From: The Development of Central and Western New York 1958

By: Clayton Mau

James Stuart

James Stuart, a British visitor to America, traveled across New York State by stage in September, 1828, on the well-known Genesee Road. In order to see more of the Finger Lakes region than was possible on this central route, he took a side tour from Auburn to Ithaca. The following passages are from his journal:

Tlere is a great deal of ground in the neighbourhood [of Aurora] devoted to orchards, at present in all their glory, loaded with fruit. The coachman drove so near the trees close to the road, that we had as many apples as we chose to pull. We dined at a small hotel at Aurora on pork, which, as we have always hitherto found it in this country,

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was excellent. The hogs are allowed in this country to run out in the forests and orchards, where they subsist in great measure in the autumn on nuts, acorns, and fallen apples, and in some cases on fallen peaches. Before being killed they are put up for a short time on Indian corn. The flesh of the hogs fed in this way is firm and good. Our fellow-passengers consisted of a Pennsylvania farmer; an Ithaca storekeeper; and a female, with her son Ulysses. We passed many good farms, some of them recently brought into cultivation, on which the usual processes of housebuilding, and inclosing by strong wooden rails, were in progress.

We found the regular supper was finished before we reached Mr. Jones's hotel at Ithaca. The hotel seemed crowded with boarders and strangers; but the landlord, without our applying for it, gave us separate accommodation, and continued it, unasked, while we remained. Mr. Jones is a most attentive landlord in all respects, - offered us his services on the day after we arrived, and which, too, we spent at Ithaca, to show us the village, and every thing in the neighbourhood which we had any curiosity to see. Ithaca is a very flourishing village, the centre of several great roads, with a population of between 3000 and 4000, and buildings in rapid progress....

There was a great deal of keen discussion in the bar-room of this hotel, on the subject of the approaching election of a President of the United States. Upon one occasion it was carried so far, and apparently as methodically, as if a regular meeting had been arranged to debate the merits of the two candidates [John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson]. Rather too great warmth was displayed, but we afterwards found that one of the parties was a gentleman travelling through the State in order to learn the general sentiments as to one of the candidates, and that on this occasion he had accidentally got into collision with a gentleman similarly engaged on the other side. They addressed each other, the one as judge, probably a justice of peace, the other as colonel. A good many people were present, but took hardly any share in the disputation.

During the night we were disturbed by a band of music, - clarionets, hautboys, and wind instruments, - close to the hotel for several hours. Scots airs were chiefly played. Auld Lang Syne, John Anderson my Joe, &c. It turned out that a marriage had taken place the day before, in a house a door or two from the hotel, and that the friends of the party had ordered a serenade for them. We had not previously observed any public musical performers, not even an organist on the Street, at New York, or anywhere else.

At the Ithaca hotel, both brandy and white wine were set before us at dinner, and though we partook of the latter, no separate charge was

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made. The bill, instead of stating so much for board for a certain period, as is usual, was made out at so much for each meal, - breakfast at is. 6d.; dinner, is. 6d.; tea and supper, Is. 3d., and lodging, 8d. per night for each; so that the whole charge for two nights' lodging; supper on the evening of our arrival, and meals during the next day, - at all of which there was animal food and poultry in profusion, - amounted, for three persons, to 5 dollars, 13 cents, or L. i, 6s. 9d. No waiter or boots to be paid, nor extra charge of any kind. In general in this part of the country, we are told, that the charge per day for persons travelling is a dollar, - probably not more than three dollars a week for resident regular boarders.

We pursued our journey on the 5th towards Geneva. Looking back from a height about two miles from Ithaca, and to the north-west of it, we were delighted with a view of the village, the falls, the hills covered with wood, and the lake. We breakfasted at a hotel by the roadside, kept by a person of the name of Pratt. The farm-labourers were seated at table with us, but the breakfast was good. We were hungry, and we solaced ourselves after breakfast with as many fine peaches in the orchard as we chose to devour. Some of our fellow-passengers were not well pleased that matters should have happened so on account of the strangers, and were anxious to explain, that it was only at such a place as this, off the great roads, that it could have occurred.

We had the widow of a farmer in the stage with us, now herself managing above 150 acres. She gave us minute details of her agricultural operations, - her butter-making, cheese-making, and cyder; as well as maple sugar-making; but although she was, as generally happens here, the proprietor of the land she farmed, and had only taxes of the most trifling amount to pay, it did not appear that the high price of labour allowed her to do much more than comfortably to bring up a family of half a dozen children. The only village we passed on our way to Geneva was Ovid, with its handsomely situated church, and fine piece of green turf between the church and hotel. The American villages are generally announced to you by the spires of their churches peeping through the trees on your approach. No religious sect is more favoured than others. Every church, whether consisting of Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, or Unitarians, has its spire if the funds be sufficient, generally of wood, frequently with a glittering roof of tin, and of better architecture than the church itself.

