Tour to the Western Country

[318]  p347  Vol. IV
p347 Chapter LIV
Return to the northward through Natchez, Greenville and Port Gibson — Bayau Pierre — General remarks on climate, soil, water, face of the country, manners, productions, &c.

On Tuesday, 13th September, I set out early, after returning thanks to my kind host and hostess. At two miles I passed Mrs. Hutchinson's on the right; one mile farther, Mr. Abner Green's on the left; three quarters of a mile beyond which, I left Mr. Poindexter's, member of congress from this territory, on the right.

I stopped for a few minutes at Mr. Dunbar's — sometimes known and addressed by the title of Sir William Dunbar, I know not on what foundation. He is a native of Scotland — is a gentleman of literature and philosophical research — is esteemed rich — and occupies one of the most tasty and best furnished cottages I have seen in the territory. Passing three or four other large plantations in sight of the road, six miles more brought me to St. Catharine's creek, now an inconsiderable brook, but in floods an impassable torrent; crossing which I had two miles and a half to Col. William Scott's, where I stopped and dined with Mrs. Scott, the Col. being from home. After dinner, taking the road through Natchez, I went to Mr. Blennerhasset's, where I supped and slept. Wednesday, 14th, after breakfast, Mr. Blennerhasset  p348 accompanied me to Natchez, where we made a few visits, in doing which we called on Mr. Evans, whose niece, Mrs. Wallace, a young and gay widow, and his eldest daughter, favoured us with a few tunes on an organ, built for him by one Hurdis, an English musical instrument maker and teacher of musick, [319]then residing in Natchez. The instrument was tolerably good, and ought to be so, as it has cost one thousand dollars.

I returned home with Mr. Blennerhasset, and next morning very early, proceeded through Washington, Sulserstown and Uniontown to Greenville, and from thence by a tolerably good road, in a northerly direction, twelve miles to Trimble's tavern, where I put up for the night. I was much impeded in my progress for the last two miles, by the effects of a hurricane, which had happened about a year before, and which had blown down by the roots, or broken off the tops of all the trees in its way — levelling every cabin and fence that opposed its passage, but like the generality of the hurricanes (which happen frequently in this climate and always from the westward) not exceeding half a mile in breadth. Trimble's family had like to have been buried under the ruins of their cabin, not having had over a minute to escape to the outside, and throw themselves flat on the ground, when it was blown down. Those gusts are very tremendous, being always accompanied by thunder, lightning, and torrents of rain, but from running in such narrow veins, they are very partial, and therefore not so much dreaded as those general ones which sometimes devastate the West India islands. Next day I proceeded nine miles in a northerly direction to Port Gibson, on a western branch of the Bayau Pierre. This little town of twenty houses is the capital of Claiborne county, and is esteemed the most thriving place in the territory, notwithstanding it is extremely unhealthy, from the  p349 proximity of some stagnant ponds, and the annual inundation of the Mississippi, which swells Bayau Pierre and causes it to stagnate for from four to six months, every year. The ponds might be drained, were the inhabitants not so entirely occupied by business and [320]pleasure, to which two pursuits they devote the whole of their time. It is thirty miles from Port Gibson to the Mississippi, following the windings of the Bayau Pierre, through a very hilly and broken country, but it is only fourteen miles by the road. As when the waters are up the bayau is navigable for large craft, that season is the most bustling time in Port Gibson, the storekeepers then importing goods and exporting cotton. On the subsiding of the waters, the sickly season commences, and lasts with little variation from July to October, inclusive. This is more or less the case over the whole territory, particularly on the banks of the Mississippi, and in the neighbourhood of swamps and stagnant ponds. The driest seasons are the most unhealthy. The prevailing malady is a fever of the intermittent species, sometimes accompanied by ague, and sometimes not. It is rarely fatal in itself, but its consequences are dreadful, as it frequently lasts five or six months in defiance of medicine, and leaves the patient in so relaxed and debilitated a state, that he never after regains the strength he had lost. It also frequently terminates in jaundice or dropsy, which sometimes prove fatal. All newcomers are subject to what is called a seasoning, after which, though they may be annually attacked by this scourge of the climate, it rarely confines them longer than a few days. Every house in Port Gibson is either a store, a tavern, or the workshop of a mechanick. There is a very mean gaol, and an equally bad court-house, though both are much in use, particularly the latter, as, like the United States in general, the people are fond of litigation. Gambling is carried  p350 to the greatest excess, particularly horse racing, cards and betting — a wager always deciding every difference of opinion. On the whole, Port Gibson and its neighbourhood is [321]perhaps the most dissolute as well as the most thriving part of the territory. I dined at my friend doctor Cumming's,218 who lives on his fine plantation near the town, and taking a S. W. road of thirteen miles, I arrived in the evening at Bruinsburg.

I shall here conclude my tour, with a few general observations.

The climate of this territory is very unequal, between excess of heat during the principal part of the year, when the inhabitants are devoured by musquitoes, gnats and sandflies, to excess of cold, in the winter nights and mornings, when a good fire, and plenty of warm woollen clothing are indispensibly necessary, though the middle of the day is frequently warm enough for muslin and nankeen dresses to suffice.

The soil is as various as the climate. The river bottoms generally, and some of the cane brake hills, not being exceeded for richness in the world, while some ridges and tracts of country after being cleared and cultivated for a few years, are so exhausted, as to become almost barren.

