CHAPTER IV

Different roads to Shippensburgh—Foxes—South mountain and pine woods—Shippensburgh—Strasburgh—North or Blue mountain—Horse valley and Skinner’s tavern.

On the 25th January at 8 A.M. I left Carlisle, having previously taken an egg beat up in a glass of wine. There are two roads, one called the Mountrock road which goes from the north end of the town, and the other called the Walnut-bottom road, which leads from the south end. They run parallel to each other about three miles apart. I took the latter, which is the stage road, as the wagon with my baggage was to go that way, though I was informed that the first led through a better country. I found mile-stones on the right hand all the way to Shippensburgh, placed at the expence of the proprietors of the lands on this road, to prove it shorter than the other, they having before been computed at the equal length of twenty-one miles each; but now this one is marked only nineteen. The first five miles are through a very poor and stony country, thinly inhabited, and covered, except on the cultivated parts of the few miserable looking farms, with short, stunted, scrubby wood. The next seven miles are through a better improved country, and a better soil, with large farms {34} and good houses; then there are three miles over the northern skirt of the South mountain, through gloomy forests of tall pines, with here and there a log cabin surrounded by a few acres of cleared land, and abounding in children, pigs, and poultry. The last four miles improve gradually to Shippensburgh.

At eleven o’clock I stopt and breakfasted at a large tavern on the right, seven miles from Carlisle, I got coffee, bread and butter, eggs and excellent honey in the comb, for which I was charged only nineteen cents. My landlord presentedme one of the largest and finest apples I had ever seen: it was the produce of his own orchard, where he had several trees of the same species, raised by himself from the pippin, and neither grafted nor budded. He had the manners of a New Englandman, being desirous both of receiving and of communicating information, but I soon gathered from him that he was a native of that part of Pennsylvania, and of English extraction. On my entrance he had laid down a book, which taking up afterwards, I found to be a volume of Robertson’s Charles V.

As I proceeded from hence, two very beautiful red foxes playfully crossed the road about a hundred yards before me; they then recrossed it, and seeing me, made up a hill to the right with incredible swiftness, leaping with ease a Virginia worm fence above six feet high.

At half past four I arrived at Shippensburgh, which was laid out for a town, about fifty years ago, and named after the first proprietor and settler, the father of judge Shippen of Philadelphia.[15]It contains between 150 and 200 straggling houses, in one street, nearly a mile in length: with nothing else interesting to recommend it to notice. I stopt at Raume’s, a German house about the middle of the town, and apparently the best tavern in it. I bathed my feet in cold water, and dressed the left one which was {35} much blistered and very painful: Soon after which, my wagonner Jordan, with three others in his company arriving, we all sat down together, according to the custom of the country, to a plentiful and good supper; after which, the wagonners spread their mattresses and blankets round the stove in the bar room, and I retired to a good bed, but without an upper sheet.

Monday, 26th January, at half past ten; I proceeded towards Strasburgh, in preference to keeping the stage road to the left through Chambersburgh,[16]as I shortened the road eight miles in a distance of thirty-eight, to where the two roads again met.

The country to Strasburgh, eleven miles, is well inhabited, and the soil is tolerably good; and the Blue mountains are full in front, extending to the right and left as far as the eye can reach. Those mountains are not higher than the highlands on Hudson river above New York, about 2500 feet perpendicular from the plain below, from which they rise abruptly, and the road is seen winding up their side to a small gap near the top, which separates from the main ridge a pyramidal knob, which, apparently higher {36} than the ridge, seems to hang directly over Strasburgh. I met on the road, two wagons with six horses each, from Zanesville in the state of Ohio, going to Philadelphia for goods:—They had been a month on the road. At two miles from Strasburgh, I past a direction post on the left pointing to Cummins’s mills, and at 1 o’clock I entered that town and stopt at Bell’s, the last tavern on the left. As there was no beer in the house, they had to send for it to Merkel’s, aGerman house. And here it may not be amiss to observe that the German taverns on these roads, are generally better provided with both liquors and provisions, than the English or Irish, but their manners are not the most agreeable, they being very inattentive to any of the wants of a traveller, except the providing his meals, and the bringing him what liquor he calls for.

It is twelve years since Strasburgh was laid out. It contains about fifty indifferent houses, and does not seem to be thriving.