The situation of Geneva on a terrace above the lake is very delight-ful, as well as commanding, and the village, containing some good houses, and a population of 2000 or 3000, seems an agreeable place of residence, more cheerful looking, and the landscape and views more

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pleasing, than any of our resting-places since leaving the vale of the Mohawk. The hotel is large, and well kept, and the people disposed to be obliging; but it is everywhere, we find, rather difficult to get the waiter or chamber maid to come to the bed-chamber door for the shoes to clean, and to bring them back, and to bring hot water for shaving in the morning. The custom is in the evening to exchange your shoes, which are left in a corner of the bar-room, for a pair of not very nice looking slippers, which again you exchange next morning in the bar-room for your cleaned shoes. As to shaving, it is a very general practice for travellers to shave in public in the bar-rooms, where there is always a looking-glass. Male persons do frequently wash close to the pump well, where there are basons placed on a wooden bench. This practice is not uncommon in France. The people in this house seem very attentive to every request; but you have no redress any where if the waiters forget or refuse to attend to requests which are considered unusual; and if they be Americans, and not of colour, they will seldom receive money from a passenger; and so generally consider it an insult to have it offered, that it is not advisable to make the proposal. On the other hand, whenever the waiters are people of colour, or Irish, or generally speaking European, they will not object to receive a douceur; but let the traveller, if he intends to give one, do it in private; and let him take an opportunity to let the waiter know his intention in due time, because he will not otherwise expect any thing, and may perhaps in that case turn out less attentive to your requests than the American, who will seldom refuse if your application be made as a matter of favour in civil terms.

From Canandaigua to Avon, where we finished our journey on the 7th, the distance is about twenty-four miles, generally through good land, equal to any we have seen. We found a very clean and well-managed, though not very large, hotel at Mr. Asa Bowlen's at Avon, where we agreed to remain till the 9th. The hotel-keeper himself was at the head of everything, and attended to his bar-room; his wife was housekeeper and cook; and his daughters, smart young ladies, when the work was done, after dinner, officiated both as chambermaids and waiters. The only stranger in the house was a white man, a waiter. Next morning, the 8th, the landlord had a carriage waiting for us, having heard us say that one of us intended to go to the Sulphur Springs, about a mile distant, to have a bath. The spring, which is situated in the adjoining forest, is highly sulphurous, but the accommodation is not yet good; the spring having only lately been brought into notice. After breakfast, we proposed attending divine service in the Congregational Church [now the First Presbyterian Church, East Avon] at some distance from the hotel, and were told the carriage would be ready to

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take us. We gladly availed ourselves of the conveyance, the day being very hot, and had not proceeded 200 yards on our way, when the driver stopped, and took up a little girl, of about eleven years old, who came from a house we were passing. e looked, I presume, somewhat surprised, as if we had said, "who are you?" or, "we have not the pleasure of your acquaintance;" for she lost no time, without, however appearing in the least degree abashed, in telling us "I am the captain's driver's girl;" - letting us know, in short, that she conceived she had as good a right to a seat in the carriage going to church as we had, if there was room. he captain and our landlord are the same person, he being, or having, I suppose, been captain of militia. Military designations are those alone which the people seem to care for;- waiters and drivers in addressing strangers with respect address them as major or captain. I have been addressed as captain again and again in this journey.

The great number, and the variety of carriages, gigs, and dearborns at the church door was quite new to us, who now for the first time were at a country church door in the United States. No one, who does not live in the village, walks to church on foot. All have conveyances of some sort or other, and come in them. Indeed, such a thing as a human being walking anywhere on the public roads out of the villages is rarely seen. The earnings of the labourers enable them to travel in the stages; and the custom of the country is for all to ride in some sort of carriage.

The horses and carriages were tied up in great sheds near the church doors, during the time of service. There was nothing remarkable in the first part of the service. The day was hot, and the precentor, as usual, in the centre of the front gallery, opposite to the minister, officiated not only without a gown, but without a coat on his back. There was some sort of instrumental music,Ähautboys and bassoons, I think, - against which there are, as we hear, no prejudices in this country.

James Stuart, Three Years in North America (Edinburgh, 1833),

Vol. I, pp. 115-121, 127-129.

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