Water is very partially distributed — it being scarce,  p351 unpleasant, and unwholesome, within •seven or eight miles of the Mississippi — and it being fine and in abundance from that to the eastward to the pine woods, which generally begin at from fifteen to twenty miles distance from the river.

The face of the country is also much diversified — a dead swampy but very rich level borders the Mississippi the whole length of the territory and West Florida, from the Walnut hills to Baton Rouge, with the exception of some ends of ridges, or bluffs as they are called, at the Walnut hills, the Grand and Petit gulphs — Natchez and Baton Rouge. The flat or bottom is in general about two miles broad, though in some places nine or ten. The different water courses, [322]which run mostly into the Mississippi from the eastward have each their bottom lands of various breadths, but all comparatively much narrower than those of the Mississippi. The intervals are composed of chains of steep, high and broken hills, some cultivated, some covered with a thick cane brake, and forest trees of various descriptions, and others with beautiful open woods devoid of underwood. Some are evergreen with laurel and holly, and some, where the oak, walnut and poplar are the most predominant; being wholly brown in the winter, at which season others again are mixed, and at the fall of the leaf display a variety of colouring, green, brown, yellow and red.

On approaching the pine woods, the fertility of the soil ceases, but the climate becomes much more salubrious — that will however never draw inhabitants to it while a foot of cane brake land or river bottom remains to be settled.

"The pine woods form a barrier between the Choctaw nation and the inhabitants of the Mississippi territory, which however does not prevent the Indians from bringing their squaws every fall and winter to aid in gathering in the cotton crop, for which they are paid in blankets, stroud, (a  p352 blue cloth used by them for clothing) handkerchiefs, and worsted binding of various colours, besides other articles of manufactured goods, which are charged to them at most exorbitant prices.

The cotton crop requiring constant attention, and children being useful in gathering it, the bulk of the inhabitants cannot afford to spare the labour of their children, so that education is almost totally neglected, and perhaps there are few people, a degree above the savage, more completely destitute of literary acquirements. But as they grow up, they can find time for attendance at courts of law, horse races, and festive, or rather bacchanalian meetings at taverns, where bad whiskey is drank to the greatest excess. Notwithstanding [323]this proneness to dissipation, to the neglect of manners, morals and property, there is a semblance of religion, so that any noisy sectarian preacher may always be sure of having a congregation, if his time of preaching is known a day beforehand.

With respect to the productions of the territory, cotton is the staple, and since the disappearance of specie it serves in lieu of money. The river bottom lands generally yield from eighteen hundred to two thousand pounds to the acre, the uplands about a thousand. Maize or Indian corn is produced on new land in the ratio of seventy or eighty bushels per acre, well attended. Horses, horned cattle, hogs and poultry might be raised in any quantity, yet cotton so entirely engrosses the planters, that they are obliged to Kentucky for their principal supply of horses and pork and bacon.

Wheat would grow well, but it is not attended to, so that all the wheat flour used, comes down the Mississippi. The middle states supply a quantity of salted beef, and the southern ones rice, which might also be raised abundantly.

When not destroyed by a frost in April, there are abundance  p353 of early apples and peaches; but the climate is too cold in winter for the orange or lemon to the northward of La Fourche, on the Mississippi, below Baton Rouge.

The woods abound with bear and deer, which are sometimes killed and sold by the Indian and white hunters. Wild turkeys on the hills, and water fowl of every description in the swamps are abundant, besides smaller game both four footed and feathered of various descriptions. But the chase, either with dogs or the gun is so laborious an occupation, from the difficulty of getting through the cane brakes and underwood, that one seldom meets with game at the tables of the planters.

[324]The Mississippi, the smaller water courses, the lakes and ponds abound with cat fish of a superiour quality, and a variety of much more delicate and finer fish, yet one seldom meets with them, any more than with game.

In short, the tables of all classes of people have as little variety to boast of as those of any other civilized people in the world. Coffee, although double the price that it is bought for at New Orleans, is by custom become an article of the first necessity, which the wife of the poorest planter cannot do without, and it is of course the most common breakfast. Milk is used to excess, which I have reason to think is an additional cause of the prevalence of bilious disorders.

Proper care and conduct, might in some degree correct or guard against the effects of the climate, and prudence and a well regulated economy, might procure to the inhabitants of the Mississippi territory, almost every comfort, convenience and delicacy, enjoyed in the most favoured countries upon earth.

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The Editor's Note:

218 Dr. John Cummins was born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, in 1780. Having studied medicine with Dr. Rush of Philadelphia, he emigrated to Mississippi Territory to engage in the practice of his profession, settling first at Port Gibson; later having married a daughter of Judge Bruin (1804) he removed to the plantation on Bayou Pierre, where Cuming visited him. He endorsed $65,000. Burr's maps left in his care are important evidence of the destination of his expedition. Dr. Cummins was called to Richmond in order to testify at the Burr trial, and afterwards attempted to recover some of the money he had lost, but with no success. Removing to the parish of Concordia, Louisiana, he lived the life of a wealthy cultivated planter — being especially interested in literature — until his death in 1822. The details of his history have been kindly furnished by his granddaughter, Mrs. T. C. Wordin, of Bridgeport, Connecticut.— Ed.

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