemetery Hill is an
elevated and strong position having many monu-
ments, and here, alongside the little village grave-
yard, the Government established a National Ceme-
tery of seventeen acres, where thirty-five hundred
and seventy-two soldiers are buried, over a thousand
being the unknown dead. A magnificent battle
monument is here erected, surmounted by a statue
of Liberty, and at the base of the shaft having figures
of War, History, Peace and Plenty. This charming
spot was the centre of the Union line, then a rough,
rocky hill. The cemetery was dedicated in Novem-
ber, 1863, Edward Everett delivering the oration,
and the monument on July 1, 1869. At the ceme-
tery dedication President Lincoln made the famous
“twenty-line address” which is regarded as the
most immortal utterance of the martyr President,
and has become an American classic. The British
Westminster Review described it as an oration having
but one equal, in that pronounced upon those who
fell during the first year of the Peloponnesian War,
and as being its superior, because “matural, fuller of
feeling, more touching and pathetic, and we know
with an absolute certainty that it was really de-
livered.” The President was requested to say a few
THE GETTYSBURG MONUMENTS. 137
words by way of dedication, and drawing from his
pocket a crumpled piece of paper on which he had
written some notes, he spoke as follows:
“Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers
brought forth upon this continent a new Nation,
conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition
that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged
in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or
any mation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long
endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that
war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the
final resting-place of those who here gave their lives
that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting
and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger
sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we
cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living
and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it
far above our power to add or detract. The world
will little mote, nor long remember, what we say here,
but it can never forget what they did here. It is for
us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the un-
finished work that they have thus far so nobly car-
ried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to
the great task remaining before us—that from these
honored dead we take increased devotion to the cause
for which they here gave the last full measure of de-
votion—that we here highly resolve that the dead
shall not have died in vain—that the nation shall,
under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that
138 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
government of the people, by the people, for the
people, shall not perish from the carth.”
A mile across the valley the Lutheran Seminary is
seen, the most conspicuous landmark of the Confed-
crate line. To the southeast from the cemetery is
Culp's Hill, strewn with rocks and boulders and cov-
cred with trees. The Emmettsburg road goes south-
ward down the valley, gradually diverging from the
Union line, and crossing the fields that were the
battleground on the second and third days. It is
bordered by numerous monuments, some of great
merit, and leads to the “Peach Orchard,” where the
line bends sharply back. Peach trees are replanted
here as the old ones fall. The “Wheat Field” is
alongside, now grass-grown. Beyond it the surface
goes down among the crags and broken stones of the
“Devil's Den,” a ravine through which flows a
stream, coming from the orchard and wheat field,
and separating them from the rocky “Round Tops,”
the sandstone cliffs of the “Little Round Top"
rising high above the ravine. The fields sloping to
the stream above the Den are known as the “Valley
of Death.” Among these rocks there are many
monuments, made of the boulders that are so numer-
ous. A toilsome path mounts the “Big Round Top ’’
beyond, and an Observatory on the summit gives a
good view over almost the entire battlefield. This
summit, more than three miles south of Gettysburg,
has tall timber, preserved as it was in the battle.
THE GETTYSBURG MONUMENTS. 139
There are cannon surmounting the “Round Tops,”
representing the batteries in action. Across the
valley to the west is the long fringe of timber that
masked the Confederate position on Seminary Ridge.
A picnic-ground, with access by railway, is located
alongside the “Round Tops.” The lines of breast-
works are maintained, and upon the lower ground,
not far away, are preserved the rough stone walls,
and to the northward is the little umbrella-shaped
grove of trees at which Pickett's charge was directed.
The Twentieth Massachusetts regiment brought here
a huge conglomerate boulder from New England and
set it up as their monument, their Colonel, Paul
Revere, being killed in the battle.
There was no fighting along the Confederate line
on Seminary Ridge until the scene of the first day’s
conflict is reached, to the northwest of Gettysburg.
Here is marked where General Reynolds fell, just
within a grove of trees, and a fine equestrian statue
of him has been erected on the field. From his un-
timely death, Reynolds is regarded as the special
Union hero of the battle, as Armistead was the
Southern. Nearby a spirited statue, the “Massachu-
setts Color-Bearer,” holds aloft the flag of the Thir-
teenth Massachusetts regiment, standing upon a slope,
thus marking the spot where he fell at the opening
of the conflict. Such is the broad and impressive
scene of one of the leading battles of the world, and
the greatest ever fought in America. But happily
140 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
the passions which caused it have been stilled, and
the combatants are now again united in their patri-
otic devotion to a common country. As Longfellow
solemnly sounds his invocation in the Building of the
Ship, so now do all the people in the reunited Union:
“Thus too, sail on, O Ship of State
Sail on, O Union, strong and great
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate l’’
,THE WALLEY OF THE DELAWARE.
III.
THE VAILLEY OF THE DELAWARE.
Delaware Bay—Cape May–Cape Hemlopen—Delaware Break-
water—Maurice River Cove—The Pea Patch—Newcastle—
Mason and Dixon's Line—Fort Christina—Wilmington—
The Duponts—Brandywine—William Penn—West Jersey—
Pennsylvania–Upland–The Ship “Welcome”—Philadel-
phia–Shackamaxon—The Lenni Lenapes—The City Hall—
Independence Hall—Benjamin Frank,in—Betsy Ross and
the American Flag–Stephen Girard—Girard College —Nota-
ble Charities and Buildings—Christ Church—Old Swedes'
Church—Longfellow’s Evangeline—Cathedral of St. Peter
and St. Paul—University of Pennsylvania—City of Homes—
John Bartram and his Garden—Fairmount Park—Laurel
Hill–Wissahickon Creek–Germantown—Johannes Kelpius
—The Schuylkill River—Tom Moore–Pennsylvania Dutch—
Valley Forge—Reading—Port C.inton—Pottsville—Anthra-
cite Coal-fields—New Jersey Coast Resorts—Atlantic City—
Ocean Grove—Asbury Park–Long Branch—St. Tammany—
Poquessing—Rancocas—The Neshaminy—The Log College—
Bristol—Durlington—Pennsbury Manor—Bordentown—Ad-
miral Stewart—Joseph Bonaparte–Camden and Amboy Rail-
road—Delaware and Raritan Canal—Trenton Gravel—Tren-
ton, its Potteries, Crackers and Battle—The Swamp Angel—
Morrisville—General Moreau—Princeton and its Battle—
General Mercer—Princeton University—Jonathan Edwards
—Marshall’s Walk–Pennsylvania Palisades—Forks of the
Delaware—Easton–Lafayette College—Ario Pardee—Phil-
lipsburg–Morris Canal–Lake Hôpatcong—Lehigh River—
Bethlehem–Lehigh University–The Moravians—Count Zin-
Zendorf–Teedy uscung — Allentown — Lehigh Gap—Mauch
Chunk — Asa Packer — Coal Mining—Summit Hill—The
(143)
144 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
Switchback — Nescopec Mountain — Wyoming Valley —
Wilkesbarre—Harvey's Lake—Scranton—Wyoming Massacre
—The Foul Rift—The Terminal Moraine—The Great Gla-
cier—Belvidere—Delaware Water Gap—The Wind Gap—
Minsi and Tammany—The Minisink—The Buried Valleys—
Nicholas Depui — George La Bar – Stroudsburg — Pocono
Knob—Bushkill—Walpack Bend—Pike County—Dingman's
Choice—Waterfalls—Milford—Tom Quick, the Indian Killer
—Tri-States Corner—Neversink River—Port Jervis—Dela-
ware and Hudson Canal—High Point—The Catskill Flags—
Hawk's Nest—Shohola—The Lackawaxen and its Battle—
The Sylvania Society—Horace Greeley—Blooming Grove—
Pocono High Knob—Hawley–The Wallenpaupack——The In-
dian Orchard—Homesdale—Washington Irving—The Gravity
Railroad—Carbondale–Mast Hope—Narrowsburg—Cochec-
ton — Hancock — Delaware Headwaters—Popacton River—
Mohock River—Deposit—Oquaga Creek and Lake—Lake
Utsyanthia—Ote-se-on-teo, Source of the Delaware.
DELAWARE BAY.
THE famous navigator of the Dutch East India
Company, Hendrick Hudson, was the first white man
who entered Delaware Bay. He discovered it on
August 28, 1609, two weeks before he entered
Sandy Hook Bay and found the Hudson River.
When Thomas West, Lord De La Warr, Governor
of Virginia, was driven by stress of weather into the
bay in 1611, his name was given the river. In
1614 another redoubtable old skipper of the Dutch
East India Company, Captain Carolis Jacobsen Mey,
searching, like all the rest of the navigators of those
days, for the morthwest passage to Asia and the In-
dies, came along there with a small fleet of sixty-ton
DELAWARE BAY. 145
frigates, and tried to give the river and its capes his
names; but only one of these has survived, Cape
May. The southern portal at the entrance, which he
wished to make Cape Carolis, was named a few
years afterwards, by the Swedes, Cape Henlopen.
The Indians called the river “Lenape-wihituck,”
or the “river of the Lenapes,” meaning “the origi-
mal people,” or, as sometimes translated, the “manly
men,” the name of the aboriginal confederation that
dwelt upon its banks. It had various other names,
for when the Swedes came, the Indians about the bay
called it “Pantoxet.” In an early deed to William
Penn it is called “Mackeriskickon,” and in another
document the “Zumikoway.” Some of the tribes up
the river named it “Kithamue,” meaning the “main
stem,” as distinguished from its tributaries, and
those on the upper waters called it the “Lemase-
pose,” or the “Fish River,” for the Upper Delaware
was then a famous salmon stream, and its early
Dutch explorers thus came to calling it the “Fish
River” also. The Delaware, from its source in the
Catskills to the sea, is about three hundred and sixty
miles in length.
The estuary of Delaware Bay is about sixty miles
long and thirty miles broad in the widest part, con-
tracting towards the north to less than five miles.
The capes at the entrance are about fifteen miles
apart. As a protection to shipping, the Government
began, on the Cape Hemlopen side, in 1829, the
Vol. I.-10
146 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
construction of the famous Delaware Breakwater.
It consists of a stone breakwater about twenty-six
hundred feet long facing the northeast, and an ice-
breaker about fourteen hundred feet long, at right
angles, facing the upper bay. These were completed
in 1870, there being an opening between them of
about sixteen hundred feet width, which was after-
wards filled up. The surface protected covers three
hundred and sixty acres, and the whole work cost
about $3,500,000. It was estimated in 1871 that
fully twenty thousand vessels every year availed
of the protection of this breakwater, the depth of
water being twenty-four feet behind it—sufficient for
most of the shipping of that day. But as vessels
have become larger and of deeper draft, they have
not been able to use it, and the Government has re-
cently begun the construction of another and larger
breakwater for a harbor of refuge in deeper water
adjoining the regular ship channel, some distance to
the northward. Delaware Bay divides the States of
Delaware and New Jersey. The first settlement in
Delaware was made by the Dutch near Lewes in
1630, but the Indians destroyed the colony; and in
1638 a colony of Swedes and Finns came out under
the auspices of the Swedish West India Company,
landed and named Cape Hemlopen, and purchased
from the Indians all the land from there up to the
falls at Trenton, finally locating their fort near the
mouth of Christiana Creek, and maming the country
IDELAWARE BAY. 147
Nya Sveriga, or New Sweden. The Swedes and
Dutch quarrelled about their respective rights until
New York was taken by the English in 1664, after
which England controlled. The first settlement in
New Jersey was made by Captains Mey and Jorisz
in 1623, who built the Dutch Fort Nassau a short
distance below Philadelphia; but it did not last.
Delaware Bay is an expansive inland sea, subject
to fierce storms, and broadening on its eastern side
into Maurice River Cove, noted for its oysters. A
deep ship channel conducts commerce through the
centre of the bay, marked by lighthouses built out
on mid-bay shoals, and, as the shores approach, by
range lights on the banks, the Delaware Bay and
River being regarded as the best marked and lighted
stream in the country. Up at the head of the bay,
years ago, a ship loaded with peas and beans sank,
and this in time made at first a shoal, and afterwards
an island, since known as the “Pea Patch.” Here
and on the adjacent shores the Government has lately
erected formidable forts, which make, with their tor-
pedo stations in the channel, a complete system of
defensive works in the Delaware, first put into active
occupation during the Spanish War of 1898, as a pro-
tection against a hostile fleet entering the river. Over
in the “Diamond State’ of Delaware, near here, on
the river shore, is the aged town of Newcastle, quiet
and yet attractive, having in operation, and evidently
to the popular satisfaction, the whipping-post and
148 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
stocks, a method of punishment which is a terror to
all evil-doers, and is said to be most successful in pre-
venting crime, as thieves and marauders give New-
castle a wide berth. This was originally a Swedish
settlement, the standard of the great Gustavus
Adolphus being unfurled there in 1640, when it
was called Sandhuken, or Sandy Hook, it being a
point of land jutting out between two little creeks.
The Dutch soon captured it, changing the name to
New Amstel; and about 1670 the settlement, then
containing nearly a hundred houses, became New
Castle, under English auspices. The northern bound-
ary of the State of Delaware, dividing it from Penn-
sylvania, is an arc of a circle, made by a radius of
twelve miles described around the old Court House
at Newcastle, which still has in its tower the bell pre-
sented by Queen Anne.
MASON AND DIXON'S LINE.
In coming over by railroad from the Chesapeake
to the Delaware, the train, after crossing the broad
Susquehanna and the head of Elk, and rounding in
Maryland the Northeast Arm of Chesapeake Bay,
soon enters the State of Delaware near the north-
eastern corner of the former State. This corner is
at the termination of the crescent-shaped northern
boundary of Delaware. The northern boundary of
Maryland here beginning and laid down due west, to
separate it from Pennsylvania, is the famous “Mason
|MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. T 49
and Dixon's Line,” surveyed by Charles Mason and
Jeremiah Dixon, two noted English mathematicians
and astronomers in the eighteenth century. This
boundary gained great motoriety because it so long
marked the northern limit of slavery in the United
States. For almost a century there were conflicts
about their respective limits between the rival pro-
prietaries of the two States, producing sometimes riot
and bloodshed, until, in 1763, these men were brought
over from England, and in December began laying
out the line on the parallel of latitude 39° 43' 26.3''
North. They were at the work several years, sur-
veying the line two hundred and forty-four miles west
from the Delaware River, and within thirty-six miles
of the entire distance to be run, when the French and
Indian troubles began, and they were attacked and
driven off, returning to Philadelphia in December,
1767. At the end of every fifth mile a stone was
planted, graven with the arms of the Penn family on
one side and of Lord Baltimore on the other. The
intermediate miles were marked by smaller stones,
having a P on one side and an M on the other, all
the stones thus used for monuments being sent out
from England. After the Revolution, in 1782, the
remainder of the line was laid down, and in 1849
the original surveys were revised and found substan-
tially correct.
When the little colony of Swedes and Finns under
Peter Minuet came into Christiana Creek in April,
150 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
1638, and established their fort, they began the first
permanent settlement in the valley of the Delaware.
It was built upon a small rocky promontory, and they
named it Christina, in honor of the daughter of Gus-
tavus Adolphus. The Dutch afterwards captured it
and called it Fort Altena; but the town retained part
of the original name in Christinaham, and the creek
also retained the name, the English taking possession
in 1664. The Swedes, however, regardless of the
flag that might wave over them, still remained; and
their old stone church, built in 1698, still stands, down
near the promontory by the waterside, in a yard
filled with time-worn gravestones. This old Swedes'
Church of the Holy Trinity, the oldest now on the
Delaware, was dedicated on Trinity Sunday, 1699,
and Rev. Ericus Tobias Biorck came out from Sweden
to take charge as rector. It was sixty by thirty feet
and twenty feet high, and a little bell tower was
afterwards added. The ancient church was recently
thoroughly restored to its original condition, with
brick floor, Oaken benches, and stout rafters support-
ing the roof. This interesting church building is in
a factory district which is now part of Wilmington,
the chief city of Delaware, a busy manufacturing
community of sixty-five thousand people, built on
the Christiana and Brandywine Creeks, which unite
about a mile from the Delaware. This active city
was laid out above the old settlement, in 1731, by
William Shipley, who came from Leicestershire,
WILLIAM PENN. 151
England. Ships, railway cars and gunpowder are
the chief manufactures of Wilmington. The Brandy-
wine Creek, in a distance of four miles, terminating
in the city, falls one hundred and twenty feet, pro-
viding a great water power. Up this stream are the
extensive Dupont powder-mills, among the largest in
the world, founded by the French statesman and
economist, Pierre Samuel Du Pont De Nemours,
who, after the vicissitudes of the French Revolution,
migrated with his family to the United States in
1799, and was received with distinguished consider-
ation. He afterwards was instrumental in securing
the treaty of 1803 by which France ceded Louisi-
ama, and was in the service of Napoleon, but finally
returned to America, where his sons were conducting
the powder-works, and he died near Wilmington in
1817. Admiral Samuel Francis Dupont, of the
American Navy, was his grandson. Farther up the
Brandywine Creek, at Chadd’s Ford and vicinity,
was fought, in September, 1777, the battle of the
Brandywine, where the English victory enabled them
to subsequently take possession of Philadelphia.
WILLIAM PENN.
Above Wilmington, the Delaware River is a noble
tidal stream of about a mile wide, flowing between
gently sloping shores, and carrying an extensive
commerce. The great river soon brings us to the
famous Quaker settlements of Pennsylvania. Wil-
152 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
liam Penn, who had become a member of the Society
of Friends, was bequeathed by his father, Admiral
Sir William Penn, an estate of £1500 a year and
large claims against the British Government. Fem-
wick and Byllinge, both Quakers, who had propri-
etary rights in New Jersey, disputed in 1674, and
submitted their difference to Penn’s arbitration. He
decided in favor of Byllinge, who subsequently be-
came embarrassed, and made over his property to
Penn and two creditors as trustees. This seems to
have turned Penn's attention to America as a place
of settlement for the persecuted Quakers, and he en-
gaged with zeal in the work of colonization, and in
1681 obtained from the king, for himself and heirs,
in payment of a debt of £16,000 due his father, a
patent for the territory now forming Pennsylvania,
on the fealty of the annual payment of two beaver
skins. He wanted to call his territory New Wales,
as many of the colonists came from there, and after-
wards suggested Sylvania as specially applicable to
a land covered with forests; but the king ordered the
name Pennsylvania inserted in the grant, in honor,
as he said, of his late friend the Admiral. In Feb-
ruary, 1682, Penn, with eleven others, purchased
West Jersey, already colonized to some extent.
Tradition says that some of these West Jersey colo-
mists sent Penn a sod in which was planted a green
twig, to show that he owned the land and all that
grew upon it. Next they presented him with a dish
Denn's Letitia $5treet ibouge, iRemoveo tC)
jfairmount ºath


WILLIAM PENN. 153
full of water, because he was master of the seas and
rivers; and then they gave him the keys, to show he
was in command and had all the power.
When William Penn was granted his province, he
wrote that “after many waitings, watchings, solicit-
ings and disputes in council, this day my country was
confirmed to me under the great seal of England.”
He had great hopes for its future, for he subsequently
wrote: “God will bless and make it the seed of a
nation; I shall have a tender care of the govern-
ment that it will be well laid at first.” Some of the
Swedes from Christina had come up the river in
1643 and settled at the mouth of Chester Creek, at a
place called Upland. The site was an eligible one,
and the first parties of Quakers, coming out in three
ships, settled there, living in caves which they dug
in the river bank, these caves remaining for many
years after they had built houses. Penn drew up a
liberal scheme of government and laws for his colony,
in which he is said to have had the aid of Henry, the
brother of Algernon Sidney, and of Sir William
Jones. He was not satisfied with Upland, however,
as his permanent place of settlement, but directed
that another site be chosen higher up the Delaware,
at some point where “it is most navigable, high, dry
and healthy; that is, where most ships can best ride,
of deepest draught of water, if possible, to load or
unload, at the bank or key-side, without boating or
lightening of it.” This site being selected between
154 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers, and the city laid
out, Penn, with about a hundred companions, mostly
Welsh Quakers, in September, 1682, embarked for
the Delaware on the ship “Welcome,” arriving at
Upland after a six weeks' voyage, and them going up
to his city site, which he named Philadelphia, the
“City of Brotherly Love.”
The first explorers of the Delaware River found
located upon the site of Philadelphia the Indian set-
tlement of Coquanock, or “the grove of long pine
trees,” a sort of capital city for the Lemmi Lenapes.
Their great chief was Tamamend, and the primeval
forest, largely composed of noble pine trees, then cov-
ered all the shores of the river. The ship “Shield,”
from England, with Quaker colonists for Burlington,
in West Jersey, higher up the river, sailed past
Coquanock in 1679, and a note was made that “part
of the tackling struck the trees, whereupon some on
board remarked that ‘it was a fine spot for a town.’”
When Penn sent out his advance agent and Deputy
Governor, Captain William Markham, of the British
army, in his scarlet uniform, to lay out the plan of
his projected city, he wrote him to “be tender of
offending the Indians,” and gave instructions that the
houses should have open grounds around them, as he
{ { * Yº ſºy ſº *
a green country
wished the new settlement to be
town,” and at the same time to be healthy, and free
from the danger of extensive conflagrations. Penn
bought the land farther down the Delaware from the
WILLIAM PENN. 155
Swedes, who had originally bought it from the In-
dians, and the site for his city he bought from the
Indians direct. They called him Mignon, and the
Iroquois, who subsequently made treaties with him,
called him Onas, both words signifying a quill pen,
as they recognized the meaning of his name. Out on
the Delaware, in what is now the Kensington ship-
building district, is the “neutral land of Shacka-
maxon.” This words means, in the Indian dialect,
the “place of eels.” Here, for centuries before
Penn's arrival, the Indian tribes from all the region
east of the Alleghenies, between the Great Lakes,
the Hudson River and the Potomac, had been accus-
tomed to kindle their council fires, smoke the pipe
of deliberation, exchange the wanipum belts of ex-
planation and treaty, and make bargains. Some
came by long trails hundreds of miles overland
through the woods, and some in their birch canoes by
water and portage. It was on this “neutral ground”
by the riverside that Penn, soon after his arrival,
held his solemn council with the Indians, sealing
mutual faith and securing their lifelong friendship for
his infant colony. This treaty, embalmed in history
and on canvas, was probably made in November,
1682, under the “Treaty Elm ’’ at Shackamaxon,
which was blown down in 1810, the place where it
stood by the river being now preserved as a park.
Its location is marked by a monument bearing the
significant inscription : “Treaty Ground of William
156 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
Penn and the Indian Nation, 1682—Umbroken
Faith.” Thus began Penn's City of Brotherly Love,
based on a compact which, in the words of Voltaire,
was “never sworn to and never broken.” It is no
wonder that Penn, after he had seen his city site, and
had made his treaty, was so abundantly pleased that
he wrote:
“As to outward things, we are satisfied, the land
good, the air clear and sweet, the springs plentiful,
and provision good and easy to come at, an innumer-
able quantity of wild fowl and fish; in fine, here is
what an Abraham, Isaac and Jacob would be well
contented with, and service enough for God, for the
fields here are white for harvest. O, how sweet is
the quiet of these parts, freed from the anxious and
troublesome solicitations, harries and perplexities of
woeful Europe.”
The Lemmi Lenapes, it is stated, told Penn and his
people that they often spoke of themselves as the
” in allu-
Wapamachki, or the “men of the morning,
sion to their supposed origin in the lands to the east-
ward, towards the rising sum. Their tradition was
that at the time America was discovered, their nation
lived on the island of New York. They called it
Mamahatouh, “the place where timber is got for
bows and arrows.” At the lower end of the island
was a grove of hickory trees of peculiar strength
and toughness. This timber was highly esteemed
for constructing bows, arrows, war-clubs, etc. When
THE QUAKER CITY. 157
they migrated westward they divided into two bands.
One, going to the upper Delaware, among the moun-
tains, was termed Mimsi, or “the great stone;” and
the other band, seeking the bay and lower river,
was called Wenawmien, or “down the river.” These
Indians originated the name of the Allegheny Moun-
tains, which they called the Allickewany, the word
meaning “He leaves us and may never return"—it
is supposed in reference to departing hunters or war-
riors who went into the mountain passes.
THE QUAKER CITY.
The great city thus founded by William Penn is
built chiefly upon a broad plain between the Dela-
ware and Schuylkill Rivers, about one hundred miles
from the sea, and upon the undulating surface to the
north and west. The shape of the city is much like
an hour-glass, between the rivers, although it spreads
far west of the Schuylkill. The Delaware River, in
front of the built-up portion, sweeps around a grand
curve from northeast to south, and then, reversing
the movement, flows around the Horseshoe Bend
below the city, from south to west, to meet the
Schuylkill. The railway and commercial facilities,
the proximity to the coal-fields, and the ample room
to spread in all directions, added to the cheapness of
living, have made Philadelphia the greatest manufac-
turing city in the world, and attracted to it 1,300,000
inhabitants. The alluvial character of the shores of
158 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
the two rivers surrounds the city with a region of
the richest market gardens, and the adjoining coun-
ties are a wealthy agricultural and dairy section.
Clay, underlying a large part of the surface, has fur-
mished the bricks to build much of the town. Most
of the people own their homes; there are over two
hundred and fifty thousand dwellings and a thousand
imiles of paved streets, and mew houses are put up by
the thousands every year as additional territory is
absorbed. When Penn laid out his town-plan, he
made two broad highways pointing towards the car-
dinal points of the compass and crossing at right
angles in the centre, where he located a public square
of ten acres. The cast and west street, one hundred
feet wide, he placed at the narrowest part of the hour-
glass, where the rivers approached within two miles
of each other. This he called the High Street, but
the public persisted in calling it Market Street. The
north and south street, laid out in the centre of the
plat, at its southern end reached the Delaware near
the confluence with the Schuylkill. This street is
one hundred and thirteen feet wide, Broad Street, a
magnificent thoroughfare stretching for miles and
bordered with handsome buildings. Upon the Centre
Square was built a Quaker meeting-house, the
Friends, while yet occupying the caves on the bluff
banks of the Delaware that were their earliest dwell-
ings, showing anxiety to maintain their forms of re-
ligious worship. This meeting-house has since mul-
THE QUAKER CITY. 159
tiplied into scores in the city and adjacent districts;
for the sect, while not increasing in numbers, holds its
own in wealth and importance, and has great influ-
ence in modern Philadelphia. Afterwards the Centre
Square was used for the city water-works, and finally
it was made the site of the City Hall.
The bronze statue of the founder, surmounting the
City Hall tower at five hundred and fifty feet eleva-
tion, clad in broad-brimmed hat and Quaker garb,
carrying the city charter, and gazing intently north-
eastward towards the “neutral land of Shacka-
maxon,”
is the prominent landmark for many miles
around Philadelphia. A blaze of electric light illu-
minates it at night. This City Hall, the largest edi-
fice in America, and almost as large as St. Peter's
Church in Rome, has fourteen acres of floor space and
seven hundred and fifty rooms, and cost $27,000,000.
It is a quadrangle, built around a central court about
two hundred feet square, and measures four hundred
and eighty-six by four hundred and seventy feet.
The lower portion is of granite, and the upper white
marble surmounted by Louvre domes and Mansard
roofs. This great building is the official centre of
Philadelphia, but the centre of population is now far
to the northwest, the city having spread in that direc-
tion. The City Hall, excepting its tower, is also being
dwarfed by the many enormous and tall store and
office buildings which have recently been constructed
on Broad and other streets near it. Closely adjacent
160 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
are the two vast stations of the railways leading into
Philadelphia, the Broad Street Station of the Penn-
sylvania system, and the Reading Terminal Station,
which serves the Reading, Baltimore and Ohio and
Lehigh Valley systems. Also adjoining, to the north-
ward, is the Masonic Temple, the finest Masonic edi-
fice in existence, a pure Norman structure of granite
two hundred and fifty by one hundred and fifty feet,
with a tower two hundred and thirty feet high, and
a magnificent carved and decorated granite Norman
porch, which is much admired.
The great founder not only started his City of
Brotherly Love upon principles of the strictest recti-
tude, but he was thoroughly rectangular in his ideas.
He laid out all the streets on his plan parallel to the
two prominent ones, so that they crossed at right
angles, and his map was like a chess-board. In the . .
newer sections this plan has been generally followed,
although a few country roads in the outer districts,
laid upon diagonal lines, have been converted into
streets in the city's growth. Penn's original city also
included four other squares near the outer corners of
his plan, each of about seven acres, and three of them
were long used as cemeteries. These are now at-
tractive breathing-places for the crowded city, being
named after Washington and Franklin, Logan and
Rittenhouse. The east and west streets Penn named
after trees and plants, while the north and south
streets were numbered. The chief street of the city
INDEPENDENCE HALL. 161
is Chestnut Street, a narrow highway of fifty feet
width, parallel to and south of Market Street. Its
western end, like Walnut Street, the next one south,
is a fashionable residential section, both being pro-
longed far west of the Schuylkill River. In the
neighborhood of Broad Street, and for several blocks
eastward, Chestnut Street has the chief stores. Its
eastern blocks are filled largely with financial in-
stitutions and great business edifices, some of them
elaborate structures.
INDEPENDENCE HALL.
Upon the south side of Chestnut Street, occupying
the block between Fifth and Sixth Streets, is Inde-
pendence Square, an open space of about four acres,
tastefully laid out in flowers and lawns, with spacious
and well-shaded walks. Upon the northern side of
the square, and fronting Chestnut Street, is the most
hallowed building of American patriotic memories,
Independence Hall, a modest brick structure, yet the
most interesting object Philadelphia contains. It was
in this Hall, known familiarly as the “State-house,”
that the Continental Congress governing the thirteen
revolted colonies met during the American Revo-
lution, excepting when driven out upon the British
capture, after the battle of the Brandywine. The
Declaration of Independence was adopted here July
4, 1776. The old brick building, two stories high,
plainly built, and lighted by large windows, was begun
WOL. I.-11
162 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
in 1732, taking three years to construct, having cost
what was a large sum in those days, £5600, the pop-
ulation them being about ten thousand. It was the
Government House of Penn's Province of Pennsyl-
vania. There has recently been a complete restora-
tion, by which it has been put back into the actual
condition at the time Independence was declared. In
the central corridor stands the “Independence bell,”
the most sacred relic in the city. This Liberty bell,
originally cast in England, hung in the steeple, and
rang out in joyous peals the news of the signing of
the Declaration. Running around its top is the sig-
nificant inscription : “Proclaim Liberty throughout
the Land unto all the Inhabitants Thereof.” This
bell was cracked while being rung on one of the an-
miversaries about sixty years ago. In the upper
story of the Hall, Washington delivered his “Fare-
well Address” in closing his term of office as Presi-
dent. The eastern room of the lower story is where
the Revolutionary Congress met, and it is preserved
as then, the old tables, chairs and other furniture
having been gathered together, and portraits of the
Signers of the Declaration hang on the walls. The
old floor, being worn out, was replaced with tiles, but
otherwise the room, which is about forty feet square,
is as nearly as possible in its original condition.
Here are kept the famous “Rattlesnake flags,” with
the motto “Don’t Tread on Me,” that were the
earliest flags of America, preceding the Stars and
ſmoependence ſhall, |\bilabelphia

INDEPENDENCE IIALL. 163
Stripes. Of the deliberations of the Congress which
met in this building, William Pitt wrote: “I must
declare that in all my reading and observation, for
solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom
of conclusion, under such a complication of difficult
circumstances, no body of men could stand before the
National Congress of Philadelphia.” In this build-
ing is Penn's Charter of Philadelphia, granted in
1701, and West's noted painting of “Penn's Treaty
with the Indians.” There are also portraits of all the
British kings and queens from Penn's time, including
a full-length portrait of King George III., represent-
ing him, when a young man, in his coronation robes,
and painted by Allan Ramsay.
Other historic places are nearby. To the westward
is Congress Hall, where the Congress of the United
States held its sessions prior to removal to Washing-
ton City. To the eastward is the old City Hall, where
the United States Supreme Court sat in the eigh-
teenth century. Adjoining is the Hall of the Amer-
ican Philosophical Society, founded by Benjamin
Franklin, and an outgrowth of his Junto Club of
1743. It has a fine library and many interesting
relies. Franklin, who was the leading Philadelphian
of the Revolutionary period, came to the city from
Boston when eighteen years old, and died in 1790.
His grave is not far away, in the old Quaker burying-
ground on North Fifth Street. A fine bronze statue
of Franklin adorns the plaza in front of the Post-
164 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
office building on Chestnut Street. Farther down
Chestnut Street is the Hall of the Carpenters’ Com-
pany, standing back from the street, where the first
Colonial Congress met in 1774, paving the way for
the Revolution. An inscription appropriately reads
that “Within these walls, Henry, Hancock and
Adams inspired the delegates of the colonies with
merve and sinew for the toils of war.” On Arch
Street, east from Franklin's grave, is the house where
Betsy Ross made the first American flag, with thir-
teen stars and thirteen stripes, from a design prepared
by a Committee of Congress and General Washing-
ton in 1777. In this committee were Robert Morris
and Colonel George Ross, the latter being the young
woman's uncle. It appears that she was expert at
needlework and an adept in making the handsome
ruffled bosoms and cuffs worn in the shirts of those
days, and had made these for General Washington
himself. She had also made flags, and there is a
record of an order on the Treasury in May, 1777,
“to pay Betsy Ross fourteen pounds, twelve shil-
lings twopence for flags for the fleet in the Delaware
River.” She made the sample-flag, her uncle pro-
viding the means to procure the materials, and her
design was adopted by the Congress on June 14,
1777, the anniversary being annually commemorated
as “Flag Day.” Originally there was a six-pointed
star suggested by the committee, but she proposed
the five-pointed star as more artistic, and they ac-
GIRARD COLLEGE. *- 165
cepted it. The form of flag them adopted continues
to be the American standard. She afterwards mar-
ried John Claypole, whom she survived many years,
and she died in January, 1836, aged 84, being
buried in Mount Moriah Cemetery, on the south-
western border of the city.
GIRARD COLLEGE.
The name of Girard is familiar in Philadelphia,
being repeated in streets, buildings, and financial and
charitable institutions. On Third Street, south from
Chestnut Street, is the fine marble building of the
Girard Bank, which was copied after the Dublin Ex-
change. This, originally built for the first Bank of
the United States, was Stephen Girard’s bank until
his death. One of the greatest streets in the north-
ern part of the city is Girard Avenue, over one hun-
dred feet wide, stretching almost from the Delaware
River westward far beyond the Schuylkill River,
which it crosses upon a splendid iron bridge. In its
course through the northwestern section, this fine
street diverges around the enclosure of Girard Col-
lege, occupying grounds covering about forty-two
acres. Stephen Girard, before the advent of Astor
in New York, amassed the greatest American fortune.
He was born in Bordeaux in 1750, and, being a
sailor's son, began life as a cabin boy. He first ap-
peared in Philadelphia during the Revolution as a
small trader, and after some years was reported, in
166 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
1790, to have an estate valued at $30,000. Subse-
quently, through trading with the West Indies, and
availing of the advantages a neutral had in the
warlike period that followed, he rapidly amassed
wealth, so that by 1812, when he opened his bank,
he had a capital of $1,200,000; and so great was the
public confidence in his integrity that depositors
flocked to his institution. He increased its capital
to $4,000,000; and when the war with England began
in that year he was able to take, without help, a
United States loan of $5,000,000. He was a re-
markable man, frugal and even parsimonious, but
profuse in his public charities, though strict in ex-
acting every penny due himself. He contributed lib-
erally to the adornment of the city and created many
fine buildings. He despised the few relatives he had,
and when he died in 1831 his estate, then the largest
known in the country, and estimated at $9,000,000,
was almost entirely bequeathed for charity.
Stephen Girard left donations to schools, hospitals,
Masonic poor funds, for fuel for the poor, and other
charitable purposes; but the major part of his for-
tume went in trust to the city of Philadelphia, partly
to improve its streets and the Delaware River front,
but the greater portion to endow Girard College.
This was in the form of a bequest of $2,000,000 in
money and a large amount of lands and buildings,
together with the ground whereon the College has
been built. He gave the most minute directions
GTRARD COLLEGE. 167
about its construction, the institution to be for the
support and instruction of poor white male orphans,
who are admitted between the ages of six and ten
years, and between the ages of fourteen and eighteen
years are to be bound out as apprentices to various
occupations. A clause in the will provides that no
ecclesiastic, missionary or minister of any sect what-
ever is to hold any commection with the College, or
even be admitted to the premises as a visitor; but
the officers are required to instruct the pupils in the
purest principles of morality, leaving them to adopt
their own religious beliefs. The College building is
of white marble, and the finest specimen of pure
Grecian architecture in the United States. It is a
Corinthian temple, surrounded by a portico of thirty-
four columns, each fifty-five feet high and six feet in
diameter. The building is one hundred and sixty-
mine by one hundred and eleven feet, and ninety-
seven feet high, the roof being of heavy slabs of
marble, from which, as the College stands on high
ground, there is a grand view over the city. Within
the vestibule are a statue of Girard and his sarcoph-
agus. The architect, Thomas U. Walter, achieved
such fame from this building that he was afterwards
employed to extend the Capitol at Washington.
There are many other buildings in the College enclo-
sure, some being little less pretentious than the Col-
lege itself. This comprehensive charity has been in
successful operation over a half-century, and it sup-
168 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
ports and educates some sixteen hundred boys, the
endowment, by careful management, now exceeding
$16,000,000.
Philadelphia is great in other charitics, and nota-
bly in hospitals. Opposite Girard College are the
magnificent buildings of the German Hospital and
the Mary J. Drexel Home for the education of
nurses, established by the munificence of John D.
Lamkenau, the widowed husband of the lady whose
name it bears. The Drexel Institute, founded by
Anthony J. Drexel, is a fine building in West Phila-
delphia, with $2,000,000 endowment, established for
“the extension and improvement of industrial edu-
cation as a means of opening better and wider ave-
nues of employment to young men and women,” and
it provides for about two thousand students. The
Presbyterian, Episcopal, Jewish, Methodist and Ro-
man Catholic hospitals, all under religious care, are
noted. Philadelphia is also the great medical school
of the country, and the University, Jefferson, Hah-
memann and Women's Colleges, each with a hospital
attached, have world-wide fame. The oldest hospital,
the Pennsylvania Hospital, occupying am entire block
between Spruce and Pine and Eighth and Ninth
Streets, was founded in 1752, and is supported almost
entirely by voluntary contributions. In 1841 it
established in West Philadelphia a separate Depart-
ment for the Insane. The Medico-Chirurgical Hos-
pital is a modern foundation which has grown to
|NOTABLE PHILADELPHIA BUILDINGS. 169
large proportions. There are many libraries—not
only free libraries, with branches in various parts of
the city, for popular use, supported by the public
funds, but also the Philadelphia Library, founded by
Franklin and his friends of the Junto Literary Club
in 1731, and its Ridgway Branch, established, with
$1,500,000 endowment, by Dr. James Rush
cious granite building on Broad Street, which cost
$350,000. One of the restrictions of his gift, how-
ever, excludes newspapers, he describing them as
)
a Spa-
“vehicles of disjointed thinking.” The Pennsylva-
nia. Historical Society also has a fine library pertain-
ing to early Colonial history, and many valuable relics
and manuscripts, including the first Bible printed
in America, and the original manuscripts of Home,
Sweet Home, and the Star-Spangled Banner.
NOTATBLE PHILADELPHIA IBUILDINGS.
There are many notable structures in Philadelphia.
The United States Mint, opposite the City Hall, and
fronting on Chestnut Street, has executed nearly all
the coinage of the country since its establishment in
1792, the present building having been completed in
1833. It contains a most interesting collection of
coins, including the “widow’s mite.” A fine new
mint is now being erected on a much larger scale in
the northwestern section of the city. The Bourse,
on Fifth Street near Chestnut, erected in 1895 at a
cost of $1,500,000, is the business centre, its lower
170 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
hall being the most spacious apartment in the city,
and the edifice is constructed in the style of Francis
I. The white marble Custom House, with fine Doric
portico, was originally erected in 1819, at a cost of
$500,000, for the second United States Bank, this
noted bank, which ultimately suspended, having been
for many years a political bone of contention. On the
opposite side of the street, covering a block, is a row
of a half-dozen wealthy financial institutions, making
one of the finest series in existence, granite and
marble being varied in several orders of architec-
ture. The Post-office building, also on Chestnut
Street; a grand granite structure in Renaissance,
with a façade extending four hundred feet, cost over
$5,000,000. The plain and solid Franklin Institute,
designed to promote the mechanical and useful arts,
is not far away.
Down nearer the river is the venerable Christ
Church, with its tall spire, built in 1727, the most
revered Episcopal church in the city, and the one
at which General Washington and all the Government
officials in the Revolutionary days worshipped. Wil-
liam White, a native of the city, was the rector of
this church and chaplaim of the Continental Congress,
and in 1786 was elected the Episcopal Bishop of
Pennsylvania, being ordained by the Archbishop of
Canterbury at Lambeth in February, 1787. He pre-
sided over the Convention, held in this church in
1789, which organized the Protestant Episcopal
NOTABLE PHILADELPHIA BUILDINGS, 171
Church in the United States. Christ Church still
possesses the earliest chime of bells sent from Eng-
land to America, and the spire, rising nearly two hun-
dred feet, is a prominent object seen from the river.
Bishop White died in 1836, aged 88. He was also,
in his early life, the rector of St. Peter's Church, an-
other revered Episcopal church at Third and Pine
Streets. In its yard is the grave of Commodore
Stephen Decatur, the famous American naval officer,
who, after all his achievements and victories, was
killed in a duel with Commodore Barron in 1820,
his antagonist also dying. The most ancient church
in Philadelphia is Gloria Dei, the “Old Swedes”
Church, a quaint little structure near the Delaware
River bank in the southern part of the city, built in
1700. The early Swedish settlers, coming up from
Fort Christina, erected a log chapel on this site in
1677, at which Jacob Fabritius delivered the first
sermon. After he died, the King of Sweden in
1697 sent over Rev. Andrew Rudman, under whose
guidance the present structure was built to replace
the log chapel; and it was dedicated, the first Sunday
after Trinity, 1700, by Rev. Eric Biorck, who had
come over with Rudman. Many are the tales told
of the escapades of the early Swedes in the days of
the log chapel. The Indians on one occasion under-
mined it to get at the congregation, as they were
afraid of the muskets which the men shot out of the
loopholes. The women, however, scenting danger,
172 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
brought into church a large supply of soft-soap,
which they heated piping hot in a cauldron. When
the redskins made their foray and popped their heads
up through the floor, they were treated to a copious
bath of hot soap, and fled in dismay. This is the
“Old Swedes” Church at Wicaco of which Long-
fellow sings in Evangeline. The poet, in unfolding
his story, brings both Evangeline and Gabriel from
Acadia to Philadelphia in the enforced exodus of
1755, and thus graphically describes the Quaker
City:
“In that delightful land which is washed by the Delaware’s
waters,
Guarding in sylvan shades the name of Penn, the Apostle,
Stands on the banks of its beautiful stream the city he founded.
There all the air is balm, and the peach is the emblem of
beauty,
And the streets still re-echo the names of the trees of the
forest,
As if they fain would appease the Dryads whose haunts they
molested.
There, from the troubled sea, had Evangeline landed an exile,
Finding among the children of Penn a home and a country.
Something, at least, there was, in the friendly streets of the
city,
Something that spake to her heart and made her no longer a
stranger ; -
And her ear was pleased with the Thee and Thou of the
Quakers,
For it recalled the past, the old Acadian country,
Where all men were equal, and all were brothers and sisters.”
In Philadelphia it is said Evangeline lived many
NOTABLE PHILADELPHIA BUILDINGS. 173
years as a Sister of Mercy, and it was thus that she
visited the ancient almshouse to minister to the sick
and dying on a Sabbath morning :
“As she mounted the stairs to the corridors, cooled by the east
wind,
Distant and soft on her ear fell the chimes from the belfry of
Christ Church,
While intermingled with these, across the meadows were
wafted
Sounds of psalms that were sung by the Swedes in their church
at Wicaco.”
There she found the dying Gabriel, and both, ac-
cording to the tradition, are buried in the yard of the
Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Trinity, at Sixth
and Spruce Streets: -
“Still stands the forest primeval ; but far away from its shadow,
Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping.
Under the humble walls of the little Catholic churchyard,
In the heart of the city, they lie unknown and unnoticed.
Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing beside them,
Thousands of throbbing hearts, where theirs are at rest and
forever ;
Thousands of aching brains, where theirs no longer are busy;
Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have ceased from
their labors ;
Thousands of weary feet, where theirs have completed their
journey.”
In the ancient graveyard of “Old Swedes” is
buried Alexander Wilson, the American ornitholo-
gist, who was a native of Scotland, but lived most of
174 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
his life in Philadelphia, dying in 1813. The largest
church in the city is the Roman Catholic Cathedral
of St. Peter and St. Paul, fronting on Logan Square,
an imposing Roman Corinthian structure of red sand-
stone, two hundred and sixteen by one hundred and
thirty-six feet, and crowned by a dome rising two
hundred and ten feet. The chief institution of learn-
ing is the University of Pennsylvania, the most ex-
tensive and comprehensive College in the Middle
States, dating from 1740, and munificently endowed,
which occupies, with its many buildings, a large sur-
face in West Philadelphia, and has three thousand
students. This great institution originated from a
building planned in 1740 for a place in which George
Whitefield could preach, which was also used for a
charity school. This building was conveyed to trus-
tees in 1749 to maintain the school, and they were
in turn chartered as a college in 1753 “to maintain
an academy, as well for the instruction of poor chil-
dren on charity as others whose circumstances have
enabled them to pay for their learning.” This charit-
able feature is still maintained in the University by
free scholarships.
Philadelphia is eminently a manufacturing city,
and its two greatest establishments are the Cramp
Shipbuilding yards in the Kensington district and the
Baldwin Locomotive Works on North Broad Street,
each the largest establishment of its kind in America.
The city has spread over a greater territory than
NOTABLE PHILADELPHIA BUILDINGS. 175
any other in the United States, and sixteen bridges
span the Schuylkill, with others in contemplation, its
expansion beyond that river has been so extensive.
The enormous growth of the town has mainly come
from the adoption of the general principle that every
family should live in its own house, supplemented by
liberal extensions of electrical street railways in all
directions. Hence, Philadelphia is popularly known
as the “City of Homes.” As the city expanded
over the level land, four-, six-, eight- and ten-room
dwellings have been built by the mile, and set up in
row after row. Two-story and three-story houses of
red brick, with marble steps and facings, make up
the greater part of the town, and each house is gen-
erally its owner's castle, the owner in most cases
being a successful toiler, who has saved his house
gradually out of his hard earnings, almost literally
brick by brick. There is almost unlimited space
in the suburbs yet capable of similar absorption,
and the process which has given Philadelphia this
extensive surface goes on indefinitely. The popu-
lation is also regarded as more representative of
the Anglo-Saxon races than in most American
cities, though the Teuton numerously abounds and
speedily assimilates. The greatest extent of Phila-
delphia is upon a line from southwest to northeast,
which will stretch nearly twenty miles in a com-
tinuous succession of paved and lighted streets and
buildings.
176 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
FAIRMOUNT PARK AND SUBURBS.
Philadelphia, excepting to the southward, is sur-
rounded by a broad belt of attractive suburban resi-
dences, the semi-rural region for miles being filled
with ornamental villas and the tree-embowered and
comfortable homes of the well-to-do and middle
classes. Down the Schuylkill is “Bartram's Gar-
den,” now a public park, where John Bartram estab-
lished the first botanic garden in America, and where
his descendants in 1899 celebrated the two hun-
dredth anniversary of his birth on June 2, 1699.
His grandfather was one of the companions of Wil-
liam Penn, and John Bartram, who was a farmer,
mastered the rudiments of the learned languages,
became passionately devoted to botany, and was pro-
nounced by Linnaeus the greatest matural botanist in
the world. Bartram bought his little place of about
seven acres in 1728, and built himself a stone house;
which still exists, bearing the inscription, cut deep in
a stone, “John and Ann Bartram, 1731.” He wrote
to a friend describing how he became a botanist:
“One day I was very busy in holding my plough
(for thou seest I am but a ploughman), and being
weary, I ran under a tree to repose myself. I cast
my eyes on a daisy; I plucked it mechanically and
viewed it with more curiosity than common country
farmers are wont to do, and I observed therein many
distinct parts. ‘What a shame,” said my mind, or
FAIRMOUNT PARK AND SUBURBS. 177
something that inspired my mind, ‘that thou shouldst
have employed so many years in tilling the earth
and destroying so many flowers and plants without
being acquainted with their structure and their
uses.’”
He put up his horses at once, and went to
the city and bought a botany and Latin grammar,
which began his wonderful career. He devoted his
life to botany, travelled over America collecting
specimens, and died in 1777. At the mouth of the
Schuylkill River is League Island, where the United
States has an extensive navy yard, and a reserve
fresh water basin for the storage of naval vessels
when out of commission. The attractive Philadel-
phia suburban features spread westward across the
Schuylkill, and are largely developed in the north-
western sections of Germantown and Chestnut Hill,
Jenkintown and the Chelten-hills. In this extensive
section the wealth of the people has of late years
been lavishly expended in making attractive homes,
and the suburban belt for miles around the city dis-
plays most charming scenery, adorned by elaborate
villas, pleasant lanes, shady lawns and well-kept
grounds.
The chief rural attraction of Philadelphia is Fair-
mount Park, one of the world's largest pleasure-
grounds. It includes the lands bordering both sides
of the Schuylkill above the city, having been pri-
marily established to protect the water-supply.
There are nearly three thousand acres in the Park,
VoI. I.-12
178 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
and its sloping hillsides and charming water views
give it unrivalled advantages in delicious natural
scenery. At the southern end is the oldest water
reservoir of six acres, on top of a curious and iso-
lated comical hill about ninety feet high, which is
the “Fair Mount,” giving the Park its name. The
Schuylkill is dammed here to retain the water, and
the Park borders the river for several miles above,
and its tributary, the Wissahickon, for six miles
farther. The Park road entering alongside the Fair-
mount hill passes a colossal equestrian statue of
George Washington, and beyond a fine bronze statue
of Abraham Lincoln, and also an equestrian statue
of General Grant. The roadways are laid on both
sides of the river at the water's edge, and also over
the higher grounds at the summits of the sloping
bordering hills, thus affording an almost endless
change of routes and views. The frequent bridges
thrown across the river, several of them carrying
railroads, add to the charm. An electric railway is
constructed through the more remote portions, and
displays their rustic beauty to great advantage. All
around this spacious Park the growing city has ex-
tended, and prosperous manufacturing suburbs spread
up from the river, the chief being the carpet dis-
trict of the Falls and the cotton-mills of Mamayunk,
the latter on the location of an old-time Indian vil-
lage, whose name translated means “the place of
rum.” In this Park, west of the Schuylkill, was
FAIRMOUNT PARK AND SUBURBS, 179
held the Centennial Exposition of 1876, and several
of the buildings remain, notably the Memorial Art
Gallery, now a museum, and the Horticultural Hall,
where the city maintains a fine floral display. Wil-
liam Penn’s “Letitia House,” his original residence,
removed from the older part of the city, now stands
near the entrance to the West Park.
A large part of the northeastern bank of the
Schuylkill adjoining the Park is the Laurel Hill
Cemetery. Its winding walks and terraced slopes
and ravines give constantly varying landscapes,
making it one of the most beautiful burial-places in
existence. In front, the river far beneath curves
around like a bow. Some of its mausoleums are of
enormous cost and elaborate ornamentation, but gen-
erally the grandeur of the location eclipses the work
of the decorator. Standing on a jutting eminence is
the Disston Mausoleum, which entombs an English
sawmaker who came to Philadelphia without friends
and almost penmiless, and died at the head of the
greatest sawmaking establishment on the Continent.
At one place, as the river bends, the broad and rising
terraces of tombs curve around like the banks of
seats in a grand Roman amphitheatre. Here is the
grave of General Meade who commanded at Gettys-
burg. In a plain, unmarked sepulchre fronting the
river, hewn out of the solid rock, is entombed the
Arctic explorer who conducted the Grimmell expedi-
tion in search of Sir John Franklin, Dr. Elisha Kent
180 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
Kane. A single shaft on a little eminence nearby
marks the grave of Charles Thomson, the Secretary
of the Continental Congress that made the Declara-
tion of Independence. Some of the graves are in
exquisite situations, many having been chosen by
those who lie there. Here are buried Thomas God-
frey, the inventor of the mariner's quadrant; Gen-
eral Hugh Mercer, who fell at the head of the
Pennsylvania troops in the Revolutionary battle of
Princeton, the Scots' Society of St. Andrew having
erected a monument to his memory; Commodore
Isaac Hull, who commanded the American frigate
“Constitution ” in the War of 1812 when she cap-
tured the British frigate “Guerrière;” Harry Wright,
the “father of base-ball,” who died in 1895; and
Thomas Buchanam Read, the poet-artist. At the
cemetery entrance is the famous “Old Mortality”
group, carved in Scotland and sent to Philadelphia.
The quaint old Scotsman reclines on a gravestone,
and pauses in his task of chipping-out the half-
effaced letters of the inscription, while the little pony
patiently waits alongside of him for his master and
Sir Walter Scott to finish their discourse.
The peculiar charm of Philadelphia suburban
scenery, however, is the Wissahickon—the “catfish
stream ” of the Indians. This is a creek rising in
the hills north of the city, and breaking through the
rocky ridges, flowing by tortuous course to the
Schuylkill a short distance above Laurel Hill. It is
FAIRMOUNT PARK AND SUBURBS. 181
an Alpine gorge in miniature, with precipitous sides
rising two to three hundred feet, and the winding
road along the stream gives a charming ride. Popu-
lous suburbs are on the higher ridges, but the ravine
has been reserved and carefully protected, so that
all the matural beauties remain. A high railway
bridge is thrown across the entrance of the gorge at
the Schuylkill, and rounding, just beyond, a sharp
rocky corner, the visitor is quickly within the ravine,
the stream nestling deep down in the winding fis-
sure. For several miles this attractive gorge can be
followed; and high up on its side, in a commanding
position mcar the summit of the enclosing ridge, one
of the residents has placed a statue of William Penn,
most appropriately bearing the single word at its
base—“Toleration.” This splendid gorge skirts the
northwestern border of the popular suburb of Ger-
mantown, and the creek emerges from its rocky con-
fines at the foot of Chestnut Hill, where it rends the
ridge in twain, and the hillsides are dotted with at-
tractive villas. This is a fashionable residential sec-
tion whose people have a magnificent outlook over
the rich agricultural region of the upper Wissahickon
Valley and the hills beyond.
In Germantown is the historic Chew House, bear-
ing the marks of cannon balls, which was the scene
of the battle of Germantown in October, 1777, when
the British under Lord Howe, then holding Philadel-
phia, defeated General Washington, and the darkest
182 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
period of the Revolution followed, the Americans
afterwards retiring to their sad winter camp at Val-
ley Forge. This suburb of Germantown is almost
as old as Philadelphia. It was originally settled in
1683 by Germans who came from Cresheim, a name
that is preserved in the chief tributary of the Wis-
sahickon. Their leader was Daniel Pastorius, who
bought a tract of fifty-seven hundred acres of land
from William Penn for a shilling an acre, and took
possession on October 6th. Their settlement pros-
pered and attracted attention in the Fatherland. In
1694 a band of religious refugees, having peculiar
tenets and believing that the end of the world was
approaching, determined to migrate to Germantown.
They were both Hollanders and Germans, and came
from Rotterdam to London, whence, under the guid-
ance of Johannes Kelpius, they sailed for America
upon the ship “Sara Maria.” They were earnest
and scholarly men, and Kelpius, who was a college
graduate, was a profound theologian. They called
themselves the “Pietists.” Upon their voyage they
had many marrow escapes, but every danger was
averted by fervent prayers. Their vessel ran
aground, but was miraculously floated; they were
nearly captured by the French, but, mustering in
such large numbers on the deck of the “Sara
Maria,” they scared the enemy away; they were
badly frightened by an unexpected eclipse of the
sun ; but in every case prayers saved them, and on
FAIRMOUNT PARK AND SUBURBS. 188
June 14th they safely landed in Chesapeake Bay,
marching overland to the Delaware and sailing up to
Philadelphia, where they disembarked.
In solemn procession, on June 23, 1694, led by
Kelpius, they walked, two and two, through the little
town, which them had some five hundred houses.
They called on the Governor, William Markham, rep-
resenting Penn, and took the oath of allegiance to
the British Crown. In the evening they held a
solemn religious service on “the Fair Mount,” at
the verge of the Schuylkill. In it they celebrated
the old German custom of “Sanct Johannes” on St.
John’s eve. They lighted a fire of dry leaves and
brushwood on the hill, casting into it flowers, pine
boughs and bones, and then rolled the dying embers
down the hillside as a sign that the longest day of
the year was past, and the sum, like the embers,
would gradually lose its power. The next morning
was the Sabbath, and they went out to Germantown,
where they were warmly welcomed. They built
their first house, since called the Monastery, near the
Wissahickon Creek, where they worked and wor-
shipped. Their house they called “The Woman of
the Wilderness,” and upon its roof, day and night,
some of them stood, closely observing the changing
heavens. With prayers and patience they watched
for the end of the world and the coming of the Lord,
and they obeyed the ministry of Kelpius. He lived
in a cave, and as his colony of enthusiasts gradually
184 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
dwindled, through death and desertion, he came to be
known as the “Hermit of the Wissahickon.” Here
he dug his well two centuries ago, and the “Her-
mit's Pool” still exists. He constantly preached
the mear approach of the millennium, and exhibited
his magical “wisdom stone.” Finally, wearying yet
still believing, he gave up, cast his weird stone into
the stream, and in 1704 he died, much to the relief
of the neighboring Quaker brethren, who did not
fancy such mysterious alchemy so near the city of
Penn. These “Pietists,” or “Kelpians,” as they were
afterwards called, dispersed over the country, and
had much to do with guiding the religious life and
mode of worship among the early German settlers in
Pennsylvania. Everywhere in German Pennsylva-
nia there are traces of their influence, and especially
at Ephrata and Waynesboro they have had pious and
earnest followers. After the death of Kelpius, their
last survivor in Germantown was Dr. Christopher
DeWitt, famed as a naturalist, an astronomer, a
clock-maker and a magician. He was a close friend
of John Bartram, lived an ascetic life, became blind
and feeble, and finally died an octogenarian in 1765,
thus closing with his life the active career of the
Kelpian mystics.
THE SCHUYLFOILL RIVER,
One of the romances of Fairmount Park is at-
tached to the little stone cottage, with overhanging
THE SCHUYI, KILL RIVER,. 185
roof, down by the Schuylkill River bank, where tra-
dition says that the Irish poet, Tom Moore, briefly
dwelt when he visited Philadelphia in the summer of
1804. This cottage tradition may be a myth, but
the poet when here composed an ode to the cottage
and to the Schuylkill, which is as attractive as the
bewitching river scene itself. The famous ballad
begins:
‘‘I knew by the smoke that so gracefully curled
Above the green elms that a cottage was near,
And I said, ‘If there's peace to be found in the world,
A heart that was humble might hope for it here.’”
Tom Moore's letters written at that time generally
showed dislike for much that he saw on his American
journey, but he seems to have found better things at
Philadelphia, and was delighted with the Quaker hos-
pitality. His ode to the Schuylkill shows that its
beauties impressed him, and gives evidence of his re-
gard for the people :
“Alone by the Schuylkill, a wanderer roved,
And bright were its flowery banks to his eye;
But far, very far, were the friends that he loved,
And he gazed on its flowery banks with a sigh.
“The stranger is gone—but he will not forget,
When at home he shall talk of the toil he has known,
To tell with a sigh what endearments he met,
As he stray’d by the wave of the Schuylkill alone !”
The Schuylkill River is the chief tributary of the
Delaware, an Allegheny Mountain stream about one
186 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
hundred and twenty miles long, coming out of the
Pennsylvania anthracite coal-fields, and falling into
the Delaware at League Island in such a lowland re-
gion that its mouth is scarcely discernible. In fact,
the early Dutch explorers of the Delaware passed
the place repeatedly and never discovered it; and
when the stream above was afterwards found by
going overland, and traced down to its mouth, they
appropriately called it the Schuylkill, meaning the
“hidden river.” The Indian name was the “Gans-
howe-hamme,” or the “roaring stream,” on account
of its many rapids. The lowest of these, which
gave the name of the “Falls” to a Philadelphia
suburb, was obliterated by the backwater from the
Fairmount water-works dam. The river valley is
populous, rich in manufactures and agriculture, and,
as it winds through ridge after ridge of the Alle-
gheny foothills, displays magnificent scenery. Both
banks are lined with railways, which bring the am-
thracite coal from the mines down to tidewater.
Journeying up the Schuylkill, we pass the flourish-
ing manufacturing towns of Conshohocken and Nor-
ristown and come into the region of the “Pennsyl-
vania Dutch,” where the inhabitants, who are mostly
of Teutonic origin, speak a curious dialect, com-
pounded of German, Dutch, English and some Indian
words, yet not fully understood by any of those races.
These industrious people are chiefly farmers and
handicraftsmen, and they make up much of the pop-
READING AND POTTSVILLE. 187
“sauer-
ulation of eastern Pennsylvania, while their
kraut’ and “scrapple’’ have become staple foods in
the State. Twenty-four miles above Philadelphia,
alongside a little creek and almost under the great
Black Rock, a towering sandstone ridge, was the
noted Valley Forge, the place of encampment of
Washington's tattered and disheartened army when
the defeats at Brandywine and Germantown and the
loss of Philadelphia made his prospects so dismal in
the winter of 1777–78, one of the severest seasons
ever experienced in America. The encampment is
preserved as a national relic, the entrenchments
being restored by a patriotic association, with the
little farmhouse beside the deep and rugged hollow,
near the mouth of the creek, which was Washing-
ton's headquarters. Phoenixville and Pottstown are
passed, and Birdsboro’, all places of busy and pros-
perous iron manufacture, and then the river valley
leads us into the gorge of the South Mountain.
READING AND POTTSVILLE.
The diminutive Schuylkill breaks its passage
through this elevated range, with Penn's Mount on
one side and the Neversink Mountain on the other,
and here is located the most populous city of the
Schuylkill Valley—Reading, with seventy thousand
population, a seat of iron-making and extensive rail-
way shops, having a fertile agricultural region in the
adjacent valleys. This expanding and attractive city
188 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
gives its name to, and obtains much of its celebrity
from the “Philadelphia and Reading Railway,” the
colossal financial institution whose woes of bank-
ruptcy and throes of reconstruction have for so many
years occupied the attention of the world of finance.
This great railway branches at Reading, and its
western line runs off through red sandstone rocks
and among iron mills and out upon a high bridge,
thrown in a beautiful situation across the Schuylkill,
and proceeds over the Lebanon Valley to the Sus-
quehamma River at Harrisburg. This rich limestone
valley, between the South Mountain and the Blue
Ridge, is a good farming district, and also a wealthy
region of iron manufacture. The Reading system
also sends its East Pennsylvania route eastward to
Allentown in the Lehigh Valley, and thence to New
York. Factory smokes overhang Reading, through
which the Schuylkill flows in crooked course, spanned
by frequent bridges, and puffing steam jets on all
sides show the busy industries. A good district sur-
rounds Reading in the mountain valleys, and the
thrifty Dutch farmers in large numbers come into
the town to trade. The high forest-clad mountains
rise precipitously on both sides, with electric railways
running up and around them, disclosing magnificent
views. The “old red sandstone” of these enclosing
hills has been liberally hewn out to make the orna-
mental columns for the Court House portico and build
the castellated jail, and also the red gothic chapel
TLoop of the 5cbuylkill from 'ſ leverginſ;
(WYOllittàing


