Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

But

visiters, in the increase of robust feelings, than they do now. last in order, in the progress of luxury, came the last device of pleasure, in travelling excursions,-now "boxing the compass" to every point. The astonishing increased facilities of communications have diminished distances. Steamboats transfer us to far distant places, before we have fairly tried the varieties of a single day and night of their operation! Post-coaches, and fleet horses, roll us as easy as on our couches: New England and northern tours occur,the Grand canal and Niagara are sought; westward, we have Mount Carbon, and the line of new canals; and homeward, " round about," we have the wonders of Mauch-Chunk, Carbondale, the Morris canal, Catskill mountain, and the everlasting battlements of the North river. In such excursions much is seen to gratify the eye, and much to cheer the heart.

"The verdant meads, the yellow waving corn,
The new-mown hay, the melody of birds,
The pomp of groves,-the sweets of early morn."

Scenes like these, ofttimes varied, and sometimes combined with sea scenes, are ever grateful.

[blocks in formation]

We proceed now to notice historically the only "watering places" known to our forefathers, placing them much in the order in which they occurred, to wit:

"The mineral water in the Great valley," thirty miles from Philadelphia, was first announced, as a valuable discovery, in the year 1722. In the same year, great praise is bestowed on the newly discovered mineral water at "Bristol spring."

In 1770, such was the decreased fame of the Yellow springs, in Chester county, that it was deplored as a public evil that it had been so deserted; although its efficacy of waters and charms of scenery and accommodation were still undiminished-at the beginning (fifty years before.) It was stated, that from one to five hundred persons, daily, had been accustomed to be found there in the summer months.

We think "Long beach" and "Tucker's beach," in point of earliest attraction as a sea-shore resort for Philadelphians, must claim the precedence. They had their visiters and distant admirers long before Squam, or Deal or even Long Branch itself, had got their several fame. To those who chiefly desire to restore languid frames, and to find their nerves new-braced and firmer strung, nothing can equal the invigorating surf and genial air. And what can more affect the eye and touch the best affections of the heart, than there to think of Him who made those great waves-stalking like so many

giants to the shore,-tossing their white crests high against the everlasting strand, and calling to each other, in the deep-toned moans of imprisoned spirits struggling to be free! In the beautiful language of our countrywoman, Mrs. Sigourney, we may say,

"Thou speak'st a God, thou solemn, holy sea!
Alone upon thy shore, I rove and count
The crested billows in their ceaseless play;
And when dense darkness shrouds thy awful face,

I listen to thy voice and bow me down,

In all my nothingness, to Him whose eye
Beholds thy congregated world of waves
But as a noteless dew drop!"

Long Branch," last but greatest in fame, because the fashionables, who rule all things, have made it so, is still inferior as a surf, to those above named. It was held before the Revolution by Colonel White, a British officer and an inhabitant at New York. The small house which he owned and occupied as a summer retreat, is still existing in the clump now much enlarged by Renshaw. In consequence of the war, the place was confiscated and fell into other hands, and finally for the public good.

That house was first used as a boarding-house by our fellow citizen, Elliston Perot, Esq., in 1788. At that time the whole premises were in charge of an old woman left there to keep them from injury. Of her Mr. Perot begged an asylum for his family, which was granted, provided he could hire his beds and bedding of others. Being pleased with the place, he repeated his visits the three succeeding years, taking with him other friends. In 1790-1, Mr. M'Night, of Monmouth, witnessing the liking shown to the place, deemed it a good speculation to buy it. He bought the whole premises, containing one hundred acres of land, for £700, and then got Mr. Perot and others to loan him 2000 dollars to improve it. He then opened it for a public watering place; and before his death it was supposed he had enriched himself, by the investment, as much as 40,000 dollars. The estate was sold out to Renshaw for about 13,000 dollars.

The table fare of those companies who first occupied the house under the old woman's grant consisted chiefly of fish, and such salted meats as the visiters could bring with them. All then was much in the rough style of bachelor's fare.

Prior to the above period, "Black point," not far off, was the place of bathing. They had no surf there, and were content to bathe in a kind of waterhouse, covered; even Bingham's great house, near there, indulged no idea of surf-bathing. The tavern entertainment at Black point was quite rude, compared with present Long Branch luxuries; cocoanut pudding, and floating-islands, &c., were delicacies, not even known in our cities!

Indeed we cannot but see, that the most of former summer excursions were but for the men. They were generally deemed too

distant and rough for female participation. But later improvements in roads, and a far more easy construction of spring-carriages, have since brought out their full proportion of ladies,-gladdening the company along the route by those feminine attractions which lessen our cares and double our joys. Thus giving an air of gaiety and courtesy to all the steamboats, stage-coaches, and inns, where they enter, and thus alluring us to become the greatest travellers in our summer excursions, to be found in the world! From these causes, country-seats, which were much resorted to after the year 1793, are fast falling into disuse, and probably will not again recover their former regard. See Appendix, p. 538.

CANALS, RAILROADS, TURNPIKES.

Make freighted barks beyond the mountains stray

New States exulting, see the flitting sails

Waft joy and plenty round the peopled vales!

In some parts of the Union a very erroneous opinion prevails, that the United States are indebted wholly to the example of New York, for the active and beneficial spirit of internal improvement, which pervades the whole confederacy of states.

The splendour of their justly acknowledged grand enterprise, appears to have eclipsed the brilliance of the numerous achievements of the other states. Hence, although Pennsylvania has expended several millions of dollars more on internal improvements, than any state in the Union, she has been but little noticed therefor.