At two o’clock, I began to ascend the North or Blue mountains, immediately from Strasburgh.—After ascending about a mile, I stopped and rested at a hut, the only dwelling on the passage over the mountain. Proceeding from hence, I was overtaken a little higher up by a man driving before him his horse loaded with a bag of wheat. We entered into conversation, and he entertained me with his exploits, in killing bears,[17]wolves, racoons, and foxes, {37} which abound on these mountains, as well as deer, wild turkeys, pheasants, and squirrels. I stopped occasionally, to observe the view behind me, which though a good deal impeded by the trees, is nevertheless very extensive, over a woody country, terminated by the long range of the South mountain, extendingfrom the banks of the Susquehannah below Harrisburgh to the S.W. as far as the eye can reach. Though extensive, it is however an uninteresting prospect, as though I saw many patches of cleared land, the town of Shippensburgh twelve miles distant, and Strasburgh directly under me;—wood with its (at this season) brown, sombre hue, is the prevailing feature. After ascending a mile and a half from Strasburgh, I came to the top of the mountain, and looked down on the other side into a dark narrow romantick vale called Horse valley, with the two Skinner’s good farms, still house and mill, and Conodogwinnet {38} creek gliding through the middle towards the N.E.; while the middle mountain, rose immediately opposite me, from the other side of the valley, the summit of it apparently not a mile distant from where I stood, though in reality it is three miles, so much is the eye deceived by the depth of the intermediate vale.

At 4 o’clock, I stopped at Skinner’s, where at my particular request, I was gratified with hasty pudding or mush, as it is called in this state, with plenty of good milk and apple pye for supper. My host was born near Woodbridge in Jersey, from whence his father had removed to this country many years ago. There are now about twenty families settled in the valley, which extends from the south endtwelve miles above Skinner’s, to a gap in the Blue mountains five miles below, through which the Conodogwinnet flows from its source at the upper end of the valley, which it waters in its whole length of seventeen miles, to join the Susquehannah near Harrisburgh, forty miles distant.

One Wagstaff, formerly an English soldier, who had been wounded and made a prisoner at the battle of Monmouth, and now a farmer near Pittsburgh, and a lad returning home to the same neighbourhood, after assisting to drive a herd of a hundred and fifty hogs to Philadelphia, which had employed him a month, put up here for the night, and I was much amused with the anecdotes of the old soldier and my host, who had also been a soldier on the patriotick side, during the revolutionary war. They had been opposed to each other in several battles, and reminded each other of many incidents which happened at them. My landlord was a politician, but his system of politicks and his general ideas were completely original. Amongst other topicks, Col. Burr’s present situation and intentions were discussed, when our host gave it as his decided opinion, that he had secured {39} the friendship and assistance of a warlike and powerful nation of Indians, inhabiting a country on the banks of the Missouri about 1500 miles in circumference, where is the celebrated mountain of salt. That they fought on horseback and were armed with short Spanish caribines; and that with their aid he meant to conquer Mexico, and erect an empire independent of both Spaniards and Americans.

Mrs. Skinner was confined to her bed in an advanced stage of a consumption: I recommended her inhaling the steam of melted rosin and bees-wax, and wrote directions for her accordingly. When I retired to rest, I had once more the luxury of clean sheets and a good bed.

FOOTNOTES:[15]See note on Shippensburg in Post’sJournals, vol. i of this series, p. 238, note 76.—Ed.[16]Chambersburgh is a thriving town, capital of Franklin co., Pennsylvania, 162 miles east of Pittsburgh, the mail route, and 11 beyond the Big Cove mountain. The Philadelphia and Baltimore mail stages meet here, the former three times a week, the latter twice a week, this circumstance, with other advantages, makes it a tolerable lively place. It contains about 250 houses, has two paper mills, a grist mill in the town, and several others within a short distance, all turned by a spring which heads about two miles from the town. An original bank has been lately established here, with a capital of a quarter of a million of dollars, Edward Crawford, president, A. Colhoun, cashier. Two weekly papers are published here, one of which is German. It has a number of mercantile houses, and taverns in plenty, some of which are well kept, and principally by Germans. The stage-master here is a Mr. Davis, formerly of M’Connellstown—He is well spoken of for his attention and politeness to passengers, a very necessary qualification for a stage-master.—Cramer.[17]In the New York Medical Repository, vol. 5, page 343-4, we find the following curious facts concerning the mode of generation in the American bear.“The singular departure from the common course of nature in the procreation of the opossum and the shark, are already known; but the manner in which the fœtus is matured by the female bear is not so generally understood. The following information was given to Mr. Franklin, senator of the United States from North Carolina, by the hunters. This animal hybernates, and, during the winter, retires to hollow trees and caverns, but does not become torpid, or sink into the sleeping state. Though found often in great numbers on the frontier settlements, and frequently killed and eaten by the inhabitants, there has never been an instance of a female killed in a pregnant condition, or big with young. The reason is, that almost immediately after conception, the fœtus, while shapeless, and resembling merely a small animated lump, is excluded from the womb. Thus born, and exposed to the open air, it has no connection with the teat like the opossum, nor with an egg like the shark. There is no trace of a placenta nor umbilical vessels. The growth of this rudiment of a future bear is supposed to be promoted by licking; and the saliva of the dam, or some other fluid from her mouth, appears to afford it nourishment. In the course of time, and under such management, the limbs and organs are evolved, the surface covered with hair, and the young cub at length rendered capable of attending its parent. Thus far the inquiries of the hunters have gone. The facts are so curious, that the subject is highly worthy of further investigation. And when the entire history of the process of generation in this animal shall be known, new light will be shed upon one of the most obscure parts of physiology. It is to be hoped that gentlemen whose opportunities are favourable to the prosecution of this inquiry, will furnish the learned world shortly with the whole of these mysterious phenomena.”—Cramer.