READING AND POTTSVILLE. I89
and elaborate red gateway of the “Charles Evans'
Cemetery,” where the chief townsfolk expect, like
their ancestry, to be buried. The visitor who wishes
to see one of the most attractive views over city,
river, mountain and distant landscape can climb by
railway up to the “White Spot,” elevated a thou-
sand feet above the river, on Penn’s Mount. This
point of outlook is an isolated remnant of Potsdam
sandstone, lying, the geologists say, unconformably
on the Laurentian rock.
Beyond Reading, the Schuylkill breaks through
the Blue Ridge at Port Clinton Gap, eighteen miles
to the northwest. The winding and romantic pass
is about three miles long, and just beyond there is, at
Port Clinton, a maze of railway lines where the
Reading Company unites its branches converging
from various parts of the anthracite coal-fields. The
Little Schuylkill River here falls into the larger
stream, and a branch follows it northward to Ta-
maqua, while the main line goes westward to Potts-
ville. The summit of the Blue Ridge is the eastern
boundary of the coal-fields, and the country beyond
is wild and broken. The next great Allegheny
ridge extending across the country is the Broad
Mountain beyond Pottsville, though between it and
the Blue Ridge there are several smaller ridges, one
being Sharp Mountain. The country is generally
black from the coal, and the narrow and crooked
Schuylkill has its waters begrimed by the masses of
190 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
culm and refuse from the mines. Schuylkill Haven,
ninety miles from Philadelphia, is where the coal
trains are made up, and branches diverge to the
mines in various directions. Three miles beyond is
Pottsville, confined within a deep valley among the
mountains, its buildings spreading up their steep
sides, for here the malodorous and blackened little
river breaks through Sharp Mountain. This is a
city of fifteen thousand people, and the chief town of
the Schuylkill or Southern coal-field, which produces
ten millions of tons of anthracite annually. The
whole country roundabout is a network of railways
leading to the various mines and breakers, and there
are nearly four hundred miles of railways in the
various levels and galleries underground. We are
told that in the eighteenth century John Pott built
the Greenwood Furnace and Forge, and laid out this
town ; and afterwards, when coal-mining was devel-
oped, there came a rush of adventurers hither; but
of late years Pottsville has had a very calm career.
To the northward of the Schuylkill or Southern
coal-field, and beyond the Broad Mountain, is the
“Middle coal-field,” which extends westward almost
to the Susquehamma River, and includes the Mahanoy
and Shamokin Valleys. Both these fields also ex-
tend eastward into the Lehigh region ; and it is note-
worthy that as all these coal measures extend east-
ward they harden, while to the westward they softem.
The hardest coals come from the Lehigh district, and
THE NEW J ERSEY COAST RESORTS. 191
they gradually soften as they are dug out to the
westward, until, on the other side of the main Alle-
gheny range, they change into soft bituminous, and
farther westward their constituents appear in the
form of petroleum and as natural gases. The region
beyond Pottsville is unattractive. Various railways
commect the Schuylkill and Lehigh regions, and cross
over or through the Broad Mountain. The district
is full of little mining villages, but has not much else.
It is a rough country, with bleak and forbidding hills,
denuded of timber by forest fires, with vast heaps of
refuse cast out from the mines, some of them the ac-
cumulations of sixty or seventy years. Breakers
are at work grinding up the fuel, which pours with
thundering moise into the cars beneath. The surfacé
is strewn with rocks and débris, and the dirty waters
of the streams are repulsive. These blackened
brooks of the Broad Mountain are the headwaters of
the Schuylkill River.
THE NIEW JERSEY COAST RESORTS.
The Delaware River divides Pennsylvania from
New Jersey, and at Camden, opposite Philadelphia,
there has grown another large city from the over-
flow of its population. Ferries, and at the northern
end of Philadelphia harbor an elevated railway
bridge, cross over to Camden, while for miles the
almost level surface of New Jersey has suburban
towns and villas, the homes of thousands whose busi-
192 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
ness is in Philadelphia. The New Jersey seacoast
also is a succession of watering-places where the
population goes to cool off in the summer. The
whole New Jersey coast of the Atlantic Ocean is a
series of sand beaches, interspersed with bays,
sounds and inlets, a broad belt of pine lands behind
them separating the sea and its bordering sounds
and meadows from the farming region. This coast
has become an almost unbroken chain of summer re-
sorts from Cape May, at the southern extremity of
New Jersey, northeastward through Sea Isle City,
Avalon, Ocean City, Atlantic City, Brigantine, Beach
Haven, Sea Girt, Asbury Park, Ocean Grove, Long
Branch, Seabright, etc., to Sandy Hook, where the
long sand-strip terminates at the entrance to New
York harbor. To these many attractive places the
summer exodus takes the people by the hundreds of
thousands. The chief resort of all is Atlantic City,
which has come to be the most popular sea-bathing
place of the country, the railroads running excursion
trains to it even from the Mississippi Valley. Three
railroads lead over from Philadelphia across the
level Jersey surface, and their fast trains compass
the distance, fifty-six miles, in an hour. The town
is built on a narrow sand-strip known as Absecon
Island, which is separated from the mainland by a
broad stretch of water and salt meadows. Absecon
is an Indian word meaning “ the place of the Swans.”
The beach is one of the finest on the coast, and along
:
:
THE NEW J ERSEY COAST RESORTS. 193
its inner edge is the famous “Board Walk” of At-
lantic City, an elevated promemade mostly forty feet
wide, and four miles long. On the land side this
walk is bordered by shops, bathing establishments
and all kinds of amusement resorts, while the town
of hotels, lodging-houses and cottages, almost all
built of wood, stretches inland. The population
come out on the “Board Walk” and the great piers,
which stretch for a long distance over the sea. It is
the greatest bathing-place in existence, and in the
height of the season, July and August, fifty thousand
bathers are often seen in the surf on a fine day, with
three times as many people watching them. Enor-
mous crowds of daily excursionists are carried down
there by the railways. The permanent population is
about twenty thousand, swollen in summer often
fifteen- or twenty-fold. Atlantic City is also a popu-
lar resort in winter and spring, and is usually well
filled at Eastertide.
The other New Jersey resorts are somewhat simi-
lar, though smaller. Cape May, on the southern ex-
tremity of the Cape, is popular, and has a fine beach
five miles long. The coast for many miles north-
eastward has cottage settlements, the beaches having
similar characteristics. Many of these settlements
also cluster around Great Egg Harbor and Barnegat
Bay, both favorite resorts of sportsmen for fishing
and shooting. Asbury Park and Ocean Grove are
twin watering-places on the northern Jersey coast
Vol. I. —13
194 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
which have large crowds of visitors. The former is
usually filled by the overflow from the latter, who
object to the Ocean Grove restrictions. Ocean Grove
is unique, and was established in 1870 by a Camp
Meeting Association of the Methodist Episcopal
Church. Here many thousands, both young and
old, voluntarily spend their summer vacations under
a religious autocracy and obey the strict rules. It is
bounded by the sea, by lakes on the north and south,
and by a high fence on the land side, and the gates
are closed at ten o’clock at night, and all day Sunday.
The drinking of alcoholic beverages and sale of to-
bacco are strictly prohibited, and no theatrical per-
formances of any kind are allowed. No bathing,
riding or driving are permitted on Sunday, and at
other times the character of the bathing-dresses is
carefully regulated. There is a large Auditorium,
accommodating ten thousand people, and here are
held innumerable religious meetings of all kinds.
The annual Camp Meeting is the great event of the
season, and among the attractions is an extensive
and most complete model of the City of Jerusalem.
To the northward is Long Branch, the most fash-
ionable and exclusive of the New Jersey coast re-
sorts, being mainly a succession of grand villas and
elaborate hotels, stretching for about four miles along
a bluff which here makes the coast, and has grass
growing down to its outer edge almost over the
water. In the three sections of the West End,
SHACKAMAXON TO BRISTOL, 195
Elberon and Long Branch proper, the latter getting
its name from the “Long branch " of the Shrews-
bury River, there are about eight thousand regular
inhabitants, and there come here about fifty thousand
summer visitors, largely from New York. The great
highway is Ocean Avenue, running for five miles
just inside the edge of the bluff, which, in the season,
is a most animated and attractive roadway. The
hotels and cottages generally face this avenue. The
most noted cottages are the one which General Grant
occupied for many years, and where, during his
Presidency in 1869–77, he held “the summer capi-
tal of the United States,” and the Franklyn Cottage,
where President Garfield, after being shot in Wash-
ington, was brought to die in 1881. The most
famous show place at Long Branch is Hollywood, the
estate of the late John Hoey, of Adams Express
Company, who died there in 1892, its elaborate
floral decorations being much admired.
SHACKAMAXON TO BRISTOL.
Journeying up the Delaware from Philadelphia, we
pass Petty Island, where the great Indian chief of
the Lemmi Lenapes, Tamanend, had his lodge—the
chieftain since immortalized as St. Tammamy, who
has given his name to the Tammany Society of poli-
ticians who rule New York City. Petty on the old
maps is called Shackamaxon Island, a derivation of
the original Indian name of Cackamensi. St. Tam-
196 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
many is described as a chief who was so virtuous
that “his countrymen could only account for the per-
fections they ascribe to him by supposing him to be
favored with the special communications of the Great
Spirit.” In the eighteenth century many societies
were formed in his honor, and his festival was kept
on the 1st of May, but the New York Society is the
only one that has survived. Farther up, the Tacony
Creek flows into the Delaware, the United States
having a spacious arsenal upon its banks. The name
of this creek was condensed before Penn's time, by
the Swedes, from its Indian title of Taokamink. Be-
yond, the great manufacturing establishments of the
city gradually change to charming villas as we move
along the pleasant sloping banks and through the
level country, and soon we pass the northeastern
boundary of Philadelphia, at Torresdale. This bound-
ary is made by the Poquessing Creek, being the abo-
riginal Poetquessink, or “the stream of the dragons.”
Across the river, on the Jersey shore, formerly
roamed the Rankokas Indians, an Algonquin tribe,
whose name is preserved in the Rancocas Creek,
which is one of the chief tributaries flowing in from
New Jersey. At Beverly, not far above, is one of
the most popular suburban resorts, the villas cluster-
ing around a broad cove, known as Edgewater, which
appears much like a miniature Bay of Naples. Over
opposite is the wide Neshaminy Creek, flowing down
from the Buckingham Mountain in Pennsylvania, its
SHACKAMAXON TO BRISTOL. 197
º
Indian title of Nischam-hanne, meaning “the two
streams flowing together,” referring to its branches.
The earliest settlers along this creek were Scotch-
Irish, and their pastor in 1726 was Rev. William
Tenment, the famous Presbyterian preacher, who
founded the celebrated “Log College’’ on the Ne-
shaminy, “built of logs, chinked and daubed between,
and one story high,” as it was well described. From
this simple college, which was about twenty feet
square, were sent out many of the famous Presby-
terian preachers of the eighteenth century; and from
it grew, in 1746, the great College of New Jersey at
Princeton, and in 1783 Dickinson College, at Car-
lisle, Pennsylvania, besides many other schools which
were started by its alumni. William Tennent's son,
Gilbert, was his assistant and successor. The great
Whitefield preached to an audience of three thousand
at this College in 1739. He was attracted there
by Gilbert Tennent's fame as a preacher, and of
him on one occasion wrote, “I went to the meet-
ing house to hear Mr. Gilbert Tenment preach, and
never before heard I such a searching sermon; he
is a son of thunder, and does not regard the face of
man.”
The Delaware River broadens into two channels
around Burlington Island, having on either hand the
towns of Bristol and Burlington, both coeval with the
first settlement of Philadelphia, and Bristol at that
early day having had an ambition to become the loca-
198 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
tion of Penn's great city. The ferry connecting
them was established two years before Penn came to
Philadelphia, and in the eighteenth century they had
a larger carrying trade. Bristol began in 1680
under a grant from Edmund Andros, them the Pro-
vincial Governor of New York, for a town site and
the ferry, which is curiously described in the Colonial
records as “the ferry against Burlington,” them the
chief town in West Jersey. The settlement was
called New Bristol, from Bristol in England, where
lived Penn's wife, Hammah Callowhill. It was the
first county seat of Bucks when Penn divided his
Province into the three counties—Chester, Phila-
delphia and Buckingham. It was for many years
a great exporter of flour to the West Indies. Its
ancient Quaker Meeting House dates from 1710,
and St. James’ Episcopal Church from 1712; but
the latter, which received its silver communion
service from the good Queen Anne, fell into decay
and has been replaced by a modern structure.
Its Bath Mineral Springs made it the most fashion-
able watering-place in America in the eighteenth
century, but Saratoga afterwards eclipsed them, and
their glory has departed. Prior to the Revolu-
tion, Bristol built more shipping than Philadelphia;
and, while quiet and restful, its comfortable homes
and the picturesque villas along the Delaware
River bank above the town tell of its prosperity
Y] O.W.
OLD BURLINGTON. 199
OLD BURLINGTON.
The ancient town of Burlington, clustered behind
its “Green Bank” or river-front street on the New
Jersey shore, antedates Philadelphia five years. The
Quaker pioneers are believed to have been the first
Europeans who saw its site. The noted preacher
George Fox, in 1672, journeyed from New England
to the South, and rode on horseback over the site of
Burlington at Assiscunk Creek, reporting the soil as
good “ and withal a most brave country.” When
Penn became Trustee for the insolvent Billynge, a
Proprietor of West Jersey, much of his land was
sold to Quakers, who migrated to the American
wilderness to escape persecution at home. Thus
Burlington was the first settlement founded by Quaker
seekers after toleration in the New World:
“About them seemed but ruin and decay,
Cheerless, forlorn, a rank autumnal fen,
Where no good plant might prosper, or again
Put forth fresh leaves for those that fell away ;
Nor could they find a place wherein to pray
Tor better things. In righteous anger then
They turned ; they fled the wilderness of men
And sought the wilderness of God. And day
Rose upon day, while ever manfully
Westward they battled with the ocean’s might,
Strong to endure whatever fate should be,
And watching in the tempest and the night
That one sure Pharos of the soul's dark sea—
The constant beacon of the Inner Light.”
200 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
In the spring of 1677 the “goode shippe Kent,”
Gregory Marlowe, master, sailed from London, bound
for West Jersey, with two hundred and thirty
Quakers, about half coming from London and the
others from Yorkshire; two dying on the voyage.
They ascended the Delaware to the meadow lands
below the mouth of Assiscunk Creek, landing there
in June, and in October made a treaty with the In-
dians, buying their lands from the Rancocas as far
up as Assumpink Creek at Trenton. Their settlement
was first called New Beverly, and then Bridlington,
from the Yorkshire town whence many of them came,
but it finally was named Burlington. They made a
street along the river, bordered with greensward, and
called the “Green Bank,” and drew a straight line
back inland, calling it their Main Street, and the Lom-
doners settled on one side and the Yorkshiremen on
the other. The old buttonwood tree, to which was
moored the early ships bringing settlers, still stands
on the Green Bank, a subject of weird romance.
Elizabeth Powell, the first white child, was born in
July, 1677. The next May, 1678, they established
a “Monthly Meeting of Friends” at Burlington, of
which the records have been faithfully kept. In
June the graveyard was fenced in, and the old Indian
chief, Ockanickon, a Quaker convert to Christianity,
was among the first buried.there. In August the first
Quaker marriage was solemnized in meeting, this
first certificate being signed by ten men and three
OLD BURLINGTON. 201
women Friends as witnesses. In 1682, just as Penn
was coming over, they decided to build their first
meeting house—a hexagonal building, forty feet in
diameter, with pyramidal roof, which was occupied
the next year. In 1685 they decided that a hearse
should be built, the entry on the record being an
order for a “carriage to be built for ye use of such
as are to be laid in ye ground.”
Burlington grew, and was long the seat of govern-
ment of the Province of West Jersey, being the
official residence of the Provincial Governors, the
last of whom was William Franklin, natural son of
Benjamin Franklin. It had wealthy merchants and
much shipping, and, despite its peacefulness, equipped
privateers to fight the French. Its famous old Epis-
copal Church of St. Mary had the corner-stone laid in
1703 under the favor of Queen Anne, who made a
liberal endowment of lands, much being yet held, and
gave it a massive and greatly prized communion ser–
vice. This old church is cruciform, with a little bel-
fry, and a stone let into the front wall bears the in-
scription “One Lord, one faith, one baptism.” In
the extensive churchyard alongside is the modern
St. Mary’s Church, of brownstone, with a tall spire,
also cruciform. This is the finest church in Burlington.
When “Old St. Mary’s” was built with its belfry,
the Friends did not like the innovation, and long
gazed askance at the “steeple house,” as they called
it; so that Talbot, the first rector, sturdily retaliated,
202 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
calling the Quakers “anti-Christians, who are worse
than the Turks.” Many of St. Mary’s parishioners
of to-day are descended from these maligned Quakers.
The early records of the Meeting are filled with en-
tries showing that charges were brought against mem-
bers for various shortcomings. One was admonished
for “taking off his hat.” at a funeral solemnized in
the “steeple house;” others gave testimony of “un-
easiness" on account of the placing of “gravestones
in the burial-ground; ” a query was propounded,
“Are Friends in meeting preserved from sleeping or
any other indecent behavior, particularly from chew-
ing tobacco and taking snuff?” A record was also
made of testimony against “a pervading custom of
working on First days in the time of hay and har-
vest” when rain threatened. The descendants of
these good people have established St. Mary's Hall
and Burlington College, noted educational institutions.
Probably the most famous son of Burlington was
the distinguished novelist, James Fenimore Cooper,
born in 1789, but taken in his infancy by his parents
to his future home at Cooperstown, in Central New
York. The town was bombarded by the British gun-
P-
boats that sailed up the Delaware in 1778, but since
then the career of Burlington has been eminently
peaceful.
BORDENTOWN AND ITS MEMORIES.
Above Burlington Island the Delaware winds
around a jutting tongue of flat land, “Penn's Neck,”
BORDENTOWN AND ITS MEMORIES, 203
which is one of the noted regions of the river, the an-
cient “Manor of Pennsbury.” This was Penn's
country home, originally a tract of over cight thou-
sand acres, the Indian domain of “Sepessing.” His
house, which he occupied in 1700–01, was them the
finest on the river, but it long ago fell into decay, and
the manor was all sold away from his descendants
during the eighteenth century. At the eastern ex-
tremity of “Penn's Neck,” on the New Jersey shore,
is White Hill, with the village of Bordentown be-
youd, up Crosswick's Creek. Here is a region red-
olent with historical associations. The old buildings
along the river bank were the railway shops of the
famous “Camden and Amboy,” whose line, coming
along the Delaware shore, goes off up Crosswick's
Creek to cross New Jersey on the route to New
York. Above is the dense foliage of Bonaparte
Park, now largely occupied by the Convent and
Academy of St. Joseph. Bordentown was a growth
of the railway, having been previously little more
than a ferry, originally started by Joseph Borden.
Its most distinguished townsman was Admiral Charles
Stewart, “Old Ironsides” of the American navy, a
relic of the early wars of the country, his crowning
achievement being the command of the frigate “Con-
stitution” when she captured the two British vessels,
“Cyane” and “Levant.” He was the “Senior Flag
Officer” of the navy when he died in 1860 on his
Bordentown farm, to which he had returned. The
204 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
old house where he lived is on a bluff facing the river.
He was the grandfather of the noted Irish leader,
Charles Stewart Parnell.
To Bordentown, in 1816, Joseph Bonaparte, the
ex-King of Naples and of Spain, and eldest brother of
Napoleon, came to live, as the Count de Survilliers,
and bought the estate known since as Bonaparte
Park. It was through Stewart's persuasion, mainly,
that he located there, the estate covering ten farms
of about one thousand acres. Lafayette visited him
in 1824, and Louis Napoleon, afterwards Napoleon
III., in 1837. Joseph returned to Europe in 1839,
dying in Florence in 1844. Another famous resi-
dent of Bordentown was Prince Murat, the nephew
of Napoleon and of Joseph, and the son of the dash-
ing Prince Joachim Murat, who was King of the
Sicilies, and was shot by sentence of court-martial
after Waterloo. Prince Murat came in 1822, bought
a farm, got married, lived a rather wild life, but was
generally liked, and, going through various fortunes,
returned to France after the Revolution of 1848 and
was restored to his honors. He was with Marshal
Bazaine in the capitulation of Metz in 1870 and be-
came a prisoner of war, and died in 1878.
THE STORY OF CAMDEN AND AMBOY.
The great memory of Bordentown, however, is of
the famous railroad, originally begun there, whose
managers for nearly a half-century so successfully
THE STORY OF CAMDEN AND AMB()Y. 205
ruled New Jersey that it came to be generally known
throughout the country as “the State of Camden and
Amboy.” In the little old Bordentown station, which
still exists, set in the bottom of a ravine, with the
house built over the railroad, were for many years
held the annual meetings of the corporation ; and its
magnates also met in almost perpetual session, to gen-
erally run things, social, political and financial, for the
State of New Jersey, and semi-annually declare mag-
nificent dividends. Not far from this station a monu-
ment marks the place of construction of the first piece
of railway track in New Jersey, laid by the Camden
and Amboy Company in 1831. Upon this track the
first movement of a passenger train by steam was
made by the locomotive “John Bull,” on November
12th of that year. This granite monument, erected
in 1891 to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary,
stands upon a foundation composed of the stone blocks
on which the first rails were laid, and two of these
original rails encircle it. A bronze tablet upon the
monument represents the old “John Bull,” with his
primitive whisky-cask tender, and the two little old-
time passenger coaches which made up the first train
he drew. Thus began the great railroad highway
between the two chief cities of the United States.
The original method of transport between Phila-
delphia and New York was by steamboat on the
Delaware to South Trentom, stages from Trenton to
New Brunswick on the Raritan River, and then by
206 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
steamboat to New York. This was the “Union
Line,” which for many years carried the passengers,
and of which John Stevens was the active spirit. He
conceived the first idea of a railway, and in 1817
procured the first railway charter in America for a
railroad upon his stage route between Trenton and
New Brunswick. In subsequent years there were
advocates both of a railway and a canal across New
Jersey, his son, Robert L. Stevens, being the rail-
way chieftain, while Commodore Robert F. Stockton
championed the canal, the rival projects appearing
before the New Jersey Legislature in 1829–30, and
causing a most bitter controversy. It is related that
the conflict was ended in a most surprising manner.
Between the acts of a play at the old Park Theatre
in New York, Stevens and Stockton accidentally met
in the vestibule, and after a few minutes' talk agreed
to end their dispute by joining forces. The result
was that on February 4, 1830, both companies were
chartered—the “Camden and Amboy Railroad and
Transportation Company ” and the “Delaware and
Raritan Canal Company.” In furtherance of this
compromise, what is known as the celebrated “Mar-
riage Act” was passed a year later, creating the
“Joint Companies,” their stock being combined at
the same valuation, though each had a separate or-
ganization. They were given a monopoly of the
business, paying transit dues to the State of ten cents
per passenger and fifteen cents per ton of freight
THE STORY OF CAMDEN AND AMBOY, 207
carried, and this afterwards practically paid all the
expenses of the New Jersey State Government. The
railroad was completed between Bordemtown and
Amboy in 1832, and on December 17th the first pas-
sengers went through, fifty or sixty of them. It was
a rainy day, and the cars were drawn by horses, for
they could not in those days trust their locomotive
out in the rain. The next year regular travel began,
galloping horses taking the cars from Bordentown
over to Amboy in about three hours, there being
three relays. Later in the year the locomotive
“John Bull” took one train daily, each way. In
1871 all the railway and canal properties of the two
companies, which had become very extensive, were
absorbed by the Pennsylvania Railroad, which pays
as rental 10 per cent. annual dividends on the stocks.
The lime of the Delaware and Raritan Canal
begins at Crosswick’s Creek in Bordentown, and is
constructed alongside the Delaware River up to
Trenton, and thence across New Jersey to the Rari-
tan River at New Brunswick. This is a much-used
’ and it had one of the old lines
“inside water route,’
of the railroad constructed on the canal bank all the
way. It was in former times a very profitable
route, and is said to have made most of the dividends
of the old monopoly, as it carried the greater part of
the freight between the cities. It was originally pro-
jected in 1804, but the scheme slumbered for years.
When the route was surveyed through Princeton,
208 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
where Commodore Stockton lived, he became inter-
ested, and he induced his father-in-law, John Potter,
of South Carolina, who had over $500,000 in the
United States Bank, to withdraw the money and in-
vest it in the canal, he being the chief shareholder.
Thus his fortune was not only saved from the bank’s
subsequent collapse, but was increased by the profit-
able investment. The canal is forty-three miles long,
with fourteen locks in its course, having an aggre-
gate rise and fall of one hundred and fifty feet. Its
enlargement to the dimensions of a ship canal is sug-
gested.
THE TRENTON GRAVEL.
In journeying up the Delaware and approaching
Trenton, we have passed through a region of most
interesting geological development. All along are
evidences of the deposit of the drift from above,
which is popularly known as the “Trenton gravel.”
The Delaware flows southeast from the Kittatinny
Water Gap to Bordentown, and then, impinging
against the cretaceous stratified rocks of New Jersey,
abruptly turns around a right-angled bend and goes
off southwestward towards Philadelphia. The river
has thus deposited the Trenton gravels, composed of
the drift of most of the geological formations in its
upper waters, throughout its course, on the Pennsyl-
vania side from Trenton down below Philadelphia.
This deposit is fifty feet deep on the river bank in
Philadelphia, and underlies the river bed for nearly a
THE TRENTON GRAVEL, 209
hundred feet in depth. At Bristol the deposit stretches
two miles back from the river, and at Trenton it is
almost universal. The material, which in the lower
reaches is generally fine, grows coarser as the river
is ascended, until at Trenton immense boulders are
often found imbedded. We are told by geologists
that at the time of the great flood in the river which
deposited the gravel, the lower part of Philadelphia,
the whole of Bristol and Penn's Neck and almost all
Trentón were under water. The gravel has dis-
closed bones of Arctic animals—walrus, reindeer and
mastodon-–and also traces of ancient mankind.
The latter have been found at Trenton and on Ne-
shaminy Creek, indicating the presence of a race of
men said to have lived about seven thousand years
ago. The river has also made immense clay de-
posits all along, which was done at a time when the
water flowed at a level more than a hundred feet
higher than now. -,
In the early geological history of the Delaware it
is found that all southern New Jersey lay deep be-
meath the Atlantic, whose waves broke against the
ranges of hills northwest and north of Philadelphia,
and an inlet from the sea extended into the great
Chester limestone valley behind them. This whole
region, then probably five hundred feet lower than
now, was afterwards slowly upheaved, and the waters
retreated. Subsequently the climate grew colder,
and the great glacial ice-cap crept down from Green-
VoI. I.-14
210 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
land and Labrador, forming a huge sea of ice, thou-
sands of feet thick, which advanced on the Delaware
to Belvidere, sixty miles north of Philadelphia. Then
there came another gradual change; the land de-
scended to nearly two hundred feet below the present
level, and again the waters overflowed almost the
whole region. This was ice-cold, fresh water, bear-
ing huge icebergs and floes, which stranded on the
hills, forming a shore on the higher lands northwest
of Philadelphia. The river channel was then ten
miles wide and two hundred feet deep all the way
down from Trenton, and a roaring flood depositing
the red gravel along its bed. As the torrent, ex-
pending its force, though still filled with mud and
sand from the base of the glacial ice-cap, became
more quiet, it laid down the clays, the stranded ice-
bergs dropping their far-carried boulders all along
the route. This era of cold water and enormous
floods is computed to have occupied a period of
about two hundred and seventy thousand years, and
then the “Ice Age” finally terminated. The land
rose about to its present level, the waters retreated,
and elevated temperatures thawed more and more of
the glaciers remaining in the headwaters, so that
there came down the last great floods which depos-
ited the “Trenton gravel.” The river was still
wide and deep, and Arctic animals roamed the
banks. Mankind then first appeared, living in prim-
itive ways in caves and holes, and hunting and fish-
TRENTON AND ITS BATTLE MONUMENT. 211
ing along the swollen Delaware ten thousand years
ago. Occasionally they dropped in the waters their
rude stone implements and weapons, which were
buried in the gravel, and, being recently found, are
studied to tell the story of their ancient owners.
The river deposited its gravel and the channel shrunk
with dwindling current, moving gradually eastward
as it eat its way into the cretaceous measures. The
primitive man retired, making way for the red In-
dian, and the present era dawned, with the more
moderate climate, and with again a slow sinking of
the land, which the geologists say is now in progress.
TRENTON AND ITS BATTLE MONUMENT.
Trenton, the capital of New Jersey, is thirty miles
from Philadelphia, a prosperous city with seventy
thousand people. The first and most lasting impres-
sion many visitors get of it is of the deep rift cut
into the clays and gravels of the southern part of the
town, to let the Pennsylvania Railroad go through.
Here, as everywhere, are displayed the lavish de-
posits of the “Trenton gravel” as the railway passes
under the streets, and even under the Delaware and
Raritan Canal, to its depressed station alongside As-
sumpink Creek of Revolutionary memory, the chief
part of the city spreading far to the northward.
Trenton is as old as Philadelphia, its reputed founder
being Mahlon Stacy, who came up from Burlington
Friends' Meeting, while the settlement was named
212 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
for William Trent, an early Jersey law-maker. The
Trenton potteries are its chief industry, established
by a colony of Staffordshire potters from England,
attracted by its prolific clay deposits; and the conical
kilns, which turn out a product worth five or six mil-
lions of dollars annually, are scattered at random
over the place. Their chima ware has been advanced
to a high stage of perfection, and displays exquisite
decoration. The Trenton cracker factories are also
famous. The finest building is the State House, as
the Capitol is called, the Delaware River's swift cur-
rent bubbling over rocks and among grassy islands
out in front of the grounds. At Broad and Clinton
Streets, the intersection of two of the chief high-
ways, mounted as an ornament upon a drinking-foun-
tain, is the famous “Swamp Angel” cannon, brought
from Charleston harbor after the Civil War. This
was one of the earliest heavy guns made, plain and
rather uncouth-looking, about ten feet long, and
rudely constructed in contrast with the clongated and
tapering rifled cannon of to-day, and it rests upon a
comical pile of brownstone. It was the most noted
gun of the Civil War, an eight-inch Parrott rifle, or
two-hundred-pounder, and, when fired, carried a
one-hundred-and-fifty-pound projectile seven thou-
sand yards from a battery on Morris Island into the
city of Charleston, which was then regarded as a
prodigious achievement. It is a muzzle-loader, weigh-
ing about eight tons, and burst after firing thirty-six
jSattle (II)onument, Cremtom, iſºl. 3.


TRENTON AND ITS BATTLE MONUMENT. 213
rounds at Charleston, in August, 1863, the fracture
being plainly seen around the breech.
Trenton's great historical feature is the Revolu-
tionary battlefield, now completely built upon. Wash-
ington, having crossed the Delaware on Christmas
might, in the early morning of December 26, 1776,
marched down to Trenton, and surprised and defeated
the Hessians under Rahl, who were encamped north
of Assumpink Creek. A fine battle-monument stands
in a small park adjoining Warren Street, at the point
where Washington's army, coming into town from
the north, first engaged the enemy. Here Alexander
Hamilton, them Captain of the New York State Com-
pany of Artillery, opened fire from his battery on the
Hessians, who fled through the town, along Warren,
them called King Street. The monument is a fluted
Roman-Doric column, rising one hundred and thirty-
five feet, surmounted by a statue of Washington,
representing him standing, field-glass in hand, sur-
veying the flying Hessians, his right arm pointing
down Warren Street. The elevated top of this
monument gives a grand view over the surrounding
country, the course of the Delaware being traced for
miles. The subsequent fortnight's campaign ending
in the battle of Princeton revived the drooping spirits
of the Americans, and was said by as accomplished
a soldier as Frederick the Great to be among “the
most brilliant in the annals of military achievements.”
Trenton is at the head of tidewater on the Delaware,
214 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
the stream coming down rapids, known as the “Falls.”
On the Pennsylvania side is Morrisville, called after
Robert Morris, who lived there during the Revolu-
tion. His estate subsequently became the home of
the famous French General Jean Victor Moreau, the
victor at Hohenlinden, who was exiled by Napoleon
in 1804. He returned to Europe afterwards at the
invitation of the Czar Alexander, and devised for him
a plan for invading France. They were both at the
battle of Dresden in 1813, and were consulting about
a certain manoeuvre when a cannon ball from Napo-
leon's Guard broke both Moreau's legs, and he died
five days afterwards.
PRINCETON BATTLE AND COLLEGE,
A few days after Washington's victory at Trenton,
*
Cornwallis, in January, 1777, advanced across Jer-
sey to crush the Americans, but he was repulsed at
the ford of Assumpink Creek in Trenton. Then
Washington resorted to a ruse. Leaving his camp-
fires brightly burning near the creek at night to de-
ceive the enemy, he quietly withdrew, and made a
forced march ten miles northeast to Princeton, and
fell upon three British regiments there, who were
hastening to join Cornwallis, defeating them, and
storming Nassau Hall, in which some of the fugitives
had taken refuge. Trenton is in Mercer County,
named in honor of General Hugh Mercer, who fell in
this battle, at the head of the Philadelphia troops.
PRINCETON BATTLE AND COLLEGE. 215
Princeton is a town of about thirty-five hundred in-
habitants, a quiet place of elegant residences, in a
level and luxuriant country. It is the seat of the
College of New Jersey, originally founded at Eliza-
beth, near New York, in 1746, and transferred here
in 1757. It is best known as Nassau Hall, or Prince-
ton University, being liberally endowed, and having
notable buildings surrounding its spacious campus,
and is a Presbyterian foundation, which has about
eleven hundred students. The original Nassau Hall
erected in 1757, but burnt many years ago, was so
named by the Synod “to express the honor we re-
tain in this remote part of the globe to the immortal
memory of the glorious King William the Third, who
was a branch of the illustrious House of Nassau.”
Dr. John Witherspoon, the celebrated Scotch Pres-
byterian divine, who was one of the signers of the
Declaration of Independence, was for thirty years its
President, and among the early graduates were two
other signers, Richard Stockton and Benjamin Rush.
The final conflict of the battle of Princeton raged
around this venerated building, and Washington pre-
sented fifty guineas to the College to repair the dam-
age done by his bombardment. In the adjacent
Presbyterian Theological Seminary have been edu-
cated many able clergymen. In Princeton Cemetery
are the remains of the wonderful preacher and meta-
physician, Jonathan Edwards, who became President
of the College in 1758, dying shortly afterwards. A
216 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
panegyrist, describing his merits as a great Church
leader, compressed all in this remarkable sentence:
“These three–Augustine, Calvin and Jonathan Ed-
wards.” His son-in-law and predecessor as Presi-
dent was Rev. Aaron Burr ; and mear his humble
monument is another, marking the grave of his grand-
son, who was an infant when the great preacher died,
and whose career was in such startling contrast—the
notorious Aaron Burr, Vice-President of the United
States.
MARSHALL’s WALK.
The Delaware River above Trenton is for miles a
stream of alternating pools and rapids, with canals on
either side, passing frequent villages and displaying
pleasant scenery as it breaks through the successive
ridges in its approach to the mountains. Alongside
the river, in Solebury, Bucks County, in the early
part of the eighteenth century, was the humble home
of the pioneer and hunter, Edward Marshall, who
made the fateful “walk” of 1737, the injustice of
which so greatly provoked the Indians, and was a
chief cause of the most savage Indian War of Colo-
mial times. All the country west of the Delaware, as
far up as the mouth of the Lackawaxen River, was
obtained from the Indians by the deception of this
“walk.” The Indians in those early times measured
their distances by “days’ journeys,” and in various
treaties with the white men transferred tracts of land
by the measurement of “days' walks.” William Penn
MARSHALL’S WALK. 217
had bought the land as far up as Makefield and
Wrightstown in Bucks County, and after his death
his descendants, Thomas and Richard Penn, became
“Walk 77
anxious to enlarge the purchase, and this
was the result. After a good deal of preliminary
negotiation, several Sachems of the Lenni Lenapes
were brought to Philadelphia, and on August 25,
1737, made a treaty ceding additional lands begin-
ning “on a line drawn from a certain spruce tree on
the river Delaware by a west-northwest course to
Neshamimy Creek; from thence back into the woods
as far as a man can go in a day and a half, and
bounded in the west by Neshaminy or the most
westerly branch thereof, so far as the said branch
doth extend, and from thence by a line to the utmost
extent of the day and a half’s walk, and from thence
to the aforesaid river Delaware ; and so down the
courses of the river to the first-mentioned spruce
tree.” The Indians thought this “walk” might
cover the land as far north as the Lehigh, but there
was deliberate deception practiced. An erroneous map
was exhibited indicating a line extending about as far
north as Bethlehem on the Lehigh, and this deceived
the Indians. The white officials had previously been
quietly going over the ground far north of the Lehigh,
blazing routes by marking trees, all of which was
carefully concealed, and Marshall and others had been
employed on these “trial walks.” A reward of five
hundred acres of land was promised the walkers.
218 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
Marshall and two others, Jennings and Yeates,
were selected to do the walking, all young and ath-
letic hunters, experienced in woodcraft and inured to
hardships. The walk was fixed for September 19th,
under charge of the Sheriff, and before sunrise of
that day a large number of people gathered at the
starting-point at Wrightstown, a few miles west of
the Delaware. An obelisk on a pile of boulders now
marks the spot at the corner of the Quaker Burying
Ground, bearing an inscription, “To the Memory of
the Lemmi Lenape Indians, ancient owners of this re-
gion, these stones are placed at this spot, the starting-
point of the ‘Indian walk,” September 19, 1737.”
The start was made from a chestnut tree, three In-
dians afoot accompanying the three walkers, while
the Sheriff, surveyors and others, carrying provisions,
bedding and liquors, were on horseback. Just as the
sun rose above the horizon at six o'clock they started.
When they had gone about two miles, Jennings gave
out. They halted fifteen minutes for dinner at noon,
soon afterwards crossed the Lehigh near the site of
Bethlehem, turned up that river, and at fifteen minutes
past six in the evening, completing the day's journey
of twelve hours actual travel, the Sheriff, watch in
hand, called to them, as they were mounting a little
hill, to “pull up.” Marshall, thus motified, clasped his
arms about a sapling for support, saying “he was
almost gone, and if he had proceeded a few poles
farther he must have fallen.” Yeates seemed less
MARSHALL’S WALK. 219
distressed. The Indians were dissatisfied from the
outset, claiming the walk should have been made up
the river, and not inland. When the Lehigh was
crossed, early in the afternoon, they became sullen,
complaining of the rapid gait of the walkers, and sev-
eral times protesting against their running. Before
sunset two Indians left, saying they would go no
farther, that the walkers would pass all the good
land, and after that it made no difference how far or
where they went. The third Indian continued some
distance, when he lay down to rest and could go no
farther.
The halt for the night was made about a half-mile
from the Indian village of Hokendauqua, a name
which means ‘
‘searching for land.” This was the
village of Lappawinzoe, one of the Sachems who had
made the treaty. The next morning was rainy, and
messengers were sent him to request a detail of In-
dians to accompany the walkers. He was in ugly
humor and declined, but some Indians strolled into
camp and took liquor, and Yeates also drank rather
freely. The horses were hunted up, and the second
day's start made along the Lehigh Valley at eight
o'clock, some of the Indians accompanying for a short
distance through the rain, but soon leaving, dissatis-
fied. The route was north-northwest through the
woods, Marshall carrying a compass, by which he
held his course. In crossing a creek at the base of
the mountains, Yeates, who had become very lame
220 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
and tired, staggered and fell, but Marshall pushed
on, followed by two of the party on horseback. At
two o'clock the “walk.” ended on the north side of
the Pocomo or Broad Mountain, not far from the
present site of Mauch Chunk. The distance “walked”
in eighteen hours was about sixty-eight miles, a
remarkable performance, considering the condition
of the country. The terminus of the “walk.”
was marked by placing stomes in the forks of five
trees, and the surveyors them proceeded to com-
plete the work by marking the line of northern
limit of the tract across to the Delaware River. This
was dome, not by taking the shortest route to the
river, but by running a line at right angles with the
general direction of the “walk;” and after four days'
progress, practically parallel to the Delaware, through
what was them described as a “barren mountainous
region,” the surveyors reached the river, in the upper
part of Pike County, near the mouth of Shohola
Creek, just below the Lackawaxen.
The Indians were loud in their complaints of the
greediness shown in this walk, and particularly of the
carrying of the surveyors’ line so far to the north-
ward, which mone of them had anticipated. Marshall
was told by one old Indian, subsequently, “No sit
down to smoke—no shoot squirrel; but lun, lun, lun,
all day long.” Lappawinzoe, thoroughly disgusted,
said, “Next May we will go to Philadelphia, each
one with a buckskin, repay the presents, and take
MARSHALL’S WALK. 221
the lands back again.” The lands, however, were
sold to speculators, so this was not practicable, and
when the new owners sought to occupy them, the
Indians refused to vacate. This provoked disputes
over a half-million acres, a vast domain. The Penns,
to defend their position, afterwards repudiated the
surveyors, and they never fulfilled their promise to
give Marshall five hundred acres. This did not
mend matters, however, and the Lenni Lenape In-
dians’ attitude became constantly more threatening,
until the scared Proprietary invited the intervention
of their hereditary enemies, the Iroquois Confedera-
tion, or Six Nations. In 1742 two hundred and
thirty leading Iroquois were brought to Philadelphia,
and the dispute submitted to their arbitration. They
sided with the Proprietary, and the Lemmi Lenapes
reluctantly withdrew to the Wyoming Valley, part
going as far west as Ohio. But they thirsted for re-
venge, and when the French began attacking the
frontier settlements, these Indians became willing
allies, making many raids and wreaking terrible ven-
geance upon the innocent frontiersmen throughout
Pennsylvania. Marshall, who never got his reward,
removed his cabin farther up the Delaware, above
the mouth of the Lehigh. The Indians always pur-
sued him, as an arch-conspirator, for a special ven-
geance. They attacked his cabin, killing his wife
and wounding a daughter, he escaping by being ab-
sent. They made a second attack, and killed a son.
222 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
His whole life was embittered by these murders, and
he lost no opportunity for retaliation, removing, for
greater safety, to an island in the river. They pur-
sued him for forty years, a party of Indians, during
the Revolution in 1777, coming all the way from
Ohio to kill him, but he eluded them and escaped.
His closing years, however, were passed peacefully,
and he died at the age of ninety at his island home
in the Delaware.
THE NARROWS AND THE FORKS.
The Tohickon Creek, the chief stream of Bucks
County, flows into the Delaware at Point Pleasant,
its Indian name of Tohick-hanne meaning “the
stream crossed by a drift-wood bridge.” Here in
the river are many rapids or “rifts,” some having
been given curious names by the early raftsmen who
used to “shoot ” them—such as the “Buck Tail
rift,” the “Cut Bite rift,” the “Man-of-War rift,”
the “Ground Hog rift,” and the “Old Sow rift.”
The river makes many sweeping curves in passing
through the gorges, and it displays the Nockamixon
Rocks or “Pennsylvania Palisades,” a series of about
three miles of beetling crags, of rich red and brown
sandstone, rising four hundred feet, almost perpen-
dicularly, and making a grand gorge known as the
Narrows. The ridge which the river thus bisects is
known as Rock Hill in Pennsylvania, and across in
New Jersey stretches away to the northeast as the
THE NARROWS AND THE FORKS. 223
Musconetcong Mountain. Above, the Musconetcong
River, the Indian “rapid runner,” flows in at Rei-
gelsville, a town on both sides of the Delaware.
This was the Indian village of Pechequeolin in the
early eighteenth century, where iron works, the first
on the Delaware, were started in 1727, famous for
making the “Franklin’ and “Adam and Eve.”
stoves that were so popular among our ancestors, the
latter bearing in bold relief a striking representation
of our first parents in close consultation with the
serpent. Just above, the Delaware comes out
through the massive gorge of the Durham Hills or
South Mountain, north of which the Lehigh River
flows in from the southwest amid iron mills and slag
heaps, with numerous bridges bringing the various
Lehigh coal railways across from Easton to Phillips-
burg. This is the confluence with the Lehigh,
known in early times as the “Forks of the Dela-
ware.” To this place the Lemmi Lenapes often came
to treat and trade with the Penns, and a town was
founded there when John Penn was the Proprietor.
He was then a newly-married man, and had courted
his bride, a daughter of Lord Pomfret, at her father's
English country-house of Easton in Northamptonshire.
So the new town was called Easton and the county
Northampton, at the junction of the Delaware with
the Indian Lechwiechink, signifying “where there
)
are forks.” This name was shortened to Lecha, and
afterwards became the Lehigh. The two towns lit-
224 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
erally hang upon the hillsides, Mount Parnassus
looking down upon Phillipsburg, named after the old
chief Phillip, who had the original village there,
while Easton is compressed between the South Moun-
tain and the long ridge of Chestnut Hill, rising seven
hundred feet, where the Paximosa Inn recalls the
sturdy Paxanose, the last of the Shawnee kings who
lived east of the Alleghenies. Through these towns
and across the bridges spanning the Delaware roll
constant processions of coal trains bringing the an-
thracite out from the Lehigh and Wyoming coal-
fields to market.
Easton dates from 1737 and has about fifteen
thousand people, but its growth did not come until
the coal trade was developed. The Lehigh Camal
started this, and upon it Asa Packer was a boat-
man before the railway era, and carried goods for
the industrious Frenchman, Ario Pardee, who then
had a mill and store at Hazleton, back in the inte-
rior. These were the two leaders in developing the
Lehigh coal trade. The chief institution of Easton
is Lafayette College, a Presbyterian foundation, its
main building being Pardee Hall, a gift of Ario
Pardee. It is largely a school of the mine, and is
devoted to that branch of scientific research. Here
often came the famous Teedyuscung, the eloquent
sachem of the Lenni Lenapes, who, in the councils
at the “Forks,” pleaded for his people's rights. The
last remnant of his tribe, having been pressed far-
THE NARROWS AND THE FORKS. 225
ther and farther towards the setting sun, now live as
the “Delaware Indians” out in Oklahoma, there
being barely ninety of them, where Hon. Charles
Journeycake, at last advices, was the “King of the
Delawares,” the successor of Teedy uscung and of
St. Tammany. Phillipsburg was originally settled by
Dutch, and its prosperity was based chiefly on the
Morris Canal, which crossed New Jersey through
Newark to New York harbor, a work since aban-
doned for transportation purposes. It was a wonder-
ful canal in its day, crossing mountain ranges of mine
hundred feet. This was made possible by the high
elevation of Lake Hopatcong, which furnished most
of the water for the levels. While some of the ele-
vations were overcome by locks, the greater ones
were mounted by inclined planes up which the boats
were drawn, the machinery of the planes being
worked by water-power taken from the higher canal
levels. Its chief usefulness now is the supply of
water to Newark, the descent from Lake Hopatcong on
that side being nine hundred and fourteen feet. This
beautiful lake, supplied with the purest spring water,
is nine miles long and about four miles wide, dotted
with islands, its rock-bound shores encompassed by
surrounding mountains giving charming scenery.
Small steamboats navigate it, and the namo Hopatcong
means “Stone over the Water,” referring to an arti-
ficial causeway of stone the Indians had, connecting
with one of the islands, but which is now submerged.
VOL. I.-15
226 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
BETHLEHEM AND THE MORAVIANS.
The Lehigh River flows out of the Alleghenies
through a deep and tortuous valley which rends the
mountain ridges until it strikes against the South
Mountain range, here called the Durham Hills, and
then turns northeast along its base to the Delaware.
At this bend the Saucon Creek comes in from the
south and the Monocacy Creek from the north, and
here, twelve miles from Easton, is Bethlehem. This
manufacturing town of twenty thousand population
is one of the noted places of the Lehigh Valley. A
large part of the lowlands along the river are occu-
pied by the extensive works of the Bethlehem Steel
Company, where the big guns, armor and crank-
shafts are made for the navy, while on the slopes of
the South Mountain are the noble buildings of the
Lehigh University, the munificent bencfaction of
Asa Packer, supporting four hundred students of the
technical studies developing mining and railways.
On the hill slopes of the northern river bank is the
original Moravian town, oddly built of bricks and
stone, with a steep slate roof on nearly every house.
It was one of the earliest and the most important of
the settlements in America of the refugee followers
of John Huss, the “Congregation of the United
Brethren,” and for a century was under its absolute
government. In the winter of 1740 the first trees
were cut down that formed the log hut which was the
BETHLEHEM AND THE MORAVIANS. 227
first house on this part of the Lehigh. Count Zin-
Zendorf, their leader, arrived from Moravia, with his
young daughter Benigma, before the second house
was built, and celebrated with the settlers the Christ-
mas Eve of 1741. They had called the place Beth-
Lechem, “the house upon the Lehigh,” but it is
related that towards midnight on this occasion Zim-
Zendorf, becoming deeply moved, seized a blazing
torch and earnestly sang a German hymn:
“Not Jerusalem—lowly Bethlehem
'Twas that gave us Christ to save us.”
Thus the young settlement got its name. Receiv-
ing large accessions by immigration, it soon grew
into activity, and outstripping Eastom, became the
commercial depot of the Upper Delaware and the
Lehigh, sending missionaries among the Indians, and
during the Revolution was a busy manufacturing
town. For the first thirty years it was a pure “com-
mune,” the church elders regulating the labor of all
the people, and afterwards, until 1844, the church
council of the “Congregation ” ruled everything, this
exclusive system being then abandoned. Proceeding
up a winding highway from the river, the old “Mo-
ravian Sun Inn '' is passed, the building, dating from
1758, being modernized ; and mounting the higher
hill above the Main Street, the visitor soon gets into
the heart of the original Moravian Colony, among the
ancient and spacious hip-roofed, slate-covered stone
228 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
houses, with their ponderous gables. Though dwelling
in communism, the Moravians strictly separated the
sexes in house, street, church and graveyard, taking
good care of the lone females, whether maidens or
widows. Here are the “Widows' House ’’ and the
“Single Sisters' House,” quaintly attractive with
their broad oaken stairways, diminutive windows,
stout furniture and sun-dials, tiled and flagged pave-
ments, low ceilings, steep roofs and odd gables. The
“Sisters' House” was built in 1742. The “Congre-
gation House” and “Theological Seminary" are also
here; and, best known of all, the Moravian “Young
Ladies' Seminary,” an extensive and widely cele-
brated institution, dating from 1749, whose educa-
tional methods are those founded by the noted John
Amos Commenius, who flourished in the seventeenth
century, and whose life-size portrait bust is sacredly
preserved in the school, as is also the old sun-dial
of 1748 on the southern front of one of the buildings.
The Moravian Church, a large square building,
fronts the Main Street, and here are held the great
festivals at Christmas and Easter which bring many
visitors to Bethlehem. Its most interesting adjunct is
the “Dead House’’ alongside, a small pointed gothic
steep-roofed building, which is used whenever a mem-
ber dies. The public announcement of the death is
made at sunrise from the church cupola by the “trom-
bone choir,” who go up there and vigorously blow
their horns, one standing facing each of the four
BETHLEHEM AND THE MORAVIANS. 229
points of the compass. The funeral services are held
in the church, but the corpse is not taken there, it
being deposited in the “Dead House,” and guarded by
the pall-bearers during the ceremony. This ended,
a procession solemnly marches farther up the hill,
led by the trombones, playing a dirge, escorting the
corpse and mourners to the ancient graveyard. Here
are the graves of the faithful, resting beneath grand
old trees, all the men on one side of the central path
and the women on the other. There are no monu-
ments or family lots, but the graves stretch across
the cemetery in long rows, each row being completed
before another is begun, the latest corpse, without
reference to relationship, being laid alongside the
last interred, so that the row of graves shows the
chronological succession of the deaths. All are
treated alike, the dead bishop resting alongside the
humblest of the flock, a small square stone being laid
upon each flattened grave, marked with name and
date of birth and death, and usually a number. Only
one person—a woman—has any sign of distinction
above the others in this unique cemetery. She was
Deaconess Juliana Nitschman, wife of Bishop John
Nitschman, who died in 1751, greatly beloved by
the Congregation, and was honored by being given
a special grave in the path in the centre of the
yard, between the men and the women. There
are some fifty graves of Indian converts in the early
days, among them “Tschoop of the Mohicans,”
230 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
whom Cooper, the novelist, has immortalized, the
brave and eloquent father of his hero Uncas. The
record of the conversion of the famous King Tee-
dyuscung is kept in the Moravian Congregation,
and his exploits are frequently described in their
ammals. He lived on the meadow land down by
the river, having gone there in 1730 from near
Trenton, where he was born about 1700, and in 1742
he released the lands at Bethlehem to the Moravians.
He was impressed by the persuasions of the preachers,
and after a long probation, in 1750 was baptized under
the name of Gideon. Bishop Cammerhoff, on March
12th, made an entry which, translated, reads, “To-day
I baptized Tatius Kundt, the chief among sinners.”
He was made Grand Sachem of the Lenni Lenapes
in 1754, but he backslid from the Church, and joined
in the pillage and massacre of the Colonial wars. He
became dissipated, but was afterwards reconciled to
the whites and removed to Wyoming, where the Iro-
quois in 1763 made a raid, and finding him in a
drunken stupor in his wigwam, they set fire to it and
he was burnt to death.
During the Revolution the Moravians were of
great use to the army, conducting hospitals at Bethle-
hem and providing supplies. In 1778 the “Single
Sisters” made and presented to Count Pulaskia finely
embroidered silk banner, afterwards carried by his
regiment, and preserved by the Maryland Historical
Society. Longfellow has beautifully enshrined this
MAUCH CHUNK AND COAL MINING. 231
memory in his “Hymn of the Moravian Nums” at its
consecration :
“When the dying flame of day
Through the chancel shot its ray,
Far the glimmering tapers shed
Faint light on the cowled head,
And the censer burning swung
Where before the altar hung
That proud banner, which, with prayer,
Had been consecrated there ;
And the nums' sweet hymn was heard the while
Sung low in the dim mysterious aisle—
“‘Take thy banner. May it wave
Proudly o'er the good and brave,
When the battle's distant wail
Breaks the Sabbath of our vale;
When the clarion’s music thrills
To the heart of these lone hills;
When the spear in conflict shakes,
And the strong lance, quivering, breaks.’”
MAUCH CHUNK AND COAL MINING.
The Lehigh above Bethlehem comes through the
clear-cut “Lehigh Gap" in the Blue Ridge, which
stretches off to the northeast, where are two other
notches, one cut partly down and the other deeply
cut—the first being the “Wind Gap" and the other
the “Delaware Water Gap.” The Indians used to
tell the early pioneers that the wind came through
the one and the water through the other. The Jor-
dan Creek flows out from the South Mountain, and in
the valley is Allentown, the chief city of the Lehigh,
232 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
having thirty thousand people, and numerous facto-
rics and breweries. Here is the township of Macum-
gie, which is Indian for “the feeding-place of bears.”
It was to Allentown, when the British captured Phila-
delphia, that in 1777 were hastily taken the Liberty
IBell and the chimes of Christ Church and St. Peter's
Church, being concealed beneath the floor of old Zion
Church to prevent their capture and confiscation.
Above Allentown the Lehigh traverses the valley be-
tween the South Mountain and the Blue Ridge, pass-
ing Catasauqua, “the thirsty land,” and Hokendauqua,
seats of extensive iron manufacture, the first of these
establishments on the Lehigh, founded in 1839 by
David Thomas, who came out from Wales for the
purpose. Then we get among the slate factories in
crossing the vast slate measures that adjoin the Blue
Ridge, and go quickly through the deep motch in the
tall and here very narrow ridge, the waters foaming
over the slaty bed, its thin layers standing up in long
straight lines across the stream. Beyond is another
valley, and then comes the wide-topped range known
as the Broad Mountain. In this valley was Gauden-
hutten, where the Indian trail, known as the “War-
rior's Path,” crossed the Lehigh, and where the first
Moravian missionaries from Bethlehem came and
built a church and converted the Indians. It was the
scene of one of the terrible massacres of the Colonial
wars. Within the gorge of the Broad Mountain is
the oddest town on the Lehigh, Mauch Chunk.
MAUCH CHUNK AND COAL MINING. 233
This noted coal town has two principal streets—
one laid along the front of a mountain wall above the
river bank, and the other at right angles, stretching
back through a cleft in the mountain. Most things
are set on edge in Mauch Chunk, and the man who
may have the front door of his house on the street
often goes out of an upper story into the back yard,
which slopes steeply upward. Mount Pisgah rises
high above, crowned with the chimneys of the ma-
chine-house of an inclined-plane railway. A view
from it discloses a novel landscape beneath, the rail-
roads, canal, river and front street all being com-
pressed together into the narrow curving gorge which
bends around Bear Mountain, the “Mauch Chunk”
over opposite. The red sandstone is universal, and
the chocolate-colored roads leading out of town are
carved into the mountain walls. Through the centre
of the place the river pours over a canal dam, its
roaring mingled with the noise of constantly moving
coal trains. The curious comical Bear Mountain,
around which everything curves, rises seven hundred
feet high, and the town, which has about four thou-
sand people, rests at various elevations, wherever
houses can get room to stand—in gullies or gorges,
or hanging on the hillsides. From every point of
view rises the tall and quaintly turreted tower of
St. Luke's Episcopal Church, looking like an ancient
feudal castle of the Rhine, which was built as a me-
morial of Asa Packer by his widow; for here was
234 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
his home, and his grave is in the cemetery almost
over the roof of his house.
At Summit Hill, mine miles northwest of Mauch
Chunk, the anthracite coal of this region was first
discovered. Philip Ginter, a hunter, found it while
roaming over Sharp Mountain in 1791. This “stone
coal” was carried down to Philadelphia and exhibited,
and a company was formed, taking up ten thousand
acres on the mountain and opening a mine. For
thirty years they had disappointments, as nobody
would use the coal, which cost about $14 per ton to
transport to Philadelphia. To cheapen this, efforts
were made to improve the navigation of the Lehigh,
out of which grew the canal which was the early
route of the coal to that city. Asa Packer once said
that in 1820 three hundred and eighty-five tons went
to Philadelphia, and this choked the market. In
1827, when the mining at Summit Hill had got a
good start, the “Switchback” gravity railroad was
built to bring the coal out from the mines to the river
at Mauch Chunk. The loaded coal cars ran by their
own momentum nine miles down a grade of about
ninety feet to the mile. To get the cars back, they
were hauled up the inclined plane on Mount Pisgah,
then run by gravity six miles inland to Mount Jeffer-
son, where they were hauled up a second plane, and
them they ran three miles farther by gravity to the
mines. This route was used for many years, but was
afterwards superseded by another railway, and now
fīyauch Qūbunk