In Pennsylvania, party spirit, as in New York, has not been brought in as an auxiliary to our public works. Hence our march, though resolute and constant, has been silent and unostentatious. If we except three of the almost uninhabitable counties in the north. western part of this state, five-sixths of every part of the common. wealth is to be intersected by canals and railways, leaving no point at a greater distance from the highways than twenty-three miles, when the works in actual progress shall have been wholly finished

We shall prove-chiefly from official documents, that from the year 1791 to July 1828, the enormous sum of $22,010,554 has been expended by the state and by corporations, on canals, rivers, turnpike-roads, railways and bridges, &c.,-and this exclusive of the sums expended by the state prior to the year 1791.

We can also show, that additional works are in actual progress, and that they will be finished at an additional expense estimated at VOL. II.-3 I

$12,450,000, making a grand total of $34,460,554, expended in Pennsylvania in forty years, from 1791 to 1831, (the time we pen this article,) for internal improvements.

From the year 1791 to 1828, 265 companies have been incorporated by the legislature for the purpose of effecting various internal improvements!

The first act passed in America for a railway for general purposes of commerce was that to Mr. Stevens and others, to make a railway from Columbia to Philadelphia-84 miles. The parties did not execute their plan, but the state has it in hands to execute it quickly. [Since finished.]

Since the year 1792, 168 companies have been incorporated to make about 3110 miles of turnpike roads-of these 102 have gone into operation and have constructed nearly 2380 miles of roads at an expense of $8,431,059.

The numerous bridges, which have been erected over almost every stream in Pennsylvania-many of them then very expensive ones, have given to us the title of "the state of bridges.'

[ocr errors]

Some of the county bridges have been constructed at an expense of from thirty to forty and even to sixty thousand dollars. The Schuylkill permanent bridge, was the first great structure of the kind attempted in America, executed at an expense of $300,000. The Lancaster, or upper ferry-bridge (since supplied by the wire-bridge) was composed of one arch of 328 feet of cord. A span exceeding any other in the world. Our wooden bridges, generally, are unrivalled in number, magnitude and scientific boldness of design.

William Penn, in his proposals for a second settlement in Penn sylvania, as published in 1690, alludes to the practicability of effecting "a communication by water," between the Susquehanna and a branch of the river Schuylkill:-A singular presentiment of a project actually commenced in one century afterwards. And at a still earlier period-say in 1613, Sir Samuel Argal wrote home to England, saying he had the hope to see a cut made between the bays of Chesapeake and Delaware. And the Modern Universal History, edition of 1763, says there is an easy communication with Maryland which comes within four miles of the Chesapeake bay also, that a project was once set on foot for joining the river and bay by an artificial canal, (now done,) but it met with such opposition from the inhabitants of Virginia and Maryland, "that it came to nothing."

Numerous letters are now extant, which, besides their originality of views, prove beyond all doubt that the union is indebted to Pennsylvania for the first introduction of canals and turnpikes to the public attention. Yet this fact, susceptible as it is of every proof, is hitherto scarcely known to the mass even of our own population. Some of our citizens almost denying the existence of the works which their own means had created, and thus assisting to swell the praises of other states, to the prejudice and neglect of their own.

If Pennsylvania is to be censured, it cannot be for supineness

and want of enterprise. It cannot be for sins of omission, but of commission. The fault, if any, has been that she has done what she ought to have left undone. She exercised her energies, if to blame, prematurely. She was in advance of the spirit of the age, and her example in commencing the first canal to connect the eastern and western waters, which, if successful then, would have stimulated other states, even then, to rivalry, proved by its failure (and all things failed under L' Enfant's engineering, although deemed a premier,) a beacon which warned them to shun her course, and withal to husband their resources, till more wealth and better qualified agents could be obtained.

Some of the correspondence above alluded to, respecting the introduction of canals, is as early as the year 1750 to '60; and although it had but little efficient power then, it nevertheless was the entering wedge which drove to important future results.

If our information be correct, we may attribute to David Rittenhouse, the astronomer, and to Doctor William Smith, provost, the credit of being the first labourers in this important measure. Afterwards Robert Morris, and still later, Robert Fulton, lent their powerful assistance.

In the year 1762, David Rittenhouse, and Doctor William Smith, we believe, at the same time, surveyed and levelled a route for a canal to connect the waters of the Susquehanna and Schuylkill rivers, by means of the Swatara and Tulpehocken creeks. The Union canal, which has since accomplished this object, passes over a portion of this route, which was surveyed for a canal in the time of the colonies.

The views of the projectors of this work were, if the difficulties of that period are considered, far more gigantic and surprising than have been entertained by their successors any where. They contemplated nothing less than a junction of the eastern and western waters of Lake Erie and of the Ohio, with the Delaware, on a route of five hundred and eighty-two miles. All this, too, at a period, when the country itself was comparatively a wilderness and without population-looking to the future as a means to surely realize so splendid a scheme of internal communication. Let the European journalists, who carp at our deficiencies, contemplate such facts by a new people!

In 1764, they induced the American Philosophical Society, to order a survey for a canal to connect the Chesapeake bay with the Delaware-a work now accomplished.

These laudable efforts were ably seconded by the provincial legislature, which about the same time authorized a survey on a route, extending five hundred and eighty-two miles, to Pittsburg and Erie. The result was, that the measure was strongly recommended as a feasible project, whenever the public resources should warrant the noble undertaking.

As soon after the war of Independence, as circumstances would

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »