Flint's Letters from America, 1818-1820Flint, James, active 19th century
History
Flint's Letters from America, 1818-1820
Flint, James, active 19th century
Ohio River Valley -- Description and travel; United States -- Description and travel
[30] Flint’s route to Pittsburg was by way of the new Lancaster
pike--the first macadamized American road--and onward over the central
Pennsylvania route through Bedford, Ligonier, and Greensburg. Much
ado was made over the opening of the Cumberland Road across the
Alleghenies; but until the building of the Baltimore and Ohio Railway
to Cumberland, Maryland, in 1845, the central Pennsylvania route
seems to have been the popular one from Washington and Philadelphia
to Pittsburg. John Melish’s map in Morris Birkbeck, _Letters from
Illinois_ (Philadelphia, 1818), does not give the Cumberland Road,
although it outlines the old Northwestern turnpike from Cumberland
to Parkersburg, West Virginia. Almost all English travelers passed
westward over the Pennsylvania Road, which was two hundred and
ninety-four miles in length, according to Melish, _Traveller’s
Directory_, p. 69.--ED.
[31] The evening was warm, and, (not to exaggerate the difficulty
of removing him to the next town,) we judged that he was in no
danger.--FLINT.
[32] This was the well-known settlement established in 1818 by
the English philanthropists Morris Birkbeck and George Flower, at
Wanborough and Albion, in southeastern Illinois, within the present
Edwards County. For a full account of these settlements, see volume x
of our series.--ED.
[33] Colonel Bouquet constructed a fort at the present site of
Stoystown in 1758, and a small force was stationed there until
Pontiac’s War. The name Stoystown came from the patronymic of a
Revolutionary soldier who laid out the town. It is situated on Stony
Creek, ten miles from Somerset.--ED.
[34] Laughlin Town is about five miles south-east of Loudon.--ED.
[35] Somerset, situated near the centre of Somerset County, was first
settled by a party of frontiersmen about 1765. Laid out by a settler
named Bruner about twenty years later, it was for some time called
Brunerstown.--ED.
[36] This route was locally known as the Chambersburg and Pittsburg
turnpike, at either end being called by its opposite terminus. It
was built in general alignment with Forbes’s Road, cut along the old
trading-path through the forests in 1758. See Post’s _Journals_, volume
i of our series, p. 242.--ED.
LETTER V
Pittsburg--Situation--Manufactures--Occurrences--People
In this letter I shall not confine myself to a description of the city
of Pittsburg. Occurrences and remarks, with, or without dates, will be
promiscuously introduced. This method may not be after the manner of
regular epistolary writing; but to me it is the easiest way, and it
may have the advantage of shewing you how a great part of my time is
occupied.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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