MAUCH CHUNK AND COAL MINING. 235
the famous “Switchback ’’ is a summer excursion
route for tourists who delight in the exhilarating
rides down the gravity slopes. At Summit Hill and
in the Panther Creek Valley, a large output of coal is
mined and sent through a railway tunnel to the
Lehigh, and there is at Summit Hill a burning mine
which has been smouldering more than a half-cen-
tury. Asa Packer developed this region, while, far-
ther up the river, branch lines come in from the Ma-
hanoy and Hazleton regions, which were the field of
operations of Ario Pardee; and the two went hand
in hand in fostering the prosperity of the Lehigh
Valley.
The upper waters of the Lehigh flow through a
wild canyon, the river at times almost doubling upon
itself as it makes sharp bends around the bold prom-
ontories. Enormous hills encompass it about, the
stream often flowing through the bottom with the
rush and foam of a miniature Niagara rapids. The
canal, abandoned above Mauch Chunk, was destroyed
by a freshet many years ago, but the amber-colored
waters still pour over the dilapidated dams and
through the moss-grown sluices. There are log
houses for the lumbermen, also an almost obsolete
industry, and finally the railways abandon the di-
minutive Lehigh and climb over the desolate Nesco-
pec Mountain, to go through the Sugar Notch and
down the other side into the Vale of Wyoming and
to the banks of the Susquehanna. Upon the eastern
236 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
slopes of the Nescopec the Lehigh has its sources,
gathering the tribute of many small streams between
this ridge and Broad Mountain.
THE WALE OF WYOMING.
The railroads cross the height of land between the
sources of the Lehigh and the affluents of the Sus-
quehamma, through the Sugar Notch, at about eigh-
teen hundred feet elevation. When the train moves
out to the western verge of Nescopec Mountain
there suddenly bursts upon the gladdened sight the
finest scenic view in Pennsylvania—over the fair
Vale of Wyoming, with all its gorgeous beauties of
towns and villages, forests and farms, under the
bright sunlight, and having laid across it the distant
silver streak of the glinting Susquehanna River, all
spread out in a magnificent picture seen from an ele-
vation of twelve hundred feet above the river level.
For nearly twenty miles the Susquehamma can be
traced through the long, trough-like valley, from
where it breaks in through the Lackawannock Gap
in the North Mountain, under Campbell’s Ledge, far
to the northward, away down south to where it passes
out the marrow gorge at Nanticoke Gap. The long
ridges of the Nescopec and Moosic Mountains enclose
the valley on one side, and over on the other are the
great North Mountain or Shawnee range, and the
higher ridge of the main Allegheny range behind.
In the distant northeast the view is prolonged up the
THE WALE OF WYOMING. 237
Lackawanna Valley. In this splendid Wyoming
Vale, spread out like a map, is a landscape of rich
agriculture, dotted over with towns and villages, coal-
breakers and huge culm-piles, the long Snake-like
streaks of railways crossing the scene bearing their
little puffing engines. It looks much like what one
sees out of a balloon. Here is the village of Nanti-
coke, then Plymouth, then the spreading city of
Wilkesbarre, and, far beyond, the foliage-hidden
houses of Pittston, near the gorge where the river
flows in. Between them all are clusters of villages
and black coal heaps, with myriads of the little green
and brown fields, making distant farms. The river
reaches sparkle in the light as the long shadows are
cast from the mountains, and the train runs rapidly
down the mountain side and across the valley to its
chief city, Wilkesbarre.
When the broad and shallow and rock-strewn
river Susquehanna, on its way down from Otsego
Lake in New York to the Chesapeake, breaks through
the North Mountain, its valley expands to three or
four miles in width, making a fertile region between
the high enclosing ridges which the Indians called
Maughwauwama, or the “extensive flat plains.”
This somorous name underwent many changes, finally
becoming known as Wyoming. Luzerne County is
the lower and Lackawanna County the upper portion
of this noted valley, which is the greatest anthracite
coal-field in the world. These Wyoming coal meas-
238 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
ures underlie seventy-seven square miles, having
veins averaging eighty feet in thickness, and about
eighty thousand tons to the acre, the aggregate de-
posit of coal being estimated to exceed two thousand
millions of tons. The large population and enor-
mous production have caused all the railways to send
in branches to tap its lucrative traffic, so that it is the
best-served region in Pennsylvania. It has two
large cities—Wilkesbarre, in Luzerne, and Scranton,
in Lackawanna. Wilkesbarre is on the eastern Sus-
quehanna river bank, a town of forty thousand
people, named after the two English champions of
American Colonial rights. It covers much surface
in the centre of the valley, with suburbs spreading
far up the mountain sides. But from almost every
point of view in the city the outlook is over black
culm-heaps or coal-breakers or at rows of coal cars,
so that there is a monotony in the steady reminder
of the source of their riches, the omnipresent anthra-
cite. About twelve miles northwest of Wilkesbarre,
up in the North Mountain range, is the largest lake
in Pennsylvania—Harvey’s Lake—elevated nearly
thirteen hundred feet and covering about two square
miles. It is named after one of the early pioneers
from Connecticut, and its outflow comes down to the
Susquehanna near Nanticoke Gap. Its pleasant
shores are a favorite resort of the Wilkesbarre people.
The flourishing city of Scranton is about nineteen
miles north of Wilkesbarre, in the Lackawanna Val-
e
THE WALE OF W YOMING. 239
ley. It has grown to a population of a hundred thou-
sand people, and is picturesquely situated among the
coal mines, with a higher elevation than Wilkesbarre,
being nearly eleven hundred feet above tide, at the
confluence of the Roaring Brook with the Lacka-
wanna River; and it has extensive iron industries,
being the chief city of northeastern Pennsylvania.
The Wyoming and Lackawanna coal pits, while the
greatest anthracite producers, are not generally so
deep as those of the Lehigh or Schuylkill regions.
The deepest Pennsylvania shaft goes down seventeen
hundred feet near Pottsville. Some of the Wyoming
galleries run a mile and a half underground from the
shaft, following the coal veins underneath and far
beyond the Susquehanna.
This moted Wyoming Vale, in the early history
of the Pennsylvania frontier, was bought from
the Iroquois Indians, the “Six Nations,” by an
association of pioneer settlers from Connecticut.
Good management, due largely to the judicious
methods of the early missionaries, kept them at
peace with the Indians. Count Zinzendorf, with a
companion, came up from Bethlehem in 1742, before
the Connecticut purchase, and founded a Moravian
mission among the Shawnees in the valley. It is
said that they were suspicious of European rapacity
and plotted his assassination, and the historian re-
lates that the Count was alone in his tent, reclining
upon a bundle of dry weeds, destined for his bed, and
240 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
engaged in writing or in devout meditation, when the
assassins crept stealthily up. A blanket-curtain
formed the door, and, gently raising the corner, the
Indians had a full view of the patriarch, with the
calmness of a saint upon his benignant features. They
were struck with awe. But this was not all. The
might was cool, and he had kindled a small fire. The
historian continues: “Warmed by the flame, a
large rattlesnake had crept from its covert, and, ap-
proaching the fire for its greater enjoyment, glided
harmlessly over one of the legs of the holy man,
whose thoughts at the moment were not occupied
upon the grovelling things of earth. He perceived
not the serpent, but the Indians, with breathless at-
tention, had observed the whole movement of the
poisomous reptile; and as they gazed upon the aspect
and attitude of the Count, their enmity was imme-
diately changed to reverence; and in the belief that
their intended victim enjoyed the special protection
of the Great Spirit, they desisted from their bloody
purpose and retired. Thenceforward the Count was
regarded by the Indians with the most profound ven-
eration.”
When the Revolution came, the settlement was a
thriving agricultural colony of about two thousand
people, scattered over the valley, with a village on
the river shore just above the present site of Wilkes-
barre. In June, 1778, a force of British troops,
Tories and Indians entered the valley and attacked
THE WALE OF WYOMING, 241.
them, and on July 3d the terrible Wyoming massacre
followed, in which the British officers were unable to
set any bounds to the atrocious butchery by their
savage allies, who killed about three hundred men,
women and children. The poet Campbell has painted
the previous pastoral scene of happiness and content in
“Gertrude of Wyoming,” and told the tale of atrocity
perpetrated by the savages, which is one of the most
horrible tragedies of that great war. This poem tells
of
“A stoic of the woods – a man without a tear.”
Beside the river below Pittston and near the vil-
lage of Wyoming, having the great North Mountain
for a background, was Fort Forty, the scene of the
chief atrocities of the massacre, the site being now
marked by a granite obelisk. Here is the burial-
place of the remains of the slaughtered. “Queen
Esther's Rock” is pointed out, where the half-breed
Queen of the Senecas, to avenge the death of her
son, is said to have herself tomahawked fourteen de-
fenceless prisoners. Most of the survivors fled after
this horror, and they did not return to the valley
until long after peace was restored, when the infant
settlement was renewed in the founding of Wilkes-
barre. Far up on the side of the grand peak guard-
ing the northern portal of the Lackawannock Gap is
the broad shelf of rock which embalms in “Camp-
bell's Ledge” the memory of the great English poet
who has so graphically told the harrowing tale.
VOL. I. —16
2
AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
4 2
THE TERMINAL MORAINE.
The Delaware River above the “Forks,” at the
mouth of the Lehigh, breaks through a narrow notch
in the Chestnut Hill ridge known as the “Little
Water Gap,” while farther to the northeast the ridge
continues through New Jersey as the Jenny Jump
Mountain. Above this is the noted “Foul Rift,”
where the river channel is filled with boulders and
rocks of all sizes and shapes, the dread of the rafts-
men who gave it the name, for many a raft has been
wrecked there. But while this place is shunned by
the navigator, it has an absorbing attraction for the
geologist. This was where the great “Terminal
Moraine” of the glacial epoch crossed the Delaware,
recalling the “Ice Age,” to which reference has
already been made. When the vast Greenland ice-
cap crept down so as to overspread northeastern
America and northwestern Europe and filled the in-
tervening Atlantic bed, it broke off many rocky frag-
ments in its southward advance, scratching the sur-
faces of the ledges, and the fragments held in its
grip, with striated lines and grooves in the direction
of its movement. The ice steadily flowed southward,
coming over mountain and valley alike in a continu-
ous sheet, enveloping the ocean and adjacent con-
timents, and finally halted on the Delaware about
sixty miles north of Philadelphia. Its southern
verge spread across America from Alaska to St.
THE TERMINAL MORAINE. 243
Louis, and thence to the Atlantic on the northern
coast of New Jersey. Its southern boundary entered
Western Pennsylvania near Beaver, passing north-
east to the New York line; then turning southeast, it
crossed the Lehigh about ten miles northwest of
Mauch Chunk and the Delaware just below Belvi-
dere. It crossed New Jersey to Staten Island, trav-
ersed the length of Long Island, and passed out to
sea, appearing on Block Island, Cape Cod, St.
George's Bank and Sable Island Shoal, south of Nova
Scotia. The boundary of the glacier west of the
“Foul Rift” on the Delaware appears as a range of
low gravel hills, which are piled upon the slate hills
of Northampton farther west, and reach the base of
the Blue Ridge three miles east of the “Wind Gap.”
The boundary here mounted and crossed the Kitta-
tinny ridge sixteen hundred feet high, being well
shown upon its summit, and then passed over the in-
tervening valley to the Broad Mountain or Pocono
range. The Delaware at the “Foul Rift” is ele-
vated two hundred and fifty feet above tide; and
where the glacier boundary crossed the mountains in
the interior it was at about twenty-six hundred feet
elevation on the highest land in Potter County, the
Continental watershed. -
This vast glacier was so thick as to overtop even
Mount Washington, for it dropped transported boul-
ders on the summit of that highest peak in New
England. Its southern edge in Pennsylvania was at
244 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
least eight hundred feet thick in solid ice. A hun-
dred miles back among the Catskills it was thirty-one
hundred feet thick, and two hundred miles back in
northern New England it was five thousand to six
thousand feet thick, being still thicker farther north-
ward. The Pocomo Knob, near Stroudsburg, in Pike
County, Pennsylvania, out-topped the glacier, and
jutted out almost like an island surrounded by ice.
The late Professor H. Carvill Lewis, who closely
studied this glacier, has described how, all over the
country which it covered, it dropped what is known
as the “northern drift,” or “till,” or “hardpan,” in
scattered deposits of stones, clay, gravel and débris
of all kinds, brought down from the northward as the
ice moved along, and irregularly dumped upon the sur-
face, thickly in some places and thinly in others, with
many boulders, some of enormous size. It abraded
all the rock surfaces crossed, and transported and
rounded and striated the fragments torn off in its re-
sistless passage. The line of farthest southern ad-
vance of the ice is shown by the “Terminal Mo-
raine,” stretching across country, which put the
obstructions into the “Foul Rift.” A glacier always
pushes up at its foot a mound of material composed
of fragments of rocks of all shapes and sizes, which
the ice has taken up at various points along its flow
and carried to its terminus, thus forming the moraine.
This “Terminal Moraine” has been traced and care-
fully studied for four hundred miles across Pennsyl-
THE TERMINAL MORAINE. 245
vania, showing throughout a remarkable accumula-
tion of drift materials and boulders, heaped into
irregular hills and hollows over a strip of land nearly
a mile wide. The action of the Delaware River cur-
rents at the “Foul Rift' has washed out the finer
materials and cobblestones, leaving only the larger
boulders and rocks to perplex the navigator.
Some of the performances of this great glacier in
the region adjacent to the Delaware are remarkable.
It has carried huge granite boulders from the far
north and planted them all along the summit of the
Kittatinny where it crossed. It has torn out big
pieces of limestone, some of them thirty feet long,
from their beds in Monroe County, north of this
range, carried them in the ice more than a thousand
feet up its steep northern face and over the summit,
finally dropping them on the south side in the mo-
raine in the slate valley of Northampton. These im-
mense limestone rocks made comparatively short
journeys, but one ponderous boulder of syenite from
the Adirondacks was found in Northampton, well
rounded and dressed, having travelled in the ice at
least two hundred miles. There has also been found
a “glacial groove" upon the rocks of the Kittatinny
near the Water Gap, where some ponderous frag-
ment, imbedded in the ice, as it moved along has
gouged out a great scratch six feet wide and seventy
feet in length. Although this ice had evidently re-
sistless power in its slow motion, yet it seems to have
~
246 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
had small influence upon the topography of the
country. It appears to have merely “sand-papered”
the surfaces of the rocks. It passed bodily across
the sharp edges of the upright sandstone strata of
the Kittatinny, yet has not had appreciable effect in
cutting the ridge down, the glaciated portion east of
the “Wind Gap ’’ appearing as high and as sharply
defined as the unglaciated part to the westward of
the moraine. The glacier made many lakes north
of the moraine, due to the “kettle holes” and ob-
struction of streams by unequal deposits of drift.
It is inferred in the estimates of the duration of the
glacier, from astronomical data, that the cold period
began two hundred and eighty thousand years ago,
the greatest cold being many thousand years later.
The intense cold began moderating eighty thousand
years ago, but the sea of ice remained long after-
wards, and steadily diminished under the increasing
heat. So many thousand years being required for
melting, there are data inducing the belief that the ice-
cap did not retreat from this part of the country back
to Greenland until within ten thousand or fifteen thou-
sand years ago. Then came the floods of water from
the melting glacier, and it is significant that the In-
dians in the spacious valley northwest of the Kittatinny
called that fertile region the “Minisink,” meaning “the
waters have gone,” indicating their legendary memory
of the floods following the melting and retreat of the
glacier and the final outflow of its waters.
THE DELAWARE WATER GAP. 247
THE DELAWARE WATER GAP.
Belvidere, the “town of the beautiful view,”
nestles upon the broad terraces under the Jersey
ridges at the mouth of Pequest Creek, and looks pret-
tily out upon the high hills and distant mountains
across the Delaware. Above the town, the river
makes a great bend to the westward in rounding the
huge and almost perpendicular mass of Manunka
Chunk Mountain, a name which has been got by a
process of gradual evolution from its Indian title of
“Pemungauchung.” Here, through a gorge just
above, is got the first view of the distant Water
Gap, cleft down in the dark blue Kittatinny ten
miles away. Approaching it as the river winds, all
the views have this great Gap for the gem of the
landscape, the ponderous wall of the Kittatinny
stretching broadly across the horizon and steadily
rising into greater prominence as it comes nearer.
“I lift my eyes and ye are ever there,
Wrapped in the folds of the imperial air,
And crowned with the gold of molm or evening rare,
O, far blue hills.”
As it is gradually approached, the Gap and its en-
closing ridge attain enormous proportions, dwarfing
the smaller hills, among which the marrow, placid
river flows below ; and it is realized how tame are
all the other ridges through which the Delaware has
passed compared with this towering Blue Ridge,
248 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
having the low-lying Blockade Mountain just behind,
and partly closing the Gap. Soon we reach the foot
of the range, and, bending with the river suddenly
to the left, enter the Gap. Scarcely have we entered
when the river, which has been swinging to the left,
bends around again gradually to the right, and in a
moment we are through the gorge, the river then
circling around the Blockade Mountain, which has
been so named because it seems always stupidly in
the way.
The Indians called the Water Gap “Pohoqualin,”
meaning “ the river between the mountains.” The
Delaware flows through it with a width of eight hun-
dred feet and at an elevation of about three hundred
feet above tide. It is twenty-nine miles northeast of
the Lehigh Gap where the Lehigh River passes the
Blue Ridge, and there are five other gaps between
them, of which the “Wind Gap,” heretofore referred
to, is the chief. For many years this Wind Gap
provided the only route to reach the country north
of the Kittatinny. About two and a half miles south-
west of the Delaware is “Tat's Gap,” named in
memory of Moses Fonda Tatamy, an old time Indian
interpreter in this region, and familiarly called
“Tat’s ” for short. The greatest of all these passes,
however, is the Water Gap, where the Blue Ridge,
rent asunder, has two noble peaks guarding the por-
tals, towering sixteen hundred feet high, and named
in honor of the Indians—Mount Minsi in Pennsylva-
3)elaware U(latet (5ap


THE MINISIN K. 249
nia, after the tribes of the Minisink, and Mount Tam-
many in New Jersey, for the great chief of the
Lenni Lenapes.
“Crags, knolls and mounds, in dire confusion hurled,
The fragmentary elements of an earlier world.”
The Water Gap is a popular summer resort, there
being numerous hotels and boarding-houses in eligi-
ble locations all about it, and the romantic scenery
has been opened up by roads and paths leading to all
the points of view. It is on such a stupendous
scale, and exhibits the geological changes wrought
during countless ages so well, that it always attracts
the greatest interest. To the northward spread the
fertile valleys of the Minisink; and the Delaware,
which below the Gap flows to the southeast, passing
through all the ridges, comes from the northeast above
the Gap, and flows along the base of the Kittatinny
for miles, as if seeking the outlet which it at length
finds in this remarkable pass.
THE MINISINK.
From the elevated points of outlook at the Water
Gap the observer can gaze northward over the fer-
tile and attractive hunting-grounds of the Minsis, the
land of the Minisink stretching far up the Delaware,
and from the Kittatinny over to the base of the
Pocomo Mountain. This is the region of the “buried
valleys,” remarkable trough-like valleys, made during
250 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
an ancient geological period, and partially filled up
by the débris from the great glacier. From the Hud-
son River in New York, southwest to the Lehigh, and
just beyond the Kittatinny range, two long valleys,
with an intervening ridge, stretch across the country.
The Delaware River, from Port Jervis to Bushkill,
flows down the northwestern of these valleys, then
doubles back on itself, and breaks through the inter-
vening ridge at the remarkable Walpack Bend into
the other valley, and follows it down to the Water
Gap. The northwestern valley begins at Rondout
on the Hudson, crosses New York State to Port
Jervis, where the Delaware, coming from the north-
west, turns to the southeast into it, occupying it for
thirty miles to Bushkill, and then the valley continues
past Stroudsburg, just above the Water Gap, to the
Lehigh River at Weissport, below Mauch Chunk.
The other valley is parallel to it at the base of the
Kittatinny. These valleys, underlaid by the shales
as bed-rocks, have been filled up with drift by the
glacier from one hundred to seven hundred feet in
depth, and they constitute the famous region of the
Minisink.
In this fertile district was the earliest settlement
made by white men in Pennsylvania, the Dutch from
the Hudson River wandering over to the Delaware at
Port Jervis through these valleys, and settling on the
prolific bottom lands along the river, many years be-
fore Penn came to Philadelphia. They opened cop-
THE MINISINIK. 251
per-mines in the Kittatinny, just above the Water
Gap, and made the old “Mine Road” to reach them,
coming from Esopus on the Hudson. The records at
Albany of 1650 refer to specimens brought from “a
copper-mine at the Minisink.” The Provincial au-
thorities at Philadelphia do not appear to have had
any clear knowledge of settlers above the Water
Gap until 1729, when they sent a surveyor up to
examine and report, and he found Nicholas Depui in
a snug home, where he had bought two islands and
level land on the shore from the Indians some time
before. Like the Dutch settlers above, Depui had
no idea where the river went to. He was a French
Huguenot exile from Holland, and, without disputing
with the surveyor, he again bought his land, nearly
six hundred and fifty acres, in 1733, from the
grantees of the Penns. His stockaded stone house
was known as Depui's Fort, and after him the Water
Gap was long called “Depui's Gap.” Old George
La Bar was the most famous resident of the Water
Gap. Three brothers La Bar, Peter, Charles and
Abraham, also French Huguenots, lived near the
Gap, and each married a Dutch wife. In 1808,
however, this region became too crowded for them,
and Peter, at the age of eighty-five, migrated to Ohio
to get more room. When ninety-eight years old his
wife died, and in his one hundredth year he married
another out on the Ohio frontier, and lived to the ripe
age of one hundred and five. Peter, when he mi-
252 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
grated, left his son George La Bar at the Gap, where
he had been born in 1763. George was the famous
centenarian of Pennsylvania, who died at the age of
one hundred and seven, being a vigorous axeman
almost until the day of his death. He was too young
for a Revolutionary soldier, but when the War of
1812 came he was too old. In 1869, at the age of
one hundred and six, a visitor describes him as fell-
ing trees and peeling with his own hands three
wagon-loads of bark, which went to the tannery.
He never wore spectacles, always used tobacco, voted
the straight Democratic ticket, and at every Presi-
dential election from Washington to Grant, and could
not be persuaded to ride on a railway train, regard-
ing the cars as an innovation.
In this region of the Minisink is the pleasant town
of Stroudsburg, the county-seat of Monroe, its beau-
tiful valley being well described by a local authority
as “full of dimpling hills and fine orchards, among
which stalwart men live to a ripe old age upon the
purest apple whisky.” Its finest building, the State
Normal College, handsomely located on an elevated
ridge, has three hundred students. The town was
named for Jacob Stroud, a pioneer and Indian fighter,
who was with General Wolfe when he scaled the
Heights of Abraham, and, capturing Quebec, changed
the map of Colonial America. Marshall's Creek
comes down to join its waters with Brodhead's Creek
below Stroudsburg, and a few miles above displays
THE MINISINIK. 253
the pretty little cataract of Marshall's Falls. Six
miles northwest of Stroudsburg is the Pocomo Knob,
rising in stately grandeur as it abruptly terminates
the Pocomo Mountain wall on its eastern face. It
was this Knob which stood out as an island in the
edge of the great glacier, a deep notch separating its
summit from the plateau behind, and the Terminal
Moraine encircles its sides at about two-thirds its
height. In the river bottom lands are fertile farms,
and a great deal of tobacco is raised. Thus the river
leads us to Bushkill and the great Walpack Bend.
The Delaware, coming from the northeast, impinges
upon the solid sandstone wall of the “Hog's Back,”
the prolongation of the ridge dividing the two
“Buried Valleys.” This ridge bristles with attenu-
ated firs, and hence its appropriate name. The Big
Bushkill and the Little Bushkill Creeks, uniting, flow
in from the west, and the Delaware turns sharply
eastward and them back upon itself around the ridge
into the other valley, and resumes its course south-
west again down to the Water Gap. This double
Walpack curve, making a perfect letter “S,” is so
marrow and compressed that a rifleman, standing on
either side, can readily send his bullet in a straight
line across the river three times. The Indian word
Walpack means “a turn hole.” The Delaware here
is a succession of rifts and pools, making a constant
variation of rapids and still waters, with many spots
sacred to the angler, and displaying magnificent
254 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
scenery as the lights and shadows pass across the
beautiful forest-covered hills enclosing its banks.
IBUSHIKILL TO PORT JERVIS.
Bushkill village is in a picturesque location, open-
ing pleasantly towards the Delaware. It is also just
over the Monroe border, in Pike County, long ago
described by Horace Greeley as “famous for rattle-
snakes and Democrats,” but now more noted for its
fine waterfalls and attractive scenery, its many streams
draining numerous beautiful lakes, and dancing down
frequent roaring rapids in the journey to the Dela-
ware. The falls of the Little Bushkill near the vil-
lage is the finest cataract in Pennsylvania. From
Bushkill, bordering the eastern bank of the Dela-
ware, for thirty miles up to Port Jervis, is one of the
best roads in the world. The Marcellus shales of the
Buried Valley, which form the towering cliffs border-
ing the river along the base of which the road is laid,
make a road-bed as smooth and hard as a floor, the
chief highway of this district, for the railway has not
yet penetrated it. Over on the other side of the
river the great Kittatinny ridge presents an almost
unbroken wall for more than forty miles from the
Water Gap up to Port Jervis. Frequent creeks
come in, all angling streams, the chief of them being
Dingman's, which for several miles displays a series
of cataracts, and at its mouth has the noted Pike
County village of “Dingman's Choice,” at which is
RUSHIKILL TO PORT JERVIS. 255
located the time-honored Dingman's Ferry, across
the Delaware. The source of Dingman's Creek is
in the Silver Lake, about seven miles west of the
Delaware, and in its flow it descends about mine hun-
dred feet, breaking its way over the various strata of
Catskill, Chemung and Hamilton sandstones. The
upper cataracts, called the Fulmer and Factory Falls
and the Deer Leap, are located in a beautiful ravine
known as the Childs Park, while, below, the creek
pours over the High Falls, one hundred and thirty
feet high, a short distance from the river. Near this
is the curious Soap Trough, an inclined plane de-
scending one hundred feet, always filled with foam,
down which comes the Silver Thread, a small tribu-
tary stream. The gorge by which Dingman's Creek
comes out is deep and massive, the entrance being
a narrow canyon cut down into the Marcellus shales
which make the towering cliffs along the river.
There are also fine cataracts on the Raymondskill and
the Sawkill, flowing into the Delaware above. The
cliffs here rise into Utter's Peak, elevated eight hun-
dred feet, giving a magnificent view along the valley.
The little town of Milford, the county-seat of Pike,
is one of the gems of this district, spread over a
broad terrace on the bluff high above the Delaware,
with a grand outlook at the ponderous Kittatinny in
front, rising to its greatest elevation at High Point,
six miles away, where a hotel is perched on the sum-
mit. Surrounded by mountains, the late N. P.
256 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
Willis, when he visited Milford, was so impressed by
its peculiar situation that he described it as “looking
like a town that all the mountains around have dis-
owned and kicked into the middle.” Thomas Quick,
Sr., a Hollander, who came over from the Hudson
in 1733, was the first settler in Milford. His noted
son, Thomas Quick, the “Indian Killer,” was born
in 1734. “Tom Quick,” as he was called, was
brought up among the Indians, and had the closest
friendship for them ; but when the terrible Colonial
war began, the savages, in a foray, killed and scalped
his father almost by his side, Tom being shot in the
foot, but escaping. Tom vowed vengeance, and ever
afterwards was a perfect demon in his hatred of the
Indians, sparing neither age nor sex. After the
French and Indian war had closed and peace was
proclaimed, he carried on his own warfare indepen-
dently. The most harrowing tales are told of his
Indian murders, some being horribly brutal. He
never married, but hunted Indians and wild beasts all
his life, and was outlawed by the Government, it
being announced that no Indian who killed him
would be punished; but he finally died in bed in
1796. He was entirely unrepentant during his last
illness, regretting he had not killed more Indians;
and after saying he had killed ninety-nine during his
life, he begged them to bring in an old Indian who
lived in the settlement, so that he might appropri-
ately close his career by killing the hundredth red-
BUSHIKILL TO PORT JERVIS. 257
skin. The most noted Milford building is “Pinchot’s
Castle,” on the hillside above the Sawkill, a Norman-
Breton baronial hall, the summer house of the Pin-
chot family of New York, whose ancestor, a French
refugee after Waterloo, was an early settler here.
Seven miles above Milford the Delaware River
makes the great right-angled bend in its course, from
the southeast to the southwest, which is known as the
“Tri-States Corner,” and here, on the broad flats at
the mouth of the Neversink River, is the town of
Port Jervis. From the village of Deposit, ninety
miles above, the Delaware descends in level five hun-
dred and seventy feet; and from Port Jervis down
to the Water Gap, forty-three miles, the descent is
one hundred and twenty-seven feet. In the first it
falls six feet per mile and in the latter only three
feet, the difference being caused by the entirely
changed conditions above and below the great bend.
Above, the Delaware flows through the ridges by a
winding ravine cut transversely across the hard rocks
almost all the way, while below, it meanders parallel
to the ridges along the outcrop of the softer rocks of
the Marcellus shales and Clinton formations in the
long, trough-like buried valleys. The Neversink
comes from the northeast through one of these val-
leys which is prolonged over to the Hudson, the
source of the Neversink being on a divide of such
gentle slope that the large spring making the head
sends part of its waters the other way, through
WOL. I.-17
258 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
Rondout Creek into the Hudson. A long, narrow
peninsula, just at the completion of the great bend,
juts out between the Neversink and the Delaware,
ending in a sharp, low, wedge-like rocky point, the
extremity being the “Tri-States Corner,” where the
boundary line between New Jersey and New York
reaches the Delaware, and ends in mid-river at the
boundary of Pennsylvania. This spot was located
after a long boundary war, and the fact is duly re-
corded on the “Tri-States Rock,” down at the end
of the point. The Delaware and Hudson Canal, con-
structed in 1828, and coming over from Rondout
Creek through the Neversink Valley, made Port
Jervis, which was named after one of its engineers.
The canal goes up the Delaware to the Lackawaxen,
and them follows that stream to Honesdale. The Erie
Railway also comes through a gap in the Kittatinny
(here called the Shawangunk Mountain, meaning the
“white rocks”), descends to Port Jervis, and then
follows up the Delaware. These two great public
works have made the prosperity of the town, which
has a population of over ten thousand. The long
and towering ridge of Point Peter, forming the north-
western boundary of the Neversink Valley, and
thrust out to the Delaware, bounding the gorge
through which the river comes, overlooks the town.
On the other side is the highest elevation of the Kit-
tatinny and the most elevated land in New Jersey,
High Point, rising nineteen hundred and sixty feet.
THE CATSIKILL FLAGS. 259
THE CATSRILL FLAGS.
The broadened valley of the Delaware extends a
short distance above Port Jervis, the canal and rail-
way rounding the ponderous battlements of Point
Peter and then proceeding up the river, one on
either bank. About three miles above the “Port,”
as it is familiarly called, the valley contracts to a
rock-enclosed gorge, for here the Delaware emerges
from its great canyon in the Catskill series of rocks,
in the bottom of which it flows from Deposit, at the
northern boundary of Pennsylvania, eighty-seven
miles above. The remarkable change seen in the
surrounding topography indicates the presence of a
different rock formation from that passed below, and
the river runs out of the Catskill rocks over the
“Saw-mill rift.” For thirty miles above, to the
northern line of Pike County, at Narrowsburg, the
river banks mostly are only mere shelves a few rods
wide, and frequently present nothing but the faces
of rocky walls, rising perpendicularly from the water
to a height of six hundred feet or more. From the
expanding limestones below, the valley here suddenly
contracts in the flags and ledges of the Catskill series.
All the small streams coming from the bluffs back of
the cliffs descend with rapid fall, and frequently over
high cascades. These Catskill flags, built up in vast
construction, rear their gaunt and weather-beaten
jagged walls and wood-crowned turrets on high.
260 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
Perched far up on the New York side, at the mar-
rowest part of this remarkable gorge, is an eyrie
called the “Hawk's Nest,” which gives a wonderful
view, reached by a road carved out of the rocky side
of the abyss. This road, hung on the perpendicular
wall five hundred feet over the river, is the only
available route to the part of New York north of
Port Jervis. The canal and railway, far below, are
each set on a shelf cut out of the rocky banks. The
enclosing cliffs rise higher as the river is ascended,
sometimes reaching an elevation of twelve hundred
feet; and here for miles are seen the famous Dela-
ware and Starucca flags, rising hundreds of feet in a
continuous wall of bluish-gray and greenish-gray
flaggy sandstones. They are extensively quarried
and shipped to New York. Both railway and canal
construction through this deep cleft were enormously
costly.
TIIE DATTLE OF LACKAWAXEN.
Here is Shohola Township, on the Pennsylvania
shore, a wild and rocky region fronting on the river
for about ten miles, and Shohola Creek rushes down
a rocky bed through a deep gorge to seek the Dela-
ware. It was at this place the surveyors’ line was
drawn from the Lehigh over to the Delaware, after
|Marshall's fateful walk. The “Shohola Glen,” a
favorite excursion ground, has the channel of the
creek, only forty feet wide, cut down for two hun-
dred feet deep into the flagstones, and it plunges over
THE B.ATTLE OF LACKAWAXEN. 261
four attractive cascades at the Shohola Falls above.
A short distance northward the Lackawaxen flows
in through a fine gorge, broadening out as the Dela-
ware is approached; and the canal, after crossing the
latter on an aqueduct, goes up the Lackawaxen bank.
A grand amphitheatre of towering hills surrounds the
broad flats where the Lackawaxen brings its ample
flow of dark amber-colored waters out of the hemlock
forests and swamps of Wayne County to this pictur-
esque spot. Here was fought, on July 22, 1779, the
battle of Lackawaxen or the Minisink, the chief
Revolutionary conflict on the upper Delaware. The
battlefield was a rocky ledge on the New York side,
elevated about five hundred feet above the river,
amid the lofty hills of Highland Township, in Sullivan
County. The noted Mohawk chief, Joseph Brandt,
with a force of fifteen hundred Indians and Tories,
came down from Northern New York to plunder the
frontier settlements. Most of the inhabitants fled
down to the forts on the Lehigh or across the Blue
Ridge, upon his approach; but a small militia force
was hastily gathered under Colonels Hathorn and
Tusten to meet the enemy, whom they found cross-
ing the Delaware at a ford near the Lackawaxen.
Hathorn, who commanded, moved to attack, but
Brandt rushed his Indians up a ravine, intercepting
Hathorn just as he got out on the rocky ledge, and
cutting off about fifty of his rear guard. Hathorn
had ninety men with him, who quickly threw up a
262 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
rude breastwork, protecting about a half-acre of the
ledge. Their ammunition was scant, it was a ter-
ribly hot day, they had no water, and were soon sur-
rounded; but for six hours they bravely defended
themselves, when, the ammunition being all gone,
the Indians broke through their line. Tusten was
attending the wounded, and with seventeen wounded
men, whom he was alleviating, was tomahawked, all
being massacred. The others fled, many being slain
in the pursuit. Forty-four of the little band were
killed, and the fifty in the rear guard who had been
cut off were never afterwards heard of. Years after-
wards, the bones of the slain in this terrible defeat
were gathered on the field and taken across the Blue
Ridge to Goshen for interment, and in 1822 a monu-
ment was erected at Goshen in their memory, Colonel
Hathorn, who was then living, making an address.
On the centenary anniversary in 1879 a monument
was dedicated on the field, where faint relics of the
old breastwork were still traceable on the rocky ledge
perched high above the river, almost opposite the
mouth of the Lackawaxen.
THE SYLVANIA SOCIETY.
The county of Wayne is separated from the county
of Lackawanna by the great Moosic Mountain range,
the divide between two noted rivers, the Lackawaxen
and the Lackawanna. The former, draining its
Southeastern slopes to the Delaware, was the
THE SYLVANIA SOCIETY. 263
“Lechau-weksink” of the Indians, meaning “where
the roads part,” evidently referring to the parting of
the Indian trails at its confluence with the Delaware;
the latter, flowing out to the Susquehanna on its
northwestern side, was the “Lechau-hanne,” or
“where the streams part,” signifying the forks of
two rivers. We ascend the Lackawaxen, finding the
route up the gorge along the canal towpath, once the
great water way of the Delaware and Hudson Com-
pany for bringing out coal, but now abandoned, as
the railway route is cheaper. This canal, opened in
1828, was one hundred and seventeen miles long, and
ascended from tidewater on the Hudson at Rondout to
four hundred and fifty feet elevation at Port Jervis,
and nine hundred and sixty-five feet at Homesdale.
Its route throughout is through grand river gorges
and the most magnificent scenery.
It was in this beautiful region, just south of the
river, that Horace Greeley, in 1842, started what he
called the “Sylvania Society,” founded to demon-
strate the wisdom of “the common ownership of
property and the equal division of labor,” which
Greeley was then advocating by lectures and in his
newspaper. Many eminent persons took stock in the
society at $25 per share, and the experiment of co-
operative farming was begun in a region of rough
and rocky Pike County soil, where the amateur
farmers also found amusement, for it is recorded that
“the stream was alive with trout, and the surround-
264 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
ing hills were equally well provided with the largest
and liveliest of rattlesnakes.” They had weekly lec-
tures and dancing parties, the colony at one time
numbering three hundred persons, Mr. Greeley, who
took the deepest interest, frequently visiting them.
The society was a success socially and intellectually,
but the labor problem soon caused trouble. A Board
of Directors governed the farm and assigned the
laborers their work, the principle of equality being
observed by changing them from one branch of labor
to another day by day. But trouble soon came, for
there were too many wayward sons sent out from
New York to the colony who never had worked and
never intended to, but preferred going fishing. Vari-
ous of the females also decidedly objected to taking
their turns at the washtub. The abundance of rat-
tlesnakes had influence, and one day a venturesome
colonist brought in seventeen large rattlers, causing
dire consternation. They tanned the skin of one
big fellow, and made it into a pair of slippers, which
were presented to Mr. Greeley on his next visit. As
is usually the case, the colonists had ravenous appe-
tites, and it was impossible to raise enough food
crops to feed them, so that food had to be bought,
and the capital was thus seriously drawn upon. In
1845 they had a prospect of a generous yield at the
harvest, when suddenly, on July 4th, a deadly frost
killed all their crops; and this ended the experi-
mental colony. In two days everybody had left the
ASCENDING THE LACKAWAXEN. 265
place, and Greeley was almost heartbroken at the
failure of his cherished plans. A mortgage on the
farm was foreclosed and the land sold to strangers.
A Monroe County farmer, who had invested $1800
in the enterprise and lost it, became so angry at the
collapse that he went to New York, as he said, “to
give Horace Greeley a Monroe County Democrat's
opinion of him.” He found the great editor at work
in the Tribune office, and began berating him. Gree-
ley, as soon as a chance was given, asked his visitor
how much he had lost by the failure. He replied,
’ when, without further
“Eighteen hundred dollars;’
parley, Greeley drew a check for the amount and
handed it to him. The farmer was so astonished and
impressed by this most unexpected action that he im-
mediately became, as he afterwards stated, “a Gree-
ley Whig,” and remained one all his life.
ASCENDING THE LACKAWAXEN.
At Glen Eyre, the Blooming Grove Creek flows
merrily into the Lackawaxen, coming out from Bloom-
ing Grove Township to the southward, an elevated
wooded plateau in the interior of Pike, which is the
common heading ground for numerous streams radi-
ating in every direction, and containing a score of
attractive lakes. This region is a wilderness where
deer, bears and other wild animals roam, while the
streams are noted angling resorts. In it are the two
famous “Knobs,” the highest elevations of the whole
266 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
Pocomo range, the southern or “High Knob '' rising
two thousand and ten feet, out-topping the Kittatinny
“High Point.” This “Knob" stands like a pyramid,
at least five hundred feet above all the surrounding
country, excepting its neighbor, the “North Knob,”
which is only one hundred feet lower. These are the
mortheastern outposts of the Pocomo range. Upon
the top of the “High Knob '' is a large boulder of
white conglomerate, dropped by the ice in the glacial
period, and this summit gives the most extensive
view in Pennsylvania, over dark, fir-covered ridges
in every direction, interspersed with lakelets glisten-
ing in the sunlight. There is not a house to be seen,
and scarcely a clearing, but all around is one vast
wilderness. The greater part of this region is the
estate of the “Blooming Grove Park Association,”
covering thirteen thousand acres, surrounded by a
high fence, and stocked with game and fish, there
being over $300,000 invested in the enterprise.
Here elk and deer are bred, there are abundant hares
and rabbits, and also woodcock, grouse and snipe
shooting. The spacious club-house is elevated high
above the rocky shores of Lake Giles, a most beau-
tiful circular sheet of clear spring water, fourteen
hundred feet above tide, and to it the anglers and
hunters take their families and enjoy the pleasures of
the virgin woods.
The Wallenpaupack Creek, coming out of the
Pocono plateau and the Moosic Mountain, makes the
ASCENDING THE LACKAWAXEN. 267
boundary between Pike and Wayne Counties, and
flows into the Lackawaxen at Hawley. For most of
the distance its course is deep and sluggish, but ap-
proaching the edge of the terrace, within a couple of
miles of the Lackawaxen, it tumbles over cataracts
and down rapids through a magnificent gorge, so
that, from its alternating characteristics, the Indians
rightly called it the Walink-papeek, or “the slow and
swift water.” It descends a cascade of seventy feet,
and then goes down the Sliding Fall, a series of rapids
interspersed with several small cataracts. Farther
down are two cascades of thirty feet each, and then
the main plunge, the Paupack falls of sixty-one feet,
almost at its mouth, the whole descent being about
two hundred and fifty feet. Hawley has thriving
mills, whose wheels are turned by this admirable
water-power, and it is also a railway centre for coal
shipping. Its people are noted makers of silks, and of
cut and decorated glassware. Judge James Wilson,
one of the signers of the Declaration of Indepen-
dence, was an early settler on the Wallenpaupack.
Above Hawley, in a broadened intervale of the
Lackawaxen, was the famous “Indian Orchard,”
where the first settlement, made in 1760, grew after-
wards into Honesdale, now the county-seat of Wayne.
This was a tract of land in the valley upon which the
lofty Irving Cliff looks down ; and it was named from
a row of one hundred apple trees which the Indians
had planted at regular intervals along the river bank.
268 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
The tradition was that ninety-nine trees bore sweet
fruit, while one every alternate year had a crop of sour
apples. Upon a large clearing at the water's edge,
paved with flat stones, the Indians held their feasts
and performed their religious rites. The orchard
and stones have disappeared, but the plow still turns
up Indian relics. This place was selected by the
Delaware and Hudson Company for the head of their
now abandoned canal, at the base of the Moosic
Mountain, and it was named Homesdale, in honor of
the first president of the canal company, Philip Home,
described as “the courtliest Mayor New York ever
saw.” Within the town the two pretty streams unite
which form the Lackawaxen, making lakelets on the
plain, and from the shore of one of these the rocks
rise almost perpendicularly nearly four hundred feet.
In 1841 Washington Irving came here with some
friends, making the journey on the canal, and climbed
these rocks to overlook the lovely intervale, and thus
the Irving Cliff was named. Writing of his visit, he
spoke in wonder of the beautiful scenery and roman-
tic route of the Delaware and Hudson Canal, saying:
“For many miles it is built up along the face of per-
pendicular precipices, rising into stupendous cliffs,
with overhanging forests, or jutting out into vast
promontories, while upon the other side you look
down upon the Delaware, foaming and roaring below
you, at the foot of an immense wall or embankment
which supports the canal. Altogether, it is one of
ASCENDING THE LACKAWAXEN. 269
the most daring undertakings I have ever witnessed,
to carry an artificial river over rocky mountains, and
up the most savage and almost impracticable defiles.
For upward of ninety miles I went through a con-
stant succession of scenery that would have been
famous had it existed in any part of Europe.”
From Homesdale a gravity railroad crosses the
Moosic Mountain into the Lackawanna Valley at Car-
bondale. This was originally used to bring the coal
out for the canal, but has been abandoned for this
purpose, being now confined to passenger service. It
has twenty-eight inclined planes, and crosses the sum-
mit at Far View, at an elevation of nearly two thou-
sand feet. The first locomotive brought to America,
built at Stourbridge, England, in 1828, the “Stour-
bridge Lion,” was used on the levels of this railroad,
the face of a lion adorning the front of the boiler
giving it the name. When brought out in 1829 the
triumphant claim was made that it “would run four
miles an hour.” The road passes over extended
mountain tops, giving far-seeing views; and among
these sombre rounded ridges in the wilderness of
Wayne are the sources of the Lackawaxen. Car-
bondale, built on the coal measures of the upper
Lackawanna Valley, has about eighteen thousand
population; but all its coal now goes to market by
other railway routes, the gravity road and the canal
being found too expensive carriers in the fierce com-
petition of the anthracite industry.
270 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
THE HEADWATERS OF THE DELAWARE.
The Delaware, above the Lackawaxen, flows be-
tween massive cliffs in a deeply-cut gorge through
the flagstones. At Mast Hope, years ago, was got the
biggest pine tree ever cut on the Delaware for a ves-
sel's mast. The “Forest Lake Association,” another
hunting- and fishing-club near here, has an extensive
estate covering the high ridge between the Delaware
and the Lackawaxen. At Big Eddy the river makes
a sort of lake two miles long, of pure spring water,
the widest and deepest part of the Delaware beyond
tidewater. Stupendous cliffs contract the river above
at the Narrows, where the village of Narrowsburg is
built, and this region and the neighboring lake-strewn
highlands of Sullivan County, New York, were the
chief scenes of Cooper's novel, The Last of the Mo-
hicans. As we advance through its upper canyon,
the Delaware grows gradually smaller, but the en-
closing ridges recede and leave a broad and fertile
valley. Here are the villages of Damascus and Co-
checton, connected by a bridge, and having together
probably a thousand inhabitants. The original In-
dian village was Cushatunk, meaning the “lowlands,”
and from this Cochecton is derived. It was the sad
scene of various Indian forays and massacres before
and during the Revolution. For many years lumber-
ing and tanning were great industries in this region,
but they have almost entirely passed away.
THE HEADWATERS OF THE DELAWARE. 271
We are coming to the headwaters of the Delaware.
At Hancock, elevated about mine hundred feet above
tide, the Delaware divides. The Popacton, or east
branch, comes in, the Mohock, or western branch,
however, being the larger stream, and making the
boundary between Pennsylvania and New York
above their junction. These two branches, after
flowing nearly parallel for a long distance across
Delaware County, New York, separated by a broad
mountain ridge about eleven miles wide, unite around
the base of a great dome-like hill at Hancock, the
spot having been appropriately named by the Indians
“where the waters meet.” Thirteen
Sho-ka-kin, or
miles above is Deposit, at the New York boundary,
where Oquaga Creek comes down from the moun-
tains to the westward. This was formerly an im-
portant “place of deposit” for lumber, awaiting the
spring freshets to be sent down the Delaware, and
hence its name. High hills surround Deposit, the
river makes a grand sweeping bend, and nearby is
the beautiful mountain lake of Oquaga, of which Tay-
lor writes: “If there is a more restful place than
this, outside ‘God’s acres,” I have failed to find it;”
adding, “The mountain road to the lake is pictur-
esque enough to lead to Paradise.” The headwaters
of the Delaware rise upon the western slopes of the
Catskill Mountains in Delaware and Schoharie Coun-
ties, New York. The source is about two hundred
and seventy miles almost directly north of Philadel-
272 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
phia. In a depression on the western slope of the
Catskill range, at an elevation of eighteen hundred
and eighty-eight feet above tidewater, is the head of
the Delaware, Lake Utsyanthia, a secluded little sheet
of the purest and most transparent spring water. It
is also called Ote-se-on-teo, meaning the “beautiful
spring, cold and pure.” It is a mirror of beauty in
a wooded wilderness, its surroundings being most
wild and picturesque. From this little lakelet flows
out the Mohock, winding down its romantic valley,
and receiving many brooks and rills, passing a vil-
lage or two, and bubbling along for forty miles to De-
posit, and thence onward as the great river Delaware
to the ocean. Thus Tennyson sings of the Brook:
“I chatter, chatter, as I ſlow
To join the brimming river,
For man may come, and man may go,
But I go on forever.’’
CROSSING THE ALLEGHENIES.
VoI. I.-18
\
IV.
CROSSING THE ALLEGEIENIES.
The Old Pike—The National Road–Early Routes Across the
Mountains—Old Lancaster Road—Columbia Railroad—The
Pennsylvania Route—Haverford College—Villa Nova–Bryn
Mawr College—Paoli—General Wayne—The Chester Val-
ley–Pequea Valley—The Conestogas—Lancaster—Franklin
and Marshall College—James Buchanan—Thaddeus Stevens
—Conewago Hills—Susquehanna River—Columbia—The Un-
derground Railroad—Middletown—Lochiel—Simon Came-
ron–The Clan Cameron—Harrisburg–Charles Dickens and
the Camel's Back Bridge –John Harris–Lincoln's Midnight
Ride—Cumberland Valley —Carlisle—Indian School—Dick-
inson College—The Whisky Insurrection—Tom the Tinker
–Lebanon Valley–Cornwall Ore Banks—Otsego Lake—Coo-
perstown — James Fenimore Cooper — Richfield Springs—
Cherry Valley—Sharon Springs—Howe's Cave—Binghamton
—Northumberland—Williamsport—Sunbury –Fort Augusta
—The Dauphin Gap—Duncannon–Duncan's Island—Ju-
niata River—Tuscarora Gap – The Grasshopper War—Mithin
— Lewistown Narrows – Kishicoquillas Valley — Logan —
Jack's Narrows—Huntingdom—The Standing Stone—Bed-
ford – Morrison's Cove—The Sinking Spring—Brainerd, the
Missionary–Tyrone—Bellefonte—Altoona—Hollidaysburg—
The Portage Railroad—Blair's Gap—The Horse Shoe—Kit-
tanning Point—Thomas Blair and Michael Maguire—Loretto
—Prince Gallitzin–Ebensburg–Cresson Springs—The Con-
emaugh River – South Fork—Johnstown—The Great Flood
—Laurel Ridge—Packsaddle Narrows–Chestnut Ridge—
Kiskiminetas River–Loyalhanna Creek—Roit Ligonier—
Great Bear Cave-Hannastown—General Arthur St. Clair—
Greensburg–Braddock's Defeat—Pittsburg, the Iron City—
Monongahela River—Allegheny River—Ohio River—Fort
(275)
276 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
Duquesne—Fort Pitt—View from Mount Washington—Pitts-
burg Buildings—Great Factories—Andrew Carnegie—George
Westinghouse, Jr.—Allegheny Park and Monument—Coal
and Coke—Davis Island Dam—Youghiogheny River—Con-
nellsville—Natural Gas—Murrysville—Petroleum—Canons-
burg–Washington—Petroleum Development—Rittanning—
Modoc Oil District—Fort Venango—Oil City—Pithole City
—Oil Creek—Titusville–Corry–Decadence of Oil-Fields.
THE OLD PIR.E.
THE American aspiration has always been to go
westward. In the early history of the Republic the
Government gave great attention to the means of
reaching the Western frontier, then cut off by what
was regarded as the almost insurmountable barrier of
the Alleghenies. General Washington was the first
to project a chain of intermal improvements across
the mountains, by the route of the Potomac to Cum-
berland, then a Maryland frontier fort, and thence by
roads to the headwaters of the Ohio. The initial
enactment was procured by him from the Virginia
Legislature in 1774, for improving the navigation of
the Potomac ; but the Revolutionary War interfered,
and he renewed the movement afterwards in 1784,
resulting in the charter of the Chesapeake and Ohio
Canal, of which Washington was the first President.
Little was done at that early period, however, in
building the canal, but the Government constructed
the famous “National Road,” the first highway over
the Allegheny Mountains, from Cumberland in Mary-
land, mainly through Southwestern Pennsylvania, to
TIHE OLD PIKE. 277
Wheeling on the Ohio. This noted highway was
finished and used throughout in 1818, and, until the
railways crossed the mountains, it was the great route
of travel to the West. It was familiarly known as
the “Old Pike,” and Thomas B. Searight has enter-
tainingly recorded its pleasant memories, for it has
mow become mainly a relic of the past:
“We hear no more of the clanging hoof,
And the stage-coach, rattling by ;
For the steam king rules the travelled world,
And the Old Pike's left to die.” ;
He tells of the long lines of Comestoga wagons,
each drawn by six heavy horses, their broad wheels,
canvas-covered tops and huge cargoes of goods; of
the swaying, rushing mail passenger coach, the fleet-
footed pony express; the flocks of sheep and herds
of cattle, the droves of horses and mules sent East
from the “blue-grass” farms of Kentucky; and oc-
casionally of a long line of men and women, tied two
and two to a rope, driven by a slave-master from the
South, to be sold in the newer region of the South-
west. He describes how the famous driver, Sam
Sibley, brings up his grand coach at the hotel in
Uniontown with the great Henry Clay as chief pas-
senger, and then after dinner whirls away with a
rush, but unfortunately, dashing over a pile of stone
in the road, the coach upsets. Out crawls the driver
with a broken nose, and a crowd hastens to rescue
278 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
Mr. Clay from the upturned coach. He is unhurt,
and brushing the dust from his clothes says: “This
is mixing the Clay of Kentucky with the limestone
of Pennsylvania.” Many are the tales of the famous
road. One veteran teamster relates his experience
of a night at the tavern on the mountain side—thirty
six-horse teams were in the wagon-yard, one hundred
mules in an adjoining lot, a thousand hogs in another,
as many fat cattle from the West in a field, and the
tavern crowded with teamsters and drovers—the
grunts of the hogs, the braying of the mules, the
bellowing of the cattle and the crunching and stamp-
ing of the horses, “made music beyond a dream.”
In 1846 the message arrived at Cumberland at two
o'clock in the morning that war was declared against
Mexico, and a moted driver took the news over the
mountains, past a hundred taverns and a score of vil-
lages, one hundred and thirty-one miles to Wheeling,
in twelve hours. Over this famous road the Indian
chief Black Hawk was brought, but the harness
broke, the team ran away and the coach was smashed.
Black Hawk crept out of the wreck, stood up sur-
prised, and, wiping a drop of blood from his brow,
earnestly muttered, “Ugh ! Ugh ! Ugh !” Barnum
brought Jenny Lind over this road from Wheeling,
paying $17.25 fare apiece to Baltimore. Lafayette
came along it in 1825, the population all turning out
to cheer him. Andrew Jackson came over it four
years later to be inaugurated the first Western Presi-
THE OLD PIKE. 279
dent, and subsequently also came Presidents Harri-
som, Polk and Taylor. What was thought of the
“Old Pike" in its day of active service was well ex-
pressed at a reception to John Quincy Adams. Re-
turning from the West, he arrived at Uniontown in
May, 1837, and was warmly welcomed. Hom. Hugh
Campbell, who made the reception address, said to the
ex-President: “We stand here, sir, upon the Cum-
berland Road, which has broken down the great wall
of the Appalachian Mountains. This road, we trust,
constitutes an indissoluble chain of Union, connect-
ing forever, as one, the East and the West.”
In the early part of the nineteenth century, Lan-
caster in Pennsylvania was the largest inland city of
the United States. It is sixty-nine miles from Phila-
“old Lancaster Road,” the finest
delphia, and the
highway of that period, was constructed to connect
them. This began the Pennsylvania route across the
Alleghenies to the West, which afterwards became
the most travelled. In 1834 the Pennsylvania Gov-
ernment opened its State work, the Columbia Rail-
road between the Delaware and the Susquehanna.
In 1836 there were four daily lines of stages running
in connection with this State railroad between Phila-
delphia and Pittsburg, making the journey in sixty
hours. Gradually afterwards the Pennsylvania Rail-
road was extended across the mountains, and the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was completed to
Wheeling, and they then took away the business
280 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
from the “Old Pike ’’ and all the other wagon or
canal routes to the Ohio River.
CHESTER AND IAN CASTER WALLEYS.
Let us go westward across the Alleghenies by the
Pennsylvania route. East of the mountains it tra-
verses a rich agricultural region, limestone valleys,
intersected by running streams and enclosed between
parallel ridges of hills, stretching, like the mountain
ranges, across the country from northeast to south-
west. It is a land of prolific farms and dairies, and
for miles beyond Philadelphia the line is adjoined by
attractive villages and many beautiful suburban
villas. Three noted institutions of learning are
passed—Haverford College, the great Quaker Col-
lege, standing in an extensive wooded park; the
Roman Catholic Augustinian College at Villa Nova,
with its cross-surmounted dome and twin church
spires; and the Bryn Mawr College for women, one
of the most famous in the United States. This is a
region first settled by Welsh Quakers, and the name
Bryn Mawr is Welsh for the “great hill.” It is a
wealthy and extensive settlement, and its College has
spacious buildings and over three hundred students.
At the Commencements they all join in singing their
impressive College hymn :
“Thou Gracious Inspiration, our guiding star,
Mistress and Mother, all hail Bryn Mawr,
Goddess of wisdom, thy torch divine
CHESTER AND LAN CASTER WAILLEYS. 281
Doth beacon thy votaries to thy shrine,
And we, thy daughters, would thy Vestals be,
Thy torch to consecrate eternally.”
A few miles beyond is Paoli, preserving in its name
the memory of the Corsican patriot Paoli, and the
birthplace of the Revolutionary General “Mad An-
thony” Wayne. Here the British defeated the
American patriots in September, 1777. It stands on
the verge of one of the garden spots of Pennsylva-
nia, the Chester Valley, a charming region of broad
and smiling acres, bounded on the northwest by the
Welsh Mountain and Mine Hill, and a veritable land
of plenty. The Brandywine and Valley Creeks
water it, flowing out respectively to the Delaware
and the Schuylkill. Beyond the long ridge of Mine
Hill is Lancaster County, another land of rich farms,
with many miles of grain and tobacco fields. Mine
Hill is the watershed between the Delaware and the
Susquehanna, the fertile Pequea Valley being at its
western base. This is a great wheat country, and
from here was sent the first American grain across
the Atlantic to feed Europe, the Lancaster County
wheat, in the days before the railroads brought it
from the West, ruling prices for the American mar-
kets. It was hauled out in the ponderous Comestoga
wagons, named after the Indian tribe which formerly
ruled this region—their name signifying “ the great
magic land.” They were a quarrelsome people,
fighting all the neighboring tribes, and becoming
282 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
deadly foes of the whites. Repeated wars decimated
them, until in 1763 their last remnant, being hunted
almost to death, took refuge in the ancient jail at
Lancaster, and were cruelly massacred by the gueril-
las called the “Paxton Boys.”
In the midst of the wheat lands and bordering the
broad Conestoga Creek, flowing down to the Susque-
hanna at Safe Harbor, is the city of Lancaster, its
red sandstone castellated jail being a conspicuous ob-
ject in the view. This city was originally called
Hickory Town, but in the eighteenth century its
loyal people christened it Lancaster, and named the
chief streets, intersecting at the Central Market
Square, King and Queen Streets, with Duke Street
parallel to the latter. Prior to 1812 it was the capital
of Pennsylvania. Lancaster is an attractive and
comfortable old city of thirty-five thousand popula-
tion, with many mills and factories and large tobacco
houses. It has a splendid Soldiers' Monument in the
Central Square, with finely sculptured guards, repre-
senting each branch of the service, watching at the
base of the magnificent shaft. Upon the outskirts
are the ornate buildings of Franklin and Marshall
College, a foundation of the German Reformed
Church, and it also has a Theological Seminary. The
charm of Lancaster, however, is Woodward Hill
Cemetery, on a bold bluff, washed by the Conestoga
Creek, which forms a graceful circle around its base.
Upon the surface and sides of the bluff the graves
THE SUSQUEEIANNA RIVER, 283
are terraced. Here is the tomb of James Buchaman,
the only President sent from Pennsylvania, who died
in 1868, at his home of Wheatland on the outskirts
of the town. Another noted citizen of Lancaster
was Thaddeus Stevens, who long represented it in
Congress, and was the Republican leader in the
House of Representatives during the Civil War, and
afterwards until his death in 1868. He was the
great champion of the emancipation of the negro
race, and refused to be buried in the cemetery be-
cause negroes were excluded. Upon the grave which
he selected in Lancaster are these words: “I repose
in this quiet and secluded spot, not from any natural
preference for solitude, but finding other cemeteries
limited by charter rules as to race. I have chosen it
that I might be enabled to illustrate in death the
principle which I have advocated through a long life
—equality of man before his Creator.” When Lan-
caster was the chief town of the Colonial frontier in
1753, it was the place where Braddock's unfortunate
expedition against Fort Duquesne at Pittsburg was
organized and equipped, the work being mainly di-
rected by Benjamin Franklin. Robert Fulton was
born in Lancaster County, and he grew up and was
educated at Lancaster, going afterwards to Philadel-
phia.
THE SUSQUELIANNA RIVER,
The line westward from Lancaster crosses one
long ridge-like hill after another stretching broadly
284 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
over the country, and finally comes to the out-
lying ridge of the Allegheny range, the South Moun-
tain, beyond which is the great Appalachian Valley.
One railroad route boldly crosses this mountain
through the depressions in the Conewago hills, where
the picturesque Conewago Creek, the Indian “long
reach,” flows down its beautiful gorge to the Susque-
hamma, and this railroad finally comes out on that
river at Middletown below Harrisburg; the other
route follows a more easy gradient westward ten
miles to Columbia, and this is used by the heavier
freight trains. Coming towards it over the hills, the
wide Susquehanna lies low in its broad valley, en-
closed by the distant ridge of the Kittatinny bound-
ing Cumberland County beyond the river. As it is
approached, the thought is uppermost that this is one
of the noblest, and yet among the meanest rivers in
the country. Rising in Otsego Lake in New York,
it flows over four hundred miles down to Chesapeake
Bay, receives large tributaries, its West Branch
being two hundred miles long, rends all the Alle-
gheny Mountain chains, and takes a great part of
the drainage of that region in New York and Penn-
sylvania, passes through grand valleys, noble gorges
and most magnificent scenery, and yet it is so thickly
sown with islands, rocks and sand-bars, rapids and
shallows, as to defy all attempts to make it satisfac-
torily navigable excepting by lumber rafts, logs and
a few canal boats. Thus the Indians significantly
(Ibe $5ugquebanna (Clegt of jfalmoutb