[15]See note on Shippensburg in Post’sJournals, vol. i of this series, p. 238, note 76.—Ed.

[16]Chambersburgh is a thriving town, capital of Franklin co., Pennsylvania, 162 miles east of Pittsburgh, the mail route, and 11 beyond the Big Cove mountain. The Philadelphia and Baltimore mail stages meet here, the former three times a week, the latter twice a week, this circumstance, with other advantages, makes it a tolerable lively place. It contains about 250 houses, has two paper mills, a grist mill in the town, and several others within a short distance, all turned by a spring which heads about two miles from the town. An original bank has been lately established here, with a capital of a quarter of a million of dollars, Edward Crawford, president, A. Colhoun, cashier. Two weekly papers are published here, one of which is German. It has a number of mercantile houses, and taverns in plenty, some of which are well kept, and principally by Germans. The stage-master here is a Mr. Davis, formerly of M’Connellstown—He is well spoken of for his attention and politeness to passengers, a very necessary qualification for a stage-master.—Cramer.

[17]In the New York Medical Repository, vol. 5, page 343-4, we find the following curious facts concerning the mode of generation in the American bear.“The singular departure from the common course of nature in the procreation of the opossum and the shark, are already known; but the manner in which the fœtus is matured by the female bear is not so generally understood. The following information was given to Mr. Franklin, senator of the United States from North Carolina, by the hunters. This animal hybernates, and, during the winter, retires to hollow trees and caverns, but does not become torpid, or sink into the sleeping state. Though found often in great numbers on the frontier settlements, and frequently killed and eaten by the inhabitants, there has never been an instance of a female killed in a pregnant condition, or big with young. The reason is, that almost immediately after conception, the fœtus, while shapeless, and resembling merely a small animated lump, is excluded from the womb. Thus born, and exposed to the open air, it has no connection with the teat like the opossum, nor with an egg like the shark. There is no trace of a placenta nor umbilical vessels. The growth of this rudiment of a future bear is supposed to be promoted by licking; and the saliva of the dam, or some other fluid from her mouth, appears to afford it nourishment. In the course of time, and under such management, the limbs and organs are evolved, the surface covered with hair, and the young cub at length rendered capable of attending its parent. Thus far the inquiries of the hunters have gone. The facts are so curious, that the subject is highly worthy of further investigation. And when the entire history of the process of generation in this animal shall be known, new light will be shed upon one of the most obscure parts of physiology. It is to be hoped that gentlemen whose opportunities are favourable to the prosecution of this inquiry, will furnish the learned world shortly with the whole of these mysterious phenomena.”—Cramer.

[17]In the New York Medical Repository, vol. 5, page 343-4, we find the following curious facts concerning the mode of generation in the American bear.

“The singular departure from the common course of nature in the procreation of the opossum and the shark, are already known; but the manner in which the fœtus is matured by the female bear is not so generally understood. The following information was given to Mr. Franklin, senator of the United States from North Carolina, by the hunters. This animal hybernates, and, during the winter, retires to hollow trees and caverns, but does not become torpid, or sink into the sleeping state. Though found often in great numbers on the frontier settlements, and frequently killed and eaten by the inhabitants, there has never been an instance of a female killed in a pregnant condition, or big with young. The reason is, that almost immediately after conception, the fœtus, while shapeless, and resembling merely a small animated lump, is excluded from the womb. Thus born, and exposed to the open air, it has no connection with the teat like the opossum, nor with an egg like the shark. There is no trace of a placenta nor umbilical vessels. The growth of this rudiment of a future bear is supposed to be promoted by licking; and the saliva of the dam, or some other fluid from her mouth, appears to afford it nourishment. In the course of time, and under such management, the limbs and organs are evolved, the surface covered with hair, and the young cub at length rendered capable of attending its parent. Thus far the inquiries of the hunters have gone. The facts are so curious, that the subject is highly worthy of further investigation. And when the entire history of the process of generation in this animal shall be known, new light will be shed upon one of the most obscure parts of physiology. It is to be hoped that gentlemen whose opportunities are favourable to the prosecution of this inquiry, will furnish the learned world shortly with the whole of these mysterious phenomena.”—Cramer.

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