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Author: Michaux, Franpcois Andrbe, 1770-1855.

Title: Travels to the westward of the Allegany mountains : in the states of Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, in the year 1802

/ by F.A. Michaux ; translated from the French.

Publication date: 1805.

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(Page 89 Chapter XXIV)

 

Knoxville, the seat of government of the State of Tennessee, is situated on the river Holston, which, at this place, is 150 fathoms in width.  The houses, in number about 200, ara, almost all, of wood. - - -

 

 On 17th of September 1802 I took my leave --

 

I crossed the river Holston at Macby, fifteen miles from Knoxville: here the soil becomes better, and the plantations are nearer together, although still so distant as not to be within sight of each other. 

 

At a short distance from Macby, the road, for the space of a mile or two, runs beside a coppice, very thickly (pg 90) set with trees, the largest clumps being twenty or twenty-five feet across.  I had never seen any part of a forest in a similar state; and I made this observation to the inhabitants of the country, who informed me that this spot was formerly part of a barren, or meadow, which had become naturally re-covered with wood within the last twelve or fifteen years, since the custom of setting fire to them, as practised in all the Southern States, had been discontinued.  This circumstance seems to prove, that the extensive meadows of Kentucky and Tennessee owe their origin to some conflagration, which had consumed the forests, and that they are preserved in that state by the custom, which still prevails, of setting fire to them annually. When on these occasions chance preserves any spots of them for a few years from the ravages of the flames, the trees spring up again; but, being extremely close, the fire, which at length catches them, burns them completely, and again reduces them to the state of meadows.

 

On the first day I stopped in a place where the majority of the inhabitants were Quakers, who had come from fifteen or eighteen years before from Pennsylvania.  The one with whom I lodged had a good plantation, and his log-house was divided into two apartments, which is very uncommon in this country.  Some very fine apple-trees were planted round the house, which, although raised from seeds, produced fruit of an extraordinary size and excellent quality:  this is another proof how well these countries are adapted for the culture of fruit-trees.  Here, as in Kentucky, the preference is given to the peach, on account of the brandy made from it.  At my host’s I met with two families of emigrants, consisting together of ten or twelve persons, who were going to settle in Tennessee.  Their torn garments, and the bad plight of their children, who followed barefooted, and in their shirts, were indications of their poverty; a very uncommon occurrence in the United States.  The riches of the inhabitants of the Western Country do not, however, consist in money; for I am well convinced that a tenth of them do not possess a single dollar; but each man lives on his own freehold, and derives from it an abundance of every necessary of life; and the money arising from the sale of a horse or a few cows is always more than sufficient to procure him all those secondary articles, which come from the English manufactories.

 

On the following day I passed near an iron work, situated thirty miles from Knoxville, and stopped a short time to take a (pg 91) specimen of the ore.  The iron obtained from it is said to be of excellent quality.  At this place the road divides into two branches, both leading to Jonesborough;  but, as I was desirous of seeing the banks of the river Nolachuky, celebrated in this country for their fertility, I took that to the right. 

 

Six or seven miles from the iron-work, small rock crystals are found on the road; they are two or three lines in length, and beautifummy transparent.  The faces of the pyramids, which terminate the two extremities of the prism, are parallel and equal: they are uncombined, and dissemminated in reddish, slightly argillaceous land. -- In less than ten minutes I could collect forty of them.

 

On the 21st I arrived at Greenville, which does not contain more than forty houses, built of squared beams, arranged like the trunks of trees of the log-houses.  From hence to Jonesborough is twenty-five miles.  In the interval the country is rather hilly; the soil is more adapted to the culture of wheat than of maize; and the houses on the road are at a distance of three miles from each other.

 

Jonesborough, the last town in Tennessee, contains about 150 houses, built of planks, and standing on both sides of the road.  The place contains four or five stores, and the merchants who keep them trade with Baltimore and Richmond.  Every article of English manufacture is sold very dear here, as well as at Knoxville.  A newspaper, in large folio, here once a week.  Indeed papers are hitherto the only works which have been printed in those towns or villages lying to the westward of the Alleganies, where printing offices are established.

 

(pg 94)

Chap. XXVII  of East Tennessee, or Holston.—Cultures, &c.

 

East Tennessee, or Holston, is situated between the highest part of the Alleganys, and Cumberland Mountains:  in length, it comprises an extent of nearly a hundred and forty miles; the principal differences between it and West Tennessee are that the (pg 95) lime-stone appears to lie deeper;  that the beds of it, which form the mass, inclined to the horizon, are divided at small intervals, by strata of Quartz; and, finally, that the country is watered by a great number of small rivers, descending from the neighbouring mountains, which cross it in all directions.  The best land is on their banks.

 

Maize also forms one of the principal branches of culture here, but it seldom grows to a greater height than seven or eight feet, and thirty bushels per acre is considered a very good crop.  The nature of the soil, which is rather stony, seems better adapted to the growth of wheat, rye, and oats, which are, consequently, cultivated more here than in Cumberland.  Cotton is not grown in any quantity, on account of the cold, which sets in very early.  It may be inferred, from what has been said, that Holston is in every respect inferior in fertility to Cumberland and Kentucky.

 

To turn the superabundance of their grain to advantage, the inhabitants breed a great number of cattle, which they send a distance of 500 miles to the maritime towns of the central and Southern states.  Very few of these animals are lost in their passage, although they have a great number of rivers to cross, and the country is nearly an uninterrupted forest, added to which they are extremely wild, from being accustomed to the woods.

 

This part of Tennessee began to be inhabited in 1775, and its population has increased so much, that, at this time, the number of its inhabitants is estimated at 70,000, including three or four thousand negro slaves.