THE SUSQUEIIANNA RIVER, 285
gave its name meaning the island-strewn, broad and
shallow river, and it is little more than a gigantic
drain for Central Pennsylvania.
On its bank is Columbia, a town of busy iron and
steel manufacture, as the whole range of towns are
for miles up to and beyond Harrisburg. At Colum-
bia first appeared, about 1804, that mysterious agency
known as the “Underground Railroad,” whereby.
fugitive slaves were secretly passed from one “sta-
tion ” to another from “Mason and Dixon's Line”
to Canada, mainly through the aid and active exer-
tions of philanthropic Quakers. All through Chester
and Lancaster Counties and northward were laid the
routes of this peculiar line, whose ramifications be-
came more and more extensive as time passed,
making the Fugitive Slave Law almost a nullity
during the decade before the Civil War. There were
hundreds of good people engaged in facilitating the
unfortunate travellers who fled for freedom, and
many have been the escapades with the slave-
hunters, whose traffic long ago happily ended. At
Middletown the Swatara River flows in from the hills
of Lebanon County, there being all along the Sus-
quehanna a prodigious development of the steel in-
dustry as well as rich farms on the fertile bottom
lands. Here is the historic estate of Lochiel, which
was the home of Simon Cameron, who for many
years ruled the political destinies of Pennsylvania.
He was born in 1799 at May town, near Marietta, on
286 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
the Susquehanna, a few miles above Columbia, in
humble circumstances, and came as a poor printer's
boy to Harrisburg, rose to wealth and power, and
when he was full of years and honors placed the
mantle of the United States Senatorship upon his
son. Their “Clan Cameron " which ruled Pennsyl-
vania for two generations has been regarded as the
“machine” in the Union,
best managed political
having in its ranks and among its allies not only poli-
ticians, but bankers, railway managers, merchants,
manufacturers and capitalists, and men in every walk
of life, ramifying throughout the Keystone State.
Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania, stands
upon the sloping eastern bank of the river in the
grandest scenery. Just above, the Susquehanna
breaks through the Kittatinny at the Dauphin Gap,
giving a superb display of the rending asunder of
the towering mountain chain. Opposite are the
forest-clad hills of York and Cumberland bordering
the fertile Cumberland Valley spreading off to the
southwest, while behind the city this great Appala-
chian Valley continues between its enclosing ridges
as the Lebanon Valley northeast to the Schuylkill
River at Reading. Market Street is the chief Har-
risburg highway, and the Pennsylvania Railroad is
the back border of the town. The State Capitol, set
on a hill, was burnt, and is being rebuilt. A pleasant
park encloses the site, and from the front a wide
street leads down to the river, making a pretty view,
THE SUSQUEFIANNA RIVER, 287
with a Soldiers' Monument in the centre, which is an
enlarged reproduction of Cleopatra's Needle. The
Front Street of the city, along the river bank, is the
popular promemade, and is adorned with the Execu-
tive Mansion and other fine residences, which have a
grand outlook across the broad expanse of river and
islands. Bridges cross over, among them the old
“camel's back,” a mile long, and having its shelving
stone ice-breakers jutting up stream. This is the
old wooden covered bridge that Charles Dickens
wrote about in his American Notes. On his first
American visit he came into Harrisburg from York
County on a stage-coach through this bridge, and he
wrote: “We crossed the river by a wooden bridge,
roofed and covered on all sides, and nearly a mile in
length. It was profoundly dark, perplexed with
great beams, crossing and re-crossing it at every pos-
sible angle, and through the broad chinks and crev-
ices in the floor the river gleamed far down below,
like a legion of eyes. We had no lamps, and as the
horses stumbled and floundered through this place
towards the distant speck of dying light, it seemed
interminable. I really could not persuade myself at
first as we rumbled heavily on, filling the bridge with
hollow moises—and I held down my head to save it
from the rafters—but that I was in a painful dream,
and that this could not be reality.” The old bridge
is much the same to-day as when Dickens crossed it.
Harrisburg was named for John Harris, who es-
288 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
tablished a ferry here, and alongside the river bank
is the little “Harris Park” which contains his grave.
The stump of the tree at the foot of which he was
buried is carefully preserved. A drunken band of Con-
estoga Indians came this way in 1718, and, capturing
the faithful ferryman, tied him to the tree to be tor-
tured and burnt, when the timely interposition of
some Indians from the opposite shore, who knew him
and were friendly, saved him. His son succeeded
him and ran the ferry, and an enclosure in the park
preserves this spot of historic memory.
LINCOLN's MIDNIGHT RIDE.
It was from Harrisburg that Lincoln took the
famous secret midnight ride, “in long cloak and
Scotch cap,” which enabled him to escape attack and
possible assassination when going to be inaugurated
President in 1861. Lincoln arrived in Philadelphia
on his way to Washington February 21st, and had
arranged to visit Harrisburg next day, address the
Pennsylvania Legislature, and then proceed to Wash-
ington by way of Baltimore. In Philadelphia Gen-
eral Scott and Senator Seward informed him that he
could not pass through Baltimore at the time an-
nounced without great peril, and detectives who had
carefully examined the situation declared his life in
danger. Lincoln, however, could not believe that
anyone would try to assassinate him and made light
of the matter. On the morning of February 22d he
LINCOLN'S MIDNIGHT RIDE. 289
raised a flag on Independence Hall in Philadelphia,
and them went by railway to Harrisburg. There his
friends again urged him to abandon his plan and
avoid Baltimore. He visited the Legislature, and
afterwards, at his hotel, met the Governor, several
prominent people being present, among them Colonel
Thomas A. Scott, then Vice-President of the Penn-
sylvania Railroad. Again the subject was discussed,
and he was urged to avoid the danger threatening
next day, being reminded that the railway passenger
coaches were drawn through the Baltimore streets
by horses, thus increasing the chances of doing him
harm. He heard them patiently and answered,
“What would the nation think of its President steal-
ing into the Capital like a thief in the night?” But
they only the more strenuously insisted, and finally
he yielded, consenting to do whatever they thought
best. Colonel Scott undertook the task, and during
the early evening quietly arranged a special train to
take Lincoln to Philadelphia, where he would get
aboard the regular might express and be in Washing-
ton by daylight. Colonel Ward H. Lamon, a per-
sonal friend, was selected to attend Lincoln. As the
party left the hotel a large crowd cheered them, and
the Governor, Andrew G. Curtin, the better to con.
ceal the intention, called out in a loud voice, “Drive
us to the Executive Mansion.” This was done, and
when they had got away from the crowd the carriage
was taken by a roundabout route to the station.
VOL. I.-19
290 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
Lincoln and Lamon were not noticed by the few peo-
ple there, and quietly entering the car, left for Phila-
delphia. As soon as they had started Scott cut every
telegraph wire leading out of Harrisburg, so mothing
could be transmitted excepting under his control.
Lincoln got to Philadelphia without trouble, was put
aboard the express at midnight, and then at dawn
Scott reunited his wires and called up Washington, a
group of anxious men around him. Soon the mes-
sage came back, slowly ticked out from the instru-
ment, “Plums delivered nuts safely.” Scott knew
what it meant ; he jumped to his feet, threw up his
hat and shouted, “Lincoln's in Washington.” The
Baltimore plotters were thus foiled, as the new Presi-
dent passed quietly through that city before daylight,
and several hours earlier than they had expected
him.
THE CUMBERLAND AND LEBANON WALLEYS.
Harrisburg stands in the centre of the great Ap-
palachian Valley, where it is bisected by the broad
Susquehamma. To the southwest it stretches away
to the Potomac as the Cumberland Valley, and to
the northeast it spreads across to the Schuylkill as
the fertile Lebanon Valley. The high mountain wall
of the Kittatinny bounds it on the northwest, with
all the rivers, as heretofore described, breaking out
through various “gaps.” In the Colonial days, when
Indian forays were frequent, the Province of Penn-
sylvania defended the entrances to this fertile valley
CUMBERLAND AND LEBANON VALLEYS. 291
by a chain of frontier forts located at these gaps,
with attendant block-houses, each post garrisoned by
from twenty to eighty Provincial soldiers, as its im-
portance demanded. Benjamin Franklin, who was
them commissioned as a Colonel, was prominent in
the advocacy of these frontier defences, and he per-
sonally organized the settlers and arranged the gar-
risons. Fort Hyndshaw began the chain on the
Delaware, there were other forts on the Lehigh and
Schuylkill, and Fort Henry located on the Swatara,
mow Lebanon, while just above Harrisburg was Fort
Hunter, commanding the passage of the Susquehanna
through the Dauphin Gap.
Over in the Cumberland Valley, about mineteen
miles from Harrisburg, is Carlisle, a town of some
mine thousand people, in a rich country, and the
chief settlement of that valley. Here is located in
what were formerly the army barracks, coming
down from the time when this was a frontier post,
the Government Indian Training School, where about
eight hundred `Indian boys and girls are instructed,
being brought from the far western tribes to be
taught the arts and methods of civilization. These
Indian children are numerous in the streets and on
the railway trains, with their straight hair, round
Swarthy faces and high cheek bones, and show the
surprising influence of a civilizing education in
humanizing their features and modifying their no-
madic traits. They have quite a moted military or-
292 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
ganization and band at the School. Dickinson Col-
lege, a foundation of the Methodist Church, is at
Carlisle, having begun its work in 1783, when it was
named after John Dickinson, then the President of
Pennsylvania, who took great interest in it and made
valuable gifts. Among its graduates were President
James Buchaman and Chief Justice Roger B. Taney.
Carlisle was President Washington's headquarters in
1794, during the “Whisky Insurrection” in West-
ern Pennsylvania. After the United States Govern-
ment got fairly started, the Congress in 1791 im-
posed a tax of seven cents per gallon on whisky.
This made a great disturbance among the frontier
settlers of Pennsylvania, who were largely Scotch-
Irish, the population west of the Kittatinny to the
Ohio River being then estimated at seventy thou-
sand. They had no market for their grain, but they
made it into whisky, which found ready sale. A
horse could carry two kegs of eight gallons each on the
bridle paths across the mountains, and it was worth a
dollar a gallon in the east. Returning, the horse-
back load was usually iron worth sixteen cents a
pound, or salt at five dollars a bushel. Every farmer
had a still, and the whisky thus became practically
the money of the people on account of its purchasing
value. Opposition to the tax began in riots. A
crowd of “Whisky boys” from Bedford came into
Carlisle and burnt the Chief Justice in effigy, setting up
a liberty pole with the words “Liberty and No Excise
CUMBERLAND AND LEBANON VALLEYS. 293
on Whisky.” President Washington called for troops
to enforce the law, and this angered them. One John
Holcroft, a ready writer, appeared, and wrote sharp ar-
ticles against the law and the army, over the signature
of “Tom the Tinker.” These were printed in hand-
bills, and the historian says “half the trees in
Western Pennsylvania were whitened with Tom the
Tinker's notices.” Officials sent to collect the tax
were roughly treated, farmers who paid it were
beaten by masked men, and one man who rented his
house to a tax collector was captured at midnight by
a crowd of disguised vigilants, who carried him into
the woods, sheared his hair, tarred, feathered and
tied him to a tree.
Soon there were gathered at Carlisle an army of
thirteen thousand men from Pennsylvania, New Jer-
sey, Maryland and Virginia, under Governor Henry
Lee of Virginia. President Washington and Sec-
retary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton came to
Carlisle, and accompanied the troops, in October,
1794, on their march across the mountains to Bed-
ford. The Governors of New Jersey and Pennsyl-
vania led the troops of their respective States, and
in the army were many Revolutionary veterans. As
they advanced they found Tom the Tinker's notices
on the trees, of which the following is a specimen :
“Brethren, you must not think to frighten us with
fine arranged bits of infantry, cavalry and artillery,
composed of your watermelon armies taken from the
294 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
Jersey shores. They would cut a much better figure
in warring with crabs and oysters about the banks of
the Delaware. It is a common thing for Indians to
fight your best armies in the proportion of one to
five; therefore we would not hesitate to attack this
army at the rate of one to ten.”
The soldiers riddled these notices with bullets and
pressed on, hunting for “Tom Tinker's men,” as the
insurgents came to be called. But they never seemed
able to find them. All the people seen told how they
were forced by threats, and when asked where the
persons were who threatened them, replied, “Oh,
they have run off.” The army finally reached Pitts-
burg, the people submitted to the law and paid the
tax, the insurrection was suppressed, and the army
returned and was disbanded. The whisky excise
was peacefully collected afterwards until the tax was
repealed.
In the Lebanon Valley east of Harrisburg are im-
portant iron furnaces, and here are the “Cornwall
Ore Banks,” which is one of the greatest iron-ore
deposits in the world—less rich than some others,
possibly, but having a practically exhaustless supply
almost alongside these furnaces. There are three
hills of solid iron ore, one of them having been
worked long before the Revolution, the original fur-
mace, still existing, dating from 1742. This great
Cornwall iron mine was bought in 1737 for $675,
including a large tract of land. A half-century later
THE SUSQUEHANNA HEADWATERS. 295
$42,500 was paid for a one-sixth interest, and to-day
a one-forty-eighth interest is estimated worth up-
wards of $500,000. These ores have some sulphur
in them, and are therefore baked in ovens to remove
it. They yield about 50 per cent. of iron. A geol-
ogist some time ago reported upon the ore banks that
there were thirty millions of tons of ore in sight
above the water-level, being over three times the
amount taken out since the workings began in the
eighteenth century. The deposits extend to a depth
of several hundred feet under the surface, thus in-
definitely multiplying the prospective yield.
THE SUSQUEHANNA HEADWATERS.
Otsego Lake, the source of the Susquehanna
River, is one of the prettiest lakes in New York
State, and is at an elevation of eleven hundred
feet above tide. It is nine miles long and about a
mile wide, the Susquehanna issuing from its southern
end at Cooperstown, a hamlet of two thousand
people, beautifully situated amid the high rolling
hills surrounding the lake. The name of the lake
comes from the “Ote-sa-ga rock ’’ at the outlet, a
small, round-topped, beehive-shaped boulder a few
rods from the shore, just where the lake condenses
into the river. This was the Indian Council rock, to
which they came to hold meetings and make treaties,
and it was well-known among the Iroquois and the
Lemmi Lenapes. James Fenimore Cooper, the nov-
296 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
elist, who has immortalized all this region, called
the lake the “Glimmerglass.” His father, Judge
William Cooper, founded the village of Coopers-
town in 1786, afterwards bringing his infant son
from Burlington, New Jersey, where he was born in
1789. Here the great American novelist lived until
his death in 1851, his grave, under a plain hori-
zontal slab, being in the little churchyard of Christ
Episcopal Church. There is a monument to him in
Lakewood Cemetery, about a mile distant, sur-
mounted by a statue of his legendary hunter
“Leatherstocking,” who has been described as “a
man who had the simplicity of a woodsman, the
heroism of a savage, the faith of a Christian, and the
feeling of a poet.” The old Cooper mansion, his home,
Otsego Hall, was burnt in 1854, and its site is marked
by a rock in the middle of the road, surrounded by a
railing. “Hannah's Hill,” mamed after his daughter,
and commanding a magnificent view, which he always
described with rapture, is on the western shore of the
lake, just out of town. The charm of Cooper's genius
and the magic of his description have given Otsego
Lake a world-wide fame. In one place he described
it as “a broad sheet of water, so placid and limpid
that it resembled a bed of the pure mountain atmos-
phere compressed into a setting of hills and woods.
Nothing is wanted but ruined castles and recollec-
tions, to raise it to the level of the scenery of the
Rhine.” And thus has the poet sung of it:
THE SUSQUEHANNA HEADWATERS. 297
“O Haunted Lake, from out whose silver fountains
The mighty Susquehanna takes its rise ;
O Haunted Lake, among the pine-clad mountains,
Forever smiling upward to the skies, -
A master’s hand hath painted all thy beauties;
A master's mind hath peopled all thy shore
With wraiths of mighty hunters and fair maidens,
Haunting thy forest-glades forevermore.”
All around Otsego Lake and its neighborhood are
the scenes which Cooper has interwoven into his
novel, The Deer-Slayer. About seven miles north-
west are the well-known Richfield Springs (magnesia
and sulphur), near Candarago Lake. This Indian
name, meaning “on the lake,” has recently been re-
vived to supersede the old title of Schuyler's Lake
for this beautiful sheet of water, embosomed in green
and sloping hills, which is the chief scenic charm of
Richfield. To the eastward from Otsego Lake is the
romantic Cherry Valley, another attractive summer
resort, and the scene of a sad Indian massacre in
1778, the site of the old fort that was then captured
being still exhibited, with the graves of the murdered
villagers, to whom a monument has been erected. A
few miles farther, in a narrow upland wooded valley
surrounded by high hills, are the Sharon Springs
(sulphur and chalybeate), which in earlier times were
so popular with our German citizens, who were at-
tracted by the resemblance to the Fatherland, that
the place was called the “Baden-Baden of America.”
The name of Sharon came from Sharon in Connecti-
298 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
cut, and the spring water is discharged with a crust
of white and flocculent sulphur into a stream not in-
appropriately called the Brimstone Brook. In this
valley, east of the springs, one of the last Revolu-
tionary battles was fought, Colonel Willett's Ameri-
can force in 1781 routing a detachment of Tories and
Indians with severe loss. There are grottoes in the
neighborhood abounding in stalactites and beautiful
crystals of sulphate of lime. Not far away is the
noted Howe's Cave, an immense cavern, said to ex-
tend for eleven miles underground, being an old
water-channel in the lower Helderberg limestone, and
which has many visitors, attracted by its fine display
of stalactites and grand rock chambers, with the
usual subterranean lake and stream. All this region
was originally settled by Germans from the Palati-
Inate.
The Susquehanna, steadily gaining in volume,
flows in wayward course down rapids and around
many bends to Binghamton, near the southern border
of New York, where it receives the Chenango River,
and its elevation has declined to eight hundred and
sixty feet. This is a busy manufacturing city and
railway junction, having forty thousand inhabitants.
The first settlers came in 1787, and William Bing-
ham of Philadelphia owning the land at the conflu-
ence of the rivers, the town was afterwards mamed
for him. The Chenango Canal connects the Susque-
hanna waters from here with the Erie Canal, about
THE SUSQUEHANNA HEADWATERS. 299
ninety miles northward, at Utica, the Indian word Che-
mango meaning “the bull thistle.” Entering Penn-
sylvania, the Susquehanna now flows many miles past
mountain and village, around great bends and breaking
through the Allegheny ridges, passes along the Wyo-
ming Valley, already described, and finally going out
through the Nanticoke Gap, reaches Northumberland,
where it receives its chief tributary, the West Branch.
This great stream comes for two hundred miles from
the westward through the Allegheny ranges, passing
Lewisburg, the seat of the Baptist University of
Lewisburg, Milton, and the noted lumber town of
Williamsport, famous for its great log boom. This
arrangement for collecting logs cost a million dollars,
and extends about four miles up the river above the
town, with its massive piers and braces, and will
hold three hundred millions of feet of lumber. The
river front is lined with basins and sawmills. In earlier
years this boom has been so filled with pine and hem-
lock logs in the spring that the river could almost
anywhere be crossed on a solid floor of timber. Un-
fortunately, however, the vast forests on the slopes
of the Alleghenies have been so generally cut off that
the trade has seriously declined. At Northumber-
land lived Dr. Joseph Priestley, the discoverer of
oxygen gas, who died there in 1804, and is buried in
the cemetery.
The Susquehanna now becomes a broad river, and
just below flows past Sunbury, the railway outlet of
300 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
the extensive Shamokin coal district. This town
was originally Fort Augusta, built in 1756 to guard
the Susquehanna frontier just below the junction of
its two branches. In the French and Indian War
it had usually a garrison of a regiment, and it was
them regarded as the best defensive work in Penn-
sylvania. After that war it gradually fell into de-
cay, although during the Revolution it was always a
refuge for the Susquehanna frontier settlers fleeing
from Indian brutality and massacre. Many promi-
ment officers of the Revolutionary army received
their military training at this fort. The settlement
was originally called Shamokin, from the Indian
name of the creek here falling into the Susquehamma
—Schakamo-kink, meaning, like Shackamaxon, “the
place of eels.” For fifty miles below Sunbury the
broad Susquehanna winds among the mountain
ranges, traversing one after another, until its channel
is narrowed to pass through the great Dauphin Gap
in the Kittatinny, five miles above Harrisburg, where
the river bed has descended to an elevation of three
hundred and twenty feet above tide.
THE BEAUTIFUL BLUE JUNIATA.
A long, low bridge carries the Pennsylvania Rail-
road across the river in front of Dauphin Gap, and a
short distance above, in a delta of fertile islands, the
Susquehanna receives its romantic tributary, the
Juniata, flowing for a hundred miles from the heart
THE BEAUTIFUL BLUE JUNIATA. 301
of the Alleghenies, and breaking out of them through
a notch cut down in the long ridge of the Tuscarora
Mountain. Here is the iron-making town of Dun-
cannon, settled by the sturdy Scotch-Irish, who were
numerous along the Juniata and in its neighboring
valleys, and who suffered greatly from Indian forays
in the early days of the frontier. Upon Duncan's
Island, the chief one in the delta, at the mouth of the
Juniata, was the place of the council-fire of the In-
dian tribes of all this region. Now, this island is
mainly a pleasure-ground, having spacious and shady
groves, while the canal, crossing it from the Susque-
hamma to the Juniata, goes directly through an exten-
sive Indian mound and burial-place. We will enter
the fastnesses of the Alleghenies by the winding
gorge of the “beautiful blue Juniata,” flowing
through magnificent scenery from the eastern face
of the main Allegheny range out to the great river.
It breaks down ridge after ridge, stretching broadly
across the country, and presents superb landscapes
and impressive mountain views. The route is a
series of bends and gorges, the river crossing suc-
cessive valleys between the ridges, now running for
miles northeast along the base of a towering moun-
tain and then turning east or southeast to break
through it by a romantic pass. The glens and moun-
tains, with ever-changing views, give an almost end-
less panorama. Softness of outline, massiveness and
variety, are the peculiarities of Juniata scenery. The
302 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
stream is small, not carrying a great amount of water
in ordinary seasons, and it seems as much by strategy
as by power to have overcome the obstacles and made
its mountain passes. The rended mountains, steep
tree-covered slopes and frequent isolated sentinel-like
hills rising from the glens, have all been moulded into
rounded forms by the action of the elements, leaving
few abrupt precipices or naked rocks to mar the regu-
larity of the natural beauties. The valleys and lower
parts of the mountain sides are generally cultivated,
the fields sloping up to the mantle of forest crowning
the flanks and summits of the ridges. Every change
of sunshine or shadow, and the steady progress of
the seasons, give new tints to these glens and moun-
tains. At times the ravimes are deep and the river
tortuous, and again it meanders across the rich flat
bottom lands of a broad valley. In its winding course
among these mountain ranges, this renowned river
passes through and displays almost the whole geo-
logical formation of Pennsylvania. The primary
rocks are to the eastward of the Susquehanna, and
the bituminous coal measures begin on the western
Allegheny slope, so that the river cuts into a rock
stratification over six miles in thickness, as one after
another formation comes to the surface.
We go through the narrow Tuscarora Gap, and
are journeying over the lands of the Tuscaroras, one
of the Iroquois Six Nations, who came up from the
South, and were given the name of Tuscarora, or the
THE BEAUTIFUL BLUE JUNIATA. 303
“shirt-wearer,” because long contact with the whites
had led them to adopt that garment. Beyond the
Gap, the Tuscarora Valley is enclosed on its north-
west side by the Turkey Mountain, the mext western
ridge, and it was a region of terrible Indian conflicts
and massacres in the pioneer days, when the first fort
built there was burnt, and every settler either killed
or carried off into captivity. Here was fought the
“Grasshopper War” between the Tuscaroras and
Delawares. They had villages on opposite sides of
the river, and one day the children disputed about
some grasshoppers. The quarrel involved first the
squaws and then the men, a bloody battle following.
Mifflin, an attractive town, is located here, and to the
westward the Juniata breaks through the next great
ridge crossing its path, passing a massive gorge
formed by the Shade and Blue Mountains, flowing for
miles in the deep and narrow winding canyon be-
tween them, the far-famed “Lewistown or Long
Narrows,” having the railway hanging upon one
bank and the canal upon the other. Broken, slaty
shingle covers most of the hill-slopes, and in the broad
valley, above the lengthened gorge, is Lewistown,
nestling at the base of a huge mountain at the outlet
of the beautiful Kishicoquillas Valley, spreading up
among the high hills to the northward—its name
meaning “the snakes are already in their dens.”
The hero of this attractive region in the eighteenth
century, and them its most distinguished inhabitant,
304 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
was Logan, the chief of the Mingoes and Cayugas,
whose speeches, preserved by Thomas Jefferson, are
a favorite in school declamation. He was of giant
mould, mearly seven feet high, and lived at Logan's
Spring in the valley. He was the friend of the
white men, but when the frontier became too well
settled for him longer to find the deer on which he
subsisted, selling their skins to the traders, he went
westward to the Ohio River, locating near Wheeling.
Here, without provocation, his family were cruelly
massacred, and this ended Logan's love for the
whites. He became a relentless foe, wreaking indis-
criminate vengeance, until killed in the Shawnee
wars beyond the Ohio, having joined that hostile
tribe. The Lewistown Narrows are the finest moun-
tain pass of the Juniata, the peaks precipitously
rising over a thousand feet above the river, which
forces a passage between them for more than eight
miles, the densely wooded cliffs so enclosing and
overshadowing the gorge as to give it an appearance
of deepest gloom.
THE STANDING STONE AND SINKING SPRING.
Westward beyond the valley rises the next ridge
pierced by the Juniata in its outflow, Jack's Moun-
tain, and its gorge is known as “Jack's Narrows.”
Here penetrated Captain Jack Armstrong in the
early colonial days, a hunter and Indian trader, whose
cabin was burnt and wife and children massacred,
(Ibe 3 uniata at (II)ill Creek


THE STANDING STONE AND SINKING SPRING. 305
making him always afterwards an avenging Nemesis,
roving along the Juniata Valley and killing Indians
indiscriminately. Jack's Narrows is a pass even
more contracted than that below Lewistown, and a
profusion of shingle and broken stone covers its
mountain sides, the deranged limestone strata in
places standing almost upright. Mount Union is in
the valley east of this pass, and beyond it is the
chief town of the Juniata, Huntingdom, which has
about eight thousand people. This was the oldest
settlement on the river, ninety-seven miles west of
Harrisburg, the ancient “Standing Stone,” where the
Indians of the valley for centuries met to hold their
councils. The earliest white settlers came in 1754.
The original Standing Stone of Huntingdom, erected
by the Indians, was a granite column, about fourteen
feet high and six inches square, covered with strange
characters, which were the sacred records of the
Oneidas. Once the Tuscaroras stole it, but the
Oneidas followed, and, fighting for their sacred
treasure, recaptured it. When the whites came
along, the Oneidas, who had joined the French, went
west, carrying the stone with them. Afterwards, a
second stone, much like the first, was set up, and a
fragment of it is now preserved at Huntingdon.
Here was built a large fort anterior to the Revolu-
tion, which was a refuge for the frontier settlers.
The “Standing Stone” is engraved as an appropriate
symbol on the city seal of Huntingdon, being sur-
VoI. I.-20
306 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
rounded by a representation of mountains, and the
name of “Oneida” (the granite) is preserved in a
township across the river. Selina, the Countess of
Huntingdom, who was a benefactor of the University
of Pennsylvania, had her titled name given the city.
The then University Provost, Dr. William Smith,
became owner of the town site, and thus remembered
her generosity. About fifty miles southwest of Hunt-
ingdom, amid the mountains, is Bedford, moted for its
chalybeate and sulphur springs, discovered in 1804,
which have long been a favorite resort of Pennsyl-
vanians on account of their healing waters. The
whole country thereabout is filled with semi-bitu-
minous coal measures, furnishing a lucrative traffic.
Diminishing in volume, our attractive Juniata
flows through a rough country above Huntingdom,
after threading the pass in the lofty Warrior Ridge.
Extending off to the southwestward is Morrison's
Cove, a rich valley under the shadow of the long
mountain ridge, which was settled in 1755 by the
Dumkards. These singular people, among whose car-
dinal doctrines are peace and non-resistance, were at-
tacked by the Indians in 1777, who entered the val-
ley and almost exterminated the settlement. Most
of them bowed submissively to the stroke of death,
gently saying “Gottes wille sei gethan " (God's will
be dome). One, however, resisted, killed two In-
dians and escaped; but afterwards returning, the
Dunkard Church tried him for this breach of faith,
THE STANDING STONE AND SINKING SPRING, 307
and he was excommunicated. In this region is the
Sinking Spring, a strange water course originally ap-
pearing in a limestone cave, where it comes out of an
arched opening, with sufficient water to turn a large
mill; but it soon disappears underground, the con-
cealed current being heard through fissures, bubbling
far below. Then it returns to the surface, flowing
some distance, enters another cave, passing under
Cave Mountain, and finally reappears and falls into
the Juniata, making, in its peculiar waywardness, as
remarkable a stream as can anywhere be found.
Here our famous Juniata River, dwindled to a little
Creek, comes down the mountain side, and we pene-
trate farther by following up the Little Juniata. It
has brought us, through the great ridges, into the
heart of the Appalachian region, to the easterm base
of the main Allegheny Mountain, on the flanks of
which are its sources. It has displayed to us a noted
valley, full of the story of early Colonial contests,
massacres and perils, the scenes of the fearless mis-
sionary labors of Brainerd the Puritan and Loskiel
the Moravian. Brainerd recognized the pagan idol-
atry of the Indians, and did not hesitate to take the
Bible to their solemn religious festivals and expound
its divine principles, to spoil the incantations and
frustrate the charms of their medicine men. Once
a Nanticoke pontiff got into a hot argument with
Brainerd, saying God had taught him religion and
he would never turn from it; that he would not be-
308 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
lieve in the Devil; and he added that the souls of
the dead passed to the South, where the good lived
in a fair city, while the evil hovered forever in outer
darkness. Many are the romances of the attractive
Jumiata:
“Gay was the mountain song
Of bright Alfarata,
Where sweep the waters of
The blue Junia:a :
& Strong and true m y arrows are,
In my painted quiver,
Swift goes my light canoe
Adown the rapid river.’”
CROSSING THE MOUNTAIN TOP.
At the eastern base of the main Allegheny range
a long mountain valley stretches broadly from the far
northeast to the southwest, and here is Tyrone, a set-
tlement of extensive iron works, and the outlet of
the greatest bituminous coal-fields of Central Penn-
sylvania, the Clearfield district, the town of Clearfield
being about forty miles to the northwest. Northeast
of Tyrone, this valley is called the Bald Eagle Val-
ley, a picturesque and fertile region; and to the
southwest it is the Tuckahoe Valley. At the base
of the Bald Eagle Mountain, thirty-three miles from
Tyrone, is the town of Bellefonte, another iron re-
gion, handling the products of the Bald Eagle and
Nittany Valleys, and receiving its name from the
“Beautiful Fount” which supplies the town with
water. This is one of the most remarkable springs
CROSSING THE MOUNTAIN TOP. 309
in the Alleghenies, pouring out two hundred and
eighty thousand gallons of the purest water every
minute. Following the Tuckahoe Valley southward,
at the base of the main Allegheny range we come to
the Pennsylvania Railroad town of Altoona, and
eight miles farther to Hollidaysburg. Each is a rep-
resentative town—Hollidaysburg of the past methods
of crossing the mountain top, and Altoona of the
present.
In 1836 Mr. David Stephenson, the famous British
railway engineer, made a journey across Pennsylva-
mia by the methods them in vogue, and wrote that he
travelled from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, three hun-
dred and minety-five miles by the route taken, in
minety-one hours, at a cost of three pounds sterling,
about four cents a mile, and that one hundred and
eighteen miles of the journey, which he calls “extra-
ordinary,” were by railroads, and two hundred and
seventy-seven miles by canals. This was the line
used for twenty years, a main route of travel from
the seaboard to the West, having been put into oper-
ation in 1834. It followed the Columbia Railroad
from Philadelphia to Columbia on the Susquehanna,
the canal up the Susquehanna and Juniata Rivers to
Hollidaysburg, a portage railroad by inclined planes
over the main Allegheny Mountain ridge to Johns-
town, and the canal again, down the Conemaugh and
Allegheny Rivers to Pittsburg. There were one
hundred and seventy-two miles of canal from Colum-
310 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
bia to Hollidaysburg, which went through more than
a hundred locks and crossed thirty-three aqueducts,
having risen about six hundred feet above the level
at Columbia when it reached the eastern face of the
mountain. The canal west of Johnstown was one
hundred and five miles long, descended sixty-four
locks, and went through a tunnel of one thousand feet.
The Portage Railroad of thirty-six miles crossed the
mountain by Blair's Gap, above Hollidaysburg, at
twenty-three hundred and twenty-six feet elevation,
through a tunnel nine hundred feet long. There
were ten inclined planes, five on each side. The
steepest side of the Allegheny Mountain being its
castern face, the railway from Hollidaysburg to the
summit, though only ten miles long, ascended four-
teen hundred feet, while twenty miles of railway on
the western side descended eleven hundred and
seventy-two feet. The cars hauled up the planes
each carried three tons of freight, and three cars
were hauled at a single draft. There could be
twenty-four cars carrying seventy-two tons passed
over in one hour, which was ample for the traffic at
that time, the average business being three hundred
tons of freight a day. This amount would be car-
ried in less than ten of the big cars of to-day. It
took passengers eight hours to go over the mountain,
halting one hour on the summit for dinner.
This route was superseded by the Pennsylvania
Railroad crossing above Altoona, opened in 1854, a
CROSSING THE MOUNTAIN TOP. 311
road made for ordinary trains; and then Hollidays-
burg became a town of iron manufacture, losing the
bustle and business of the Portage, which was aban-
doned. The railroad company acquired a large tract
of land between the main Allegheny range and the
Brush Mountain to the southward, which has a deep
notch, called the “Kettle,” cut down into it, opening
a distant prospect of gray mountain ridges behind.
Here has been established the most completely rep-
resentative railway city in the world, having enor-
mous railway shops, a gigantic establishment, and a
population of thirty-five thousand, almost all in one
way or another dependent on the Pennsylvania Rail-
road. Altoona is at an elevation of about eleven
hundred feet above tide, and the railway climbs to
the summit of the mountain by a grade of minety
feet to the mile, winding around an indented valley
to get the necessary elevation. At its head this val-
ley divides into two smaller glens, with a towering
crag rising between them. Having ascended the
northern side, the railway curves around, crossing
the smaller glens upon high embankments, doubling
upon itself, and mounting steadily higher by running
up the opposite side of the valley to the outer edge
of the ridge. This sweeping curve gives striking
scenic effects, and is the noted Pennsylvania. “Horse
Shoe,” and the huge crag between the smaller glens,
in which the head of the Horse Shoe curve is partly
hewn, is Kittanning Point. This means the “great
312 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
stream,” two creeks issuing out of the glens uniting
below it; and here was the route, at sixteen hundred
feet elevation, of the ancient Indian trail across the
mountain, the “Kittanning Path,” in their portage
between the Juniata and Ohio waters. It shows how
closely the modern railroad builder has followed the
route set for him by the original road-makers among
the red men. The Pennsylvania Railroad carries
four tracks over the mountain, piercing the summit
by two tunnels at about twenty-two hundred feet ele-
vation, with two tracks in each. The mountain rises
much higher, and has coal mines, coke ovens and
miners' cabins on the very top. This is the water-
shed dividing the Atlantic waters from those of the
Nſississippi, flowing to the Gulf, and Gallitzin, a flour-
ishing mining village, is the summit station of the
railway.
GOING, DOWN THE CONEMAUGH.
In the latter part of the eighteenth century there
were but two white men living in all this region.
The first one there was Thomas Blair, whose cabin
was on the mountain at Blair's Gap, where the Port-
age Railroad afterwards came over. The other was
Michael Maguire, who came along in 1790, and
going through the Gap, concluded to settle among
the Indians about twelve miles away, at what was
afterwards Loretto. These rugged pioneers spent
most of their time fighting and watching the Indians
(Ibe Conemaugb llear jflorence

GOING DOWN THE CONEMAUGH. 313
and wild beasts, and gathered a few companions
around them. Here afterwards came Prince De-
metrius Augustine Gallitzin, who left the Russian
army in 1792 and visited America, designing to
travel. He became a Catholic priest, and liking
these mountains, established a mission at Loretto in
1798, spending a fortune in maintaining it, his mis-
sionary charge ultimately extending over the whole
mountain region. He attracted a population of about
three thousand, chiefly Germans and Irish, repeatedly
refused the episcopacy, and continued his labors until
his death at Loretto in 1840. His remains lie in
front of his church, surmounted by a monument,
while the centenary of this St. Michael's Church of
Loretto was marked in October, 1899, by erecting
his bronze statue, the Prelate-Prince Gallitzin being
portrayed as he appeared in the Allegheny wilder-
mess, wearing cassock, surplice and a skull-cap in
lieu of the beretta, this being his usual head-gear at
service. Loretto, mamed after the city on the Ad-
riatic, was the first mucleus of population in this ele-
wated district, and is about five miles morth of the
railway. Loretto was the first settlement in this re-
gion, but afterwards the coal and iron attracted the
Welsh, who came in numbers, and founded the town
of Ebensburg, about eleven miles from the railway.
They gave their familiar name of Cambria to the
county. Here on the mountain side, at an elevation
of over two thousand feet, are the Cresson Springs,
314 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
a noted health resort, with a half-dozen medicinal
springs, the chief being an astringent chalybeate and
a strong alum.
The route west of the mountain is down the valley
of the Conemaugh, in a district underlaid with coal,
and having at every village evidence of this industry.
The Conemaugh is “ the other stream ” of the In-
dians, and winding down its tortuous valley, with
coal and iron all about, the railway comes to the set-
tlement of Conemaugh, which spreads into the larger
town of Johnstown, the seat of the great Cambria
Steel Works. The Conemaugh Valley is a deep
canyon, and Conemaugh village was the western ter-
minus of the mountain portage, where the canal
began. A little flat space about a mile beyond, at
the junction of Stony Creek, was in early times an
Indian village, then known from its sachem as “Kick-
enapawling's Old Town.” When the white men ven-
tured over the mountain, there came among them a
hardy German pioneer named Joseph Jahns, who
built a log cabin on the flat in 1791, and from him
the cluster of little houses that grew afterwards be-
came known as Jahnstown. Then came the Welsh
miners and iron-workers, and they set up charcoal
furnaces, and soon changed the name to Johnstown.
From this humble beginning grew the largest iron
and steel establishment in Pennsylvania. Its ores,
coal and limestone were originally all dug out of the
neighboring ridges, though now it uses Lake Supe-
GOING DOWN THE CONEMAUGH. 315
rior ores. The Conemaugh Valley is here enclosed
by high hills, and in the centre of the town the rail-
road is carried across the river on a solid stone bridge
with low arches.
This region, on May 31, 1889, was the scene of
one of the most appalling disasters of modern times.
A deluge of rain for the greater part of two days had
fallen upon the Alleghenies, and made great freshets
in both the Juniata and the Conemaugh. On the
South Fork of the Conemaugh, fifteen miles above
Johnstown, is Conemaugh Lake, a reservoir there
formed by damming the stream, so that it covered a
surface of five hundred acres—the dam, a thousand
feet long, being in places one hundred feet high. This
had been made as a fishing-ground by a club of Pitts-
burg anglers. The excessive rains filled the lake,
and the weakened dam burst, its twenty millions of
tons of waters rushing down the already swollen Con-
emaugh in a mass a half-mile wide stretching across
the valley and forty to fifty feet high, carrying every-
thing before it. The lake level was about three hun-
dred feet higher than Johnstown, and every village,
tree, house, and the whole railway, with much of the
soil and rocks, were carried before the resistless flood
to Johnstown, where the mass was stopped by and
piled up behind the stone railway bridge, and there
caught fire, the resistless flood, to get out, sweeping
away nearly the whole town in the valley bottom.
This vast calamity destroyed from three to five thou-
316 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
sand lives, for no accurate estimate could be ever
made, and ten millions of property. It took the flood
about seven minutes of actual time to pass over the
fifteen miles between the lake and Johnstown, and
there was left, after it had passed, a wide bed, like a
great Alpine glacial moraine, filled with ponderous
masses of sand and stones and wreckage of every
description, the resistless torrent being afterwards re-
duced to a little stream of running water. It required
many months to recover from this appalling destruc-
tion; but the people went to work with a will and re-
built the town, the steel works and the railway, which
for a dozen miles down the valley had been com-
pletely obliterated. This terrible disaster excited
universal sympathy, and a relief fund amounting to
nearly $3,000,000 was contributed from all parts of
the world.
LIGONIER AND HANNASTOWN.
The whole mountain district west of Johnstown is
filled with coal mines, coke ovens and iron furnaces,
this being the “Pittsburg Coal District.” The Con-
emaugh breaks through the next western ridge, the
Laurel Mountain, and the broademing river winds
along its deep valley between high wooded hills. It
is a veritable “Black Country,” and ten miles beyond,
the river passes the finest mountain gorge on the
western slope of the Alleghenies, the deep and wind-
ing canyon of the Packsaddle Narrows, by which the
Comcmaugh breaks out of the Chestnut Ridge, the
LIGONIER AND HANNASTOWN. 317
western border of the Allegheny ranges. For two
hundred miles the railroad has gone through or over
range after range, and this grand pass, encompassed
by mountains rising twelve hundred feet above the
bottom of the gorge, is the impressive exit at the
final portal. The main railroad then leaves the
Conemaugh, and goes off southwestward along the
slope of Chestnut Ridge towards Greensburg and
Pittsburg. The river unites with the Loyalhamma
Creek below, and then flows as the Kiskiminetas
down to the Allegheny. The name of Loyalhamma
’ while the tradition is
means the “middle stream,”
that an impatient Indian warrior, anxious to move
forward, shouted in the night to his comrades en-
camped on the other river—“Giesh-gumanito”—
and from this was derived
“let us make daylight.”
its name of Kiskiminetas. A branch railroad from
here goes to Blairsville, named in memory of the
solitary pioneer of Blair's Gap, and another northward
leads to the town of Indiana. The great Chestnut
Ridge which the main railway runs along, gradually
descending the slope, is the last mountain the west-
bound traveller sees until he reaches the Rockies.
For seventy miles to the southwestward the Chestnut
Ridge and Laurel Mountain extend in parallels, their
crest lines being almost exactly ten miles apart, and
enclosing the Ligonier Valley, out of which flows
northward the Loyalhamma Creek, breaking through
the Chestnut Ridge. Near this pass in 1757 was
318 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
©
built Fort Ligonier, another of the frontier outposts
which resisted the incursions of the French and In-
dians, who then held all the country to the westward.
In the Chestnut Ridge at Hillside is the “Great
Bear Cave,” an extensive labyrinth of passages and
spacious chambers stretching more than a mile um-
derground, which, like most such places, has its sub-
terranean river and its tale of woe. A young girl,
stolen by gypsies, to escape from them took refuge
in this cave, and losing her way, perished, her bones
being found years afterwards. Explorers since have
always unwound balls of twine in this labyrinth, to be
able to retrace their steps.
In a good farming district of the Westmoreland
region is Greensburg, another railway junction where
branches go southward to the Monongahela coal-
fields. Robert Hanna built a house near here in the
eighteenth century, around which gathered some
thirty log cabins, and the place in course of time be-
came known as Hannastown, prominent in the early
history of Western Pennsylvania. Here was held
the first court convened west of the Alleghenies, and
here were passed the patriotic resolutions of May 16,
1775, upon receipt of the news of the battle of Lex-
ington at the opening of the Revolution, which
sounded the keynote for the Declaration of Inde-
pendence the following year. Here also first ap-
peared during the Revolution General Arthur St.
Clair, an immigrant from Scotland, the grandson of
BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 319
the Earl of Roslyn, who lived in an humble house on
Chestnut Ridge. He served in the French and In-
dian wars, and was the British commander at Fort
Ligonier. Horrible Indian massacres and terrible
retributions by the settlers were the chief features
of the Revolutionary War in Westmoreland. At its
close, the whites sent an expedition in 1782 against
the Wyandottes, which was defeated. The savages
soon wreaked fearful vengeance, raiding the region
in July of that year and burning Hannastown, which
was never rebuilt. Greensburg appeared soon after-
wards, however, and in 1875 it celebrated the cen-
tenary of the Hannastown resolutions with patriotic
spirit. In its Presbyterian churchyard lie the re-
mains of General St. Clair, who, after founding and
maming the city of Cincinnati, returned here, and
died in 1818, at the age of eighty-four, in his lonely
cabin on Chestnut Ridge, in unmerited poverty and
obscurity. The stone over his grave has this sig-
mificant inscription : “The earthly remains of Gen-
eral Arthur St. Clair are deposited beneath this
humble monument, which is erected to supply the
place of a nobler one due from his country.” Being
in a region of fine agriculture and prolific mines,
Greensburg is a prosperous and wealthy town.
BRADDOCK's DEFEAT.
Natural gas is added to coal and coke in the re-
gion beyond Greensburg, and the villages display
320 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
flaring gas torches at night for street lamps. The
whole country, north, south and west, is a network of
railways and a maze of mines, having long rows of
burning coke ovens lighting the sky with their lurid
glare. Here are mined the Westmoreland gas coals.
The valley of the Monongahela River, coming up
from West Virginia, approaches from the southward,
a great highway for coal boats out to the Ohio and
the West, also receiving a large coal tribute from its
branch, the Youghiogheny, flowing by crooked
course through Fayette County. Alongside the
Monongahela is the great Edgar Thomson Steel
Works, one of the chief establishments of the Car-
negie Steel Company, making railway rails. Here is
the famous Colonial battlefield of Western Pennsyl-
vania, made immortal by General Braddock's defeat
in July, 1755. This region was then a thick forest,
through which an Indian trail coming over the Mo-
mongahela led to the junction of the two rivers form-
ing the Ohio, where the French had established their
stockade and trading post of Fort Duquesne. Brad-
dock came into this region from beyond the moun-
tains, his object being the capture of the fort. His
defeat, a great event in our Colonial history, was due
to his ignorance of the methods of Indian fighting
and his refusal to listen to those who understood it;
but he paid the penalty with his life, being shot, as
was believed at the time, by one of his own men,
after having had five horses shot under him. It was
THE GREAT IRON CITY. 321
in rallying the defeated remnant that Washington,
the senior surviving officer, won his first military
laurels. Braddock crossed the river and was caught
in an ambuscade, eight hundred and fifty French and
Indians surprising and defeating his force of about
twenty-five hundred British regulars and Virginia
Provincial troops, the loss being nearly eight hun-
dred. Washington led the remnant back to Vir-
ginia, carrying Braddock about forty miles on the
retreat, when he died. He was buried at night in
the centre of the road, Washington reading the Epis-
copal burial service by torchlight, and the defeated
army marched over the grave to conceal its location
from the enemy. A handsome monument is erected
on the battlefield at Braddock's. And thus, through
iron mills and coal mines, amid smoke and busy in-
dustry, the Pennsylvania Railroad enters Pittsburg,
the “Iron City.”
THE GREAT IRON CITY,
The Monongahela River coming from the south-
ward, and the Allegheny River flowing from the
northward, drain the western defiles of the Alleghe-
mies, and at Pittsburg unite to form the Ohio River.
Each comes to the junction through a deeply-cut
canyon, and at the confluence is a triangular flat upon
which the original town was built. Like most Amer-
ican rivers, all these have mames of Indian origin.
Monongahela is the “river of high banks, breaking
VoI. I.-21
322 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
off in places and falling down.” Ohio is a Seneca
word, originally pronounced “O-hee-o,” and meaning
the “beautiful river” or the “fair water,” and Alle-
gheny in the language of the Delawares has much
the same signification, meaning “the fairest stream.”
All the Indians regarded the two as really the same
river, of which the Monongahela was a tributary.
The first white men exploring this region were the
French, who came down from the lakes and Canada,
when they spread through the entire Mississippi
Valley. In 1753, however, Washington with a sur-
veying party was sent out by Virginia and carefully
examined the site of Pittsburg, advising, on his re-
turn, that a fort should be built there to check the ad-
vance of the French, and the next year this was
done. Scarcely was it completed, however, when
the French sent a summons to surrender, addressed
“From the Commander-in-chief of His Most Chris-
tian Majesty's troops now on the Beautiful River to
the Commander of those of Great Britain.” A
French force soon appeared, and the fort was aban-
doned. This began the French and Indian Colonial
War that continued seven years, the French then
erecting their famous fort and trading-post guarding
the head of the Ohio, which they named after the
great French naval commander of the seventeenth
century, Marquis Abraham Duquesne. Then came
Braddock's defeat in 1755, and for some time the re-
gion was quiet. Moravian missionary influence, how-
THE GREAT IRON CITY. 323
ever, had by 1758 detached many of the Indians
from the French interest, and after another British
attack and repulse, General Forbes came with a
large force, and the French abandoned the fort and
blew it up. Immediately rebuilt by the English, a
Virginia garrison occupied the post, and it was
named Fort Pitt. Then a larger fort was built at a
cost of $300,000 and garrisoned by artillery, which
the enemy vainly besieged in 1763. The next year
a town site was laid out near the fort, and in 1770 it
had twenty log houses. After the long succession of
wars and massacres on that frontier had ceased, the
at
first, boat- and vessel-building, and then smelting
village grew, and business began developing
and coal mining and the manufacture of glass. In
1812 the first rolling-mill started, and the war with
England in that year caused the opening of a cannon
foundry, which became the Fort Pitt Iron Works.
The village of Fort Pitt had become Pittsburg, and
expanded vastly with the introduction of steam, and
it became an extensive steamboat builder for the
Western waters. Railroad connections gave it re-
newed impetus; matural gas used as a manufacturing
fuel was a wonderful stimulant; and it now conducts
an enormous trade with all parts of the country, and
is the seat of the greatest iron, steel and glass indus-
tries in America. & -
Few views are more striking than that given from
the high hills overlooking Pittsburg. Rising steeply,
324 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
almost from the water's edge, on the southern bank
of the Monongahela River, is Mount Washington,
three hundred and fifty feet high. Inclined-plane
railways are constructed up the face of this hill, and
mounting to the top, there is a superb view over the
town. The Allegheny River comes from the north-
east and the Monongahela from the southeast, through
deep and winding gorges cut into the rolling table-
land, and uniting form the Ohio, flowing away to the
northwest also through a deep gorge, although its
bordering ridges of hills are more widely separated.
Pittsburg stands upon the low flat surface of the
peninsula, above the junction of the rivers, which has
some clongated ridgy hills, stretching eastward
through the centre. Its situation and appearance
have thus not inaptly been compared to a flatiron,
the point being at the head of the Ohio, and these
ridgy hills making the handle. The city has over-
flowed into extensive suburbs across both rivers, the
aggregate population being more than a half-million.
Numerous bridges span the rivers, the marrow shores
between the steep hills bearing a mixed maze of rail-
ways and factories. Countless chimney-smokes and
steam-jets come up in all directions, overhanging the
town like a pall; and so impressive is the obscuration,
combined with the lurid glare of furnaces and the
weird white gleam of electric lights, that the elevated
view down into Pittsburg seems a veritable pande-
monium. So startling is it on a lowering day that it
|\ittsburgh from (Hyt. U(\lagbington.
Confluence of the Eillegbemy amo (II)onongabela

PITTSBURG DEVELOPMENT. 325
has been pointedly described by one who thus for the
first time looked upon the “Smoky City,” far down
in its deep basin among the high hills, as appearing
like “Hell with the lid off.” There are plenty of
railways in the scene, and scores of odd-looking,
stumpy-prowed little steamboats built high above the
water, having huge stern-wheels to drive them, with
their noses thrust up on the sloping levee along the
river bank, whereon is piled the cargoes, chiefly of
iron products. The swift current turns all the sterns
down stream, so that they lie diagonally towards the
shore. Fleets of flat, shallow coal barges are moored
along, waiting to be made up into tows for their
journey down the Ohio, as Pittsburg has an exten-
sive river trade, covering over twenty thousand miles
of Western waters. Out of the weird and animated
scene there come all sorts of busy noises, forges and
trip-hammers pounding, steam hissing, railroad trains
running, whistles screeching, locomotives puffing,
bells ringing, so that with the flame jets rising, and
the smokes of all colors blowing about, there is got a
good idea of the active industries of this very busy
place.
PITTSBURG DEVELOPMENT.
This wonderful industrial development all came
within the nineteenth century. There is still pre-
served as a relic of its origin the little block-
house citadel of the old Fort Pitt, down near the
point of the peninsula where the rivers join. This
326 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
has recently been restored by the Daughters of the
American Revolution—a small square building with
a pyramidal roof. The surrounding stockade long
ago disappeared. There is in the Pittsburg City
Hall an inscribed tablet from Fort Pitt bearing the
date 1764. The old building, which was the scene
of Pittsburg's earliest history, for it stands almost on
the spot occupied by Fort Duquesne, is among
modern mills and storehouses, about three hundred
feet from the head of the Ohio. Pittsburg, after an
almost exclusive devotion to manufacturing and busi-
mess, began some years ago to cultivate artistic tastes
in architecture, and has some very fine buildings.
There is an elaborate Post-office and an interesting
City Hall on Smithfield Street; but the finest building
of all, and one of the best in the country, is the mag-
nificent Romanesque Court-house, built at a cost of
$2,500,000, and occupying a prominent position on
a hill adjoining Fifth Avenue. There is a massive
jail of similar architecture, and a “Bridge of
Sighs” connects them, a beautifully designed arched
and stone-covered bridge, thrown for a passage-
way across an intervening street. The main tower,
giving a grand view, rises three hundred and twenty
feet over the architectural pile, and, as in Venice, the
convicted prisoner crosses the bridge from his trial
to his doom. There are attractive churches, banks
and business buildings, and eastward from the city,
near Schenley Park, is the attractive Carnegie Li-
PITTSBURG DEVELOPMENT. 327
brary and Museum in Italian Renaissance, with a
capacity for two hundred thousand volumes, a bene-
faction of Mr. Andrew Carnegie, originally costing
$1,100,000, to which he has recently added $1,750-
000 for its enlargement. The residential section is
mainly on the hills east of Pittsburg and across the
Allegheny River in Allegheny City, there being
many attractive villas in beautiful situations on the
surrounding highlands.
But the great Pittsburg attraction is the multitude
of factories that are its pride and create its pros-
perity. Some of these are among the greatest in the
world—the Edgar Thomson Works and Homestead
Works of the Carnegie Steel Company, the Duquesne
Steel Works, the Keystone Bridge Company, and
others. The Edgar Thomas mills make over a mil-
lion tons of rails a year, and at Homestead fifteen
hundred thousand tons of steel will be annually pro-
duced, this being the place where nickel-steel armor-
plates for the navy are manufactured. They largely
use matural gas, and employ at times tem thousand
men at the two great establishments. The Duquesne
Works, just above Homestead on the Monongahela,
have the four largest blast furnaces in the world,
producing twenty-two hundred tons of pig-iron daily.
The Keystone Bridge Works cover seven acres, and
have made some of the greatest steel bridges in ex-
istence. The Westinghouse Electrical Works manu-
facture the greatest dynamos, including those of the
328 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
Niagara Power Company, and the Westinghouse Air-
Brake Works is also another extensive establishment.
In the Pittsburg district, covering about two hundred
square miles, the daily product of mines and factories
is estimated at $6,000,000.
The two men whose mames are most closely con-
nected with Pittsburg's vast industrial development
are Andrew Carnegie and George Westinghouse.
Carnegie was born at Dunfermline, Scotland, in
1837, and his father, a potter, brought him to Pitts-
burg when eleven years old. He began life as a tele-
graph messenger boy, attracted the attention of
Colonel Thomas A. Scott, and was by him brought
into the service of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Then
he entered business, and became the greatest de-
veloper of the iron and steel industries of Pittsburg
and its wealthiest resident. He some time ago sold out
his interests to the Carnegie Steel Company, in which
he is largely interested. Westinghouse, born in New
York State in 1846, combined with business tact the
genius of the inventor. He invented and developed
the railway air-brake now in universal use, has es-
tablished a complete electrical lighting and power sys-
tem, and was the chief adapter of natural gas to
manufacturing and domestic uses, being the inventor
of many ingenious contrivances for its introduction
and economical employment. He had a gas well
almost at his door, for Pittsburg overlaid a great de-
posit. The enormous coal measures underlying and
COAL, COKE AND GAS. 329
surrounding the city have been its most stable basis
for industry and profit, as the Pittsburg coal-field is
one of enormous output. The deposits of Lake Supe-
rior furnish the ores for its furnaces, and the railroad
development is such that each enormous establish-
ment now has its special railroad to fetch in the ores
from Lake Erie, where they are brought by vessels.
Across in Allegheny City, where most of these ore-
bringing roads go out, about one hundred acres in
the centre of the city are reserved for the attrac-
tive Allegheny Park, one portion rising in a very
steep hill, almost at the edge of the Allegheny River.
Upon its top, seen from afar, stands a Soldiers’ Monu-
ment, a graceful column, erected in memory of four
thousand men of Allegheny County who fell in the
Civil War. Soldier statues guard the base, and look
out upon the smokes and steam jets of the busy city
below, and thousands climb up there to enjoy the
grand view. -
COAL, CORE AND GAS.
The four counties adjoining Pittsburg turn out
over thirty millions of tons of bituminous coal in a
year. To carry this coal away, besides railways, the
city has about a million and a half of tonnage of river
craft of various kinds, a greater tonnage than all the
Mississippi River ports put together. Its coal boats
go everywhere throughout the Western water ways,
and two thousand miles down the Ohio and Missis-
sippi to New Orleans. Its stumpy but powerful little
330 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
tugs, with their stern-wheels, will safely convey fleets
of shallow flatboats, sometimes over twenty thousand
tons of coal being carried in a single tow. These flat-
boats are collected in the rivers about Pittsburg,
waiting for the proper stage of water on the Ohio;
and to regulate the depth at the city the curious
movable dam was constructed at Davis's Island, four
miles below Pittsburg, at a cost of $1,000,000, the
dam opening when necessary to let freshets through,
and having a lock five hundred feet long and one
hundred and ten feet wide to pass the boats. The
Monongahela River above Pittsburg has for miles a
series of coal mines in the high bordering banks, the
river being lined with coal “tipples,” which load the
flatboats; and it is also provided with a series of
dams, which aid navigation and divide the channel
into a succession of “pools.” The very crooked
Youghiogheny flows in at McKeesport, fifteen miles
above Pittsburg, another river of coal mines, whose
name was given as a signification of its crookedness by
the matter-of-fact Indians, the word signifying “ the
stream flowing a contrary, roundabout course.” This
river comes northward out of the chief coke district of
America, in the flanks of the long Chestnut Ridge, the
Connellsville coke region sometimes turning out ten
millions of tons annually from its ovens. Railways
run in there on both river banks to Connellsville, a
town of six thousand people, in the midst of the coke
ovens, and about fifty-six miles south of Pittsburg.
COAL, COKE AND GAS. 331
Pittsburg is decreasing its use of natural gas for
manufacturing, as the diminishing supply and greater
distance it has to be brought are making it too costly
for the iron and glass works, which are returning
again to coal and coke, but the city is still said to use
forty-five thousand millions of cubic feet in a year,
mostly for domestic purposes. Pittsburg stands in a
great but partly exhausted natural-gas district. The
gas is stored under pressure beneath strata of rock,
being set free when these are pierced. This is a
gaseous member of the paraffin series, of which
petroleum is a liquid member, and is mainly marsh-
gas, the “fire-damp' of the miner. It originates in
the decomposition of animal and vegetable life, and
usually has but little odor, whilst its illuminating
power is low, but in fuel value eight cubic feet equal
one pound of coal. It was first used at Fredonia,
New York, in 1821, for lighting purposes, being pro-
cured from a well. The natural-gas region is the part
of Pennsylvania west of the Alleghenies, extending
into New York, Ohio and West Virginia; and gas is
also found in Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky and Kan-
sas. It is held under enormous pressure within the
pockets beneath the rocks, and when first reached in
drilling, the tension has been known to equal a thou-
sand pounds per square inch. It is not uncommon,
when a well is drilled, to have all the tools and casing-
pipe blown out, while an enormous thickness of
masonry has to be constructed to hold down the cap
332 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
that covers the well. Its use began in Pittsburg in
1886, the chief field of supply then being Murrys-
ville, about twenty miles east of the city, while there
are also other fields southwest and east of Pittsburg.
The pipes underlie all the streets, and a main route
of supply is along the bed of the Allegheny River.
There are said to be about sixteen hundred miles of
pipes laid down to lead the gas to Pittsburg from
the different fields.
PETROLEUMI.
The great petroleum fields lie in and near the
Pittsburg region, in the basin of the Allegheny and
Ohio Rivers, and extend from New York southwest
to West Virginia, and also into Ohio. This region
has had enormous yields in different parts of the
river basin, the wells, however, ultimately dwindling
as their supplies are drawn out. The petroleum in-
dustry, which has been one of the greatest in Penn-
sylvania, has been gradually all absorbed by the
Standard Oil Company, which is probably the most
extensive industrial combination in America, and cer-
tainly the most powerful. Yet we are told that
those financial magnates began their wonderful
career with an aggregate capital of only $24,000,
largely borrowed money. There have been forty
millions of barrels of petroleum taken from this great
basin in a single year. The oil wells are bored in
many places, south, southwest, north and northeast
of Pittsburg. The “Panhandle Railroad,” which
PETROLEUM. 333
crosses West Virginia to the Ohio, exhibits many of
them. A branch of this railroad goes to Canons-
burg, and thence to the town of Washington, on the
old “National Road,” thirty miles from Pittsburg.
At Canonsburg was founded in 1773 Jefferson Col-
lege, in a log cabin, which has now become the Jef-
ferson Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian
Church. Washington is a town of about four thou-
sand people, rambling over a pleasant hilly region in
Southwestern Pennsylvania, having as its chief insti-
tution Washington and Jefferson College, also a
Presbyterian foundation, started in 1806 in what
was then a remote Scotch-Irish colony beyond the
mountains. Near this town in 1888 were struck the
greatest petroleum wells the world ever knew. One
of them, the Jumbo well, in sixty days after the first
strike had poured out one hundred and forty thou-
sand barrels of oil, flowing a steady circular stream
of almost white oil, about five inches in diameter, at
the rate of forty-two hundred gallons an hour. An-
other well, afterwards bored not far away, in its
freshness of infancy poured out sixty-three hundred
gallons an hour. Additional wells were bored with
almost the same results; but they all afterwards
dwindled, and finally ceasing a free flow, had to be
pumped. This is the universal experience of all the
“gushers,” soon after the great
oil regions, the
strikes, giving out, as the store of petroleum in the
reservoirs beneath becomes exhausted. But all this
334 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
shows how enormous is the natural wealth of the
Pittsburg district—oil, coal, coke and gas, with iron,
steel and glass, electricity and railways, contributing
to the wonderful prosperity.
The greatest petroleum field, however, was up the
Allegheny River, in Northwestern Pennsylvania, and
the first wells bored to obtain it were sunk at Ti-
tusville, on Oil Creek, in 1859. The early settlers
knew of the appearance of oil about the headwaters
of the Allegheny in New York and Pennsylvania,
and the name of Oil Creek was given a stream for
this reason in Allegheny County, New York, and also
to the one in Venango County, Pennsylvania. The
Indians had long collected the oil on the shores of
Seneca Lake in New York, a course that the white
settlers followed, and it was for years sold as a medi-
cine by the mame of Seneca or Genesee oil. When
its commercial value for illuminating purposes began
to be recognized, Colonel E. L. Drake went to Titus-
ville to see if it could be obtained in sufficient quan-
tities. He bored the first well about a mile south of
Titusville, and on August 26, 1859, the oil was
struck at a depth of seventy-one feet. The drill
suddenly sunk into the cavity of the rock beneath,
and the oil rose within a few inches of the surface.
A small pump was introduced which brought out four
hundred gallons daily, and then a large pump, in-
creasing the daily flow to a thousand gallons. Soon
a steam-engine was applied, and the flow continued
ASCENDING THE ALLEGHENY. 335
uninterrupted for weeks. Titusville had at the time
three hundred people. Many wells were sunk in the
meighborhood with varying success, and the product
of the Oil Creek district became so large that the
market could not absorb it, and at the beginning of
1861, with two thousand wells in operation, the price
declined to twenty-five cents per barrel. The two
great wells were the Empire, originally yielding
twenty-five hundred barrels daily, and the Phillips,
nearly four thousand barrels. In 1863 the produc-
tion had slackened, but the uses had expanded, and
prices rose proportionately. Vast fortunes were then
rapidly made, and as soon squandered. In the first
twelve years of the development of this district,
which extended over about four hundred square
miles, there were taken from some four thousand
wells forty-two millions of barrels of oil, which were
marketed for $163,000,000. At first it was carried
away by the railroads, of which several sent branches
into the district, but there have since been laid ex-
tensive lines of pipes which convey it in various di-
rections, and largely to New York and Philadelphia
for foreign export. When this district was at the
height of its yield it produced four hundred millions
of gallons a year.
ASCENDING THE ALLEGIHENY.
From Pittsburg, through bold and pleasing scenery,
we ascend the Allegheny River, the broad channel
336 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
flowing grandly around stately bends enclosed be-
tween high hills. Thirty miles above Pittsburg the
Kiskiminetas comes in, and in a region of coal
mines and furnaces is found the town of Kittanning,
which retains the name of the Indian village standing
there in Colonial days. This original Indian village
was attacked by Colonel Armstrong and three hun-
dred troops at dawn on August 8, 1757, and the In-
dians, who sided with the French, refusing to sur-
render, they were pretty much all killed and their
village burnt. Armstrong's name is preserved in the
county. Beyond is Brady’s Bend, a great curve of
the river, and here are seen the derricks of many de-
serted oil wells, as the farther journey above for
miles also discloses. This was the Modoc oil district.
The Morrison well was struck in 1872, yielding five
hundred barrels daily, and immediately a town was
laid out, not inappropriately called Greece City, and
it soon had a large population. This was a prolific
oil region at one time, and back from the river were
the well-known oleaginous towns of Modoc City,
Karms City and Petrolia. The Allegheny River
gradually leads us up to Venango County, which was
the chief oil region. Franklin, the capital of the
county, has about five thousand inhabitants, and is
built at the mouth of French Creek, the site of the
old French Fort Venango, which Indian word meant
)
“a guiding mark on a tree.” It stood on a command-
ing ridge, and was one of the chain of posts the
ASCENDING THE ALLEGEIENY. 337
French built from the lakes across to the Ohio, to
hold their possessions, dating from 1753. The French
had a large garrison there, but after Canada was cap-
tured the English got possession, and in 1763 it was
the scene of a terrible massacre, the Indians taking
it, murdering the entire garrison, and slowly roasting
the commandant to death. -
Five miles above, Oil Creek flows into the Alle-
gheny, and here is Oil City, the petroleum head-
quarters. It has had a varying history, being once
almost destroyed by flood and twice by fire, but
maintains its supremacy and is a complete oil town
—the air filled with petroleum odors, and the lower
streets saturated with the fluid. On the Allegheny,
mine miles from Oil City, is Oleopolis, and a short
distance inland is Pithole City, which was one of the
famous oil towns whose rise and decline were so pho-
momenal. A few farmers here tried to get a scanty
subsistence from the rocky and almost barrem soil,
where, on a hill, there was a fissure two to four feet
“pithole,” from which came out at
wide, called the
intervals hot air and bad smells. This was on the
Holmden farm, which had been nominally valued at
five dollars an acre. Somebody thought he detected
the smell of oil among the odors coming up, and a
well was bored. It struck oil in the winter of 1864–
65, and was the greatest strike made down to that
time—the United States Well yielding seven thou-
sand barrels daily. Multitudes flocked thither, and
VOL. I.-22
338 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
in six months Pithole City arose in the wilderness
with fifteen thousand inhabitants, two theatres, an
opera house, a daily newspaper, and seventy-two
hotels of various degrees. Numerous wells were
sunk, and the oil sold at $5 to $8 per barrel, being
readily sent to the seaboard. The Holmden farm
was soon sold for $4,000,000. There were some
amazing speculative trades made. The story is told
of a well striking oil and a speculative bystander at
once buying a three-fourths interest in it for $18,000,
agreeing to pay the money next day. Turning away
from the seller, he met a man seeking such an invest-
ment, and promptly resold his interest for $75,000,
receiving immediate payment. The yield of this re-
gion was so prolific that railroads and pipe lines were
soon constructed to carry the oil away. Pithole had
its great boom in the autumn of 1866, wells being
bored in every direction, and real estate fetching
enormous prices. One old fellow who had a few
acres of arid land in the centre of the excitement sold
his farm and hovel for $800,000, paid him on the spot
in $1000 motes; and then he sorrowfully bemoaned,
as he took a last look at the hovel he had occupied
all his life, “Now I haint got any home.” The rise
of this wonderful town was rapid, and its downfall
came all too soon. The oil supply became exhausted,
the speculators left, the inhabitants dwindled in num-
ber, and by 1870 Pithole had reverted almost to its
original condition. The chief hotel, which had cost
ASCENDING THE ALLEGEIENY. 339
$31,000 to build, was afterwards sold for $100, and
the population had declined in 1873 to mine families.
The valley of Oil Creek is filled with derricks and
oil tanks, having a few pumping engines at work, but
most of the derricks are over abandoned wells. Eigh-
teen miles up Oil Creek is Titusville, and when the
oil yield was at its height, about 1865, this valley
had a population of seventy-five thousand people.
Titusville is pleasantly built in the broadened inter-
vale, surrounded by hills, the streets being wide and
straight, and the residences comfortable, each in its
garden enclosure. There are oil refineries, and iron
works which make engines, tubing and other sup-
plies; and the town, which has eight thousand people,
is a headquarters for the Standard Oil Company.
Twenty-seven miles farther northward is Corry, a
prominent railroad centre, at the northern entrance
to the Pennsylvania. “Oil Dorado,” as the region has
been popularly called. Its name of Corry was that
of the farmer who originally cultivated the soil when
the place became a railway station in 1861, and the
location of oil refineries them began its prosperity.
There are now about six thousand inhabitants. It is
within a short distance of the New York State boun-
dary, and marks the northern limit of the Pennsylva-
nia oil region. This whole district, once the promi-
ment petroleum field of Pennsylvania, has been
eclipsed, however, by other and more prolific oil
basins. Fortunes were made here, but most of the
340 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
wealth passed away; and the history of the Pennsyl-
vania petroleum trade and its vicissitudes, with the
absorption of everything of value by the Standard
Oil Company, has emphasized the truth so pointedly
told by Robert Burns, that “The best laid schemes
y
o' mice am’ men gang aft a-gley.” Its wonderful
tide of prosperity and its subsequent ebb recall Shel-
ley's lines “To Men of England”:
“The seed ye sow another reaps;
The wealth ye find another keeps;
The robes ye weave another wears;
The arms ye forge another bears.”
VISITING THE SUNNY SOUTH.
V.
VISITING THE SUNNY SOUTH.
Sir Walter Raleigh—Roanoke Island—Virginia Dare—Potatoes—
Tobacco—Carolina—Cape Hatteras—Cyclones—Wilmington
—Fort Fisher—Blockade Running—Charleston–Palmetto
Trees—John C. Calhoun—Fort Moultrie—Osceola's Grave—
Fort Sumter—Opening of the Civil War—The Swamp Angel
—St. Michael’s Church—Port Royal—Savannah—General
Oglethorpe –Count Pulaski—Fort Pulaski—Bonaventure
Cemetery—Okifenokee Swamp—Jacksonville—The Alligator
—Oranges—Land of Flowers–Juan Ponce de Leon–Ferdi-
mand de Soto–The Huguenots—Pedro Menendez--Dominique
de Gourgues—Florida Peculiarities—Cumberland Sound—St.
Mary’s River—Cumberland Island–Jekyll Island–Amelia
Island — Fernandina — Dungeness — General Greene—Light
Horse Harry—St. Augustine—Matanzas River—Anastasia
Island—Coquina—Fort San Marco–Fort Marion—Grand
Hotels—Dade's Massacre—Coa-coo-chee, the Wildcat—Or-
mond––Daytona–New Smyrna—The Southern Çassadega—
Indian River—Titusville—Rockledge—Fort Pierce—-Jupiter
Inlet—Palm Beach—Miami—Biscayne Bay—St. John’s River
—Mandarin—-Palatka–Ocklawaha River—Lake Apopka—
Lake Eustis Region—Ocala—The Silver Spring—Navigating
the Ocklawaha—Lake George—Volusia—Lake Monroe—En-
terprise—Sanford—Winter Park—Orlando—Lake Tohopeka-
liga–Kissimmee River—Lake Okeechobee–The Everglades
—Lake Arpeika—The Seminoles—Suwanee River—Cedar
Key–Tallahassee—Achille Murat—Wakulla Spring—Appa-
lachicola—Pensacola—Homosassa—Tampa-Charlotte Har-
bor—Punta Gorda— Caloosahatchie River—Fort Myers—
Cape Romano—Cape Sable——Florida Keys—Coral Building
—The Gulf Stream--Key West—Fort Taylor—Sand Key—
Dry Tortugas—Fort Jefferson—Florida Attractions.
( 343)
344 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
CAROLINA.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH, of chivalrous memory, sent
the first English colony to America in the sixteenth
century. He was a half-brother of Sir Humphrey
Gilbert, the English explorer, and had previously ac-
companied Gilbert to Newfoundland. He sent out
an expedition in 1584, which selected Roanoke
Island, south of the Chesapeake, for a settlement,
and for this enterprise Queen Elizabeth knighted
Raleigh, gave him a grant of the whole country, and
directed that the new land be named in her honor,
Virginia. In 1585–86 colonizing expeditions were
sent to Roanoke, but they did not prosper. The
colonists quarrelled with the Indians, and in the latter
year the Governor returned to England for provisions
and reinforcements, leaving behind with the colony
his daughter, Mrs. Dare, and a granddaughter, nine
days old, Virginia Dare, the first English child born
in the new land. Then came the Spanish Armada to
conquer England, and the long war with Spain. No-
body went to succor the little band of exiles on Roan-
oke Island for three years, and when they did, the set-
tlement was obliterated, the hundred colonists and
little Virginia Dare had disappeared, and no tidings
of them were ever obtained. Thus perished Raleigh's
colony; and, his means being exhausted, he was dis-
couraged and sent no more expeditions out to
America. His enterprise failed in making a perma-
CAROLINA. 345
nent settlement, but it gave two priceless gifts to
Europe. The returning Governor took back to Eng-
land the potato, which Raleigh planted on his Irish
estate and which has proved the salvation of old
Erin, and also the Virginia tobacco, which he taught
the people to smoke, and the fragrant weed became
the solace of the world.
No further attempts at colonization were made
until the seventeenth century, when new grants were
issued, and the country was named Carolina in honor
of King Charles I. The Atlantic Coast south of the
Chesapeake Bay entrañce is low and bordered by
sand beaches, which for most of the distance in front
of North Carolina are far eastward of the mainland,
with broad sounds and river estuaries between.
These long and marrow beaches protrude in some
cases a hundred miles into the ocean and form dan-
gerous shoals, the extensive Albemarle and Pamlico
Sounds being enclosed by them, the former stretch-
ing fifty miles and the latter seventy-five miles into
the land. Out in front of Pamlico Sound projects
the shoulder of Cape Hatteras into the Atlantic, the
outer point of a low, sandy island, with shoals ex-
tending far beyond it, and marked by the great
beacon of this dangerous coast, a flashing light one
hundred and ninety feet high. Here is the principal
storm factory of the southern coast, noted for cyclonic
disturbances and dreaded by the mariner. Upon the
outer Diamond Shoals the Government has long tried
346 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
in vain to erect a lighthouse. A lightship is kept
there, but is frequently blown from her moorings and
drifts ashore. The Gulf Stream, coming with warm
and speedy current up from Florida, is here diverged
out into the ocean by the shoulder of Hatteras; and,
similarly, the whirling West India cyclones of enor-
mous area come along with their resistless energy,
destroying overything in their paths. In the terrific
hurricane of the autumn of 1899 a wind velocity of
one hundred and sixty miles an hour was reached
momentarily, and the anemometer at Hatteras was
blown down after having recorded a velocity of one
hundred and twenty miles. The actual force exerted
by one of these great cyclones in its work of devas-
tation, which uproots trees, demolishes buildings and
strews the coast with wrecks, has been calculated as
equalling one thousand million horse-power.
WILMINGTON AND FORT FISHER.
The interior of North Carolina adjoining the Sounds
is largely swamp land, and the broad belt of forest,
chiefly pines, which parallels the coast all along the
Atlantic seaboard. Through this region the railway
extends southward from Virginia past Weldom to
Wilmington, an uninteresting route among the
swamps and pine lands, showing sparse settlement
and poor agriculture, the wood paths exhibiting an
occasional ox-team or a stray horseman going home
with his supplies from the cross-roads store, a typical
WILMINGTON AND FORT FISHER 347
representative of the “tar-heels of Carolina.” The
railway crosses the deep valley of Roanoke River,
and then over the Tar and Neuse Rivers, traversing
the extensive district that provides the world's great-
est supply of maval stores—the tar, pitch, turpentime,
rosin and timber that are so largely shipped out of
the Cape Fear River from Wilmington. This is the
chief city of North Carolina, having about twenty
thousand people, and is located on the Cape Fear
River twenty-six miles from its mouth. The city
spreads along the eastern shore upon the peninsula
between it and the ocean. The first settlement ante-
dates the Revolution, when the inhabitants, who were
sturdy patriots, drove out the royal Governor and
made Fort Johnson, at the mouth of the river, an
American stronghold. Upon the secession of the
Carolinas in 1860–61 this fort was occupied by the
Confederates and replaced by the larger work on
Federal Point, between the river and the sea, known
as Fort Fisher. Owing to the peculiar location and
ease of entrance, the Cape Fear River became famous
in the Civil War as a haven for blockade-runners,
the effective defense made by Fort Fisher fully pro-
tecting this traffic. As the Union blockade of the
Southern harbors became more completely effective
with the progress of the war, this finally was about
the only port that could be entered, and an enormous
traffic was kept up between Wilmington and Nassau,
on the British island of New Providence, in the Ba-
348 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
hamas, not far away, some three hundred fleet for-
eign steamships safely running the blockade into
Cape Fear River during 1863 and 1864. The no-
toriety of this traffic, from which enormous profits
were made, became world-wide, and it was decided
late in 1864 that Fort Fisher had to be captured, in
order to make the Southern blockade entirely effec-
tive. A joint land and naval attack was made by
General Butler and Admiral Porter in December,
1864, but they were obliged to retire without seri-
ously damaging the fort. Then General Butler in-
effectively attempted to blow up the fort by explod-
ing a powder-boat near it. Finally a mew expedition
was landed in January, 1865, under General Terry,
and in coöperation with the navy, which made a fierce
bombardment, they captured the fort on the 15th,
after severe loss, the works being partially destroyed
the following day by the accidental explosion of the
powder magazine. This capture ended the blockade-
running at Wilmington, and had much to do with
precipitating the fall of Richmond in the following
April.
CHARLESTON AND FORT SUMTER.
The railway from Wilmington to the South at first
goes westward through a region largely composed of
swamps, and then entering South Carolina turns
southward past Florence to Charleston. The country
is a variation of pine barrens and morass, sparsely
inhabited, but raising much cotton, with many bales
CHARIESTON AND FORT SUMTER. 349
brought to the stations for shipment. There is a
much larger population of blacks than of whites.
Charleston, the metropolis of South Carolina, is an
active seaport with sixty-five thousand inhabitants,
having a good export trade in cottom, timber, naval
stores, rice, fruits and phosphate rock, of which there
are extensive deposits on Ashley River nearby. It
is a low-lying city, built upon a peninsula between
the Ashley and Cooper Rivers, just inland from the
ocean, and having a good harbor. Its many wooden
houses are varied by more pretentious ones of brick
and stone, but there is an air of decadence produced
by the traces still remaining of the earthquake of
1886, which destroyed the greater part of the build-
ings and killed many people. The dwelling archi-
tecture of Charleston presents the tropical features
of open verandas, spacious porticos and broad win-
dows looking out upon gardens in which the palmetto
tree grows, typical of South Carolina, the “Palmetto
State.” At the point of the peninsula between the
rivers is the Battery, a park and popular promenade
overlooking the harbor, with Fort Sumter down on its
little shoal-like island, seen as a small dark streak
upon the distant horizon. The first settlements in
this part of South Carolina were made on the west
bank of Ashley River, but the town, which had been
named in honor of King Charles II., in 1680 was
transferred to its present site. Charleston was promi-
ment in the Revolution, its troops under Colonel
350 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
Moultrie repelling a British attack upon Sullivan's
Island in 1776; but the city was captured by Sir
Henry Clinton in 1780 after an obstimate defense.
Before the Civil War it was the chief cottom-ship-
ping port of America, though it is now surpassed by
the Gulf ports and by Savannah. The great memory
in the city of that time of its greatest prosperity is
of the apostle of “State Rights,” the South Carolina
statesman, John C. Calhoun, who died in 1850. His
statue stands in Citadel Square, and his grave is in
St. Philip's churchyard.
The broad estuary of Charleston harbor is com-
pletely landlocked, and has an entrance from the sea
about a mile wide. On the southern side is Fort
Moultrie, which was enlarged from the battery that
repulsed the British attack in 1776, on Sullivan's
Island, this now being a favorite summer resort, and
dotted with wooden cottages facing the sea. Just
behind the fort is the grave of Osceola, the famous
chief of the Seminoles, who long carried on war in
the Florida everglades, but was captured and brought
a prisoner to Fort Moultrie, dying in 1838. Fort
Sumter, three miles below Charleston, stands upon a
shoal of about three acres, out in mid-channel, which
is protected from the water encroachment by stone
rip-rapping. It was faced with brick during the
Civil War, but the work has since been modernized.
At the opening of the war, Major Anderson occupied
this fort with the small force of seventy-five men,
CHARLESTON AND FORT SUMTER. 351
which, after the secession of South Carolina from the
Union, December 20, 1860, had been transferred
thither from Fort Moultrie, the State troops imme-
diately seizing Moultrie and all the other forts around
the harbor, and the Federal public buildings in
Charleston. They also constructed new batteries on
Morris Island, the nearest land to Fort Sumter. On
January 9, 1861, the Government at Washington
sent the steamer “Star of the West' into the harbor
with provisions and a reinforcement of two hundred
and fifty troops. The first shot of the Civil War was
on that day fired at her from Morris Island, and the
ship being struck by this and subsequent shots, her
commander abandoned the project and withdrew.
There was a good deal of negotiation and delay after-
wards, the Government, on April 8th, finally deter-
mining to provision Fort Sumter, as Anderson's
supplies would be exhausted on the 15th, and so in-
forming the Governor of South Carolina. On the
11th, General Beauregard, commanding the State
forces, demanded the surrender of the fort, which was
refused. Major Anderson was notified early next
morning that the fort would be fired upon in one
hour, and cannomading began at 4.20 A.M. on the 12th.
A fleet of vessels appeared off the harbor at noon with
provisions, exchanged signals with the fort, but made
mo attempt to land, and on the 13th terms of surrender
were arranged by which Major Anderson and his
little command marched out on the 14th with the
352 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
honors of war, saluting the American flag with fifty
guns. This bombardment and evacuation set the
North in a blaze of patriotic excitement and began
the Civil War.
The naval forces of the United States attacked
Fort Sumter in April, 1863, but were repulsed, the
monitor “Keokuk’ being so seriously injured that
she afterwards sunk. Subsequently, the Union troops
landed on Morris Island, erected batteries, and in
August partly destroyed the works at Sumter; and
its bombardment, and also that of Charleston, con-
tinued with but brief intermission till the war closed
in 1865. On Morris Island was set up the original
“long-range gun,” General Gillmore’s “Swamp
Angel,” now adorning a drinking-fountain at Tren-
tom, New Jersey; and its ability, until it unfortu-
mately burst, to shoot its bolts into Charleston, then
regarded as an almost impossible distance to carry a
projectile, attracted the attention of gunnery experts
throughout the world. Its conspicuous mark was the
white spire of St. Michael's Church up in the be-
leaguered city. This famous old church, dating from
1752, was struck six times during these attacks and
seriously damaged. It was also partly demolished
by a cyclone in 1885, and nearly destroyed by the
earthquake of 1886; but it has been since restored,
and its prominent steeple commands a good view.
Charleston, however, seems to have always been used
to this sort of thing. Its statue of William Pitt in
CŞn the £13 bley, near Çbarleston, 35. C.


THE CITY OF SAVANNAH. 353
front of the City Hall had the right arm broken off by
a British cannon-shot in 1780. But if the city is thus
somewhat in dilapidation, its grand development of
foliage and flowers gives a compensation. Everywhere
in the suburbs and in the streets and gardens are seen
magnificent azaleas, magnolias, camellias, and the fa-
mous live oak, which flourish in luxuriance and add to
the charms of this restful South Carolina metropolis.
THE CITY OF SAVANNAH.
The seacoast of South Carolina and Georgia is
composed largely of deeply indented bays, with
many islands, tortuous bayous, and a labyrinth of
water ways bordered by dense vegetation. South-
ward from Charleston harbor to the Savannah River
many creeks provide a system of inland navigation
and form fertile islands. There are two capacious
Sounds, St. Helena and Port Royal, the latter being
one of the finest harbors in the world, and the ren-
dezvous of the American North Atlantic naval
squadron when in these waters. This was the place
of first landing of the original South Carolina colo-
mists before they went to the Ashley River, and its
chief town now is Beaufort, on St. Helena Island.
These coast islands raise the famous “sea-island
cotton,” and the whole lowland region produces pro-
lific crops of rice. The adjacent land is generally
swampy, and its chief industry, outside of cultivat-
ing the fields, is the working of the extensive phos-
VOL. I.-23
354 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
phate deposits, which are manufactured into fertil-
izers. The railway, largely constructed on piles,
passes through much marsh and morass, crosses
swift-running dirty streams, and over the swamps
and among the pine timber, varied by the oak, bay
tree and laurel, which the humid atmosphere has
hung with garlands of sombre gray moss and clusters
of ivy and other creeping plants. The festooned
moss, overrunning and often destroying the foliage
of the trees, gives the scene a weird and ghostly ap-
pearance. The railway route is bordered by an ap-
parently almost impenetrable jungle, the few settle-
ments are widely separated, and population is sparse,
seeming to be chiefly negroes dressed in ancient-
looking clothing ornamented with patches. The few
whites who appear are bilious and yellowish, their
complexioms and garb being alike of the butternut
hue, while both races seem to talk the same dialect.
Thus moving farther southward, the Carolina “tar-
heels” are replaced by the “crackers” and “butter-
nuts,” looking as if they had been rolled for a gen-
eration in the clayey soils drained by the Edisto,
Coosaw hatchie and Savannah Rivers and their neigh-
boring streams, and who, farther inland, are the
“clay-eaters” of Georgia. Then crossing the Sa-
vannah River, the route is upon the level lowlands
down its Georgia bank, and into the city of Savan-
mah, arriving amid a vast collection of rosin and pitch
barrels, cotton bales and timber.
THE CITY OF SAVANNAII. 355
Savannah—derived from the Spanish word Sabana,
a “meadow or plain *-is known popularly as the
“Forest City,” and is built upon a bluff along the
river shore, eighteen miles from the sea. It has
fifty thousand people and a large export trade in
naval stores, rice, timber and cotton, in the latter ex-
port being second only to New Orleans. It received
great impetus after the Civil War, owing to its ex-
cellent railway connections with the interior, and is
now the chief port of the Southern Atlantic coast.
The city extends upon a level sandy plain, stretch-
ing back from the bluff shore along the river, has
broad streets crossing at right angles, with small
parks at the intersections, and many trees border
the streets and fill the parks, so that it is fairly
embowered in foliage, thus presenting an attractive
and novel appearance. This adornment makes Sa-
vannah the most beautiful city of the coast—the oak,
palmetto and magnolia, with the holly, orange, creep-
ing ivy and clustering vines, setting the buildings in
a framework of delicious green. The business quar-
ter is along the bluff, where the ships moor alongside
the storehouses, which have their upper stories on a
level with the busy Bay Street at its top. Much of
the present beauty of the city is due to the foresight
of its founder who laid out the plan—General Ogle-
thorpe, who selected this place in 1733 for the capi-
tal of his Province of Georgia, the youngest of the
original thirteen colonies.
356 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
General James Edward Oglethorpe was a native
of London and an officer in the British army, who,
being of philanthropic tendencies, obtained a grant
of the Province from King George for the purpose
of providing an asylum for the poor debtors of Eng-
land and a home for the Protestants of all mations.
After founding the city and receiving a colony of
Protestants from Salzburg, he visited England and
brought out John and Charles Wesley in 1735, and
got George Whitefield to come and preach to the
colonists in 1737. War breaking out with Spain, he
attacked Florida, carrying his invasion to the gates
of St. Augustine, but was repulsed. He returned to
England in 1743, but though he lived until 1785 as
a retired general upon half-pay, he never revisited
America. The British captured Savannah in the
Revolution, and repulsed a combined French and
American attempt to recapture it in 1779. In this
attack Count Pulaski fell, and the spot, now Monterey
Square, mear the centre of the city, is marked by
the Pulaski Monument, one of the noblest shafts in
America. Count Pulaski is the patron saint of Sa-
vannah, and Fort Pulaski, named in his honor, guards
the Savannah River entrance from the sea. During
the Civil War, however, this fort was practically use-
less, as it was captured by the Unionists in 1862,
and Tybee Roads, the harbor at the entrance, was
hermetically sealed throughout the war by the block-
ading fleet. General Sherman's triumphant march
THE CITY OF JACKSON VILLE. 357
through Georgia ended in December, 1864, at Sa-
vannah, and his headquarters are still pointed out,
opposite Madison Square. Savannah has a fine
pleasure-ground in Forsyth Park, with its wealth of
trees and ornamental shrubbery, and the adjoining
Parade Ground containing the Confederate Soldiers'
Monument. The favorite route to the southern sub-
urbs is the famous Thunderbolt Shell Road leading to
Thunderbolt River, and noted for its avenues of live
oaks draped with Spanish moss. Here is also the
favorite burial-place, the Bonaventure Cemetery,
where the graves and tombstones are laid out along-
side passages embowered by live oaks, their wide-
stretching, gaunt and angular limbs being richly gar-
landed with the gray moss and encircled by creeping
ivy. The long vista views under these sombre arch-
ways have an elfish look, peculiarly appropriate for a
city of the dead, and it would take little imagination
to conjure up the spirits of the departed and see them
wandering beneath these canopies of shrouds.
THE CITY OF JACKSON VILLE.
Southward from Savannah, the railway route to
Florida renews the monotonous landscape of woods
and swamps. For minety miles it goes in an almost
straight line southwest through the pine belt of
Southern Georgia, crossing the Ogeechee and Alta-
maha Rivers to Waycross, and then, turning to the
southeast, proceeds in another almost straight line
358 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
for about an equal distance towards the coast, and
crosses St. Mary’s River into Florida. It traverses
the edge of the noted Okifenokee Swamp of Georgia,
the Indian ‘
‘weaving, shaking, water,” a moist and
mushy region of mystery and legend, drained by the
poetic Suwanee, the Indian “Echo river,” which has
been made the theme of a favorite melody. This
stream flows through Florida into the Gulf of Mexico,
while on the eastern side the extensive swamp over-
flows into the winding St. Mary's River leading to
the Atlantic. To the southward, the pine woods of
Florida grow out of a sandy soil nearly as level as a
floor, in which almost every depression and fissure
seems filled with water, and the balsamic odors of
these pines, combined with the mildness of the winter
climate, give an indication of the attractions which
make Florida so popular as a resort for the Northern
people. The route finally reaches the broad St.
John's River at the Florida metropolis, Jacksonville,
a Yankee city in the South, bearing the name of the
famous President, General Andrew Jackson, and
having thirty thousand population, largely of North-
ern birth. This is the centre of the railway system
of Florida and of most of the business of the State,
having a large export trade in timber, naval stores,
phosphates, oranges and other Florida products. To
the visitor, probably the first most forcible impres-
sion is made by the free growth of oranges along
the streets and in the house gardens. The city
&
THE CITY OF JACKSON VILLE, 359
stands upon the northern and outer bank of a mag-
mificent bend of St. John's River, this noble stream,
which flows northward from Southern Florida, being
a mile wide, and sweeping around to the castward at
Jacksonville to reach the sea about twenty-five miles
beyond, its navigation having been improved by
dredging and constructing jetties to maintain a chan-
nel through the bar at the mouth. The business sec-
tion is near the shore, and the railways come down
to the wharves; while, as the curving river stretches
away to the southward, the bank is lined with rows
of fine suburban villas, occupied by the business men
who have built their comfortable homes amid the
Oranges, oleanders, magnolias and banana trees. The
river has low tree-clad shores, and far over on the
opposite bank are more villas and orange groves.
Jacksonville is well supplied with hotels and lodg-
ing-houses, which accommodate the crowds of winter
visitors from the North, and it spreads into various
suburban villages reached by steamboats and hard
shell roads. It is the great entrepôt for Florida,
standing at the northern verge, the salubrious and
equable climate being the attraction, for frost is rare,
and the winters are usually clear and dry and give a
most magnificent atmosphere. Rows of splendid
oaks line the streets, and form fine archways of
green, giving a delicious shade. Besides the orange,
the alligator is also a Jacksonville attraction, live
ones being kept as pets, little ones sent northward in
360 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
boxes for gifts, and dead ones of all sizes prepared
for ornaments. This reptile is the type and emblem
of Florida; his skin and teeth are worked into fan-
tastic shapes, and his curious bones and formation do
duty in the make-up of many “Florida curiosities.”
In fact, outside of the timber, which is most prolific,
the best known Florida crops are the alligator and
the orange. Although frosts have killed many in
late years, yet the product of the orange trees is
still large, Southern Florida containing the most
famous orange groves, especially along the Indian
River and on the lakes of the upper St. John's
River, where they are usually planted on the south-
ern borders of the lakes, so that the frost is killed by
the winds carrying it over the water, and thus the
orange trees are protected.
THE IAND OF FLOWERS.
In the early sixteenth century there flourished a
valiant Spaniard of noble birth, a grandee of Ara-
gon, who had taken part in the conquest of Grenada,
Don Juan Ponce de Leon. He had accompanied
Columbus on one of his American voyages, and in
1510 was appointed Governor of Puerto Rico. The
bold Don Juan had become somewhat worm by a life
of dangerous buccaneering and romantic adventure,
and being rather advanced in years he was losing
the attractiveness which had long added charms to
his gallantries. From the Indians of Puerto Rico he
THE LAND OF FILOWERS. 361
heard of an island off to the northwestward, which
they called Bimini, and he listened with wonder and
constantly increasing interest to the tales they told
of an extraordinary and miraculous spring which it
contained that would restore youth to the aged and
health to the decrepit—the “Fountain of Perpetual
Youth.” They described it as being in a region of
surpassing beauty, and said there were found abun-
dant gold and many slaves in this land of promise.
The rugged old warrior was fired with the prospect
of restored youth, and soon secured from the king a
grant of Bimini. In March, 1513, he sailed with a
large expedition from Puerto Rico, discovered some
of the Bahama Islands, coasted along the mainland to
latitude 30° 8' morth, and on Easter Sunday, April
8th, landed a short distance south of St. John's
River and took possession, calling the country
’ the Spanish name
Florida, from “Pasqua Florida,'
for the day. He did not find the magic spring, how-
ever, but he did discover a fairy scene, a land filled
with a profusion of fruits and flowers. Though he
subsequently diligently searched for it, he unfortu-
mately never found the miraculous fountain. He ex-
plored the Gulf Coast, and returned to the quest
again in 1521, when he got into quarrels with the
Indians, was mortally wounded in a combat, and
went back to Cuba to die.
Another Spanish grandee, fired with zeal for gold
and conquest, appeared upon the scene somewhat
362 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
later in the sixteenth century. Ferdinand de Soto,
a native of Jerez, whose only heritage was his sword
and shield, had accompanied various expeditions to
Darien and Nicăragua, and in 1532 joined Pizarro in
the conquest of Peru, where he acquired great wealth,
with which he returned to Spain. Soon after, being
anxious for more adventure, he was appointed Gov-
ernor of Cuba and Florida, and given a commission
to explore and settle the Spanish possessions in the
latter country, then including the whole northern
coast of the Gulf of Mexico. In May, 1539, he sailed
from Havana with a large fleet and six hundred men,
coasted around Florida and landed at Tampa Bay on
the Gulf side, where his explorations ashore began in
July. Fabulous stories had been told him of the
wealth of the country by those who had been there,
and De Soto's plan was to go everywhere in search
of gold. He captured Indians for guides, and found
a Spaniard, Juan Ortiz, whom they had taken cap-
tive several years before, but who was now living
with them as a friend, knew their language and be-
came interpreter. Then De Soto, by his aid, began
a most difficult exploration, advancing through thick
woods, north and east, amid tangled undergrowth,
Over bogs and marshes, crossing rivers and lakes,
fighting the Indians who resented his cruelties, for
he made them his slaves and bearers of burdens, tor-
tured and killed them if they resisted. But he found
no gold, though he pushed steadily onward, and turn-
THE LAND OF FLOWERS. 363
ing westward in the quest, his numbers growing
smaller and the survivors weaker under the weight
of their privations. He travelled a long distance,
crossing Northern Florida and Georgia into the Caro-
linas, and probably to Tennessee, descending the Ala-
bama River, and having a battle with the Indians
near Mobile Bay in October, 1540; them turning
again northward, crossing the Mississippi River,
which he discovered in May, 1541, near the Chicka-
saw Bluffs, exploring it nearly to the mouth of the
Missouri, and then turning southward he sailed down
the river, and finally died of fever near the mouth of
Red River in May, 1542. During the three years'
wanderings nearly half his force had perished in bat-
tle, or of privation and disease. The Indians were
in awe of him and believed him immortal, and a panic
therefore seized his surviving followers, who feared
annihilation if the savages discovered that De Soto
was dead. So they quietly buried him at night,
from a boat in midstream, sinking the corpse in the
great Father of Waters. Discouraged and almost
hopeless, his followers managed to build some small
vessels, and the next year arrived safely in Mexico.
Neither of these expeditions succeeded in coloniz-
ing Florida, but they left a feeling of hatred among
the Indians, caused by the Spanish cruelties, which
always afterwards existed. In 1564 some French
Huguenots, led by René de Loudonnière, attempted
making a settlement at the mouth of St. John's River,
364 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
and built Fort Caroline there. News of this reached
Spain, and in 1565 another colonization expedition
was sent out under Don Pedro Menendez d’Aviles,
which set sail from Cadiz, and on St. Augustine's
Day, August 28th, landed not far from where Ponce
de Leon had made his first invasion, and founded a
colony which he named St. Augustine, in honor of
his day of arrival. As soon as Menendez was estab-
lished on shore he attacked the Huguenots at St.
John's River, and hanged such of them as had es-
caped being killed in the battle, declaring that he did
this because they were Protestants. Some of them
who had been away from the fort at the time were
afterwards shipwrecked near St. Augustine, and these
he also captured and put to death. The French Fort
Caroline was then garrisoned by the Spaniards, its
name changed to Fort San Mateo, and they also for-
tified with redoubts both sides of the river entrance.
The story of the atrocities of Menendez was received
with indignation in France, but the King, controlled
by intrigue, dared do nothing, such was his fear of
the power of Spain.
Full vengeance was afterwards taken, however.
Dominique de Gourgues, a French gentleman of
Mont-de-Marsan, who hated the Spaniards with a
mortal hatred, took up the quarrel, sold his inherit-
ance, borrowed money, and equipped a small expe-
dition of three vessels and one hundred and eighty
men. He concealed his real object, and sailing for
THE LAND OF FLOWERS. 365
some time through the tropical seas, finally came to
Cuba, when he first made known his purpose to his
followers. He landed at St. Mary's River, opening
communication with the Indians, and a joint attack
upon the Spaniards to the southward was arranged.
In May, 1568, the fort and redoubts at St. John's
River were stormed and taken, a few Spaniards being
captured alive, all the rest having been slain in the
combat. Gourgues was shown nearby the trees
whereon Menendez had hanged the French prisoners
when he first took the fort, having placed over them
the inscription “Not as Frenchmen, but as Luther-
ans.” He hanged his Spanish prisoners on the same
trees, and over them was also mailed an inscription,
burned with a hot iron on a tablet of pine, “Not as
Spaniards, but as Traitors, Robbers and Murderers.”
Gourgues' mission of vengeance was fulfilled. His
Indian allies demolished the fort and the redbubts at
the mouth of the river. He then sailed home with
his expedition, landing at Rochelle on the day of
Pentecost, where the Huguenots greeted him with
all honor, and whilst he was scorned at court and
lived for some years in obscurity, Queen Elizabeth
showed him great favor; and as he was going over-
land to join the army of Portugal to once more fight
his enemies, the Spaniards, he fell ill at Tours and
died. The French made no more attempts at settle-
ment in Florida, and the Spaniards afterwards pos-
sessed it, though frequently being at war with the
366 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
English. Spain finally ceded the “Land of Flowers”
to the United States, which took final possession in
1821.
SOME FLORIDA PECULIARITIES.
Florida is a strange region, yet most attractive.
The traveller regards its surface as mainly a monot-
omous level of forest and swamp, with fruit and floral
embellishments, but it in fact rises by an almost in-
sensible ascent from the coast towards the interior,
where there is a central summit ridge all along the
peninsula of about three hundred feet elevation, cov-
ered with pine woods. Most of the surface, how-
ever, is but a few feet above the sea-level, these
“flatlands,” as they are called, being grass-grown
Savannahs, pine woods, swamps and cabbage-palm
thickets. The southern part of the peninsula is the
region of the everglades, which have been formed by
successive dykes of coral, built by the industrious
little insect long ago. The upper part of this region
is occupied by the extensive but shallow waters of
Lake Okeechobee, which merges insensibly into the
everglades south and east, the Seminoles calling this
grass-grown and spongy region, which is still the
abode of some remnants of the tribe, Pa-ha-yo-kee,
meaning “much grass in water.” These everglades
are penetrated in all directions by tortuous water
channels of slight depth ; and at frequent intervals
in the whole district there are wooded islands possess-
ing fertile soils and covered with dense tropical veg-
Grove of Dalmg, iflotioã

SOME FLORIDA PECULIA RITIES. 367
etation. These islands are said to have been sur-
rounded by the sea in bygone ages, and they then
stood in the same relation to the mainland as do the
present Southern Florida reefs and keys. Wide
tracts of cypress swamp separate the everglades
from the Gulf of Mexico, while in Southern Florida
they approach within a few miles of the Atlantic
Coast, being separated by an intervening dyke of
coral, crossed by frequent streams of rapid current,
for the everglades are far from being stagnant
swamps. There are also many other extensive
swamps in the State.
The Florida Seacoast is usually protected by sand
beaches which are quite hard, and are separated
from the mainland by interior lagoons. The man-
grove and the coral, constantly growing, are ever en-
croaching, however, on the sea-waters, and thus
Florida seems to have been constructed. The coun-
try is full of water courses, lakes and springs, some
of the latter being regarded as among the most re-
markable in the world, the famous Silver Spring near
Ocala being estimated as discharging three hundred
millions of gallons daily. There are countless springs
along the coasts, and one of these bursts up in the
sea near St. Augustine, two miles off shore, with a
torrent so vigorous that the ocean waves break over
the column of fresh water as if it were a sunken
reef. Scientific investigators are amazed at the vast
amounts of water everywhere visible and discharged
368 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
from these springs, and with only the narrow and low
peninsula for a watershed, the problem as to where
the vast water supply comes from baffles solution.
Some of the Florida lakes are subject to remarkable
fluctuations of level, and one of them, Lake Jackson,
ran suddenly dry at the time of the Charleston earth-
quake in 1886, but after a few weeks the water began
returning, and it soon resumed its matural proportions.
CUMBERIAND SOUND.
The memory of the Duke of Cumberland, son of
King George II., the victor of the battle of Cul-
loden, in Scotland, where he defeated the Pretender
in 1746, is preserved in America in the name of
Cumberland Sound, the finest harbor on the Southern
Atlantic Coast. St. Mary’s River, coming out of
Okifenokee swamp to make the northern boundary
of Florida, flows an erratic course, boxing the com-
pass in every direction until it finally heads eastward
and debouches in Cumberland Sound, among a group
of islands forming a large landlocked harbor. This
river and sound, the boundary between Georgia and
Florida, were, prior to the Revolution, a disputed
frontier between the English and the Spaniards. To
the northward of the entrance from the sea is Cum-
berland Island in Georgia, then comes Jekyll Island,
with its magnificent club-house and elaborate cot-
tages, and then St. Simon's Bay, having as its chief
port the busy lumber-shipping town of Brunswick.
CUMBERLAND SOUND. 369
To the southward of the Cumberland entrance is
Amelia Island in Florida. . The sound behind Amelia
and Cumberland Islands is a magnificent roadstead,
capable of floating at safe anchorage an enormous
fleet. Amelia Island is a long, narrow sand bank
with much foliage upon it, stretching about fourteen
miles down the Florida coast to Nassau Sound. On
the sea front of this island is one of the finest sand
beaches on the Atlantic. Behind it is the arm of the
sea known as Amelia River, and the port of Fer-
mandina, thirty-six miles northeast of Jacksonville,
having at the point of the island, guarding the en-
trance to its harbor, old Fort Clinch, a superannuated
brick-work battery, formerly of great importance,
but now of little use, though it was somewhat
strengthened to meet the exigencies of the recent
Spanish War. *
The French Huguenots first came along here and
settled, as they did at the St. John's River entrance,
and they called the island Garde. They found here
a powerful Indian tribe, whose chief, the “Cacique
of Garde,” their historian described as “handsome
and noble,” and his queen as “beautiful and modest,”
and the same authority says they had “five hand-
* The French were engaged in des-
some daughters.’
ultory quarrels with the Spaniards south of them at
St. Augustine, and the young gallants of the colony,
in the intervals of the warfare, alternately courted
and jilted the Indian maidens, the result being a
VoI. I.-24 -
370 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
Savage attack and massacre; and finally, between
Indian and Spanish enmity, the settlement disap-
peared. But the English, made of sterner stuff, ul-
timately came along, settling Georgia, and giving
British names to the islands, the rivers and the
Sound, which they still retain. For a long time this
was disputed territory between the English and the
Spaniards, the latter claiming everything northward
to Carolina. General Oglethorpe marched through
here to attack St. Augustine, and in 1763 the British
held Amelia Island, extending the little fort to almost
its present proportions, and laying out a town behind
it, while to the southward the Countess of Egmont
established an indigo plantation, which flourished for
a brief period. Spain ultimately got the island, and
it came into American possession with Florida in
1821. A little town with sandy streets, a pretty
park, much foliage, delicious air bringing the balsam
of the pines and the tonic of the sea, and hotels ac-
commodating the influx of winter visitors, make up
the Fernandina of to-day. Its beach on the ocean
front, more than a mile away, is one of the finest in
existence, hard as a floor, level and broad, stretching
as far as eye can see, and having a grand surf
booming upon it.
On Cumberland Island is the estate of Dungeness.
General Nathaniel Greene of Rhode Island, one of
Washington's most trusted officers, was the com-
mander of the Revolutionary armies in the South in
ANCIENT ST. AUGUSTINE. 3.71
1780–81 which drove the British out of that section,
gained the victory of Cowpens in South Carolina, and
compelled the withdrawal of Cornwallis to Yorktown,
which ended in his surrender. After the close of the
war, in gratitude for his great services, the people of
Georgia presented him with this estate of about ten
thousand acres. He made it his home for a time, but
it afterwards passed away from his family, and being
neglected, the old coquina stone mansion was burnt.
The house has since been reconstructed, and a pic-
turesque avenue of moss-hung live oaks a mile long
stretches over the island near it to the sea. In a lit-
tle cemetery on the estate are the graves of General
Greene's widow and daughter. Here is also the
grave of “Light Horse Harry’ of the Revolution
(the father of General Robert E. Lee), who died abroad
in 1818. He had visited and loved Dungeness,
and requested to be buried there. Oaks and pal-
mettos embower these modest graves, which are
carefully preserved.
ANCIENT ST. AUGUSTINE.
St. Augustine, thirty-six miles southeast of Jack-
sonville, on the seacoast, is the oldest city in the
United States, founded by Menendez in 1565, and
existing to this day with the characteristics of a
Spanish town of the sixteenth century, which have
been also reproduced in the architecture of most of the
newer buildings. A small inlet from the ocean, about
372 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
fifteen miles south of the mouth of St. John's River,
stretches its arms north and south, the latter arm,
called Matanzas River, seeking the sea again about
eighteen miles below. It thus forms Anastasia Island,
sheltering the harbor like a breakwater, and behind
it the city is built, being protected by a sea-wall
nearly a mile long, built of coquina or shell-stone.
Another arm of the sea, called San Sebastian River,
is a short distance inland, so that the town site is
really upon a peninsula. About five thousand people
reside permanently in St. Augustine, a few of Span-
ish descent, and more of them the offspring of a
colony of Minorcans who came in 1769, but in winter
the Northern visitors to the palatial hotels swell the
population to over ten thousand. The town is built
on a level sandy plain, and the older streets are mar-
row, being only a few feet wide and without side-
walks. The projecting balconies of some of the an-
cient houses almost touch those opposite. The old
streets are paved with coquina and the old houses
are built of it, this curious shell-limestone, quarried
on Anastasia Island, hardening upon exposure to the
air. A few streets running north and south, crossed
by others at right angles, and a broader front street
bordered by the sea-wall which makes a fine prome-
made, compose the town. This sea-wall of coquina
is capped with granite, and was built after the Ameri-
can occupation of the city. At its northern end is
Fort Marion and at the southern end St. Francis
ANCIENT ST. AUGUSTINE. 373
Barracks, the United States military post, so named
because it occupies the site of the old Convent of St.
Francis, having some of its coquina walls incorporated
in the present structure. The harbor in front, which
in past centuries sheltered so many Spanish fleets
and those of Spanish enemies as well, is now chiefly
devoted to yachting.
When Menendez and his Spaniards first landed
they built a wooden fort commanding the harbor en-
trance, surrounded by pine trees, which they named
San Juan de Pinos. This was afterwards replaced
by Fort San Marco, constructed of coquima, which
was nearly a hundred years building, and was fin-
ished in 1756. Upon the transfer of Florida to the
United States this became Fort Marion. It is a well-
preserved specimen of the military architecture of the
eighteenth century, built on Vauban's system, cover-
ing about four acres, with bastions at the corners,
each protected by a watch-tower, and is surrounded
by a moat, the walls being twenty-one feet high.
The fort is in reasonably good preservation, and is
said to have been constructed mainly by the labor of
Indians. It took so long to build and cost so much
under the wasteful Spanish system that one sovereign
wrote that it had almost cost its weight in gold; yet it
was regarded them as supremely important to be fin-
ished, being the key to the Spanish possession of
Florida. Over the sally-port at the drawbridge are
carved the Spanish arms and an inscription recording
3.74 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
the completion of the fort in 1756, when Ferdinand
VI. was King of Spain and Don Hereda Governor of
Florida. It mounted one hundred of the small guns
of those days, and the interior is a square parade
ground, surrounded by large casemates. Upon
each side of the casemate opposite the Sally-port
is a miche for holy water, and at the farther end
the Chapel. Dungeons and subterranean passages
abound, of which ghostly tales are told. This fort
is the most interesting relic of the ancient city, a
picturesque place, with charms even in its dilapida-
tion.
There are other quaint structures in this curious
old town. A gray gateway about ten feet wide,
flanked by tall square towers, marks the northern
entrance to the city, the ditch from the fort passing
in front of it. In one of the streets is the palace of
the Spanish Governors, since changed into a post-
office. The official centre of the city is a public
square, the Plaza de la Constitucion, having a monu-
ment commemorating the Spanish Liberal Constitu-
tion of 1812, and also a Confederate Soldiers' Monu-
ment. This square fronts on the sea-wall, and
alongside it and stretching westward is the Alameda,
known as King Street, leading to the group of grand
hotels recently constructed in Spanish and Moorish
style, which have made modern St. Augustine so
famous. These are the Ponce de Leon, the Alcazar
and the Cordova, with the Casino, adjoined by spa-
ANCIENT ST. AlJGUSTINE. 375
cious and beautiful gardens. These buildings repro-
duce all types of the Hispano-Moorish architecture,
with many suggestions from the Alhambra. The
Ponce de Leon, the largest, is three hundred and
eighty by five hundred and twenty feet, enclosing
an open court, and its towers rise above the red-tiled
roofs to a height of one hundred and sixty-five feet,
the adornments in colors being very effective. To
the southward of the town, adjoining the barracks, is
the military cemetery, where a monument and three
white pyramids tell the horrid story of the Dade mas-
sacre during the Seminole War. Major Dade, a gal-
lant officer, and one hundred and seven men, were
ambushed and massacred by eight hundred Indians
in December, 1835, and their remains afterwards
brought here and interred under the pyramids. Op-
posite the barracks is what is claimed to be the oldest
house in the United States, occupied by Franciscan
monks from 1565 to 1580, and afterwards a dwelling.
It has been restored, and contains a collection of his–
torical relics.
St. Augustine has had a chequered history. In
1586, Queen Elizabeth's maval hero, Sir Francis
Drake, sailing all over the world to fight Spaniards,
attacked and plundered the town and burnt the
greater part of it. Then for nearly a century the
Indians, pirates, French, English and neighboring
Georgians and Carolinians made matters lively for
the harried inhabitants. In 1763 the British came
376 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
into possession, but they ceded it back to Spain
twenty years later, the town then containing about
three hundred householders and nine hundred ne-
groes. It became American in 1821, and was an
important military post during the subsequent Semi-
mole War, which continued several years. It was
early captured by the Union forces during the Civil
War, and was a valuable stronghold for them. This
curious old town has many traditions that tell of war
and massacre and the horrible cruelties of the Span-
ish Inquisition, the remains of cages in which pris-
oners were starved to death being shown in the fort.
Its best modern story, however, is told of the escape
of Coa-coo-chee, the Seminole chief, whose adventur-
ous spirit and savage nature gained him the name of
the “Wild Cat.” The ending of the Seminole War
was the signing of a treaty by the older chiefs agree-
ing to remove west of the Mississippi. Coa-coo-chee,
with other younger chiefs, opposed this and renewed
the conflict. He was ultimately captured and taken
to Fort Marion. Feigning sickness, he was removed
into a casemate giving him air, there being an aper-
ture two feet high by nine inches wide in the wall
about thirteen feet above the floor, and under it a
platform five feet high. Here, while still feigning
illness, he became attenuated by voluntary abstinence
from food, and finally one might squeezed himself
through the aperture and dropped to the bottom of
the moat, which was dry. Eluding all the guards, he
THE FLORIDA EAST COAST 377
escaped and rejoined his people. The flight caused
a great sensation, and there was hot pursuit. After
some time he was recaptured, and being taken before
General Worth, was used to compel the remnant of
the tribe to remove to the West. Worth told him if
his people were not at Tampa in twenty days he
would be killed, and he was ordered to notify them
by Indian runners. He hesitated, but afterwards
yielded, and the runners were given twenty twigs,
one to be broken each day, so they might know
when the last one was broken his life would pay the
penalty. In seventeen days the task was accom-
plished. The tribe came to Tampa, and the captive
was released, accompanying his warriors to the far
West. This ended most of the Indian troubles in
Florida, but some descendants of the Seminoles still
exist in the remote fastnesses of the everglades.
THE FLORIDA EAST COAST.
All along the Atlantic shore of Florida south of St.
Augustine are popular winter resorts, their broad
and attractive beaches, fine climate and prolific tropi-
cal vegetation being among the charms that bring
visitors. Ormond is between the ocean front and
the pleasant Halifax River, its picturesque tributary,
the Tomoka, being a favorite resort for picnic par-
ties. A few miles south on the Halifax River is
Daytona, known as the “Fountain City,” and having
its suburb, “the City Beautiful,” on the opposite
378 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
bank. New Smyrna, settled by Minorcan indigo
planters in the eighteenth century, is on the northern
arm of Indian River. Here are found some of the
ancient Indian shell mounds that are frequent in
Florida, and also the orange groves that make this
region famous. Inland about thirty miles are a group
of pretty lakes, and in the pines at Lake Helen is
located the “Southern Cassadaga,” or Spiritualists’
Assembly. For more than a hundred and fifty miles
the noted Indian River stretches down the coast of
Florida. It is a long and narrow lagoon, parallel
with the ocean, and is part of the series of lagoons
found on the eastern coast almost continuously for
more than three hundred miles from St. Augustine
south to Biscayne Bay, and varying in width from
about fifty yards to six or more miles. They are
shallow waters, rarely over twelve feet deep, and are
entered by very shallow inlets from the sea. The
Indian River shores, stretching down to Jupiter
Inlet, are lined with luxuriant vegetation, and the
water is at times highly phosphorescent. Upon the
western shore are most of the celebrated Indian
River orange groves whose product is so highly
prized. At Titusville, the head of navigation, where
there are about a thousand people, the river is about,
at its widest part, six miles. Twenty miles below,
at Rockledge, it marrows to about a mile in width,
washing against the perpendicular sides of a contin-
uous enclosing ledge of coquina rock, with pleasant
THE FLORIDA EAST COAST. 379
overhanging trees. Here comes in, around an island,
its eastern arm, the Banana River, and to the many
orange groves are added plantations of the luscious
pineapple. Various limpid streams flow out from
the everglade region at the westward, and Fort Pierce
is the trading station for that district, to which the
remnant of the Seminoles come to exchange alligator
hides, bird plumage and snake skins for various sup-
plies, not forgetting “fire-water.” Below this is the
wide estuary of St. Lucie River and the Jupiter
River, with the lighthouse on the ocean's edge at
Jupiter Inlet, the mouth of Indian River.
Seventeen miles below this Inlet is Palm Beach, a
noted resort, situated upon the narrow strip of land
between the long and narrow lagoon of Lake Worth
and the Atlantic Ocean. Here are the vast Hotel
Royal Poinciana and the Palm Beach Inn, with their
cocoanut groves, which also fringe for miles the
pleasant shores of Lake Worth. Prolific vegetation
and every charm that can add to this American
Riviera bring a crowded winter population. The
Poinciana is a tree bearing gorgeous flowers, and
the two magnificent hotels, surrounded by an exten-
sive tropical paradise, are connected by a wide ave-
nue of palms a half-mile long, one house facing the
lake and the other the ocean. There is not a horse
in the settlement, and only one mule, whose duty is
to haul a light summer car between the houses. The
vehicles of Palm Beach are said to be confined to
380 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
“bicycles, wheel-chairs and jinrickshas.” Off to the
westward the distant horizon is bounded by the mys-
terious region of the everglades. Far down the
coast the railway terminates at Miami, the southern-
most railway station in the United States, a little
town on Miami River, where it enters the broad ex-
panse of Biscayne Bay, which is separated from the
Atlantic by the first of the long chain of Florida
keys. Here are many fruit and vegetable planta-
tions, and the town, which is a railway terminal and
steamship port for lines to Nassau, Key West and
Havana, is growing. Nassau is but one hundred and
seventy-five miles distant in the Bahamas, off the
Southern Florida coast, and has become a favorite
American winter tourist resort.
ASCENDING ST. JOHN's RIVER,
The St. John's is the great river of Florida, rising
in the region of lakes, swamps and savannahs in the
lower peninsula, and flowing northward four hun-
dred miles to Jacksonville, then turning eastward to
the ocean. It comes through a low and level region,
with mostly a sluggish current; is bordered by dense
foliage, and in its northern portion is a series of
lagooms varying in width from one to six miles. The
river is navigable fully two hundred miles above
Jacksonville. The earlier portion of the journey is
monotonous, the shores being distant and the land-
ings made at long piers jutting out over the shallows
ASCENDING ST. JOHN'S RIVER, 381
from the villages and plantations. At Mandarin is
the orange grove which was formerly the winter
home of Harriet Beecher Stowe; Magnolia amid the
pines is a resort for consumptives; and nearby is
Green Cove Springs, having a large sulphur spring
of medicinal virtue. In all directions stretch the
pine forests; and the river water, while clear and
sparkling in the sunlight, is colored a dark amber
from the swamps whence it comes. The original In-
dian name of this river was We-la-ka, or a “chain
of lakes,” the literal meaning, in the figurative idea
of the savage, being “the water has its own way.”
It broadems into various bays, and at one of these,
about seventy-five miles south of Jacksonville, is the
chief town of the upper river, Palatka, having about
thirty-five hundred inhabitants and a much greater
winter population. It is largely a Yankee town,
shipping oranges and early vegetables to the North;
and across the river, just above, is one of the leading
Colonel Hart's, a
Vermonter who came here dying of consumption,
orange plantations of Florida
but lived to become, in his time, the leading fruit-
grower of the State. Above Palatka the river is
narrower, excepting where it may broaden into a
lake; the foliage is greener, the shores more swampy,
the wild-fowl more frequent, and the cypress tree
more general. The young “cypress knees” can be
seen starting up along the swampy edge of the shore,
looking like so many champagne bottles set to cool
382 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
in the water. The river also becomes quite crooked,
and here is an ancient Spanish and Indian settlement,
well named Welaka, opposite which flows in the
weird Ocklawaha River, the haunt of the alligator
and renowned as the crookedest stream on the con-
timent.
GOING DOWN THE OCKLAWAIIA.
The Ocklawaha, the “dark, crooked water,” comes
from the south, by tortuous windings, through vari-
ous lakes and swamps, and then turns east and south-
east to flow into St. John's River, after a course of
over three hundred miles. It rises in Lake Apopka,
down the Peninsula, elevated about a hundred feet
above the sea, the second largest of the Florida Lakes,
and covering one hundred and fifty square miles.
This lake has wooded highlands to the westward,
dignified by the title of Apopka Mountains, which
rise probably one hundred and twenty feet above its
surface. To the northward is a group of lakes—
Griffin, Yale, Eustis, Dora, Harris and others
ing clear amber waters and low shores, which are all
united by the Ocklawaha, the stream finally flowing
northward out of Lake Griffin. This is a region of
extensive settlement, mainly by Northern people.
The mouth of the Ocklawaha is sixty-five miles from
hav-
Lake Eustis in a straight line, but the river goes two
hundred and thirty miles to get there. To the north-
ward of this lake district is the thriving town of
Ocala, with five thousand people, in a region of good
Qm the (WCRIawaba

GOING DOWN THE OCKLAWAHA. 383
agriculture and having large phosphate beds, the set-
tlement having been originally started as a military
post during the Seminole War. About five miles
east of Ocala is the famous Silver Spring, which is
believed to have been the “fountain of perpetual
27
youth,” for which Juan Ponce de Leon vainly
searched. It is the largest and most beautiful of the
many Florida springs, having wonderfully clear
waters, and covers about three acres. The waters
can be plainly seen pouring upwards through fissures
in the rocky bottom, like an inverted Niagara, eighty
feet beneath the surface. It has an enormous out-
flow, and a swift brook runs from it, a hundred feet
wide, for some eight miles to the Ocklawaha.
This strange stream is hardly a river in the ordi-
mary sense, having fixed banks and a well-defined
channel, but is rather a tortuous but navigable pas-
Sage through a succession of lagoons and cypress
swamps. Above the Silver Spring outlet, only the
smallest boats of light draft can get through the
crooked channel. This outlet is thirty miles in a
direct line from the mouth of the river at the St.
John's, but the Ocklawaha goes one hundred and
mime miles thither. The swampy border of the stream
is rarely more than a mile broad, and beyond it are
the higher pine lands. Through this curious cham-
nel, amid the thick cypress forests and dense jungle
of undergrowth, the wayward and crooked river
meanders. The swampy bottom in which it has its
384 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
course is so low-lying as to be undrainable and can-
not be improved, so that it will probably always re-
main as now, a refuge for the sub-tropical animals,
birds, reptiles and insects of Florida, which abound in
its in most recesses. Here flourishes the alligator, com-
ing out to sun himself at mid-day on the logs and
warm grassy lagoons at the edge of the stream, in
just the kinds of places one would expect to find
him. Yet the alligator is said to be a coward, rarely
attacking, unless his retreat to water in which to hide
himself is cut off. He thus becomes more a curiosity
than a foe. These reptiles are hatched from eggs
which the female deposits during the spring, in large
mumbers, in muddy places, where she digs out a spa-
cious cavity, fills it with several hundred eggs, and
covering them thickly with mud, leaves mature to do
the rest. After a long incubation the little fellows
come out and make a bee-line for the nearest water.
The big alligators of the neighborhood have many
breakfasts on the newly-born little ones, but some
manage to grow up, after several years, to maturity,
and exhibit themselves along this remarkable river.
It is almost impossible to conceive of the concen-
trated crookedness of the Ocklawaha and the diffi-
culties of passage. It is navigated by stout and marrow
flat-bottomed boats of light draft, constructed so as
to quickly turn sharp corners, bump the shores and
run on logs without injury. The river turns con-
stantly at short intervals and doubles upon itself in
GOING DOWN THE OCKLAWAHA. 385
almost every mile, while the huge cypress trees often
compress the water way so that a wider boat could
not get through. There are many beautiful views
in its course displaying the noble ranks of cypress
trees rising as the stream bends along its bordering
edge of swamps. Occasionally a comparatively
straight river reach opens like the aisle of a grand
building with the moss-hung cypress columns in long
and sombre rows on either hand. At rare intervals
fast land comes down to the stream bank, where there
is some cultivation attempted for oranges and vege-
tables. Terrapin, turtles and water-fowl abound.
When the passenger boat, after bumping and swing-
ing around the corners, much like a ponderous tee-
totum, halts for a moment at a landing in this swampy
fastness, half-clad negroes usually appear, offering for
sale partly-grown baby alligators, which are the pro-
lific crop of the district. Various “Turkey bends,”
“Hell's half-acres,” “Log Jams,” “Bone Yards”
and “Double S Bends” are passed, and at one place
is the “Cypress Gate,” where three large trees are
in the way, and by chopping off parts of their roots,
a passage about twenty feet wide had been secured
to let the boats through. There are said to be two
thousand bends in one hundred miles of this stream,
and many of them are like corrugated circles, by
which the narrow water way, in a mile or two of its
course, manages to twist back to within a few feet of
where it started. At night, to aid the navigation,
VOL. I.-25
386 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
the lurid glare of huge pine-knot torches, fitfully
blazing, gives the scene a weird and unnatural aspect.
The monotonous sameness of cypress trunks, sombre
moss and twisting stream for many hours finally be-
comes very tiresome, but it is nevertheless a most re-
markable journey of the strangest character possible
in this country to sail down the Ocklawaha.
LOWER FLORIDA AND THE SEMINOLES.
South of the mouth of the Ocklawaha the St.
John’s River broadens into Lake George, the largest
of its many lakes, a pretty sheet of water six to nine
miles wide and twelve miles long. Volusia, the site
of an ancient Spanish mission, is at the head of this
lake, and the discharge from the swift but narrow
stream above has made sand bars, so that jetties are
constructed to deepen the channel. For a long dis-
tance the upper river is narrow and tortuous, with
numerous islands and swamps, the dark coffee-colored
water disclosing its origin; but the Blue Spring in
One place is unique, sending out an ample and rich
blue current to mix with the amber. Then Lake
Monroe is reached, ten miles long and five miles wide,
the head of navigation, by the regular lines of
steamers, one hundred and seventy miles above
Jacksonville. Here are two flourishing towns, En-
terprise on the northern shore and Sanford on the
southern, both popular winter resorts, and the latter
having two thousand people. The St. John’s extends
LOWER FLORIDA AND THE SEMINOLES. 387
above Lake Monroe, a crooked, narrow, shallow
stream, two hundred and fourteen miles farther south-
eastward to its source. The region through which
it there passes is mostly a prairie with herds of cattle
and much game, and is only sparsely settled. The
upper river approaches the seacoast, being in one
place but three miles from the lagoons bordering the
Atlantic. To the southward of Lake Monroe are the
winter resorts of Winter Park and Orlando, the latter
a town of three thousand population. There are mu-
merous lakes in this district, and then leaving the
St. John's valley and crossing the watershed south-
ward through the pine forests, the Okeechobee waters
are reached, which flow down to that lake. This re-
gion was the home of a part of the Seminole Indians,
and Tohopekaliga was their chief, whom they re-
vered so highly that they named their largest lake
in his honor. The Kissimmee River flows southward
through this lake, and then traverses a succession of
lakes and swamps to Lake Okeechobee, about two
hundred miles southward by the water-line. Kissim-
mee City is on Lake Tohopekaliga, and extensive
drainage operations have been conducted here and to
the southward, reclaiming a large extent of valuable
lands, and lowering the water-level in all these lakes
and attendant swamps.
From Lake Tohopegalika through the tortuous
water route to Lake Okeechobee, and thence by the
Caloosahatchie westward to the Gulf of Mexico, is a
388 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
winding channel of four hundred and sixty miles,
though in a direct line the distance is but one hun-
dred and fifty miles. Okeechobee, the word mean-
y
ing the “large water,” covers about twelve hundred
and fifty square miles, and almost all about it are the
everglades or “
grass water,” the shores being gem-
erally a swampy jungle. This district for many
miles is a mass of waving sedge grass eight to ten
feet high above the water, and inaccessible excepting
through narrow, winding and generally hidden cham-
nels. In one locality a few tall lone pines stand like
sentinels upon Arpeika Island, formerly the home of
the bravest and most dreaded of the Seminoles, and
still occupied by some of their descendants. The
mame of the Seminole means the “separatist” or
“runaway ” Indians, they having centuries ago sep-
arated from the Creeks in Georgia and gone south-
ward into Florida. From the days of De Soto to
the time of their deportation in the nineteenth cen-
tury the Spanish, British, French and Americans
made war with these Seminole Indians. Gradually
they were pressed southward through Florida. Their
final refuge was the green islands and hummocks of the
everglades, and they then clung to their last homes
with the tenacity of despair. The greater part of
this region is an unexplored mystery; the deep
silence that can be actually felt, everywhere per-
vades; and once lost within the labyrinth, the ad-
venturer is doomed unless rescued. Only the In-
LOWER, FLORIDA AND THE SEM.INOLES. 389
dians knew its concealed and devious paths. On
Arpeika Island the Cacique of the Caribs is said to
have ruled centuries ago, until forced south out of
Florida by the Seminoles. It was at times a refuge
for the buccaneer with his plunder and a shrine for
the missionary martyr who planted the Cross and
was murdered beside it. This island was the last
retreat of the Seminoles in the desultory war from
1835 to 1843, when they defied the Government,
which, during eight years, spent $50,000,000 upon
expeditions sent against them. Then the attempt to
remove all of them was abandoned, and the remnant
have since rested in peace, living by hunting and a
little trading with the coast settlements. The names
of the noted chiefs of this great race—Osceola,
Tallahassee, Tohopekaliga, Coa-coo-chee and others
are preserved in the lakes, streams and towns
of Florida. Most of the deported tribe were sent
to the Indian Territory. There may be three or
four hundred of them still in the everglades, peace-
ful, it is true, yet haughty and suspicious, and sturdily
rejecting all efforts to educate or civilize them.
They celebrate their great feast, the “Green Corn
Dance,” in late June; and they have unwavering
faith in the belief that the time will yet come
when all their prized everglade land will be theirs
again, and the glory of the past redeemed, if not in
this world, then in the next one, beyond the “Big
Sleep.”
390 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
WESTERN FLORIDA.
Westward from Jacksonville, a railway runs
through the pine forests until it reaches the rushing
Suwanee River, draining the Okifenokee Swamp out
to the Gulf, just north of Cedar Key. This stream is
best known from the minstrel song, long so popular,
of the Old Folks at Home. Beyond it the land rises
into the rolling country of Middle Florida, the undu-
lating surface sometimes reaching four hundred feet
elevation, and presenting fertile soil and pleasant
scenery, with a less tropical vegetation than the
Peninsula of Florida. Here is Tallahassee, the capi-
tal of the State, one hundred and sixty-five miles
from Jacksonville, a beautiful town of four thousand
population, almost embedded in flowering plants,
shrubbery and evergreens, and familiarly known
from these beauties as the “Floral City,” the gar-
dens being especially attractive in the season of
roses. The Capitol and Court-house and West
Florida Seminary, set on a hill, are the chief public
buildings. In the suburbs, at Monticello, lived
Prince Achille Murat, a son of the King of Naples,
who died in 1847, and his grave is in the Episcopal
Cemetery. There are several lakes near the town,
one of them the curious Lake Miccosukie, which
contracts into a creek, finally disappearing under-
ground. The noted Wakulla Spring, an immense
limestone basin of great depth and volume of water,
WESTERN FL() RIDA. 391
with wonderful transparency, is fifteen miles south-
ward.
Some distance to the westward the Flint and Chat-
tahoochee Rivers join to form the Appalachicola
River, flowing down to the Gulf at Appalachicola, a
somewhat decadent port from loss of trade, its ex-
ports being principally lumber and cotton. The shal-
lowness of most of these Gulf harbors, which readily
silt up, destroys their usefulness as ports for deep-
draft shipping. The route farther westward skirts
the Gulf Coast, crosses Escambia Bay and reaches
Pensacola, on its spacious harbor, ten miles within
the Gulf. This is the chief Western Florida port,
with fifteen thousand people, having a Navy Yard
and much trade in lumber, cotton, coal and grain, a
large elevator for the latter being erected in 1898.
The Spaniards made this a frontier post in 1696, and
the remains of their forts, San Miguel and San Ber-
mardo, can be seen behind the town, while near the
outer edge of the harbor is the old-time Spanish de-
fensive battery, Fort San Carlos de Barrancos. The
harbor entrance is now defended by Fort Pickens and
Fort McRae. Pensacola Bay was the scene of one of
the first spirited maval combats of the Civil War,
when the Union forces early in 1862 recaptured the
Navy Yard and defenses. The name of Pensacola
was originally given by the Choctaws to the bearded
Europeams who first settled there, and signifies the
“hair people.”
392 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
THE FILORIDA GUILF COAST.
The coast of Florida on the Gulf of Mexico has
various attractive places, reached by a convenient
railway system. Homosassa is a popular resort
about fifty miles southwestward from Ocala. A short
distance in the interior is the locality where the Semi-
moles surprised and massacred Major Dade and his
men in December, 1835, only three soldiers escaping
alive to tell the horrid tale. The operations against
these Indians were then mainly conducted from the
military post of Tampa, and thither were taken for
deportation the portions of the tribe that were after-
wards captured, or who surrendered under the treaty.
When Ferdinand de Soto entered this magnificent
harbor on his voyage of discovery and gold hunting,
he called it Espiritu Sancto Bay. It is from six to
fifteen miles wide, and stretches nearly forty miles
into the land, being dotted with islands, its waters
swarming with sea-fowl, turtles and fish, deer abound-
ing in the interior and on some of the islands, and
there being abundant anchorage for the largest ves-
sels. This is the great Florida harbor and the chief
winter resort on the western coast. It was the main
port of rendezvous and embarkation for the Ameri-
can forces in the Spanish War of 1898. The head
of the harbor divides into Old Tampa and Hills-
borough Bays, and on the latter and at the mouth of
Hillsborough River is the city, numbering about
THE FLORIDA GULF COAST. 393
twenty-five thousand inhabitants. The great hotels
are surrounded by groves with orange and lemon
trees abounding, and everything is invoked that can
add to the tourist attractions. The special industry
of the resident population is cigar-making. Port
Tampa is out upon the Peninsula between the two
bays, several miles below the city, and a long railway
trestle leads from the shore for a mile to deep water.
Upon the outer end of this long wharf is Tampa Inn,
built on a mass of piles, much like some of the con-
structions in Venice. The guests can almost catch
fish out of the bedroom windows, and while eating
breakfast can watch the pelican go fishing in the
neighboring waters, for this queer-looking bird, with
the duck and gull, is everywhere seen in these at-
tractive regions. An outer line of keys defends
Tampa harbor from the storms of the Gulf. There
are many popular resorts on the islands and shores
of Tampa Bay, and regular lines of steamers are run
to the West India ports, Mobile and New Orleans.
All the surroundings are attractive, and a pleased
visitor writes of the place : “Conditions hereabouts
exhilarate the men; a perpetual sun and Ocean breeze
are balm to the invalid and an inspiration to a robust
health. The landscape affords uncommon diversion,
and the sea its royal sport with rod and gaff.”
Farther down the coast is Charlotte Harbor, also
deeply indented and sheltered from the sea by vari-
ous outlying islands. It is eight to ten miles long and
394 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
extends twenty-five miles into the land, having valu-
able oyster-beds and fisheries, and its port is Punta
Gorda. Below this is the projecting shore of Punta
Rassa, where the outlet of Lake Okeechobee, the
Caloosahatchie River, flows to the sea, having the
military post of Fort Myers, another popular resort,
a short distance inland, upon its bank. The Gulf
Coast now trends to the southeast, with various bays,
in one of which, with Cape Romano as the guarding
headland, is the archipelago of “the ten thousand
islands,” while below is Cape Sable, the southwestern
extremity of Florida. To the southward, distant
from the shore, are the long line of Florida Keys, the
mame coming from the Spanish word cayo, an island.
This remarkable coral formation marks the northern
limit of the Gulf Stream, where it flows swiftly out
to round the extremity of the Peninsula and begin
its northern course through the Atlantic Ocean.
Although well lighted and charted, the Straits of
Florida along these reefs are dangerous to navigate
and need special pilots. Nowhere rising more than
eight to twelve feet above the sea, the Keys thus
low-lying are luxuriantly covered with tropical vege-
tation. From the Dry Tortugas at the west, around
to Sand's Key at the entrance to Biscayne Bay, off
the Atlantic Coast, about two hundred miles, is a
continuous reef of coral, upon the whole extent of
which the little builder is still, industriously working.
The reef is occasionally broken by channels of vary-
THE FLORIDA GULF COAST. 395
ing depth, and within the outer line are many habit-
able islands. The whole space inside this reef is
slowly filling up, just as all the Keys are also slowly
growing through accretions from floating substances
becoming entangled in the myriad roots of the man-
groves. The present Florida Reef is a good exam-
ple of the way in which a large part of the Peninsula
was formed. No less than seven old coral reefs have
been found to exist south of Lake Okeechobee, and
the present one at the very edge of the deep water
of the Gulf Stream is probably the last that can
be formed, as the little coral-builder cannot live
at a greater depth than sixty feet. The Gulf Stream
current is so swift and deep along the outer reef
that there is no longer a foundation on which to
build.
The Gulf Stream is the best known of all the
great ocean currents. The northeast and southeast
trade-winds, constantly blowing, drive a great mass of
water from the Atlantic Ocean into the Caribbean
Sea, and westward through the passages between the
Windward Islands, which is contracted by the con-
verging shores of the Yucatan Peninsula and the
Island of Cuba, so that it pours between them into
the Gulf of Mexico, raising its surface considerably
above the level of the Atlantic. These currents then
move towards the Florida Peninsula, and pass around
the Florida Reef and out into the Atlantic. It is
estimated by the Coast Survey that the hourly flow
396 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
of the Gulf Stream past the reef is nearly ninety
thousand million tons of water, the speed at the sur-
face of the axis of the stream being over three and
one-half miles an hour. To conceive what the im-
mensity of this flow means, it is stated that if a single
hour's flow of water were evaporated, the salt thus
produced would require to carry it one hundred times
the number of ocean-going vessels now afloat. The
Gulf Stream water is of high temperature, great
clearness and a deep blue color; and when it meets
the greener waters of the Atlantic to the northward,
the line of distinction is often very well defined. At
the exit to the Atlantic below Jupiter Inlet the
stream is forty-eight miles wide to Little Bahama
Bank, and its depth over four hundred fathoms.
There are numerous harbors of refuge among the
Florida Keys, and that at Key West is the best.
This is a coral island seven miles long and one to
two miles broad, but nowhere elevated more than
eleven feet above the sea. Its name, by a free trans-
lation, comes from the original Spanish name of
Cayo Hueso, or the Bone Island, given because the
early mariners found human bones upon it. Here
are twenty thousand people, mostly Cubans and set-
tlers from the Bahamas, the chief industry being
cigar-making, while catching fish and turtles and
gathering sponges also give much employment.
There are no springs on the island, and the inhabit-
ants are dependent on rain or distillation for water.
THE FLORIDA GULF COAST. 397
The air is pure and the climate healthy, the trees and
shrubbery, with the residences embowered in peren-
nial flowers, giving the city a picturesque appearance.
Key West has a good harbor, and as it commands the
gateway to and from the Gulf mear the western ex-
tremity of the Florida coral reef, it is strongly de-
fended, the prominent work being Fort Taylor, con-
structed on an artificial island within the main harbor
entrance. The little Sand Key, seven miles to the
southwest, is the southernmost point of the United
States. Forty miles to the westward is the group
of ten small, low and barren islands known as the
Dry Tortugas, from the Spanish tortuga, a tortoise.
Upon the farthest one, Loggerhead Key, stands the
great guiding light for the Florida Reef, of which this
is the western extremity, the tower rising one hun-
dred and fifty feet. Fort Jefferson is on Garden
Key, where there is a harbor, and in it were confined
various political prisoners during the Civil War,
among them some who were concerned in the com-
spiracy to assassinate President Lincoln.
Here, with the encircling waters of the Gulf all
around us, terminates this visit to the Sunny South.
As we have progressed, the gradual blending of the
temperate into the torrid zone, with the changing
vegetation, has reminded of Bayard Taylor's words:
“There, in the wondering airs of the Tropics,
Shivers the Aspen, still dreaming of cold :
There stretches the Oak from the loftiest ledges,
398 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
His arms to the far-away lands of his brothers,
And the Pine tree looks down on his rival, the Palm.”
And as the journey down the Florida Peninsula
has displayed some of the most magnificent winter
resorts of the American Riviera, with their wealth
of tropical foliage, fruits and flowers, and their seduc-
tive and balmy climate, this too has reminded of Car-
dinal Damiami's glimpse of the “Joys of Heaven”:
“Stormy winter, burning summer, rage within these regions
never,
But perpetual bloom of roses and unfading spring forever;
Lilies gleam, the crocus glows, and dropping balms their
scents deliver.”
Along this famous peninsula, the sea rolls with
ceaseless beat upon some of the most gorgeous
beaches of the American coast. To the glories of
tropical vegetation and the charms of the climate,
Florida thus adds the magnificence of its unrivalled
marine environment. Everywhere upon these pleas-
ant COaStS—
“The bridegroom, Sea,
Is toying with his wedded bride,-the Shore.
He decorates her shining brow with shells,
And then retires to see how fine she looks,
Then, proud, runs up to kiss her.”
TRAVERSING THE PRAIRIE LAND.
VI.
TRAVERSING THE PRAIRIE LAND.
The Northwest Territory—Beaver River—Fort McIntosh—Ma-
honing Valley–Steubenville—Youngstown–Canton—Mas-
sillon—Columbus—Scioto River—Wayne Defeats the Miamis
—Sandusky River — Findlay — Natural Gas Fields— Fort
Wayne—Maumee River—The Little Turtle–Old Tippecanoe
—Tecumseh–Battle of Tippecanoe–Harrison Defeats the
Prophet—Tecumseh Slain in Canada–Indianapolis—Wabash
River—Terre Haute—Illinois River—Springfield–Lincoln's
Home and Tomb—Peoria—The Great West—Lake Erie—
Tribe of the Cat—Conneaut—The Western Reserve—Ash-
tabula—Mentor—Cleveland–Cuyahoga River—Moses Cleave-
land—Euclid Avenue—Oberlin–Elyria—The Fire Lands—
Sandusky — Put-in-Bay Island–Perry’s Victory—Maumee
River—Toledo—South Bend—Chicago—The Pottawatomies
—Fort Dearborn—Chicago Fire –Lake Michigan—Chicago
River — Drainage Canal – Lockport—Water Supply—Fine
Buildings, Streets and Parks—University of Chicago—Libra-
ries—Federal Steel Company——Great Business Establishments
—Union Stock Yards—The Hog—The Board of Trade—
Speculative Activity—George M. Pullman—The Sleeping
Car—The Pioneer—Town of Pullman—Agricultural Wealth
of the Prairies—The Corn Crop —Whittier's Corn Song.
THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY.
BEYOND the Allegheny ranges, which are gradually
broken down into their lower foothills, and then to an
almost monotonous level, the expansive prairie lands
stretch towards the setting sun. From their prolific
agriculture has come much of the wealth and pros-
VOL. I.-26 (401 )
402 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
perity of the United States. The rivers flowing out
of the mountains seek the Mississippi Valley, thus
reaching the sea through the Great Father of Waters.
Among these rivers is the Ohio, and at its confluence
with the Beaver, near the western border of Penn-
sylvania, was, in the early days, the Revolutionary
outpost of Fort McIntosh, a defensive work against
the Indians. All about is a region of coal and gas,
extending across the boundary into the Mahoning dis-
trict of Ohio, the Mahoning River being an affluent
of the Beaver. Numerous railroads serve its many
towns of furnaces and forges. To the southward is
Steubenville on the Ohio, and to the northward
Youngstown on the Mahoning, both busy manufac-
turing centres. Salem and Alliance are also promi-
ment, and some distance northwest is Canton, a city
of thirty thousand people, in a fertile grain district,
the home of President William McKinley. Massillon,
upon the pleasant Tuscarawas River, in one of the
most productive Ohio coal-fields, preserves the
memory of the noted French missionary priest,
Jean Baptiste Massillon, for all this region was first
traversed, and opened to civilization, by the French
religious explorers from Canada who went out to con-
vert the Indians.
In the centre of the State of Ohio is the capital,
Columbus, built on the banks of the Scioto River, a
tributary of the Ohio flowing southward and two
hundred miles long. This river receives the Olen-
THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 403
tangy or Whetstone River at Columbus, in a region
of great fertility, which is in fact the characteristic
of the whole Scioto Valley. The Ohio capital, which
has a population of one hundred and twenty thousand,
large commerce and many important manufacturing
establishments, dates from 1812, and became the seat
of the State Government in 1816. The large expen-
ditures of public money upon numerous public insti-
tutions, all having fine buildings, the wide, tree-shaded
streets, and the many attractive residences, have
made it one of the finest cities in the United States.
Broad Street, one hundred and twenty feet wide,
beautifully shaded with maples and elms, extends for
seven miles. The Capitol occupies a large park sur-
rounded with elms, and is an impressive Doric build-
ing of gray limestone, three hundred and four feet
long and one hundred and eighty-four feet wide, the
rotunda being one hundred and fifty-seven feet high.
There are fine parks on the north, south and cast of
the city, the latter containing the spacious grounds
of the Agricultural Society. Almost all the Ohio
State buildings, devoted to its benevolence, justice or
business, have been concentrated in Columbus, add-
ing to its attractions, and it is also the seat of the
Ohio State University with one thousand students.
Railroads radiate in all directions, adding to its com-
mercial importance.
In going westward, the region we are traversing
beyond the Pennsylvania boundary gradually changes
404 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
from coal and iron to a rich agricultural section. As
we move away from the influence of the Allegheny
ranges, the hills become gentler, and the rolling sur-
face is more and more subdued, until it is smoothed
out into an almost level prairie, heavily timbered
where not yet cleared for cultivation. This was the
Northwest Territory, first explored by the French,
who were led by the Sieur de la Salle in his original
discoveries in the seventeenth century. The French
held it until the conquest of Canada, when that Do-
minion and the whole country west to the Mississippi
River came under the British flag by the treaty of
1763. After the Revolution, the various older At-
lantic seaboard States claiming the region, ceded sov-
ereignty to the United States Government, and then
its history was chequered by Indian wars until Gen-
eral Wayne conducted an expedition against the
Miamis and defeated them in 1794, after which the
Northwest Territory was organized, and the State of
Ohio taken out of it and admitted to the Union in
1803, its first capital being Chillicothe. It was re-
moved to Zanesville for a couple of years, but finally
located at Columbus.
Beyond the Scioto the watershed is crossed, by
which the waters of the Ohio are left behind and the
valley of Sandusky River is reached, a tributary of
Lake Erie. Here is Bucyrus, in another prolific
matural gas region, the centre of which is Findlay.
At this town, in 1887, the inhabitants, who had then
THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 405
had just one year of natural gas development, spent
three days in exuberant festivity, to show their ap-
preciation of the wonderful discovery. They had
thirty-one gas wells pouring out ninety millions of
cubic feet in a day, all piped into town and feeding
thirty thousand glaring natural gas torches of enor-
mous power, which blew their roaring flames as an
accompaniment to the oratory of John Sherman and
Joseph B. Foraker, who were then respectively Sen-
ator and Governor of Ohio. The soldiers and fire-
men paraded, and a multitude of brass bands tried to
drown the Niagara of gas which was heard roaring
five miles away, while the country at night was illu-
minated for twenty miles around. But the wells have
since diminished their flow, although the gas still ex-
ists; while another field with a prolific yield is in
Fairfield County, a short distance southeast of Co-
lumbus. Over the State boundary in Indiana is yet
another great gas-field covering five thousand square
miles in a dozen counties, with probably two thousand
wells and a yield which has reached three thousand
millions of cubic feet in a day. This gas supplies
many cities and towns, including Chicago, and it is
one of the greatest gas-fields known. In the same
region there are also large petroleum deposits.
Not far beyond the State boundary is Fort Wayne,
the leading city of Northern Indiana, having forty
thousand population, an important railway centre, and
prominent also in manufactures. It stands in a fer-
406 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
tile agricultural district, and being located at the
highest part of the gentle elevation, beyond the San-
dusky Valley, diverting the waters east and west, it
is appropriately called the “Summit City.” Here the
Maumee River is formed by the confluence of the
two streams St. Joseph and St. Mary, and flows
through the prairie towards the northeast, to make
the head of Lake Erie. The French, under La Salle,
in the eighteenth century established a fur-trading
post here, and erected Fort Miami, and in 1760 the
British penetrated to this then remote region and
also built a fort. During the Revolution this country
was abandoned to the Indians, but when General
Wayne defeated the Miamis in 1794 he thought the
place would make a good frontier outpost to hold the
savages in check, and he then constructed a strong
work, to which he gave the name of Fort Wayne.
Around this post the town afterwards grew, being
greatly prospered by the Wabash and Erie Canal,
and by the various railways subsequently constructed
in all directions. All this prairie region was the
hunting-ground of the Miamis, whose domain ex-
tended westward to Lake Michigan, and southward
along the valley of the Miami River to the Ohio.
They were a warlike and powerful tribe, and their
adherence to the English during the Revolution pro-
voked almost constant hostilities with the settlers
who afterwards came across the mountains to colo-
mize the Northwest Territory. Under the leader-
OLD TIPPECANOE. 407
ship of their renowned chief Mishekonequah, or the
“Little Turtle,” they defeated repeated expeditions
sent against them, until finally beaten by Wayne.
Subsequently they dwindled in importance, and when
removed farther west, about 1848, they numbered
barely two hundred and fifty persons.
OLD TIPPECANOE.
Some distance westward is the Tippecanoe River,
a stream flowing southwest into the Wabash, and
thence into the Ohio. The word Tippecanoe is said
” and on this river was
fought the noted battle by “Old Tippecanoe,” Gen-
eral William Henry Harrison, against the combined
to mean “the great clearing,
forces of the Shawnees, Miamis and several other
tribes, which resulted in their complete defeat. They
were united under Elskwatawa, or the “Prophet,”
the brother of the famous Tecumseh. These two
chieftains were Shawnees, and they preached a cru-
sade by which they gathered all the northwestern
tribes in a concerted movement to resist the steady
encroachments of the whites. The brother, who was
a “medicine man,” in 1805 set up as an inspired
prophet, denouncing the use of liquors, and of all
food, manners and customs introduced by the hated
“palefaces,” and confidently predicted they would
ultimately be driven from the land. For years both
chiefs travelled over the country stirring up the In-
dians. General Harrison, who was the Governor of
408 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
the Northwest Territory, gathered his forces together
and advanced up the Wabash against the Prophet's
town of Tippecanoe, when the Indians, hoping to
surprise him, suddenly attacked his camp, but he
being prepared, they were signally defeated, thus
giving Harrison his popular title of “Old Tippe-
canoe,” which had much to do with electing him
President in 1840. Some time after this defeat the
War of 1812 broke out, when Tecumseh espoused the
English cause, went to Canada with his warriors, and
was made a brigadier-general. He was killed there
in the battle of the Thames, in Ontario Province,
and it is said had a premonition of death, for, laying
aside his general's uniform, he put on a hunting-dress
and fought desperately until he was slain. Tecumseh
was the most famous Indian chief of his time, and
the honor of killing him was claimed by several who
fought in the battle, so that the problem of “Who
killed Tecumseh 7" was long discussed throughout the
country.
The State of Indiana was admitted into the Union
in 1816, and in its centre, built upon a broad plain,
on the east branch of White River, is its capital and
largest city, Indianapolis, having two hundred thou-
sand population. This is a great railway centre,
having lines radiating in all directions, and it also has
extensive manufactures and a large trade in live
stock. The city plan, with wide streets crossing at
right angles, and four diagonal avenues radiating
OLD TIPPECANOE. 409
from a circular central square, makes it very attrac-
tive; and the residential quarter, displaying tasteful
houses, ornate grounds and shady streets, is regarded
as one of the most beautiful in the country. The
State Capitol, in a spacious park, is a Doric building
with colonnade, central tower and dome, and in an
enclosure on its eastern front is erected one of the
finest Soldiers' and Sailors' Monuments existing,
rising two hundred and eighty-five feet, out-topping
everything around, having been designed and largely
constructed in Europe. There are also many promi-
ment public buildings throughout the city. Indian-
apolis, first settled in 1819, had but a small popula-
tion until the railways centred there, the Capitol being
removed from Corydon in 1825. The Wabash River,
to which reference has been made, receives White
River, and is one of the largest affluents of the Ohio,
about five hundred and fifty miles long, being navi-
gable over half that length. It rises in the State of
Ohio, flows across Indiana, and, turning southward,
makes for a long distance the Illinois boundary. Its
chief city is Terre Haute, the “High Ground,”
about seventy miles west of Indianapolis, another
prominent railroad centre, having forty-five thou-
sand people, with extensive manufactures. It is sur-
rounded by valuable coal-fields, is built upon an ele-
wated plateau, and, like all these prairie cities, is noted
for its many broad and Well-shaded streets. It was
founded in 1816.
410 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
THE GREAT WEST.
Progressing westward, the timbered prairie grad-
ually changes to the grass-covered prairie, spreading
everywhere a great ocean of fertility. Across the
Wabash is the “Prairie State’” of Illinois, its name
coming from its principal river, which the Indians
named after themselves. The word is a French
adaptation of the Indian name “Illini,” meaning
“the superior men,” the earliest explorers and set-
tlers having been French, the first comers on the
Illinois River being Father Marquette and La Salle.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century their
little settlements were flourishing, and the most glow-
ing accounts were sent home, describing the region,
which they called “New France,” on account of its
beauty, attractiveness and prodigious fertility, as a
new Paradise. There were many years of Indian
conflicts and hostility, but after peace was restored
and a stable government established, population
flowed in, and Illinois was admitted as a State to the
Union in 1818. The capital was established at
Springfield in 1837, an attractive city of about thirty
thousand inhabitants, built on a prairie a few miles
south of Sangamon River, a tributary of the Illinois,
and from its floral development and the adornment of
its gardens and shade trees, Springfield is popularly
known as the “Flower City.” There is a magnifi-
cent State Capitol with high surmounting dome, pat-
*
THE GREAT WEST. 411
terned somewhat after the Federal Capitol at Wash-
ington. Springfield has coal-mines which add to its
prosperity, but its great fame is connected with Abra-
ham Lincoln. He lived in Springfield, and the house
he occupied when elected President has been acquired
by the State and is on public exhibition. After his
assassination in 1865, his remains were brought from
Washington to Springfield, and interred in the pic-
turesque Oak Ridge Cemetery, in the northern sub-
urbs, where a magnificent monument was erected to
his memory and dedicated in 1874. About sixty
miles north of Springfield, the Illinois River expands
into Peoria Lake, and here came La Salle down the
river in 1680, and at the foot of the lake established
a trading-post and fort, one of the earliest in that
region. When more than a century had elapsed, a
little town grew there which is now the busy indus-
trial city of Peoria, famous for its whiskey and glu-
cose, and turning out products that annually approxi-
mate a hundred millions, furnishing vast traffic for
numerous railroads. It is the chief city of the “corn
belt,” and is served by all the prominent trunk rail-
way lines.
Like the pioneers of a hundred years ago, we have
left the Atlantic seaboard, crossed the Allegheny
Mountains and entered the expansive “Northwest
Territory,” which in the first half of the nineteenth
century was the Mecca of the colonist and frontiers-
man. This was then the region of the “Great
412 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
West,” though that has since moved far beyond the
Mississippi. Its agricultural wealth made the pros-
perity of the country for many decades, and its pro-
digious development was hardly realized until put to
the test of the Civil War, when it poured out the
men and officers, and had the staying qualities so
largely contributing to the result of that great con-
flict. Gradually overspread by a network of railways,
the numerous “cross-roads” have expanded every-
where into towns and cities, almost all patterned
alike, and all of them centres of rich farming dis-
tricts. Coal, oil and gas have come to minister to its
manufacturing wants, and thus growing into mature
Commonwealths, this prolific region in the later de-
cades has been itself, in turn, contributing largely to
the tide of migration flowing to the present “Great
Northwest,” a thousand miles or more beyond. It
presents a rich agricultural picture, but little scenic
attractiveness. Everywhere an almost dead level,
the numerous railways cross and recross the surface
in all directions at grade, and are easily built, it being
only necessary to dig a shallow ditch on either side,
throw the earth in the centre, and lay the ties and
rails. Nature has made the prairie as smooth as a
lake, so that hardly any grading is necessary, and the
region of expansive green viewed. Out of the car
window has been aptly described as having “a face
but no features,” when one looks afar over an ocean
of waving verdure.
LAKE ERIE. - 413
LAKE ERIE.
This vast prairie extends northward to and beyond
the Great Lakes, and it is recorded that in the early
history of the proposed legislation for the “North-
west Territory,” Congress gravely selected as the
names of the States which were to be created out of
it such ponderous conglomerates as “Metropotamia,”
“Assemispia,” “Pelisipia” and “Polypotamia,” titles
which happily were long ago permitted to pass into
oblivion. Northward, in Ohio, the region stretches
to Lake Erie, the most southern and the smallest of
the group of Great Lakes above Niagara. It is re-
garded as the least attractive lake, having neither
romances nor much scenery. Yet, from its favorable
position, it carries an enormous commerce. It is
elliptical in form, about two hundred and forty miles
long and sixty miles broad; the surface being five
hundred and sixty-five feet above the ocean level.
It is a very shallow lake, the depth rarely exceeding
one hundred and twenty feet, excepting at the lower
end, while the other lakes are much deeper, and in
describing this difference of level it is said that the
surplus waters poured from the vast basins of Supe-
rior, Michigan and Huron, flow across the plate of
Erie into the deep bowl of Ontario. This shallow-
mess causes it to be easily disturbed, so that it is the
most dangerous of these fresh-water seas, and it has
few harbors, and those very poor, especially upon the
414 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
southern shore. The bottom of the lake is a light,
clayey sediment, rapidly accumulated from the wear-
ing away of the shores, largely composed of clay
strata. The loosely-aggregated products of these dis-
integrated strata are frequently seen along its coast,
forming cliffs extending back into elevated plateaus,
through which the rivers cut deep channels. Their
mouths are clogged by sand-bars, and dredging and
breakwaters have made the harbors on the southern
shore, around which have grown the chief towns—
Dunkirk, Erie, Ashtabula, Cleveland, Sandusky and
Toledo. The name of Lake Erie comes from the
Indian “tribe of the Cat,” whom the French called
the “Chats,” because their early explorers, penetrat-
ing to the shores of the lake, found them abounding
in wild cats, and thus they gave the same name to
the cats and the savages. In their own parlance,
these Indians were the “Eries,” and in the seven-
teenth century they numbered about two thousand
warriors. In 1656 the Iroquois attacked and almost
annihilated them.
The Lake Erie ports in the “Buckeye State’” of
Ohio, so called from the buckeye tree, are chiefly
harbors for shipping coal and receiving ores from the
upper lakes, their railroads leading to the great in-
dustrial centres to the southward. Near the eastern
boundary of Ohio is Commeaut, on the bank of a wide
and deep ravine, formed by a small river, broadening
into a bay at the shore of the lake, the name mean-
LAKE ERIE. 415
ing “many fish.” Here landed in 1796 the first set-
tlers from Connecticut, who entered the “Western
Reserve,” as all this region was then called. On July
4th of that year, celebrating the national anniver-
sary, “they pledged each other in tin cups of lake
water, accompanied by a salute of fowling-pieces,”
and the next day began building the first house on
the Reserve, constructed of logs, and long known as
“Stow Castle.” Conneaut is consequently known as
the “Plymouth of the Western Reserve,” as here
began the settlements made by the Puritan New Eng-
land migration to Ohio. On deep ravimes making
their harbors are Ashtabula, an enormous entrepôt for
ores, and a few miles farther westward, Painesville,
on Grand River, named for Thomas Paine. Beyond
is Mentor, the home of the martyred President Gar-
field, whose large white house stands near the rail-
way. All along here, the southern shore of Lake Erie
is a broad terrace at eighty to one hundred feet ele-
vation above the water, while farther inland is another
and considerably higher plateau. Each sharp de-
clivity facing northward seems at one time to have
been the actual shore of the lake when its surface
before the waters receded was much higher than
now. The outer plateau having once been the
overflowed lake bed, is level, excepting where the
crooked but attractive streams have deeply cut
their winding ravines down through it to reach Lake
Erie.
416 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
THE CITY OF CLEVELAND.
Thus we come to Cleveland, the second city in
Ohio, having four hundred thousand people, and ex-
tensive manufacturing industries. It is the capital
of the “Western Reserve '’
and the chief city of
Northern Ohio, its commanding position upon a high
bluff, falling off precipitously to the edge of the
water, giving it the most attractive situation on the
shore of Lake Erie. Shade trees embower it, includ-
ing many elms planted by the early settlers, who
learned to love them in New England, and hence it
delights in the popular title of the “Forest City.”
Were not the streets so wide, the profusion of foliage
might make Cleveland seem like a town in the woods.
The little Cuyahoga River, its name meaning “the
crooked stream,” flows with wayward course down a
deeply washed and winding ravine, making a valley
in the centre of the city, known as “the Flats,” and
this, with the tributary ravimes of some smaller
streams, is packed with factories and foundries, oil re-
fineries and lumber mills, their chimneys keeping the
business section constantly under a cloud of smoke.
Railways run in all directions over these flats and
through the ravines, while, high above, the city has
built a stone viaduct nearly a half-mile long, crossing
the valley. Here are the great works of the Standard
Oil Company, controlling that trade, and several of
the petroleum magnates have their palaces in the city.
THE CITY OF CLEVELAND. 417.
Old Moses Cleaveland, a shrewd but unsatisfied
Puritan of the town of Windham, Connecticut, be-
came the agent of the Connecticut Lead Company,
who brought out the first colony in 1796 that landed
at Commeaut. They explored the lake shore, and
selecting as a good location the mouth of Cuyahoga
River, Moses wrote back to his former home that
they had found a spot “on the bank of Lake Erie
which was called by my name, and I believe the
child is now born that may live to see that place as
large as old Windham.” In little over a century the
town has grown far beyond his wildest dreams, al-
though it did not begin to expand until the era of
canals and railways, and it was not so long ago that
the people in grateful memory erected a bronze statue
of the founder. One of the local antiquaries, delv-
ing into the records, has found why various original
settlers made their homes at Cleveland. He learned
that “one man, on his way farther West, was laid up
with the ague and had to stop ; another ran out of
money and could get no farther; another had been
to St. Louis and wanted to get back home, but saw a
chance to make money in ferrying people across the
river; another had $200 over, and started a bank;
while yet another thought he could make a living by
manufacturing ox-yokes, and he stayed.” This
earnest investigator continues: “A man with an
agricultural eye would look at the soil and kick his
toe into it, and then would shake his head and de-
VOL. I.-27
418 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
clare that it would not grow white beams—but he
knew mot what this soil would bring forth ; his hope
and trust was in beans, he wanted to know them
more, and wanted potatoes, corn, oats and cabbage,
and he knew not the future of Euclid Avenue.”
On either side of the deep valley of “the Flats.”
stretch upon the plateau the long avenues of Cleve-
land, with miles of pleasant residences, surrounded
by lawms and gardens, each house isolated in green,
and the whole appearing like a vast rural village
more than a city. This pleasant plan of construc-
tion had its origin in the New England ideas of the
people. Yet the city also has a numerous population
of Germans, and it is recorded that one of the early
landowners wrote, in explaining his project of set-
tlement: “If I make the contract for thirty thousand
acres, I expect with all speed to send you fifteen or .
twenty families of prancing Dutchmen.” These
Teutons came and multiplied, for the original Puritan
stock can hardly be responsible for the vineyards of
the neighborhood, the music and dancing, and the
public gardens along the pleasant lake shore, where
the crowds go, when work is over, to enjoy recreation
and watch the gorgeous summer sunsets across the
bosom of the lake which are the glory of Cleveland.
Upon the plateau, the centre of the city, is the Monu-
mental Park, where stand the statue of Moses Cleave-
land, the founder, who died in 1806, and a fine
Soldiers' Monument, with also a statue of Commodore
THE CITY OF CLEVELAND. 419
Perry. This Park is an attractive enclosure of about
ten acres, having fountains, gardens, monuments and
a little lake, and it is intersected at right angles by
two broad streets, and surrounded by important
buildings. One of the streets is the chief business
highway, Superior Street, and the other leads down
to the edge of the bluff on the lake shore, where the
steep slope is made into a pleasure-ground, with more
flower-beds and fountains and a pleasant outlook over
the water, although at its immediate base is a laby-
rinth of railroads and an ample supply of smoke from
the numerous locomotives. A long breakwater pro-
tects the harbor entrance, and out under the lake is
bored the water-works tunnel.
There extends far to the eastward, from a corner
of the Monumental Park, Cleveland's famous street—
Euclid Avenue. The people regard it as the hand-
somest highway in America, in the combined mag-
mificence of houses and grounds. It is a level ave-
nue of about one hundred and fifty feet width, with
a central roadway and stone footwalks on either hand,
shaded by rows of grand overarching elms, and bor-
dered on both sides by well-kept lawns. This is the
public highway, every part being kept scrupulously
meat, while a light railing marks the boundary be-
tween the street and the private grounds. For a
long distance this noble avenue is bordered by stately
residences, each surrounded by ample gardens, the
stretch of grass, flowers and foliage extending back
420 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
from one hundred to four hundred feet between the
street and the buildings. Embowered in trees, and
with all the delights of garden and lawn seen in every
direction, this grand avenue makes a delightful drive-
way and promenade. Upon it live the multi-mil-
lionaires of Cleveland, the finest residences being
upon the northern side, where they have invested
part of the profits of their railways, mills, mines, oil
wells and refineries in adorning their homes and orna-
menting their city. This splendid boulevard, in one
way, is a reproduction of the Parisian Avenue of the
Champs Elysées and its gardens, but with more at-
tractions in the surroundings of its bordering rows
of palaces. Here live the men who vie with those of
Chicago in controlling the commerce of the lakes and
the affairs of the Northwest. Plenty of room and an
abundance of income are necessary to provide each
man, in the heart of the city, with two to ten acres
of lawns and gardens around his house, but it is done
here with eminent success. About four miles out is
the beautiful Wade Park, opposite which are the
handsome buildings of the Western Reserve Uni-
versity, having, with its adjunct institutions, a thou-
sand students. Beyond this, the avenue ends at the
attractive Lake View Cemetery, where, on the
highest part of the elevated plateau, with a grand
outlook over Lake Erie, is the grave of the assassi-
mated President Garfield. His imposing memorial
rises to a height of one hundred and sixty-five feet.
IEuclit) Elvenue, Clevelano, (W.
- - - -
º
º-ºº-º-


CLEVELAND TO CHICAGO. 421
“s
CLEVELAND TO CHICAGO.
Thirty-five miles southwest of Cleveland, and
some distance inland from Lake Erie, is Oberlin,
where, in a fertile and prosperous district, is the
leading educational foundation of Northern Ohio–
Oberlin College—named in memory of the noted
French philanthropist, and established in 1833 by
the descendants of the Puritan colonists, to carry out
their idea of thorough equality in education. It ad-
mits students without distinction of sex or color, and
has about thirteen hundred, almost equally divided
between the sexes, occupying a cluster of commo-
dious buildings. To the westward is the beautiful
ravime of Black River, which gets out to the lake by
falling over a rocky ledge in two streams, and on the
peninsula formed by its forks is the town of Elyria.
Maria Ely was the wife of the founder of the set-
tlement, who named it after her in this peculiar re-
versible way. This romantic stream bounds the
“Fire Lands” of the Western Reserve, a tract of
nearly eight hundred square miles abutting on the
lake shore, which Connecticut set apart for coloniza-
tion by her people, who had been sufferers from de-
structive fires in the towns of New London, Fairfield
and Norwalk on Long Island Sound. They secured
this wilderness in the early part of the nineteenth
century, and their chief town is Sandusky, with
twenty-five thousand population. Here lived most
422 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
of the Eries, the Indian “tribe of the Cat,” who
fished in Sandusky Bay, its upper waters being an
archipelago of little green islands abounding with
water fowl. They were known to the adjoining
tribes as the “Neutral Nation,” for they maintained
two villages of refuge on Sandusky River, between
the warlike Indians of the east and the west, and
whoever entered their boundaries was safe from pur-
suit, the sanctuary being rigidly observed. The
early French missionaries who found them in the
seventeenth century speak of these anomalous vil-
lages among the Savages as having then been long
in existence. -
The name of Sandusky is a corruption of a Wy-
andot word meaning “cold-water pools,” the French
having originally rendered it as Sandosquet. The
shores are low, but there is a good harbor and much
trade, and here is located the Ohio State Fish
Hatchery. The railroads are laid among the savan-
mahs and lagoons, and one of the suburban stations
has been not inaptly named Venice. There are ex-
tensive vineyards on the flat and sunny shores of the
bay, and this is one of the most prolific grape dis-
tricts in the State. Sandusky Bay is a broad sheet
of water, in places six miles wide, and about twenty
miles long. Sandusky has a large timber trade,
being noted for the manufacture of hard woods. Out
beyond the bold peninsula, protruding into the lake
at the entrance to the bay, is a group of islands
CLEVELAND TO CHICAGO. 423
spreading over the southwestern waters of Lake
Erie, of which Kelly's Island is the chief, an archi-
pelago formed largely from the detritus washed out
of the Detroit, Maumee and various other rivers
flowing into the head of the lake. Here the Erie
Indians had a fortified stronghold, whose outlines can
still be traced. The most noted of the group is Put-
in-Bay Island, now a popular watering-place, which
got its name from Commodore Perry, who “put in ’’
there with the captured British fleet at the naval
battle of Lake Erie, September 10, 1813. It was
from this place, just after his victory, that he sent the
historic despatch, giving him fame, “We have met
the enemy and they are ours.” The killed of both
fleets were buried side by side near the beach on the
island, the place being marked by a mound. The
lovely sheet of water of Put-in-Bay glistens in front,
having the towns of villa-crowned Gibraltar Island
upon its surface. Vineyards and roses abound, these
islands, like the adjacent shores, being noted for their
wines.
The Maumee River, coming up from Fort Wayne,
flows into the head of Lake Erie, the largest stream
on its southern coast. It comes from the southwest
through the region of the “Black Swamp,” a vast
district, originally morass and forest, which has been
drained to make a most fertile country. This “mis-
2
erable bog,” as the original settlers denounced it,
when they were jolted over the rude corduroy roads
424 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
that sustained them upon the quaking morass, has
since become the “prolific garden” and “magnificent
forest” described by the modern tourist. The Mau-
mee Valley was an almost continual battle-ground
with the Indians when “Mad Anthony Wayne”
commanded on that frontier, he being called by them
the “Wind,” because “he drives and tears every-
thing before him.” For a quarter of a century
border warfare raged along this river, then known
as the “Miami of the Lakes,” and its chief settle-
ment, Toledo, passed its infancy in a baptism of blood
and fire. It was at the battle of Fallen Timbers,
fought in 1794, almost on the site of Toledo, that
Wayne gave his laconic and noted “field orders.”
General William Henry Harrison, then his aide, told
Wayne just before the battle he was afraid he would
get into the fight and forget to give “the necessary
” Wayne replied: “Perhaps I may, and
field orders.
if I do, recollect that the standing order for the day
is, charge the rascals with the bayonets.” Toledo
is built on the flat surface on both sides of the Mau-
mee River and Bay, which make it a good harbor,
stretching six miles down to Lake Erie. There are
a hundred thousand population here, and this ener-
getic reproduction of the ancient Spanish city has
named its chief newspaper the Toledo Blade. The
city has extensive railway connections and a large
trade in lumber and grain, coal and ores, and does
much manufacturing, it being well served with natu-
THE GREAT CITY OF THE LAKES, 425
ral gas. A dozen grain elevators line the river
banks, and the factory smokes overhang the broad
low-lying city like a pall. To the westward, cross-
ing the rich lands of the reclaimed swamp, is the In-
diana boundary, that State being here a broad and
level prairie, which also stretches northward into
Michigan. The chief town of Northern Indiana is
South Bend, named from the sweeping southern bend
of St. Joseph River, on which it is built. This stream
rises in Michigan, and flows for two hundred and fifty
miles over the prairie, going down into Indiana and
them back again to empty into Lake Michigan. South
Bend is noted for its carriage- and wagon-building
factories, and has several flourishing Roman Catholic
institutions, generally of French origin. To the
westward spreads the level prairie, with scant scenic
attractions, though rich in agriculture, to the shores
of Lake Michigan, being gridironed with railways as
Chicago is approached.
THE GREAT CITY OF THE LARES.
The second city in the United States, with a popu-
lation approximating two millions, Chicago, the me-
tropolis of the prairies, seems destined for unlimited
growth. It has absorbed all the outlying towns, and
now embraces nearly two hundred square miles. It
has a water-front on Lake Michigan of twenty-six
miles, and its trade constantly grows. It pushes
ahead with boundless energy, attracting the shrewd-
426 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
est men of the West to take part in its vast and
profitable enterprises, and is in such a complete man-
ner the depot and storehouse for the products and
supplies of goods for the enormous prairie region
around it, and for the entire Northwest, and the
country out to the Rocky Mountains and Pacific
Ocean, that other Western cities cannot displace or
even hope to rival it. Yet it is a youthful giant, of
quick and marvellous development, but few of its
leading spirits having been born within its limits,
nearly all being attracted thither by its paramount
advantages. The prominent characteristics of Chi-
cago are an overhanging pall of Smoke ; streets
crowded with quick-moving, busy people; a vast ag-
gregation of railways, vessels, elevators and traffic
of all kinds; a polyglot population drawn from almost
all races; and an earnest devotion to the almighty
dollar. Its name came from the river, and is of In-
dian origin, regarded as probably a corruption of
“Cheecagua,” the title of a dynasty of chiefs who
controlled the country west and south of Lake Michi-
gam. This also was a word applied in the Indian
dialect to the wild onion growing luxuriantly on
the banks of the river, and they gave a similar
name to the thunder which they believed the voice
of the Great Spirit, and to the odorous animal
abounding in the neighborhood that the white man
knew as the “polecat.” These were rather incon-
gruous uses for the same word, but the suggestion
THE GREAT CITY OF THE LAKES. 427
has been made that all can be harmonized if Chicago
is interpreted as meaning “strong,” the Indians,
being poorly supplied with words, usually selecting
the most prominent attribute in giving names. All
these things are in one way or another “strong,”
and it is evident that prodigious strength exists in
Chicago.
As elsewhere throughout the Northwest, the French
missionaries were here the earliest explorers, Father
Marquette coming in 1673, and afterwards Hennepin,
Joliet and La Salle, whose names are so mumerously
reproduced in the Northwestern States. The French
built at the mouth of the river Fort Chicagou, for a
trading-post, and held it until the English conquered
Canada. When the earlier American settlers ven-
tured to this frontier, the Indians on Lake Michigan
were the Pottawatomies, and were hostile. The
Government in 1804 built Fort Dearborn, near the
mouth of the Chicago River, to control them. These
Indians joined in the crusade of the Prophet and
Tecumseh, and when the war with England began in
1812, attacked and captured the folk, massacring
the garrison. The post was subsequently re-estab-
lished, and the Indians were ultimately removed west
of the Mississippi. Not long afterwards it was said
the first purchase of the site of Chicago took place,
wherein a large part of the land now occupied was
sold for a pair of boots. When the town plot was
originally surveyed, twelve families were there in
428 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
addition to the garrison of Fort Dearborn, and in
1831 it had one hundred people. In 1833 the town
government was organized, and it had five hundred
and fifty inhabitants and one hundred and seventy-
five buildings. Five trustees then ruled Chicago, and
collected $49 for the first year's taxes. Collis P.
Huntington, the Pacific Railway manager, says that
in 1835, being possessed of a good constitution and
a pair of mules, but little clse, he was out that way
prospecting, and found at Chicago nothing but a
swamp and a few destitute farmers, all anxious to
move. One of these farmers came to him with the
deed of his farm of two thousand acres, and offered
to trade it for his pair of mules. Huntington adds:
“I was not very favorably impressed with the settle-
ment and declined his offer, and finally continued my
travel west, and that farm is to-day the business
centre of Chicago.”
In 1837 Chicago got its first city charter, and it
then had about forty-two hundred people. The rapid
growth since has been unparalleled, especially when,
after 1850, its commercial enterprise began attract-
ing wide aftention, the population then being about
thirty thousand. In 1855, to get above the swamp
and irºprove the drainage, the level of the entire city
was raised seven feet, huge buildings being elevated
bºdily while business was progressing, an enterprise
mainly accomplished by the ingenious devices which
first gave prominence to the late George M. Pullman.
TFIE GREAT CITY OF THE LAIKES, 429
The population almost quadrupled and its trade in-
creased tenfold in the decade 1850–60, and in 1870
the population was over three hundred thousand, and
it had become a leading American city. Yet Chicago
has had terrible setbacks in its wonderful career, the
most awful being the fire in October, 1871, the
greatest of modern times, which raged for three days,
burned over a surface of nearly four square miles
and until practically nothing remained in the district
to devour, destroyed eighteen thousand buildings, two
hundred lives, and property valued at $200,000,000,
leaving a hundred thousand people homeless—a
calamity that excited the sympathies of the world,
which gave relief contributions aggregating $7,000,-
000. Yet while the embers were smoking, this en-
terprising people set to work to rebuild their city
with a will and a progress which caused almost as
much amazement as the original catastrophe. The
recovery was complete; the city which had been of
wood was rebuilt of brick and stone and iron and
steel, and its progress since has developed an energy
not before equalled. It has been beautified by grand
parks and boulevards, and by the construction of
palatial residences and business blocks, and of emor-
mous office buildings, the tall “sky-scrapers ” having
been first invented and built in Chicago. In 1893
the World's Columbian Exhibition, to celebrate the
discovery of America, was held at Chicago on a vast
scale and with remarkable success. The city has
430 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
long been, also, a favorite meeting-place for the great
political Conventions mominating candidates for Pres-
ident and Vice-President of the United States, its
large hotel capacity and immense halls giving advan-
tages for these enormous assemblages.
CHICAGO’s ADMIRABLE LOCATION.
The position of Chicago at the southwestern ex-
tremity of Lake Michigan, with prairies of the
greatest fertility stretching hundreds of miles south
and west, makes the city the primary food-gatherer
and supply-distributor of the great Northwest, and
this has been the chief cause of its growth. In Sep-
tember, 1833, the Pottawatomies agreed to sell their
prairie homes to the United States and migrate to
reservations farther West, and seven thousand of
them assembled in grand council at Chicago, and sold
the Government twenty millions of acres of these
prairies around Lake Michigan, in Indiana, Illinois
and Michigan, for $1,100,000. Thus was this fertile
domain opened to settlement. In the Indian dialect,
{ ’ and it is the
Michigan means the “great water,’
largest lake within the United States, being three
hundred and twenty miles long and seventy broad,
and having an average depth of one thousand feet,
with the surface elevated five hundred and seventy-
eight feet above the ocean level. On the Chicago
side this extensive lake has but a narrow watershed,
the Illinois River, draining the region to the west-
CHICAGO'S ADMIRABLE LOCATION. 431
ward, being formed only sixty-five miles southwest
of the lake by the junction of the Kankakee and
Desplaines Rivers. This narrow and very low water-
shed, considered in connection with the enormous
capacity of the Illinois River valley, which is at a
much lower level and appears as if worn by a mighty
current in former times, is regarded by geologists as
an evidence of the probability that the Lake Michi-
gam waters may in past ages have found their way to
that outlet and flowed through the Illinois and Mis-
sissippi Rivers to the Gulf. The diminutive bayou
of the Chicago River, with its two short and tortuous
branches, made Chicago the leading lake port, and
thus brought trade, so that early in the race it far
outstripped all its Western rivals. Every railroad of
prominence sought an outlet or a feeder at Chicago,
and the title of a “trunk line” was adopted for a
line of rails between Chicago and the seaboard. The
surrounding prairie for miles is crossed in all direc-
tions by railways, and a large part of the city and
suburbs is made up of huge stations, car-yards, ele-
vators, storehouses and cattle-pens, almost over-
whelming visitors with the prodigious scale of
their elaborate perplexity. The maze of railways
and streets on the level surface, all crossing at grade,
as it has spread over miles of prairie and grown into
such enormous proportions, presents a most serious
problem, with which the city and the railways are
now dealing on a comprehensive plan, by which it is
432 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
hoped that oefore long the grade-crossings will be
eliminated.
Another problem, found even more serious as the
city grew, was the drainage. In former years the
sewage was discharged into the Chicago River and
Lake Michigan. The river became a most malodor-
ous stream in consequence, and as it had practically
no descent, the current would scarcely flow, and the
lake, from which the city water-supply was drawn,
was more and more polluted. With the customary
enterprise of these wonderful people, however, they
decided to make the only change feasible, which was
to take advantage of the descending watershed to-
wards Desplaines River and change their sewerage
system so that it would all discharge in that direction.
The problem was solved by the construction of the
Imost expensive drainage works in the world, and a
complete change of the sewers, at a cost altogether
approximating $40,000,000. St. Louis and the towns
along the Desplaines fought the scheme, and there
was protracted litigation, but the very existence of
Chicago depended on the result. The great drainage
canal was completed connecting the Chicago River
South Branch with Desplaines River at Lockport,
twenty-eight miles southwest, where it discharges the
outflow from Lake Michigan, which then flows past
Joliet, and ultimately into Illinois River. This huge
canal, opened in January, 1900, reverses the flow of
the Chicago River, which now draws in about three
TLincoln (INonument, TLincoln park, Chicago


FEATURES OF CHICAGO. 433
hundred thousand cubic feet of water per minute from
Lake Michigan and flushes the canal, which is also to
be made available for shipping. Thus the Chicago
River flows towards its source with a free current,
and Lake Michigan has been purified. The canal has
quite a descent to Lockport, and the water-power is
to be availed of in generating electricity. The city
water-supply is drawn from cribs out in the lake
through four systems of tunnels, aggregating twenty-
two miles, furnishing an ample service, and pumping-
stations in various locations elevate the water in
towers to secure sufficient head for the flow into the
buildings. The chief of these towers, a solid stone
structure alongside the lake, rises one hundred and
sixty feet, the huge pumping-engines forcing a vast
stream constantly over its top.
FEATURES OF CHICAGO.
Chicago is the world’s greatest grain, lumber and
cattle market. It attracts immigrants from every-
where, and all flourish in mative luxuriance, although
occasionally they are compelled to bow to the power
of the law by the military arm when civil forces are
exhausted. Everything seems to go on without
much hindrance, and thus this wonderful city secures
its rapid growth and completely cosmopolitan char-
acter. While proud of their amazing progress, the
people seem generally so engrossed in pushing busi-
mess enterprises and piling up fortunes that they have
VOL. I. —28
434 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
little time to think of much else. Yet somebody has
had opportunity to plan the adornment of the city by
a magnificent series of parks and boulevards encir-
cling it. The broad expanse of prairie was low,
level and treeless originally, but abundant trees have
since been planted, and art has made little lakes and
miniature hills, beautiful flower-gardens and abund-
ant shrubbery, thus producing pleasure-grounds of
rare attractions. Michigan Avenue and Drexel and
Grand Boulevards, leading to the southern system of
parks and Lake Shore Drive on the north side of
Chicago River, are the finest residential streets. The
huge Auditorium fronting on Michigan Avenue was
erected at a cost of $3,500,000, includes a hotel and
theatre, and is surmounted with a tower rising two
hundred and seventy feet, giving a fine view over
the city and lake. Out in front is the Lake Park,
with railways beyond near the shore, and a fine
bronze equestrian statue of General John A. Logan,
who died in 1886 and is buried in the crypt beneath
the monument. Michigan Avenue begins at Chicago
River alongside the site of old Fort Dearborn, now
obliterated, and it stretches far south, a tree-lined
boulevard adorned by magnificent residences.
Chicago River, with its entrance protected by a
wide-spreading breakwater, is the harbor of the city,
and, like its railways, carries the trade. Tunnels con-
duct various streets under it, and a multitude of
bridges go over it, all of them opening to let vessels
IFEATURES OF CHICAGO. 435
pass. They are mostly swinging bridges, but some
are ingenious constructions, which roll, and lift and
fold, and in various curious ways open the channel for
the shipping. Huge elevators line the river banks,
with vessels alongside, into which streams of grain
are poured, while multitudes of cars move in and out,
under and around them, bringing the supply from the
farm to the storage-bins. In the business section, as
elsewhere, the streets are wide, thus accommodating
the throngs who fill them, and there are fine city and
national buildings, a new Post-office of large size and
imposing architecture being in course of construction.
The Chicago Public Library, completed in 1897, is
a grand structure, costing $2,000,000, and having
about three hundred thousand volumes. The Uni-
versity of Chicago, in the southern suburbs, is des-
timed to become one of the leading institutions of
learning in America. It began instruction in 1892,
and now has some twenty-four hundred students, and
endowments of $15,000,000, largely the gifts of
John D. Rockefeller. The University grounds cover
twenty-four acres, and when the plan is completed
there will be over forty buildings. Its libraries con-
tain three hundred and fifty thousand volumes. The
great Yerkes Observatory, adjunct to this Univer-
sity, is at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, seventy miles
distant, and has the largest refracting telescope in
the world, with forty-inch lens and a tube seventy
feet long. On the northern side of the city is the
436 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
Newberry Library, with $3,000,000 endowment and
two hundred thousand volumes, including admirable
musical and medical collections, and the Crerar Li-
brary, with $2,000,000 endowment, principally for
scientific works, is being established on the south
side. Chicago's greatest industrial establishment is
the Federal Steel Company, having enormous rolling-
mills and foundries in various parts of the city, and
also at Joliet on Desplaines River. Its South Chi-
cago Rolling Mills occupy over three hundred acres.
The manufacture of agricultural machinery is repre-
sented by two enormous establishments, the McCor-
mick Harvesting Machine Company on the southwest
side and the Deering Works in the northwestern dis-
trict.
CHICAGO BUSINESS ENERGY.
As the elevators of Chicago represent its traffic in
grain, and contain usually a large proportion of what
is known as the “visible supply,” so do the vast
lumber-yards along Chicago River often store up an
enormous product of the output from the “Great
North Woods,” covering much of Michigan, Wiscon-
sin and Minnesota, and spreading across the Canadian
border. The third great branch of traffic is repre-
sented by the Union Stock Yards in the southwestern
suburbs. These yards in a year will handle eight
millions of hogs, four millions of cattle, four millions
of sheep and a hundred thousand horses, over two-
thirds of the hogs and cattle being killed in the yards
CHICAGO BUSINESS ENERGY. 437
and sent away in the form of meat, and the whole
annual traffic being valued at $250,000,000. The
yards cover three hundred acres, and with the pack-
ing-houses employ twenty-five thousand men, and
they have twenty miles of water-troughs and twenty-
five miles of feeding-troughs, and are served by two
hundred and fifty miles of railway-tracks. The hog
is a potential factor in American economy, being re-
garded as the most compact form in which the corn
crop of the country can be transported to market.
The corn on the farm is fed to the hog, and the ani-
mal is sent to Chicago as a package provided by na-
ture for its economical utilization. The Union Stock
Yards make a complete town, with its own banks,
hotels, Board of Trade, Post-office, town-hall, news-
paper and special Fire Department. The extensive
enclosure is entered by a modest, gray sandstone tur-
reted gateway, surmounted by a carved bull's head,
emblematic of its uses. The Horse Market is a large
pavilion, seating four thousand people. From this
vast emporium, with its enormous packing-houses,
are sent away the meat supplies that go all over the
world, the product being carried out in long trains of
cammed goods and refrigerator cars, the most inge-
nious methods of “cold storage " being invented for
and used in this widely extended industry.
The active traffic of the grain and provision trades
of Chicago is conducted in the building of the Board
of Trade, a tall and imposing structure at the head
438 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
of La Salle Street, which makes a fitting close to the
view along that grand highway. It is one of the
most elaborate architectural ornaments of the city,
and its surmounting tower rises three hundred and
twenty-two feet from the pavement. The fame of
this grand speculative arena is world-wide, and the
animated and at times most exciting business done
within marks the nervous beating of the pulse of this
metropolis of food products. The interior is a mag-
nificent hall, lighted by high-reaching windows and
surmounted by a central skylight elevated nearly a
hundred feet above the floor. Impressive columns
adorn the sides, and the elaborate frescoes above are
in keeping with its artistic decoration. Upon the
spacious floor, between mine and one o'clock, assemble
the wheat and corn, and pork, lard, cattle and rail-
way kings in a typical scene of concentrated and
boiling energy feeding the furnace in which Chicago's
high-pressure business enterprise glows and roars.
These speculative gladiators have their respective
“pits” or amphitheatres upon the floor, so that they
gather in huge groups, around which hundreds run
and jostle, the scene from the overlooking gallery, as
the crowds sway and squirm, and with their calls and
shouting make a deafening uproar, being a veritable
Bedlam. Each “pit” deals in a specific article, while
in another space are detachments of telegraph oper-
ators working with nimble fingers to send instant re-
ports of the doings and prices to the anxious outer
PULLMAN AND THE SLEEPING CAR. 439
world. High up on the side of the grand hall, in full
view of all, are hung large dials, whose moving hands
keep momentary record of the changes in prices
made by the moisy and excited throngs in the “pits,”
thus giving notice of the ruling figures for the next
month’s “options” on wheat, corn and “short-ribs.”
There are tables for samples, and large blackboards
bearing the figures of market quotations elsewhere.
This Chicago Board of Trade has been the scene of
some of the wildest speculative excitements in the
country, as its shouting and almost frenzied groups of
traders in the “pits” may make or break a “corner,”
and here in fitful fever concentrates the business
energy of the great Metropolis of the Lakes.
PULLMAN AND THE SLEEPING-CA.R.
Another Chicago specialty of wide fame is the
railway sleeping-car, brought to its present high
stage of development by one of the most prominent
Chicagoans, the late George M. Pullman. The
earliest American sleeping-car was devised by The-
odore T. Woodruff, who constructed a small working
model in 1854 at Watertown, New York, and subse-
quently building his car, first ran it on the New
York Central Railroad in October, 1856, charging
fifty cents for a berth. George M. Pullman was
originally a cabinet-maker in New York State, and
moved when a young man to Chicago. His first
fame in that city, as already stated, came from the .
440 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
ingenious methods he devised, when the grade of the
town was elevated to secure better drainage, for rais-
ing the buildings by putting hundreds of jackscrews
under them, trade continuing uninterrupted during
the process. Pullman, subsequently to that time,
travelled occasionally between Chicago and Buffalo,
and one might got into Woodruff's car. He was
stretched out upon the vibrating couch for some two
hours, but could not sleep, and his eyes being widely
open, and the sight wandering all about the car, he
struck upon a mew idea. When he left the car he
had determined to develop from his brief experience
a plan destined to expand into a complete home upon
wheels for the traveller, either awake or sleeping.
In 1859 he turned two ordinary railway coaches into
sleeping-cars and placed them upon might trains be-
tween Chicago and St. Louis, charging fifty cents per
berth, his first might's receipts being two dollars. He
ran these experimental coaches about five years be-
fore he felt able to carry out his ideal plan, and he
then occupied fully a year in constructing his model
sleeping-car, the “Pioneer,” at Chicago, at a cost of
$18,000. But when completed the car was so heavy,
wide and high that no railway could undertake run-
ming it, as it necessitated cutting off station platforms
and elevating the tops of bridges before it could pass
by. Thus he had a white elephant on his hands for
a time. In April, 1865, President Lincoln's assassi-
nation shocked the country, and the funeral, with its
PULLMAN AND THE SLEEPING-CA.R. 441
escort of mourning statesmen, was progressing from
Washington to Chicago, on the way to the grave at
Springfield. The nation watched its progress, and
the railways transporting the Cortégé were doing their
best. The manager of the road from Chicago to
Springfield used the “Pioneer” in the funeral train,
taking several days to prepare for it by sending out
gangs of men to cut off the station platforms and
alter the bridges. Pullman's dream was realized;
his “coach of the future,” with its escort of statesmen,
carried the dead President to his grave and became
moted throughout the land. A few weeks later, Gen-
eral Grant, fresh from the conquest of the Rebellion,
had a triumphal progress from the camp to his home
in Illinois. Five days were spent in clearing the
railway between Detroit and Galena, where he lived,
and the “Pioneer’ carried Grant over that line.
These successes made Pullman's fortune, and the
business of his company grew rapidly afterwards, it
being now an enormous concern with $70,000,000
capital, controlling practically all the sleeping-cars of
this country and many abroad. The main works are
at the Chicago suburb of Pullman, ten miles south
of the centre of the city, where there are about
twelve thousand population, most of the people being
commected with the works, which are an extensive
general car-building establishment. Pullman was
built as a model town, with every improvement cal-
culated to add to the comfort and health of the work-
442 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
ing-people, being also provided with its own library,
theatre, and a tasteful arcade, in which are various
shops. It was at Pullman in 1894 that the great
strike took place which ultimately involved a large
portion of the railways of the country, causing much
rioting and bloodshed, and finally requiring the inter-
vention of the Federal troops to maintain the peace.
After a protracted period of turmoil, the strike failed.
THE CORN CROP.
Chicago is the entrepôt for the great prairie region
spreading from the Alleghenies westward beyond the
Mississippi. Here grows the grain making the wealth
of the land, and feeding the cattle, hogs and sheep
that are poured so liberally into the Union Stock
Yards of the Lake City. Upon the crops of this vast
prairie land depends the prosperity of the country.
Wall Street in New York and the Chicago Board
of Trade are the market barometers of this prosperity,
for the prairie farmer, as he may be rich and able to
spend money, or poor so that he cannot even pay his
debts, controls the financial outlook in America. The
traveller, as he glides upon this universal prairie land,
east, south and west of Chicago, viewing its limitless
fertility seen far away in every direction over the
monotomous level, as if looking across an ocean,
cannot help recalling Wordsworth's pleasant lines:
“The streams with softest sound are flowing,
The grass you almost hear it growing,
You hear it now, if e'er you can.”
THE CORN CROP. 443
Then, as the crops ripen and are garnered, and
the wealth of the prairie is turned into food for the
world, there comes with the advancing autumn the
ripening of the greatest crop of America, and the
mainstay of the country, the Indian corn. It is
wonderful to think that the first corn crop of the
United States planted by white men at Jamestown,
Virginia, on a field of forty acres in 1608, has grown to
an annual yield approximating twenty-three hundred
million bushels. This prolific crop is the banner
product of the great prairie, and Whittier in his
“Corn Song" has recorded its glories:
5 8-)
“Heap high the farmer's wintry hoard I
Heap high the golden corn
No richer gift has autumn poured
From out the lavish horn 1
“Let other lands, exulting, glean
The apple from the pine,
The orange from its glossy green,
The cluster from the vine ;
“We better love the hardy gift
Our rugged vales bestow,
To cheer us when the storm shall drift
Our harvest fields with snow.
“Through vales of grass and meads of flowers,
Our plows their furrows made,
While on the hills, the sun and showers
Of changeful April played.
“We dropped the seed o'er hill and plain
Peneath the sun of May,
And frightened from our sprouting grain
The robber crows away.
444 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
“All through the long bright days of June
Its leaves grew green and fair,
And waved in hot midsummer’s noon
Its soft and yellow hair.
“And now, with autumn's moonlit eves,
Its harvest time has come,
We pluck away the frosted leaves,
And bear the treasure home.
“There, richer than the fabled gift
Apollo showered of old,
Fair hands the broken grain shall sift,
And knead its meal of gold.
“Let vapid idlers loll in silk
Around their costly board ;
Give us the bowl of samp and milk
By homespun beauty poured
“Where'er the wide old kitchen hearth
Sends up its smoky curls,
Who will not thank the kindly earth,
And bless our farmer girls
“Let earth withhold her goodly root,
Let mildew blight the rye,
Give to the worm the orchard’s fruit,
The wheat field to the fly ;
“But let the good old corn adorn
The hills our fathers trod;
Still let us for his golden corn
Send up our thanks to God I’’
GLIMPSES OF THE GREAT
NORTHWEST.
VII.
GLIMPSES OF THE GREAT NORTHWEST.
The Great Lakes—Sieur de La Salle—Lake St. Clair—Lake
Huron—Detroit – Ann Arbor—Mackinac Island—Sault Sainte
Marie—Lake Superior—Lake Nepigon—Thunder Bay—Port
Arthur—Kakabika Falls—The Pictured Rocks—Marquette
—Keweenaw—Iron and Copper—Houghton—Lake Gogebic
—Superior City–Duluth—Messabi and Vermillion Ranges—
Green Bay—Wisconsin–Milwaukee—Waukesha–Madison—
Rock Island—Davenport—Moline Rapids—Dubuque—Iowa
—Black Hawk—Minnesota—La Crosse—Lake Pepin—Falls
of St. Anthony—St. Paul—Minneapolis—Fort Snelling—
Flour and Lumber——Lake Minnetonka—Minnehaha Falls—
Hiawatha and Minnehaha — Source of the Mississippi —
Itasca Lake—Minnesota River—Red River of the North—
Ancient Lake Agassiz—Sioux Falls—Fargo—Great Wheat
Farms — Manitoba—Rat Portage — Keewatin—Winnipeg ––
Hudson Bay Company—Dakota—Bismarck—The Bad Lands
—Yellowstone River—Montana—Big Horn River—Custer
Massacre – Livingston — Cinnabar Mountain — Yellowstone
National Park — Mammoth Hot Springs — Norris Geyser
Basin—Firehole River—Lower, Middle and Upper Geyser
Basins—Yellowstone Lake and Falls—The Grand Canyon—
Two-Ocean Pond—Westward the Course of Empire Takes
its Way.
THE GREAT LAKES.
RENſ. RoPERT CAVELIER, the Sieur de La Salle,
was the chief French pilgrim and adventurer in the
seventeenth century who explored the Great Lakes
and valley of the Mississippi, and secured for his
country the vast empire of Louisiana, stretching
(447)
448 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
from Canada to the Gulf. His explorations were
made in 1669 and again in 1678, and like all the
discoverers of that early time he was hunting for the
water way thought to lead to the South Sea and pro-
vide a route to China. The historian Parkman de-
scribes La Salle as one of the most remarkable ex-
plorers whose names live in history; the hero of a
fixed idea and determined purpose; an untiring pil-
grim pushing onward towards the goal he was never
to attain; the pioneer who guided America to the
possession of her richest heritage. Throughout the
morthwest his memory is preserved in the names of
rivers, towns, and otherwise, and his maps and narra-
tives gave the earliest geography of the Lakes and
the vast and prolific region obtained from France in
the Louisiana cession.
The Great Lakes on the northern border of the
United States are the largest bodies of fresh water on
the globe. They carry an enormous commerce,
nearly a hundred thousand men being employed by
the fleet of lake vessels, which approximates two
millions tonnage. At the head of Lake Erie the
waters of Detroit River pour in, draining the upper
lakes, this stream, about twenty-five miles long, flow-
ing from Lake St. Clair and broadening from a half-
mile to four miles width at its mouth. Lake St.
Clair is elevated five hundred and thirty feet, but is
small, being about twenty-five miles in diameter, and
shallow, only about twenty feet deep. The naviga-
THE GREAT LAKES. 449
tion of its shallows is intricate, and is aided by a long
canal through the shoals at the upper end, where the
St. Clair River discharges, a strait about forty miles
long, flowing south from Lake Huron. This great
lake is at five hundred and eighty feet elevation, and
in places seventeen hundred feet deep, covering
twenty-four thousand square miles, and containing
many islands. At its northern end, Lakes Superior
and Michigan join it by various straits and water
ways beyond Mackinac Island. Westward of Lakes
Ontario and Erie, and between them and Lake
Huron, a long peninsula of the Dominion of Canada
projects southward into the United States, terminat-
ing opposite Detroit. Similarly, to the westward of
Lake Huron, and between it and Lake Michigan, the
State of Michigan has its lower peninsula projecting
upward to Canada. The Canadian projection, which
is part of Ontario Province, is unfortunately located,
being almost surrounded by these expansive lakes,
having bleak, cold winds sweeping across them and
seriously impeding its agriculture. The surface has
little charm of scenery and the population is sparse.
The trunk railways, however, find this an almost
direct route from Western New York to Detroit and
Chicago, and various roads traverse it, coming out
on the Detroit River and the swift-flowing St. Clair
River, which are crossed both by car-ferry and tun-
nel. At the outlet of Lake Huron, St. Clair River
is less than a thousand feet wide between Point Ed-
VOL. I.--29
450 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. -
ward and Fort Gratiot, and here and at Ports Sarnia.
and Huron the low and level shores are lined with
docks, elevators and other accessories of commerce.
This river brings vast amounts of sand down out of
Lake Huron with its swift current, which are depos-
ited on the St. Clair Flats beyond its mouth, keeping
that lake shallow, and requiring the long ship canal
to maintain navigation. Below Lake St. Clair, the
wider Detroit River presents many fine bits of
scenery, while the city of Detroit spreads for several
miles along the northwestern bank, and has Windsor
opposite, on the Canadian shore. Pretty islands dot
the broadening stream below Detroit, and the vary-
ing width, with the bluffs on the Canadian side, and
the meadows, fields and forests of Michigan, give
lovely views.
DETROIT AND MACKINAC.
Detroit means “the strait,” and the original In-
dian names for the river mean “the place of the
turned channel.” The early visitors who reached it
by boat at night or in dark weather, and were imat-
tentive to the involved currents, always remarked, as
the Indians did before them, that owing to these ex-
traordinary involutions of the waters, when the sun
appeared again it always seemed to rise in the wrong
place. The French under La Salle were the first
Europeans who passed through the river, and in 1701
the Sieur de la Mothe Cadillac, who received grants
from Louis XIV., came and founded Fort Pontchar-
I).ETROIT AND MACKINAC. 451
train there, naming it after the French Minister of
Marine, around which a settlement afterwards grew,
to which the French sent colonists at intervals. The
British got possession in 1760, and it successfully re-
sisted the conspiracy and attacks of the Ojibway In-
dian chief Pontiac for over a year, the garrison nar-
rowly escaping massacre. The United States, after
the Revolution, sent out General St. Clair as Gov-
ernor, and his name was given the lake to the north-
ward. Detroit was a frontier post in the War of
1812, being alternately held by British and Ameri-
cans. In 1824 it had about fifteen hundred people
and became a city. It now has three hundred and
fifty thousand population, and its commercial import-
ance may be estimated from the fact that the whole
enormous traffic of the Lakes passes in front of the
city during the seven months that navigation is open,
the procession of craft often reaching sixty thousand
vessels in the season. Detroit also has extensive and
varied manufactures. It has a gradually rising sur-
face and broad and well-paved streets on a rectangu-
lar plan, with several avenues radiating from a cen-
tre, like the spokes of a wheel. The central square
is the Campus Martius, an expansion, about a half-
mile from the river, of Woodward Avenue, the chief
street. Here is an elaborate City Hall, the principal
public building, having in front a magnificent Soldiers’
Monument. The suburbs are attractive, and there
are various pleasant parks and rural cemeteries, the
452 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
leading Park of Belle Isle, covering seven hundred
acres, being to the northeastward, with a good view
over Lake St. Clair. Fort Wayne, the elaborate de-
fensive work of Detroit, is on the river just below
the city, and has a small garrison of regular troops.
It is yet incomplete, and is designed to be the most
extensive fortification on the northern frontier, com-
manding the important passage between Lakes Huron
and Erie and the railway routes east and west.
The peninsula of Michigan was originally covered
with the finest forests, so that lumbering has always
been a leading industry of the people. The greater
portion of its pine woods, however, has been cut off,
so that that branch is declining; but its ample supply
of hard woods has made the State a great manufac-
turer of furniture, which is shipped all over the
country. Thirty-eight miles west of Detroit, on the
Huron River, is the city of Ann Arbor, with a popu-
lation of fifteen thousand. Here are the extensive
buildings of the University of Michigan, the leading
educational establishment of the northwest, attended
by over three thousand students, of whom a large
number are young women. It is richly endowed, and
has departments of law and medicine, as well as of
literature and science, a large library and an observa-
tory. The State makes a liberal annual contribution
for its support, raised by taxation, it being governed
by eight regents elected by the people. At the
northern extremity of the Michigan Peninsula is the
LAKE SUPERIOR. 453
Strait of Mackinac, through which Lake Michigan
discharges into Lake Huron. This water way is
about four miles wide. In the strait is Mackinac
Island, about mine miles in circumference, which was
early held by the French on account of its strategic
importance, but, being taken by the English in 1760,
was captured by Pontiac when he organized the In-
dian revolt against the British in 1763, and all its
inhabitants massacred. It is now a military post and
reservation of the United States. This rocky and
wooded island contains much picturesque scenery,
and is a favorite summer resort, its weird legends,
fresh breezes, good fishing and clear waters being
the attraction. It was an early post of the north-
western fur-traders, and here was founded one of the
frontier trading-stations of the Astor Fur Company
in the early nineteenth century by John Jacob Astor
of New York, the building in the little village being
still known as the Astor House.
LAKE SUPERIOR.
To the northward of Mackinac, Lake Superior dis-
charges into Lake Huron through the Sault Sainte
Marie Strait, the “Leap of St. Mary.” This strait
of St. Mary is a winding and most beautiful stream,
sixty-two miles long, being a succession of expan-
sions into lakes and contractions into rivers, dotted
with pretty islands and having some villages on the
banks. The chief attraction is the Sault, or “Leap,”
454 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
which is a rapid of about eighteen feet descent,
the navigation being maintained through capacious
modern systems of locks and ship canals provided by
both the United States and Canada. To the west-
ward is the great Lake Superior, the largest fresh-
water lake on the globe, three hundred and sixty
miles long and covering thirty-two thousand square
miles, with a coast-line of about fifteen hundred
miles. It is elevated about six hundred feet above
the ocean level, and has a depth averaging one thou-
sand feet. Nearly two hundred rivers and creeks
flow into it, draining a region of a hundred thousand
square miles. There are a few islands in the eastern
and western portions, but all the centre of the lake is
a vast unbroken sheet of water, and generally of a
low temperature, the deeper waters being only 39°
in summer. The early French missionaries, who
were the first explorers, told their interesting story
of Lake Superior in Paris in 1636, and in their pub-
lished account speak of its coasts as resembling a
bended bow, of which the north shore makes the
arc of the bow, the south shore the chord, and the
great Keweenaw Point, projecting far from the
southern shore, represents the arrow. Superior has
generally a rock-bound coast, displaying impressive
beauties of scenery, particularly on the northern
shore, where the beetling crags and cliffs are pro-
jected boldly into the lake along the water's edge.
This northern coast is also much indented by deep
LAKE SUPERIOR. 455
bays, bordered by precipitous cliffs, back of which
rise the dark and dreary Laurentian Mountains.
There are also rocky islands scattered near this por-
tion of the coast, some presenting vast castellated
walls of basalt and others peaks of granite, elevated
a thousand to thirteen hundred feet above the lake.
Nowhere upon the inland waters of North America
is there grander scenery.
The most considerable affluent of Lake Superior
upon its northern coast is the Nepigon River, coming
grandly down cascades and rapids, bringing the
waters of Lake Nepigon, an elliptical lake among
the mountains to the northward covering about four
thousand square miles, bounded by high cliffs, and
elevated over eight hundred feet. It is studded with
islands, has very deep waters, and receives various
streams from the remote northern wilderness. Upon
the northwestern shore of Lake Superior are gigantic
cliffs, surrounding Thunder Bay, a deep indentation
divided from Black Bay by the great projecting
promontory of Thunder Cape, rising nearly fourteen
hundred feet in grand columns of basalt, the summit
containing the crater of an extinct volcano. Across
from it is McKay Mountain, another basaltic Gib-
raltar, rising twelve hundred feet from the almost
level plain bordering the bay. Pic Island is between
them, guarding the entrance. The pretty Kamin-
istiquia River flows through rich prairie lands down
to Thunder Bay, and here is the chief Canadian town
456 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
on the lake, Port Arthur. Thirty miles up this river
is the famous Kakabika Falls, where the rocks are
cleft so that the stream tumbles into a chasm one hun-
dred and thirty feet deep, and then boils along with
rapid current for nearly a half-mile through the fis-
sure, the sides towering perpendicularly, and in some
places even overhanging their bases. Upon this
river was for many years the well-known Hudson
Bay Company’s fur-trading station of Fort William,
which now has grain elevators, and is a suburb of the
spreading settlement of Port Arthur. This was the
beginning of the great portage from Lake Superior
over to the Hudson Bay waters at Fort Garry, on
the Red River in Manitoba, now Winnipeg, the
portage being the present route of the Canadian Pa-
cific Railway.
SAULT SAINTE MARIE TO DULUTH.
The southern shore of Lake Superior is mostly
composed of lowlands, covered with sand, glacial de-
posits and clays, which came from the lake during a
former stage of much higher water, when it extended
many miles south of the present boundary. These
lands, while not well adapted to agriculture, contain
rich deposits of copper, iron and other metals and
valuable red sandstones. Around the rapids and
canals at the outlet has gradually grown the town of
Sault Sainte Marie, familiarly known as the “Soo,”
having ten thousand people, and developing import-
SAULT SAINTE MARIE TO DULUTH. 457
ant manufactures from the admirable water-power of
the rapids, which is also utilized for electrical purposes.
An international bridge brings a branch of the Cana-
dian Pacific Railway over from Canada, on its way to
Minneapolis and St. Paul, with connections southward
to Chicago, and there is also the military post of Fort
Brady. Stately processions of vessels constantly
move through the canals, being locked up or down
when the mavigation season is open, and making this
a very animated place, over fifteen thousand ships
passing in the seven months when the canals are free
from ice. The tonnage is the greatest using any sys-
tem of canals in the world, far exceeding Suez, and
the recent improvements enable vessels of twenty-
one feet draft to go through the new locks. Both
Governments have expended millions upon these im-
portant public works, which are chiefly employed for
the transport of grain, flour, coal, iron-ores and cop-
per. The favorite sports at the “Soo’’ are catching
white fish and “
shooting the rapids” in canoes
guided by the Indians, who are very skillful.
About one hundred miles westward from the “Soo,”
on the southern lake shore, there rise cliffs of the red
and other sandstones formed by the edges of nearly
horizontal strata coming out at the border of the lake.
These are the noted Pictured Rocks, rising three
hundred feet, extending for a distance of about five
miles, and worm by frost and storm into fantastic and
romantic forms, displaying vivid hues—red, blue,
458 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
as they have been
yellow, green, brown and gray
stained by the oozing waters carrying the pigments.
At intervals, cascades fall over the rocks. One cliff,
called the Sail Rock, is like a sloop in full sail, and
there are various castles and chapels, and an elaborate
Grand Portal. In the country around is laid much
of the scene of Hiawatha, and at the little lake port
of Munising, nearby, was the site of the wigwam of
the old woman, Nokomis,
“On the shores of Gitchee Gumee,
Of the shining Big-Sea-Water.”
To the westward is the region of iron-ores, and
here is Marquette, named for the great Jesuit mis-
sionary Father Marquette, who was the first founder
of mission settlements in this region, and died in
1675 near the mouth of Marquette River. This
town of fifteen thousand people is on Iron Bay, and
is the chief port of the Marquette, Menominee and
Ishpeming mines. Farther to the westward the great
Keweenaw Peninsula projects, the name meaning in
the Indian dialect the “canoe portage.” At its base,
the Portage Lake almost separates it from the main-
land, and a short portage to the westward formerly
carried the canoes over the narrow isthmus. A canal
now enables the lake shipping to pass through with-
out making the long detour around the outer end of
the peninsula. Upon this rocky peninsula are the
great copper-mines of Michigan, including the
SAULT SAINTE MARIE TO DULUTII. 459
Quincy, Tamarack, Osceola, Franklin, Atlantic, and
the Calumet and Hecla. The latter is the world's
leading Copper Company, making over $4,000,000
estimated annual profit, employing five thousand
men, and having the deepest shaft in existence, the
Red Jacket, which has been sunk forty-nine hundred
feet. Houghton, on the southern shore of Portage
Lake, is the leading town of the copper district. To
the southwestward and in the western part of the
Upper Michigan Peninsula is Lake Gogebic, elevated
thirteen hundred feet, in another prolific iron-ore dis-
trict, the Gogebic range, which produces Bessemer
ores, and has its shipping port across the Wisconsin
boundary at Ashland, another busy town of fifteen
thousand people at the head of Chequamegon Bay.
Out in front are the Apostle Islands, a picturesque
group, and to the westward the head of Lake Supe-
rior gradually narrows in the Fond du Lac, or end
of the lake, where are situated its leading ports,
Superior City in Wisconsin and Duluth in Minne-
Sota.
Here in the seventeenth century came the early
French, and in 1680 a trading-post was established
by Daniel du Lhut, afterwards becoming a Hudson
Bay Company Station. The mouth of St. Louis
River and its bay were maturally recognized as im-
portant points for trade, and when the Northern
Pacific Railway was projected Superior City got its
start. The first railroad scheme failed, the panic of
460 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
1857 came, and the railway project was abandoned
until after the Civil War; and then, when it was re-
newed, the terminus was located over on the other
side of the river, the place being named Duluth, after
the French trader. While there has been great
rivalry between them, and Duluth has outstripped
Superior, yet the latter has an extensive trade and
thirty thousand people. Duluth, the “Zenith City
of the Unsalted Seas,” as it has been ambitiously
called, was originally projected on Minnesota Point,
a scythe-shaped natural breakwater running out
seven miles into the lake, which protects the harbor,
but the town was subsequently built farther in. There
were about seventy white people in the neighbor-
hood in 1860, and in 1869 its present site was a
forest, while the railroad, which had many set-backs,
had only brought about three thousand people there
in 1885. The completion of other railway connec-
tions in various directions, the discovery of iron de-
posits, and the recognition of its advantageous posi-
tion for traffic, subsequently gave Duluth rapid
growth, so that it now has eighty thousand people,
and is the greatest port on the lake. It is finely
situated, the harbor being spacious and lined with
docks and warehouses, and it has many substantial
buildings. Back of the city a terrace rises some four
hundred feet, an old shore line of Lake Superior
when the water was at much higher level, and here
is the Boulevard Drive, giving splendid views over
TFIE CITY OF MILWAUKEE, 461
the town and lake. The vast extent of wheat lands
to the westward and the prolific iron-ore district to
the northward give Duluth an enormous trade. Its
railways lead up to the Messabi and Vermillion ranges,
now the greatest producers of Lake Superior iron-
ores, the red hematite, most of the output being con-
trolled by John D. Rockefeller and his associates.
These mines yield the richest ores in the world, and
have made some of the greatest fortunes in Duluth.
Yet they were not discovered until 1891, and then
the lands where they are generally went begging,
because nobody would give the government price for
them, $1.25 per acre. One forty-acre tract, then
abandoned by the man who took it up because he did
not think the pine wood on it was enough to warrant
paying $50 for it, is now the Mountain Iron Mine,
netting Mr. Rockefeller $375,000 annual profit, and
his railroad bringing the ores out gets more than that
sum for freights.
THE CITY OF MILWAUKEE.
The early French traders and explorers who came
to the upper lakes maturally ascended their affluents,
and in this way La Salle, Joliet, Hennepin and others
crossed the portages beyond Lake Michigan to the
tributaries of the Mississippi. They came to Green
Bay on the west side of Lake Michigan, ascended
the Fox River and crossed over to the Wisconsin
River. Southward from the Upper Michigan Penin-
462 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
sula and westward of the lower peninsula of that
State spreads the broad expanse of Lake Michigan,
stretching from Mackinac and Green Bay down to
Chicago. Its western shore is the State of Wiscon-
sin, extending northward to Lake Superior. When
the French explorers came along and floated down its
chief river, an affluent of the Mississippi, the latter
making the western boundary of the State, they
found the Indian name of the stream to be a word
which, according to the pronunciation, they spelled
in their early marratives “Ouisconsing” and “Mis-
consin,” and it finally came out in the present form
of Wisconsin, thus naming the State. The original
meaning was the “wild, rushing red water,” from the
hue given by the pine and tamarack forests. La
Salle coasted in his canoe all along the western shore
of Lake Michigan, from Green Bay down to Chicago,
and crossed over to the Mississippi. The traders
established various settlements on that shore which
have grown into active cities, and the principal one,
eighty-five miles north of Chicago, is Milwaukee, its
name derived from the Indian Manmawahkie, mean-
ing the “good land.” A broad harbor, indented
several miles from the lake, was the nucleus of the
city, at the mouth of Milwaukee River, which re-
ceives two tributarics within the town, and thus adds
to the facilities for dockage, while extensive break-
waters protect the harbor entrance from lake storms.
Milwaukee has three hundred and fifty thousand
THE CITY OF MILWAUKEE. 463
people, and is the growth mainly of the latter half of
the nineteenth century. It is finely located, with un-
dulating surface, the streets lined with trees, and the
splendid development of the residential section mak-
ing it almost like an extensive park, the foliage and
garden spaces are so extensive and attractive. Its
population is largely German, and its breweries are
famous, exporting their product all over the country.
It has a grand Federal building, costing nearly
$2,000,000, a Romanesque structure in granite, an
elaborate Court-house of brown sandstone, a spacious
City Hall, a magnificent Public Library and Museum,
and many attractive churches and other edifices.
Juneau Park, on a bluff overlooking the lake, com-
memorates the first settler, Solomon Juneau, and con-
tains his statue. Here, in compliment to the large
Scandinavian population of Wisconsin, is also a statue
of Leif Ericsen, who is said to have been in com-
mand of the first detachment of Norsemen who
landed in New England in the eleventh century.
The Forest Home Cemetery at the southwestern
verge of the city is one of the most beautiful in the
country. Milwaukee is familiarly called the “Cream
City” from the light-colored brick made in the neigh-
borhood, which so largely enter into the construction
of its buildings. It has extensive grain elevators and
flour mills and large manufacturing industries. To
the westward, in a park of four hundred acres, is the
National Soldiers' Home, with accommodation for
464 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
twenty-four hundred. Its Sheridan Drive along the
lake shore southward is gradually extending, the in-
tention being to connect with the Sheridan Boulevard
constructed northward from Chicago. The lion of
the city, however, is the great Pabst Brewery, cover-
ing thirty-four acres and producing eight hundred
thousand barrels of beer a year. Twenty miles in-
land to the westward is a favorite resort of the Mil-
waukeans, the noted Bethesda Spring of Waukesha,
whose waters they find it beneficial to take copiously,
large quantities being also exported throughout
America and Europe for their efficacy in diabetes
and Bright's disease.
The capital of Wisconsin is the city of Madison,
seventy-five miles west of Milwaukee, built on the
isthmus between Lakes Mendota and Monona, thus
giving it an admirable position. It has about twenty
thousand people, and the lake attractions make it a
popular summer resort. The State Capitol is a
handsome building in a spacious park, one of the
wings being occupied by the Wisconsin Historical
Society, with a library of two hundred thousand vol-
umes, an art gallery and museum. The great struc-
ture of Madison is the University of Wisconsin, the
buildings in a commanding position on University
Hill overlooking the charming Lake Mendota. There
are seventeen hundred students, and its Washburn
Observatory, one of the best in America, has wide
fame.
ASCENDING THE MISSISSIPPI. 465
ASCENDING THE MISSISSIPPI.
Westward from Lake Michigan all the railroads
are laid across the prairie land en route to various
cities on the Mississippi River, several of them having
St. Paul and Minneapolis for their objective points,
although some go by quite roundabout ways. The
great “Father of Waters” comes from Northern
Minnesota, flows over the Falls of St. Anthony at
Minneapolis, and is a river of much scenic attractive-
mess down to Dubuque and Rock Island, its width
being usually about three thousand feet, excepting at
the bends, which are wider, the picturesque bluffs
enclosing the valley sometimes rising six hundred
feet high. The railways leading to it traverse the
monotonous level of prairie in Illinois and Wisconsin,
excepting where a stream may make a gorge, and
the face of the country is everywhere almost the
same. The Moline Rapids in the Mississippi above
Rock Island afford good water-power, and here the
Government, owning the island, has established a
large arsenal, which is the base for all the western
army supplies. The admirable location has made
cities on either bank, Rock Island in Illinois and
Davenport in Iowa, both being commercial and
manufacturing centres, and the latter city having
the larger population. The Mississippi flows through
a rather wide valley, with pleasant shores, having
villas dotted on their slopes. The Moline Rapids,
VOL. I.-30
466 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE
which are said to have a water-power rivalling the
aggregate of all the cataracts in New England, de-
scend twenty-two feet in a distance of fourteen miles.
Above them, the river flows between Illinois and
Iowa, and various flourishing towns are passed, the
largest being Dubuque, with fifty thousand people,
the chief industrial city of Iowa, and a centre of the
lead and zinc manufacture of the Galena district.
This was the first settlement made by white men in
Iowa, the city being named for Julien Dubuque, a
French trader, who came in 1788 with a small
party to work the lead-mines. Iowa is known as
the “Hawkeye State,” and its name is of Dakotan
Indian derivation, meaning “drowsy,” which, how-
ever, is hardly the proper basis for naming such a
wide-awake Commonwealth. Opposite Dubuque is
the northern boundary of Illinois, and above, the
Mississippi separates Iowa from Wisconsin.
The Mississippi bordering bluffs now rise much
higher and become more picturesque, Eagle Point,
near Dubuque, being elevated three hundred feet.
Prairie du Chien, just above the mouth of Wisconsin
River, was one of the earliest French military posts.
This region was the scene of the “Black Hawk
War,” that chief of the Sacs battling to get back
certain lands which in 1832 had been ceded by the
Sac and Fox Indians to the United States. He was
finally defeated back of the western river shore, the
boundary between Iowa and Minnesota being nearby.
THE FAILLS OF ST. ANTHONY. 467
Minnesota is the “North Star State,” and its Indian
name, taken from the river, flowing into the Missis-
sippi above St. Paul, means the “cloudy water.”
The river scenery becomes more and more pictur-
esque as the Mississippi is ascended, the bluffs rising
to higher elevations. La Crosse is a great lumber
manufacturing town, drawing its timber from both
Minnesota and Wisconsin. Above, where islands
dot the channel, is perhaps the most beautiful sec-
tion of the river. Trempealeau Island, five hundred
feet high, commands a magnificent view, and the
Black River flows in through a splendid gorge.
Winona is a prominent grain-shipping town, and at
Wabasha the river expands into the beautiful Lake
Pepin, thirty miles long and from three to five miles
wide, with attractive shores and many popular re-
sorts. Over the lake rise the bold round headland
of Point No Point on one side and the Maiden Rock
on the other. St. Croix River flows in above on the
castern bank, making an enlargement known as St.
Croix Lake, and the upper Mississippi is now wholly
within Minnesota, having here at the head of navi-
gation the famous “Twin Cities” of St. Paul and
Minneapolis.
THE FAILLS OF ST. ANTHONY.
Father Hennepin was the first white man who
penetrated the wilds of Minnesota, and in 1680 he
discovered the great falls of the Mississippi River,
468 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
to which he gave the name of his patron saint, An-
thony of Padua. The river just below the falls mat-
urally attracted the attention of the French adven-
turers who came to trade with the Sioux, Chippewas
and Dakotas, and the first white man who tarried
and built a house here was a Canadian voyageur,
who came in 1838. In 1841 a French priest estab-
lished the Roman Catholic mission of St. Paul on the
bank of the river, and thus the settlement was
named. The admirable water-power of the falls,
which, with their two miles of rapids, descend sev-
enty-eight feet, afterwards attracted the attention of
millers, lumbermen and other manufacturers, and
this made the settlement of Minneapolis, ten miles
westward and farther up the river, which began in
1849, the name meaning the “city of the waters.”
St. Paul grew with rapidity, being encouraged both
by steamboat and afterwards by railway traffic; but
Minneapolis, though started later, subsequently out-
stripped it. The two places, rivals yet friends, have
extended towards each other, so as to almost form
one large city, and they now have over four hundred
thousand inhabitants. These “Twin Cities” are
running a rapid race in prosperity, each indepen-
dently of the other. St. Paul is rather more of a
trading city, while Minneapolis is an emporium of
sawmills and the greatest flour-mills in the world.
Both are admirably located upon the bluffs rising
above the Mississippi. St. Paul is situated upon a
THE FAILLS OF ST. ANTHONY. 469
series of ornamental semicircular terraces that are
very attractive, though in some portions rather cir-
cumscribed. Minneapolis is built on a more exten-
sive plan upon an esplanade overlooking the falls,
and extending to an island in midstream, and also
over upon the opposite northern side of the river.
The Falls of St. Anthony is the most powerful water-
fall in the United States wholly applied to manufactur-
ing purposes. The entire current of the Mississippi
comes down the rapids and over the falls, the latter
having a descent of about fifty feet. It is protected
by a wall built by the Government across the river,
to prevent the wearing away of the sandstone forma-
tion, there having been serious inroads made, while
the surface is covered with an apron of planks over
which the water runs, with sluiceways alongside to
shoot logs down. However much Father Hennepin
may have admired the beauties of this great cataract,
there is no longer anything picturesque about the
Falls of St. Anthony. Logs jam the upper river,
where the booms catch them for the sawmills, and
subterranean channels conduct the water in various
directions to the mills, and discharge their foaming
streams below. There is no romance in the rumble
of flour-rollers and the buzz of saws, but they mean
a great deal of profitable business. The force ex-
erted by the falls at low water is estimated at one
hundred and thirty-five thousand horse-power.
St. Paul is the capital of Minnesota, and the State
470 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
is building a magnificent new Capitol, constructed of
granite and marble, with a lofty central dome, at a
cost exceeding $2,000,000. There is a fine City
Hall and many imposing and substantial business edi-
fices. Its especial residence street, Summit Avenue,
is upon a high ridge, parallel with and some distance
back from the Mississippi, the chief dwelling, a large
brownstone mansion, being the home of the leading
railroad prince of the Northwest, President James J.
Hill of the Great Northern Railroad. Here is also
the new and spacious Roman Catholic Seminary of
St. Thomas Aquinas. The old military post of Fort
Snelling is on the river above St. Paul, near the
mouth of Minnesota River. In Minneapolis, the
great building is the City Hall, completed in 1896,
and having a tower rising three hundred and fifty
feet, giving a superb view. The Guaranty Loan
Company’s Building is one of the finest office struc-
tures in America, with its roof arranged for a garden,
where concerts are given. Minneapolis has a widely
extended residential section, with hundreds of attrac-
tive mansions in ornamental grounds. Near the
river bank is the University of Minnesota, having
well-equipped buildings and attended by twenty-eight
hundred students.
Minneapolis is the greatest flour manufacturing
city in the world. Its mills, of which there are
some twenty-five, are located along the river near
the falls, and have a daily capacity of over sixty
THE FAILLS OF ST. ANTHONY. 471
thousand barrels, turning out about eighteen millions
of barrels annually, which are sent all over the globe.
The whole country west and northwest of Minneap-
olis, including the Red River Valley, the Dakotas
and Manitoba, is practically a fertile wheat field,
growing the finest grain that is produced in America,
and this makes the prosperity of the city. The
Pillsbury-Washburn Flour Mills Company are the
leading millers. The great Pillsbury A mill, which
turns out ten thousand seven hundred barrels a day,
is the world's champion flour-mill. It is a marvel of
the economical manufacture, the railway cars coming
in laden with wheat, being quickly emptied, and then
filled with loaded flour-barrels and sacks for shipment.
Machinery does practically everything from the
shovelling of wheat out of the car to the packing of
the barrel or sack with the product. This huge mill
stands in relation to the flour trade as Niagara does
to waterfalls. The other great Minneapolis industry
is the lumber trade. Minnesota is well timbered,
a belt of fine forests, chiefly pine, stretching across
it, known as the Coteau des Bois, or “Big Woods,”
an elevated plateau with a rolling surface, having
thousands of lakes scattered through it, fed by
springs, while their outlets go into streams feeding
the Mississippi, down which the logs are floated to
the booms above the falls. The extensive saw-
mills will cut over four hundred and fifty millions
of feet of lumber in a year. Thus the flour and
472 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
lumber have become the chief articles of export from
Minneapolis. -
There are several pleasant lakes in the neighbor-
hood, which are popular resorts of the people of the
“Twin Cities,” the largest and most famous being
|Minnetonka, the Indian name meaning the “Big
Water.” It is a pretty lake, at nearly a thousand
feet elevation, with low, winding and tree-clad shores,
having little islets dotted over its surface, and myriads
of indented bays and jutting peninsulas which extend
its shore line to over a hundred miles, though the ex-
treme length of the lake is barely seventeen miles.
There are many attractive places on the shores and
islands, and large steamers ply on its bosom. From
this lake the discharge is through the Minnehaha River,
and its Minnehaha Falls, the “Laughing Water,”
poetically praised by Longfellow in Hiawatha. The
beautiful glen in which this graceful cataract is
found has been made a park. The falls are about
fifty feet high, and a critical observer has recorded
that there is “only wanting a little more water to be
one of the most picturesque cascades in the country.”
Below the Minnehaha Falls is another on a smaller
scale, which the people thereabout have nicknamed
the “Minnegiggle.” Thus sings Longfellow of Min-
mehaha :
“Homeward now went Hiawatha ;
Only once his pace he slackened,
Only once he paused or halted,
Paused to purchase heads of arrows
(II)innebaba fallg, near $5t. Saul


THE FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY. 473
Of the ancient Arrow-maker,
In the land of the Dacotahs,
Where the Falls of Minnehaha.
Flash and gleam among the oak-trees,
Laugh and leap into the valley.
“There the ancient Arrow-maker
Made his arrow-heads of sandstone,
Arrow-heads of chalcedony,
Arrow-heads of flint and jasper,
Smoothed and sharpened at the edges,
Hard aid polished, keen and costly.
“With him dwelt his dark-eyed daughter,
Wayward as the Minnehaha,
With her moods of shade and sunshine,
Pyes that smiled and frowned alternate,
Feet as rapid as the river,
Tresses flowing like the water,
And as musical a laughter ;
And he named her from the river,
From the water-fall he named her,
Minnehaha, Laughing Water.
“Was it then for heads of arrows,
Arrow-heads of chalcedony,
Arrow-heads of flint and jasper,
That my Hiawatha halted
In the land of the Dacotahs 7
“Was it not to see the maiden,
See the face of Laughing Water,
Peeping from behind the curtain,
Hear the rustling of her garments,
From behind the waving curtain,
As one sees the Minnehaha
Gleaming, glancing through the branches,
As one hears the Laughing Water,
From behind its screen of branches 2
“Who shall say what thoughts and visions
Fill the fiery brains of young men 2
474 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
Who shall say what dreams of beauty
Filled the heart of Hiawatha 2
All he told to old Nokomis,
When he reached the lodge at sunset,
Was the meeting with his father,
Was his fight with Mudjekeewis;
Not a word he said of arrows,
Not a word of Laughing Water.”
THE SOURCE OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
It was in Minnesota, in 1862, that the terrible In-
dian uprising occurred in which the Sioux, exasper-
ated by the encroachments of the whites, attacked
the western frontier Scttlements in August, and in
less than two days massacred eight hundred people.
The troops were sent as soon as possible, attacked
and defeated them in two battles, and thirty-eight of
the Indians were executed on one scaffold at Man-
kato, on the Minnesota River southwest of Minne-
apolis, in December. The State of Minnesota is
said to contain fully ten thousand lakes, of all sizes,
the largest being Red Lake in the northern wilder-
ness, having an area of three hundred and forty
square miles. The surface of the State rises into
what is known as the Itascan plateau in the northern
central part at generally about seventeen hundred
and fifty feet elevation. From this plateau four
rivers flow out in various directions—the one on the
Western Minnesota boundary, the Red River of the
North, draining the western slope towards Lake
Winnipeg and finally to Hudson Bay; the Rainy
THE SOURCE OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 475
River, draining the northern slope also through
Lake Winnipeg to Hudson Bay; the St. Louis
River, flowing eastward to form the head of Lake
Superior, and going thence to the Atlantic; and the
Mississippi River, flowing southward to seek the
Gulf of Mexico. Schoolcraft, the Indian ethnologist
and explorer, named this Itascan plateau, and the
little lake in its heart, where the Mississippi takes its
rise, about two hundred miles north-northwest of
Minneapolis, though the rotundabout course of the
river from its source to that city is a much longer
distance, flowing nearly a thousand miles. There
was a good deal of discussion as to whether this lake
was really the head of the great river, as the lake
received several small streams, but Schoolcraft set-
tled the dispute, and named the lake Itasca, from a
contraction of the Latin words veritas Caput, the
“true head.” Its elevation is about sixteen hundred
feet, being surrounded by pine-clad hills rising a
hundred feet higher. Out of Itasca Lake the
“Father of Waters” flows with a breadth of about
twelve feet, and a depth ordinarily of less than two
feet. It goes at first northerly, and then makes a
grand curve through a long chain of lakes, describing
a large semicircle to the eastward, and finally south-
west, before it becomes settled as to direction, and
takes its southeast course towards the Falls of St.
Anthony, and onward in its grand progress to the
Gulf.
476 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
THE ANCIENT LAKE AGASSIZ.
The Minnesota River, rising on the western bound-
ary of the State, flows nearly five hundred miles in a
deeply carved valley through the “Big Woods” to
the Mississippi. Its source is in the Big Stone Lake,
which, with Lake Traverse to the northward, forms
part of the Dakota boundary. The Red River of
the North, rising in Lake Traverse and gathering
together the streams on the western slope of the
Itascan plateau, flows northward between Minnesota
and North Dakota, and into Manitoba, two hundred
and fifty miles to Lake Winnipeg. This river has
cut its channel in a nearly level plaim, and it is
curious that in times of freshet its waters connect,
through Lakes Traverse and the Big Stone, with the
Minnesota, so that steamboats of light draught can
then occasionally pass from the Mississippi waters
north to Lake Winnipeg. It was this rich and level
plain of the valley of the Red River that in the gla-
cial epoch formed the bed of a vast lake which sci-
entists have named Lake Agassiz. Its area, as in-
dicated by well-marked shore-lines and deltas, was a
hundred miles wide and over four hundred miles
long, stretching far into Manitoba, and the waters
were two to four hundred feet deep. It was held up
on the north by the retreating ice-sheet of the great
glacier, the outlet being southward, where a channel
fifty feet deep, fifty miles long and over a mile wide
THE ANCIENT LAKE AGASSIZ. 477
can now be distinctly traced leading its outflow into
the Minnesota River, whose valley its floods then
greatly enlarged on the way to the Mississippi. The
plain of this lake bed is almost level, descending to-
wards the northward about a foot to the mile, and
here the ancient lake deposited the thick, rich, black
soils which have made the greatest wheat-growing
region of North America.
The first settlement of Dakota was on the Big
Sioux River at Sioux Falls, where flour-mills and
other manufacturing establishments have gathered
around a fine water-power, and there are nearly fifty
thousand people in the two towns of Sioux Falls in
South Dakota and Sioux City in Iowa. The whole
region to the northward and far over the Canadian
boundary is a land of wheat-fields, with grain ele-
vators dotting the flat prairie at the railway stations,
for all the roads have lines to tap the lucrative trade
of this prolific region. The Northern Pacific Rail-
way crosses Red River at Fargo, which, with the
town of Moorhead, both being wheat and flour cem-
tres, has a population of fifteen thousand. To the
westward are the vast “Bonanza” wheat farms of
Dakota, of which the best known is the Dalrymple
farm, covering forty-five thousand acres. Steam-
ploughs make continuous furrows for many miles in
the cultivation, and in the spring the seeding is done.
The whole country is covered with a vast expanse
of waving, yellow grain in the summer, and the har-
478 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
vest comes in August. To the westward flows
James River through a similar district, and the coun-
try beyond rises into the higher plateau stretching
to the Missouri. This fertile wheat-growing region
extends far northward over the Canadian border
forming the Province of Manitoba, the name coming
from Lake Manitoba, which in the Cree Indian dia-
lect means the “home of Manitou, the Great Spirit.”
Its enormous wheat product makes the business of
the flouring-mills of Minneapolis, Duluth and many
other cities, and furnishes a vast stream of grain to
go through the Soo Canal down the lakes and St.
Lawrence, much being exported to Europe.
The Canadian Pacific Railway, which provides the
traffic outlet for Manitoba, comes from the northern
shore of Lake Superior at Port Arthur northwest-
ward up the valley of the Kaministiquia River, and
its tributary the Wabigoon, the Indian “Stream of
the Lilies.” This was the ancient portage, and by
this trail and Winnipeg River, the canoe route of the
Hudson Bay Company voyageurs, Lord Wolseley led
the British army in 1870 to Fort Garry (Winnipeg)
that suppressed Louis Riel's French-Indian half-
breed rebellion, which had possession of the post.
The railway route is through an extensive forest, and
leads near the northern shore of the Lake of the
Woods, crossing its outlet stream at Rat Portage, so
named from the numerous colonies of muskrats, a
town of sawmills standing at the rocky rim of the
THE ANCIENT LAKE AG ASSIZ. 479
lake, where its waters break through and down rapids
of twenty feet fall to seek Winnipeg River, the Ouni-
pigon or “muddy water’ of the Crees. Here, and at
Reewatin beyond, are grand water-powers, the latter
having mammoth mills that grind the Manitoba wheat
and send the flour to England. Then, emerging from
the forests, the railway crosses the rich black soils of
the Red River Valley, and beyond that river enters
Winnipeg, the “Prairie City’ and commercial me-
tropolis of the Canadian Northwest. For nearly
eight hundred miles this alluvial region spreads west
and northwest of Winnipeg, with varying degrees of
fertility, to the Rocky Mountains. Here, at the
junction of the Assiniboine River, coming from the
remote northwest, with Red River, has grown a Cana-
dian Chicago of fifty thousand people, developed
almost as if by magic, from the little settlement of
two hundréd and forty souls, whom Wolseley found
in 1870, around what was then regarded as the dis-
tant Hudson Bay Company frontier post of Fort
Garry. Its original name when first established was
Fort Gibraltar. The two rivers wander crookedly
over the flat land, and between them the city covers
an extensive surface. A half-dozen railways radiate
in various directions, and there are spacious car-
yards and stations. Winnipeg has an energetic
population, largely Scotch and Americans, but with
picturesque touches given by the copper-colored In-
dians and French half-breeds, who wander about in
480 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
their native costumes, though most of these have
gone away from Red River Valley to the far North-
west. The city has good streets, many fine build-
ings and attractive stores. The Manitoba Govern-
ment Buildings adjoin the Assiniboine River, and the
military barracks of Fort Osborne are alongside.
Near the junction of the rivers is the little stone gate-
way left standing, which is almost all that remains
of the original trading-post buildings of Fort Garry,
representing the venerable Hudson Bay Company,
chartered by King Charles II. in 1670, that con-
trolled the whole vast empire of the Canadian North-
west. This Company was a grant by the king
originally to Prince Rupert and a few associates of a
monopoly of the fur trade over a vast territory in
North America, extending from Lake Superior to
Hudson Bay and the Pacific Ocean. In this way
that portion of British America came to be popularly
known in England as “Prince Rupert's Land.” The
great Company existed for nearly two hundred years,
had one hundred and fifty-two trading-posts, and em-
ployed three thousand traders, agents and voyageurs,
and many thousands of Indians. In the bartering
with the red men, the unit of account was the beaver
skin, which was the equivalent of two martens or
twenty muskrats, while the pelt of a silver fox was
five times as valuable as a beaver. In 1869, when
the Dominion of Canada was formed, England bought
the sovereignty of the Company for $1,500,000 and
DAKOTA AND MONTANA. 481
transferred its territory to Canada. The Company
still retains its posts and stores, however, and con-
ducts throughout the Northwest a mercantile busi-
mess. Far to the westward of Winnipeg spread the
fertile prairies of Manitoba and Assiniboia Provinces,
until they gradually blend into the rounded and grass-
covered foothills making the grazing ranges of
Alberta that finally rise into the snow-capped peaks
of the Rockies.
DAKOTA AND MONTANA.
Three railways are constructed westward from Red
River to the Rockies and Pacific Ocean,—the Northern
Pacific and Great Northern in the United States and
the Canadian Pacific beyond the international bound-
ary. The former cross the plateau to the Upper
Missouri River, and there the Northern Pacific route
reaches Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota,
having a fine Capitol set on a hill, the corner-stone
of which was laid in 1883, with the noted Sioux
chief Sitting Bull assisting. This region not so long
ago knew only soldiers and Indians; but there has
since been a great influx of white settlers, enforc-
ing the idea of which Whittier has significantly
written :
“Behind the squaw's birch-bark canoe,
The steamer smokes and raves;
And city lots are staked for sale
Above old Indian graves.”
The frontier army post of Fort Lincoln on the
VOL. I. —31
482 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
bluff alongside the river testifies to the time not yet
remote when the Sioux and Crow Indians of the Da-
kotas needed a good deal of military control. The
deer, buffalo and antelope then roamed these bound-
less prairies, but they have all disappeared. Beyond
the Missouri River is the region of the Dakota
“Bad Lands.” The surface rises into sharp comical
elevations known as “buttes,” and soon this curious
district of pyramidal hills known as Pyramid Park is
entered, fire and water having had a remarkable
effect upon them. Their red sides are furrowed by
the rains, and smoke issues from some of the crevices.
The ligmite and coal deposits underlying this country
have produced subterranean fires that burnt the clays
above until they became brittle and red. There are
ashes and scoriae in patches, and cinders looking
much like the outcast of an iron furnace. The
buttes are at times isolated and sometimes in rows,
many being of large size. Their sides are often
terraced regularly, and frequently into fantastic
shapes, occasionally appearing as the sloping ram-
parts of a fort. There are frequent pot-like holes
among them, filled with reddish, brackish water, and
sometimes excavated in the ground with regularly
square-cut edges. When the railway route cuts into
a butte, its interior is disclosed as a pile of red-burnt
clay fragments mixed with ashes and sand. Little
prairie dogs dodge in and out of their holes, but there
is not much else of life. The boundary is crossed
DAR OTA AND MONTANA. 483
into Montana, and the “Bad Lands” gradually give
|place to a grazing section. Here stands up the
great Sentinel Butte, with its reddish-yellow sides,
near the Montana border, and the railway route then
descends from the higher region to the valley of the
Yellowstone.
The Yellowstone River, one of the headwaters of
the Missouri, rises in the National Park, and its fer-
tile valley is among the leading pasturages of Mon-
tama. Cattle and sheep abound, and the cowboys
are universal, galloping about on energetic little
bronchos, with lariats hanging from the saddle. The
Big Horn River flows in, and an extensive region to
the southward is the Crow Indian reservation, about
three thousand living there. It was here, near Fort
Custer, at a point forty-five miles south of the rail-
road, that the terrible massacre took place in June,
1876, by which General Custer and his command of
over two hundred and fifty men were annihilated by
the Sioux. There is now a national cemetery at the
place. We gradually enter the mountain ranges
which are the outposts of the Rockies, and passing
between the Yellowstone range and the Belt Moun-
tains, reach Livingston, a town of several thousand
people, and a great centre for hunting and fishing, at
the entrance to the Yellowstone National Park. From
here a branch railway turns southward, ascending the
valley of the Yellowstone, going through its first
canyon, known as the “Gate of the Mountain,” an
484 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
impressive rocky gorge, and ascending a steep grade,
so that the floor of the valley rises within the Park to
an elevation of over six thousand feet above the sea.
A second canyon is passed, and on its western side is
a huge peak whose upheaved red rocks have named
it the Cinnabar Mountain. These red rocks are in
strata streaked down its sides with intervening
granite and limestone. One of these, the Devil's
Slide, is conspicuous, its quartzite walls rising high
above the lower strata and making a veritable slide
of great proportions down the mountain. The rail-
road ends at Cinnabar, and stages cover the remain-
ing distance up the Yellowstone to its confluence with
Gardiner River at the Park entrance, and thence to
the Mammoth Hot Springs within the Park, the
tourist headquarters. e
THE AMERICAN WONDERLAND.
The Yellowstone National Park has been set apart
by Congress as a public reservation and pleasure-
ground, and covers a surface of about fifty-five hun-
dred square miles within the Rocky Mountains. Most
of the Park is in the northwestern corner of Wyo-
ming, but there are also small portions in Montana to
the north and Idaho to the west. It is a tract more
remarkable for natural curiosities than an equal arca
in any other part of the world, and within it are the
sources of some of the greatest rivers of North
America. The Yellowstone, Gardiner and Madison
THE AMERICAN WONDERLAND. 485
Rivers, which are the headwaters of the Missouri,
flow out of the northern and western sides, while on
the southern side originates the Snake River, one of
the sources of the Columbia River of Oregon, and
also the Green River, a branch of the Colorado, flow-
ing into the Gulf of California. The central portion
of the Park is a broad volcanic plateau, elevated, on
an average, eight thousand feet above the sea, and
surrounded by mountain ridges and peaks, rising to
nearly twelve thousand feet, and covered with snow.
The air is pure and bracing, little rain falls, and the
whole district gives evidence of remarkable volcanic
activity at a comparatively late geological epoch. It
contains the most elevated lake in the world, Yellow-
stone Lake. The Yellowstone River flows into this
lake, and them northward through a magnificent can-
yon out of the Park. Its most remarkable tributary
within the Park is Tower Creek, flowing through a
narrow and gloomy pass for two miles, called the
Devil's Dem, and just before reaching the Yellow-
stone having a fall of one hundred and fifty-six feet,
which is surrounded by columns of breccia resembling
towers. There is frost in the Park every month in
the year, owing to the peculiar atmospheric conditions.
The traces of recent volcanic activity are seen in the
geysers, craters and terrace constructions, boiling
springs, deep canyons, petrified trees, obsidian cliffs,
sulphur deposits and similar formations. These gey-
sers and springs surpass in number and magnitude
486 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
those of the rest of the world. There are some five
thousand hot springs, depositing mainly lime and
silica, and over a hundred large geysers, many of
them throwing water columns to heights of from fifty
to two hundred and fifty feet. The most elaborate
colors and ornamentation are formed by the deposits
of the springs and geysers, these curiosities being
mainly in and near the valleys of the Madison and
Gardiner Rivers. An attempt has been made under
Government auspices to have in the Park a huge
game preserve, and within its recesses large numbers
of wild animals are sheltered, including deer, elk,
bears, big-horn sheep, and the last herd of buffalo in
the country. Troops of cavalry and other Govern-
ment forces patrol and govern the Park.
THE MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS.
This extraordinary region was first made known in
a way in 1807. A hunter named Coulter visited it,
and getting safely back to civilization, he told such
wonderful stories of the hot springs and geysers
that the unbelieving borderers, in derision, called it
“Coulter's Hell.” Others visited it subsequently,
but their remarkable tales were generally regarded
as romances. The first thorough exploration was
made by Prof. Hayden's scientific party for the Gov-
ernment in 1871, and his report led Congress to re-
serve it as a public Park. The visitor generally first
enters the Park at the Mammoth Hot Springs, which
(Dammoth ſpot $pringø, 19ellowgtone


THE MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS, 487
are near the northern verge of the broad central pla-
teau. Here are the wonderful terraces built up by
the earlier calcareous deposits of these Springs, cov-
ering an area of several square miles, and in the
present active operations about two hundred acres,
with a dozen or more terraces, and some seventy
flowing springs, the temperature of the water rising
to 165°. The lower terrace extends to the edge of
the gorge of Gardiner River, with high mountain
peaks beyond. The hotel is built on one of the ter-
races, with yawning caves and the craters of extinct
geysers at several places in front. The higher ter-
races rise in white, streaked with brown and other
tints, as the overflowing, trickling waters may have
colored them. The best idea that can be got of this
place is by conjuring up the popular impression of
the infernal regions with an ample stock of heat and
brimstone. For a long distance, rising from the top
of the gorge of Gardiner River westward in succes-
sive terraces to a height of a thousand feet above the
stream, the entire surface is underlaid with sulphur,
subterranean fires, boiling water and steam, which
make their way out in many places. The earth has
been cracked by the heat into fissures, within which
the waters can be heard boiling and running down
below, and everything on the surface which can be,
is burnt up. Almost every crevice exudes steam and
hot water; sulphur hangs in stalactites from the
caves; and in some places the odors are nearly over-
488 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
powering. It is no wonder the Indians avoided this
forbidding region, and that the tales told by the early
explorers were disbelieved. Yet it is as attractive as
it is startling. The hot springs form shallow pools,
where the waters run daintily over their rim-like
edges, trickling down upon terrace after terrace,
forming the most beautiful shapes of columns, towers
and coral decorations from the lime deposits, and
painting them with delicious coloring in red, brown,
green, yellow, blue and pink. So long as the waters
run, this decoration continues, but when the flow
ceases, the atmosphere turns everything white, and
the more delicate formations crumble. The whole of
this massive structure has been built up by ages of
the steady though minute deposits of the waters, the
rate being estimated at about one-sixteenth of an
inch in four days. The rocks upon which these cal-
careous deposits are made belong to the middle and
lower Cretaceous and Jurassic formations, with prob-
ably carboniferous limestones beneath that put the
deposits in the waters. A dozen different terraces
can be traced successively upward from the river
bank to the highest part of the formation. Two comes
of extinct geysers rise from the deposits, near the
hotel,-the Liberty Cap, forty-five feet high, and the
Giant's Thumb, somewhat smaller,-both having been
built up by the deposits from orifices still seen in
their tops, whence the waters have ceased flowing.
All these springs, as deposits are made, shift their
THE MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS. 489
locality, so that the scene gradually changes as the
ages pass.
In climbing about this remarkable formation, some
of the most beautiful bits of construction and color-
ing nature has ever produced are disclosed. The
Orange Geyser has its sides streaked with orange,
yellow and red from the little wavelets slowly trick-
ling out of the steaming spring at the top, which goes
off at quick intervals like the exhaust of a steam-
engine. At the Stalactite Cave the flowing waters
add green to the other colors, and also scale the rocks
in places like the back of a fish, while below hang
stalactites with water dropping from them. The roof
of the cave is full of beautiful formations. The
water is very hot when it starts from the top, but
becomes quite cold when it has finished its journey
down. One of the finest formations is Cleopatra's
Bath, with Cupid's Cave beneath, the way to them
being through Antony's Gate, all built up of the de-
posits. Here rich coloring is painted on the rocks,
with hot water and steam amply supplied to the bath,
which has 154° temperature at the outer verge. All
the springs form flat basins with turned-up edges,
over which the waters flow, and trickling down the
front of the terrace, paint it. When the flow ceases,
and the surface has been made snowy white by the
atmosphere, it becomes a spongy and beautiful coral,
crumbling when touched, and into which the foot
sinks when walked upon. The aggregation of the
490 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
currents run in streams over terrace after terrace,
spread out to the width of hundreds of feet, painting
them all, and them seeking the Gardiner River, flow-
ing through a deep gorge in front of the formation.
Everything subjected to the overflow of these cur-
rents gets coated by the deposits, so that visitors
have many small articles coated to carry away as
curiosities.
Among the many beautiful formations made by
these Hot Springs, the most elaborate and orna-
mental are the Pulpit Terraces. These are a suc-
cession of magnificent terraces, fifty feet high, with
beautifully colored colummar supports. There is a
large pulpit, and in front, on a lower level, the font,
with the water running over its edges. The pulpit,
having been formed by a spring that has ceased ac-
tion, is white, while the font is streaked in red and
brown. Finely carved vases filled with water stand
below, and alongside the pulpit there is an inclined
surface, whitened and spread in wrinkles like the
drifted snow, which requires very little imagination
to picture as a magnificent curtain. Beyond is a
blackened border like a second curtain, the coloring
being made by a spring impregnated with arsenic.
In front of this gorgeous display the surface is hot
and cracked into fissures, with bubbling streams of
steaming water running through it, and great pools
fuming into new basins with turned-up edges, over
which the hot water runs. Upon one of these pools
THE NORRIS GEYSER BASIN. 491
seems to be a deposit of transparent gelatine, look-
ing like the albumen of an egg, streaked into fan-
tastic shapes by elongated bubbles. Everywhere are
surfaces, over which the water runs, that are covered
with regular formations like fish scales. It is impos-
sible to adequately describe this extraordinary place,
combining the supposed peculiarities and terrors of
tle infernal regions with the most beautiful forms
and colors in decoration. The great hill made by
these Hot Springs was, from its prevailing color,
named the White Mountain by Hayden. The
springs extend all the way down to the river bank,
and there are some even in the river bed. It is a
common experiment of the angler to hook a small
fish in the cold water of the river, and then, without
changing position, to swing him on the hook over
into the basin of one of these hot springs to cook
him. The formation of the terraces is wedge-shaped,
and runs up into a gulch between the higher moun-
tains, which have pines scattered over them, and also
grow some grass in sheltered nooks. It is said that
the volume of the springs is gradually diminishing.
THE NORRIS GEYSER BASIN.
The route southward into the Park crosses moun-
tain ridges and over stretches of lava and ashes and
other volcanic formations, through woods and past
gorges, and reaches the Obsidian Creek, which flows
near the Obsidian Cliff. This remarkable structure
492 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
is a mountain of black glass of volcanic formation,
rising six hundred feet, with the road hewn along its
edge. It looks as if a series of blasting explosions
had blown its face into pieces, Smashing the glass
into great heaps of débris that have fallen down in
front. The formation is columnar, rising from a
morass adjoining Beaver Lake, which is a mile long.
The divide is thus crossed between the Gardiner and
Gibbon Rivers, the latter flowing into the Madison,
and here, twenty-five miles from the Mammoth Hot
Springs, is the Norris Geyser Basin. In approach-
ing, seen over the low trees, the place looks much
like the manufacturing quarter of a city, steam jets
rising out of many orifices, and a hissing being heard
as of sundry engine exhausts. The basin covers
about one hundred and fifty acres, and is depressed
below the general level. The whole surface is lime,
silica, sulphur and sand, fused together and baked
hard by the great heat, cracked into fissures, and, as
it is walked over, giving out hollow sounds, showing
that beneath are subterranean caves and passages in
which boil huge cauldrons. There is a background
formed by the bleak-looking mountains of the Quad-
rate range, having snow upon their tops and sides.
The steam blows off with the noise of a hundred ex-
haust pipes, and little geysers boil everywhere, occa-
sionally spurting up like the bursting of a boiler. In
one place on the hillside the escaping steam from the
“Steamboat” keeps up a loud and steady roar; in
TPIE NORRIS GEYSER BASIN. 493
another is the deeper tone of the “Black Growler.”
As a general thing, the higher vents on the hill give
off steam only, while the lower ones are geysers.
The trees are coated with the deposits, the surface is
hot, and all underneath seems an immense mass of
boiling water, impregnated with sulphur, giving off
powerful odors, while brimstone and lime-dust en-
crust everything, and a large amount of valuable
steam-power goes to waste.
This is the smallest of the basins, having few
large geysers. Most of them are little ones, spurt-
ing every few minutes, and with some view to
economy, whereby the water, after being blown out
of the crater to a brief height, runs back into the
orifice again, ready to be ejected by the next explo-
sion. A mud geyser here throws up large quantities
of dirty white paint in several spouting jets, the
eruption continuing ten minutes, when nearly all the
water runs back again, leaving the crater entirely
bare, and its rounded, water-worn rocks exposed.
The “Emerald Pool” is the wide crater of an old
geyser, filled with hot water of a beautiful green
color, constantly boiling, but never getting as far as
an eruption. Probably the best geyser on exhibition
in this basin is the “Minute Man,” which, at inter-
vals of about one minute, spouts for ten or twelve
seconds, the column rising thirty feet, and the rest of
the time it blows off steam. The “Vixen" is a
coquette which is delightfully irregular, never going
494 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
off when watched, but when the back is turned sud-
denly sending out a column sixty feet high. The
great geyser here is the “Momarch,” standing in a
hill from which it has blown out the entire side, and
once a day discharging an enormous amount of water
over one hundred feet high, and continuing nearly a
half-hour. Its column comes from two huge orifices,
the surplus water running down quite a large brook.
When quiet, this geyser industriously boils like a big
tea-kettle. There are plenty of “paint pots” and
sulphur springs, and the visitors coax up lazy gey-
sers by throwing stones into them,--a method
usually making the small ones go to work, as if
angry at the treatment.
THE LOWER AND MIDIDLE IBASINS.
Through the long deep canyon of the Gibbon
River, and up over the mountain top, giving a dis-
tant view of the Gibbon Falls, a cataract of eighty
feet far down in the valley, the road crosses another
divide to a stream in the worst portion of this Sa-
tanic domain, which has not been inappropriately
named the Firehole River. This unites with the
Gibbon to form the Madison River, one of the
sources of the Missouri. Miles ahead, the steam
from the Firehole Geyser Basins can be seen rising
in clouds among the distant hills. Beyond, the view
is closed by the Teton Mountains, far to the south-
west, rising fourteen thousand feet, the Continental
THE LOWER AND MIDDLE BASINS. 495
divide and backbone of North America, the highest
Rocky Mountain range, on the other side of which is
the Snake River, whose waters go off to the Pacific.
The Firehole River is a stream of ample current,
with beautifully transparent blue water bubbling over
a bed of discolored stones and lava. Its waters are
all the outflow of geysers and hot springs, impreg-
mated with everything this forbidding region pro-
duces; pretty to look at, but bitter as the waters of
Marah. Along this river, geysers are liberally dis-
tributed at intervals for ten miles, being, for conve-
mience of description, divided into the Lower, Middle
and Upper Geyser Basins. The Lower Basin, the
first reached, has myriads of steam jets rising from
a surface of some three square miles of desolate gey-
serite deposits. There are about seven hundred
springs and geysers here, most of them small. The
Fountain Geyser throws a broad low stream of many
interlacing jets every two to three hours, lasting
about fifteen minutes. The “Thud.” Geyser has a
crater one hundred and fifty feet in diameter, having
a smaller rim inside, within which the geyser oper-
ates, throwing a column of sixty feet with a heavy
and regular “ thud" underground, though it has no
fixed period, and is irregular in action. This basin
has a generous supply of mud geysers, known as the
“paint pots,” which eject brilliantly colored muds
with the consistency and look of paint, the prevail-
ing hues being red, white, yellow and pink.
496 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
About three miles to the southwest, farther up the
Firehole River, is the Middle Geyser Basin. It is a
locality covering some fifty acres, close to the river,
and contains the greatest geyser in the world. The
name of Hell's Half Acre was given this place in the
early explorations, and still sticks. The surface is
composed mainly of hot ashes, with streams of boil-
ing water running over it. The whole basin is filled
with hot springs, and surrounded by timbered hills,
at the foot of which is the Prismatic Lake, its beau-
tiful green and blue waters shading off into a deposit
of bright red paint running down to the river. The
great Excelsior Geyser is a fountain of enormous
power but uncertain periods, which when at work
throws out such immense amounts of water as to
double the flow of the river. Its crater is a hundred
yards wide, with water violently boiling in the centre
all the time and a steady outflow. The sides of the
crater are beautifully colored by the deposits, which
are largely of sulphur. It is a geyser of modern
origin, having developed from a hot spring within
the memory of Park denizens. It throws a column
over two hundred feet high, and while quiet at times
for years, occasionally bursts forth, though having no
fixed period. In close connection to the westward is
the seething cauldron which is the immediate Hell's
Half Acre, that being about its area—a beautiful but
terrible lake, steam constantly rising from the sur-
face, which boils furiously and sends copious streams
THE UPPER FIREHOLE BASIN, 497
over the edges. This is an uncanny spot, with
treacherous footing around, and about the hottest
place in the Park.
THE UPPER. FIREHOLE BASIN.
For five miles along the desolate shores of Fire-
hole River the course is now taken in a region of
mostly extinct geysers, yet with active hot springs
and steam jets, and having ashes and cinders cover-
ing wide spaces. Ahead is the largest collection of
geysers in the world, with clouds of steam overhang-
ing—the Upper Firehole Basin. Hot water runs
over the earth, and the “paint pots” color the sur-
face in variegated hues. Here are some forty of the
greatest geysers in existence, in a region covering
two or three square miles, all of them located near
the river, and their outflow making its initial current.
The basin is at seventy-three hundred feet elevation
above the sea. When the author visited this extra-
ordinary place the guide, halting at the verge, said:
“Now I have brought you to the front door of hell.”
He was asked if there were any Indians about there,
and solemnly replied: “No Indian ever comes into
this country unless he is blind; only the white man
is fool enough to come;” then after a moment's pause
he continued, “And I get paid for it, I do.” The
great stand-by of this Upper Basin, and the geyser
that is first visited, is “Old Faithful,” near its south-
ern or upper end. This most reliable geyser, which
VOL. I.-32
498 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
always goes off at the time appointed, is a flat-topped
and gently rising come about two hundred feet in di-
ameter, and elevated towards the centre about twenty
feet. The tube is an orifice of eight feet by two
fect wide in the centre of this come, with water-worn
and rounded rocks enclosing it. Steam escapes all
the time, and the hard, scaly and laminated surface
around it seems hollow as you walk across, while be-
meath there are grumblings and dull explosions,
giving warming of the approaching outburst. Sev-
eral mounds of extinct geysers are near, with steam
issuing from one of them, but all have long since
gone out of active business. Soon “Old Faithful”
gives the premonitory symptoms of an eruption.
The steam jet increases, and also the internal rum-
blings. Then a little spurt of hot water comes,
hastily receding with a growl, followed by more
steam, and after an interval more growling, finally de-
veloping into repeated little spurts of hot water, oc-
cupying several minutes. Then the geyser suddenly
explodes, throwing quick jets higher and higher into
the air, until the column rises in a grand fountain to
the height of about one hundred and fifty feet, the
stream inclined to the northward, and falling over in
great splashes upon that side of the come, dense
clouds of steam and spray being carried by the wind,
upon which the sun paints a rainbow. After some
four minutes the grand jet dies gradually down to a
height of about thirty feet, continuing at that eleva-
THE UPPER FIREHOLE BASIN. 499
tion for a brief time, with quickly repeated impulses.
When six minutes have elapsed, with an expir-
ing leap the water mounts to a height of fifty feet,
there is a final outburst of steam, and all is over. A
deluge of hot water rushes down to the Firehole
River; and thus “Old Faithful” keeps it up regu-
larly every hour. The eruption being ended, you
can look down into the abyss whence it came.
Through the hot steam, rushing out with a strong
draught, there is a view far down into the rocky
recesses of the geyser. The water left by the erup-
tion stands about in transparent shallow pools, and is
tinted a pale blue. “Old Faithful’s ” mound is built
up of layers of geyserite—hard, brittle, porous, full
of crevices, and having all about little basins with
turned-up rims that retain the water. This geyser
is the favorite in the region, not only because of its
regular performance, but possibly because its odors
are somewhat less Sulphurous than those emanating
elsewhere.
The geysers of the Upper Basin contribute prac-
tically the whole current of the Firehole River, their
outflow sending into the stream ten million gallons
daily. Across the river to the northward, close to
the bank, is the Beehive, its tube looking like a huge
bird's nest, enclosed by a pile of geyserite resembling
a beehive, three feet high and about four feet in di-
ameter. Nearby is a vent from which steam, escap-
ing a few minutes before the eruption, gives notice
500 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
of its coming. The water column shoots up two
hundred feet, with clouds of steam, but it is quite un-
certain, spouting once or twice in twenty-four hours,
and usually at might. Behind the Beehive are the
Lion, the Lioness, and their two Cubs, and to the
eastward of the latter the Giantess. The Lion group
has only uncertain and small action, while the Gi-
antess is on the summit of a mound fifty feet high,
with a depressed crater, measuring eighteen by
twenty-four feet, and usually filled with dark-blue
water. This is the slowest of all the geysers in get-
ting to work, acting only at fortnightly intervals, but
each eruption continues the greater part of the day,
with usually long-previous motice by violent boiling
and internal rumblings. When it comes, the explo-
-sion is terrific, the column mounting two hundred
and fifty feet, a perfect water-spout the full size of
the crater, with a half-dozen distinct jets forced
through it. To the northwest of the Lion and across
the river is the Castle, so mamed from the castellated
construction of its crater. It stands upon an eleva-
tion, the side towards the Firehole falling off in a
series of rude steps. The tube is elevated about ten
feet within the castle and is four feet in diameter. It
is of uncertain eruption, sometimes playing daily
and sometimes every other day, throwing a column
of one hundred and fifty feet, falling in a sparkling
shower, continuing about forty minutes, and then
tapering off in a series of insignificant spurts. The
THE UPPER FIREHOLE BASIN. 501
Saw-Mill is not far away, rather insignificant, its
tube being only six inches in diameter, set in a
saucer-like crater about twenty feet across; but its
water column, thrown forty feet high, gives the
peculiar sounds of a saw, caused by the action of
puffs of steam coming out alternately with the water
jets. It generally acts in unison with the Grand
Geyser, a quarter of a mile northward, which goes
off about once a day. The Grand Geyser in action
is most powerful, causing the earth to tremble, while
there are fearful thumping noises beneath. The
water in the crater suddenly recedes, and then
quickly spurts upward in a solid column for two hun-
dred feet, with steam rising in puffs above. The
column seems to be composed of numerous separate
jets, falling back with a thundering sound into the
funnel. The outburst continues a few minutes, stops
as suddenly as it starts, and is repeated six or eight
times, each growing less powerful. Along the river
bank nearby are the Wash Tubs, small basins ten
feet in diameter, each with an orifice in the bottom.
If the clothes are put in, the washing progresses
finely until suddenly out goes the water, and with it
all the garments, sucked down the hole. After awhile
the basin fills again, and back come the clothes,
though sometimes they are very dilatory in return-
ing. The Devil's Well, about fifty feet away, is
usually accused of complicity in this movement. It
is a broad and placid basin of hot water, with a
502 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
beautiful blue tinge, in which tourists sometimes boil
their eggs and potatoes. It is sentinelled by the
Comet Geyser, exploding several times daily, but
through an orifice so large that it does not throw a
very high column.
The great geyser of this Upper Basin is the Giant.
It has a broken come set upon an almost level sur-
face, with the enclosing formation fallen away on one
side, the interior being lined with brilliant colors like
a tessellated pavement. It is somewhat uncertain in
movement, but usually goes off every fourth day.
It gives ample notice, certain “Little Devils” ad-
joining, and a vent in the side of the crater, boiling
some time before it sends up the enormous column
which plays ninety minutes. The outburst, when it
starts, comes like a tornado, and the stream from it
runs into and more than doubles the current of the
river. The column is eight feet in diameter, rises
two hundred and fifty feet at first, and is afterwards
maintained at two hundred feet. There is a deafen-
ing noise, and the steam clouds seem to cover half
the valley. The column goes up perfectly straight,
and falls back around the come with a deluge of hot
water. The Catfish, a small geyser, is nearby, and
to the northward a short distance is the Grotto. This
is an odd formation, its crater perforated with orifices
around a low, elongated mound, which point in dif-
ferent directions; and when it goes off at six-hour
intervals, the eruption is by streams at an angle,
THE UPPER, FIREHOLE BASIN. 503
giving a curious sort of churning motion to the water
column, which rises forty feet, continuing twenty
minutes. The Riverside has a little crater on a ter-
raced mound just at the river's edge, and is a small,
irregular but vigorous spouter, throwing a stream
sixty feet. The Fan has five spreading tubes,
arranged so that they make a huge fan-like eruption,
one hundred feet high in the centre, this display,
given three or four times a day, continuing about
fifteen minutes. The Splendid plays a jet two hun-
dred feet high every three hours, continuing ten
minutes, and may be spurred to quicker action.
The Pyramid and the Punch Bowl are geysers that
have ceased operations. The former is now only a
steam-jet, and the latter, on a flat mound, is an ele-
gant blue pool, elevated several feet, and having a
serrated edge. The Morning Glory Spring, named
from its resemblance to the convolvulus, is a beautiful
and most delicately tinted pool. The investigators
of these geysers have been able to get the tempera-
ture at a depth of seventy feet within the tubes, and
find that under the pressure there exerted the boil-
ing-point is 250°. Upon this fact is based the theory
of the operation of the geyser. The boiling-point
under pressure at the bottom of a long tube being
much higher than at the top, the expansive force
of the steam there suddenly generated drives out
violently the water above it in the tube, and hence
the explosive spouting.
504 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
YELLOWSTONE FALLS AND CANYON.
The National Park, besides the extraordinary gey-
ser and hot-spring formations exhibits the grand
scenery of the Yellowstone Falls and Canyon. The
Yellowstone River has its source in Bridger Lake, to
the southeast of the Park, and flows northward in a
broad valley between generally snow-capped moun-
tain ridges of volcanic origin, with some of the peaks
rising over cleven thousand fect. It is a sluggish
stream, with heavily timbered banks, much of the
initial valley being marshy, and it flows into the Yel-
lowstone Lake, the largest sheet of water at a high
elevation in North America. This lake has bays in-
dented in its western and southern shores, giving the
irregular outline somewhat the appearance of a human
hand, and there are five of them, called the “Thumb”
and the “Fingers.” The thumb of this distorted
hand is thicker than its length, the forefinger is de-
tached and shrivelled, the middle finger has also been
badly treated, and the much swollen little finger is
the biggest of all, thus making a very demoralized
hand. The trail eastward over from the Upper Fire-
hole Geyser Basin comes out on the West Thumb of
the lake, mounting the Continental Divide on the
way, and crossing it twice as it makes a curious loop
to the northward, the second crossing being at eighty-
five hundred feet elevation, whence the trail descends
to the West Thumb. Yellowstone Lake is at seventy-
jfails of the 19ellowstone


YELLOWSTONE FALLS AND CANYON. 505
seven hundred and forty feet elevation, and covers
about one hundred and fifty square miles, having a
hundred miles of coast-line. The scenery is tame,
the shores being usually gentle slopes, with much
marsh and pine woods. Islands dot the blue waters,
and waterfowl frequent the marshes. The most ele-
vated portion of the immediate environment is Flat
Mountain, on the southwestern side, rising five hun-
dred feet, but beyond the eastern shore are some of
the highest peaks of the Park, exceeding eleven
thousand feet. Hot springs adjoin the West Thumb,
and there is an actual geyser crater in the lake itself.
Towards the northern end the shores gradually con-
tract into the marrow and shallow Yellowstone River,
which flows towards the northwest after first leaving
the lake, having occasional hot springs, geysers,
paint pots and steam jets at work, with large adja-
cent surfaces of geyserite and sulphur. The chief
curiosity in operation is the Giant's Cauldron, boiling
furiously, and with a roar that can be heard far
away. The pretty Alum Creek is crossed, its waters,
thus tainted, giving the name. South of this the
Yellowstone is generally placid, winding for a dozen
miles sluggishly through prairie and timbered hills,
but now it contracts and rushes for a mile down
rapids and over pretty cascades to the Upper Fall.
Restricted to a width of but eighty feet, the river
shoots far over this fall, the current being thrown
outward, indicating there must be room to pass be-
506 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
hind it. . The fall is one hundred and twenty feet,
and suddenly turning a right angle at its foot, the
stream of beautiful green passes through a not very
deep canyon. The appearance of the surrounding
cliffs is quite Alpine, though the rocks forming the
cascade constantly suffer from erosion. About a
half-mile below is the great Lower Falls of the Yel-
lowstone. Before reaching it, a little stream comes
into the river over the Crystal Fall, about eighty feet
high, rushing down a gorge forming a perfect grotto
in the side of the canyon, extending some distance
under the overhanging rocks. The surface of the
plateau gradually ascends as the Lower Falls are
approached, while the river bed descends, and this
makes a deep canyon, brilliantly colored, generally a
light yellow (thus naming the river), but in many
portions white, like marble, with patches of Orange,
the whole being streaked and spotted with the dark- -
gray rocks, whose sombre color in this region is pro-
duced by atmospheric action. The river rushes to
the brink of the Lower Fall, and where it goes over,
the current is not over a hundred feet wide, the de-
scent of the cataract being about three hundred feet,
and the column of falling waters dividing into sepa-
rate white streaks, which are lost in clouds of spray
before reaching the bottom. Only a small amount of
water usually goes over, about twelve hundred cubic
feet in a second. Before the plunge the water forms
a basin of dark-green color, and both blue and green
YELLOWSTONE FALLS AND CANYON. 507
tints mingle with the prevailing white of the cascade.
Towards sunset, when viewed from below, there are
admirable rainbow effects. The river is quite narrow
as it flows away along the bottom of the canyon,
which now becomes deep and large. The grand view
of this beautiful picture is from Point Lookout, a
half-mile below the falls. Unlike any other of the
world's great waterfalls, this cascade, while a part,
ceases to be the chief feature of the scene. It is the
vivid coloring and remarkable formation of the sides
of the canyon that make the chief impression.
These change as the sun gives light and shadow, the
morning differing from noon and noon from night.
It is impossible to reproduce or properly describe the
beautiful hues in this wonderful picture. The pre-
vailing tint is a light yellow, almost sulphur color,
with veins of white marble and bright red streaked
through it. The colors blend admirably, while the
cascade in the background seems enclosed in a set-
ting of chocolate-brown rocks, contrasting pictur-
esquely with the brighter foreground. Throughout
the grand scene, great rocky columns and pinnacles
arise, their brilliant hues maintained to the tops, and
the scattered pines clinging to these huge columnar
formations give a green tinge to parts of the picture.
The débris, forming an inclined base about half-way
down, is colored as brilliantly as the rocks above,
from which it has fallen. In the view over the can-
yon from Point Lookout, the contracted white streak
508 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
of the cascade above the spray cloud is but a small
part of the background, while the river below is only
a narrow green ribbon, edged by these brilliant hues.
Some distance farther down the canyon, another out-
look at Inspiration Point gives a striking view from
an elevation fifteen hundred feet above the river of
the gorgeous coloring of the upper canyon.
This grand Canyon of the Yellowstone extends, as
the river flows, a distance of about twenty-four miles.
It is a depression in a volcanic plateau clevated
about eight thousand feet above the sea, and gradu-
ally declining towards the northern end of the can-
yon. Above the Upper Fall the river level is almost
at the top of the plateau, and the falls and rapids de-
press the stream bed about thirteen hundred feet.
About midway along the canyon, on the western side,
is Washburne Mountain, the surface from it declining
in both directions, so that there the canyon is deepest,
measuring twelve hundred feet. Across the top, the
width varies from four hundred to sixteen hundred
yards, the angle of slope down to the bottom being
fully 45°, and often much steeper, in some cases
almost perpendicular where the top width is marrowest.
This Grand Canyon is the beautiful beginning, as it
were, of the largest river in the world,—the Mis-
souri and the Mississippi. Upon the trail in the
southern part of the National Park which goes over
from the Firehole River to the West Thumb, and at
quite an elevation upon the Continental Divide, there
WESTWARD THE COURSE OF EMPIRE. 509
is a quiet little sheet of water, having two small
streams flowing from its opposite sides. To the
eastward a babbling brook goes down into the West
Thumb of the Yellowstone Lake, while to the south-
west another small creek flows over the boulders to-
wards Shoshone Lake. This scanty sheet of water,
properly mamed the Two-Ocean Pond, actually feeds
both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The one
stream gets its outlet through the Mississippi and
the other through the Columbia River of Oregon.
WESTWARD THE COURSE OF EMPIRE.
Here, in the Yellowstone National Park, with the
waters flowing towards both the rising and the setting
sun, is the backbone of the American Continent. Be-
yond it the country stretches through the spacious
Rocky Mountain ranges to the Pacific. What is herein
described gives an idea of the vast empire ceded to the
United States by France in the early nineteenth cen-
tury, and this Great Northwest is gradually becoming
the masterful ruling section of the country. When
Bishop Berkeley, in the early eighteenth century,
sitting by the Atlantic Ocean waves at Newport,
composed his famous lyric on the “course of empire,”
he little thought how typical it was to become more
than a century after his death. IIe was musing then
“On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in
America.” The Arts and the Learning have had
vigorous American growth, but his Muse predicted
510 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE.
a greater empire than any one could have then
imagined.
“The Muse, disgusted at an age and clime
Barren of every glorious theme,
In distant lands now waits a better time,
Producing subjects worthy fame.
“In happy climes, where from the genial sun
And virgin earth such scenes ensue,
The force of Art by Nature seems outdone,
And fancied beauties by the true ;
“In happy climes, the seat of innocence,
Where Nature guides and Virtue rules,
Where men shall not impose for truth and sense
The pedantry of courts and schools;
“There shall be sung another golden age,
The rise of empire and of arts,
The good and great inspiring epic rage,
The wisest heads and noblest hearts.
“Not such as Europe breeds in her decay;
Such as she bred when fresh and young,
When heavenly flame did animate her clay,
I3y future poets shall be sung.
“Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The four first acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day;
Time's noblest offspring is the last.”
END OF WOLUME I.

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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