TO BALTIMORE IN TWO HOURS. Friday 3rd. Up at 5 o'clock, dressed and baggage seen after on the omnibus for the Rail Road Depot. 5 o'clock, and again puff, puff, puff, and off for Baltimore where we arrived at 8 o'clock just two hours from Washington 40 miles. This is a little better travelling than Charley in the sulky would do. I stopped at Barnum's hotel, my old stopping place and where I have always been well treated. Had no reason to complain this time. I got breakfast, had my hair cut shaved up and went out to make some purchases for Anna Maria [his wife] and myself and others. This kept me very busy until dinner, indeed and after, so that I feared I should not accomplish in time to leave in the 4 o'clock Cars. However, adopting the sentiment of a very practical man "if one man could do a thing, he could do it just as well"-I determined to try and so by 31 p. m. I had all bought and packed and trunk taken down to Steam boat to be sent home. At 4 o'clock I took my seat in the Cars of the B. & O. AND PATAPSCO RIVER. Baltimore and Ohio R. Road, and for one mile ding ding ding went the jolly bells of the slick horses, after which they were exchanged for the gruff old puffing steam engine— "All right"-"go ahead" and off were we in a hurry. This road for ten miles retraces the Balt. & Washington R. Road for 10 miles, or rather the latter is a branch of this road & running to the Patapsco, the latteral goes direct to Washington and the main road to Frederick. All other R. Roads on which I ever traveled shorten distances but this one lengthens it. Thus the common road from Balt. to Frederick is 45 miles, whereas the R. R. is 60, and is accounted for from the fact that the latter is built directly upon the banks of the river and follows it in all its serpentine course. Although at A Southern Traveler's Diary in 1840.—Wills. 351 Baltimore the Patapsco is a noble stream capable of floating any vessels that come to the wharves, yet but a few miles it looses its importance and is perhaps not larger than fishing creek and before arriving at Frederick on some parts of it I could almost jump over it. The Country is hilly and rocky & having cut for itself a channel, the surrounding country rises up into precipices the whole course of the river is through a narrow valley from 50 to 100 yards wide, hence the R. R. is constructed on the banks of the river to avoid the deep cuts that otherwise must have been made. Some 20 miles from Balt. is Ellicotts Mills a place famous for manufacturing Flour & wild indeed is the place. Here are several dwellings, one of them standing on a very high eminence approached by steps and barricaded with rocks. In the porch children were playing and 50 feet under them the stream lashing itself into a foam against the rocks below. I could not be satisfied to have my children exposed to such danger, they were running about here however as if not aware of any exposure. The country to Frederick presents pretty much the same appearance, at which I arrived about FREDERICK TO HAGERSTOWN AND HANCOCK. 9 o'clock p. m. I soon had my baggage on the stage and ready for another start glad of the change from R. R. and steam boats to that of the stage. "Gee up"-crack went the whip and off we go cheered with the prospect of two nights and days travel in the stage. A ride of 26 miles brought us to Hagerstown at 2 a. m. this place contains about 4,000 inhabitants, and we found some of them quite merry even at that late hour in anticipation of the Harrison meeting to be held there next day. 26 miles further brought us to Hancock at 8 a. m. of Saturday the 4th-here we got breakfast and taking in two more passengers (making our company in all six persons) off we The pushed again with a lively team and merry driver. country from Frederick to Hancock is very broken and many of the hills are very high, yet notwithstanding the road is populously settled, having in many places from one to five acres of ground to cultivate. Six miles from Hancock is the base of the Cumberland Mountain, immediately on reaching of which we commenced ascending it, and continued our ascent for more than three miles. The top presented a spec NATURE GRAND, MAN FRAIL. tacle indeed! Near me floated the clouds in their whitened apparel, deep deep below me run a little angry brook and all along upon the sides, rocks and trees hung suspended by an Almighty power. I knew not which presents to wondering man the greatest spectacle and which most calls forth his astonishment and at the same time his gratitude to Cod for his preserving and sustaining care, whether upon the shoreless ocean where nought breaks the monotony of the view save the white surges of the angry waters, and where we feel as if there was indeed but plank betwen us and eternity, or whether on the top of the rugged mountain where a false step, a stumbling of a horse or breaking of a carringe might precipitate us down to the depths below as an atom in creation. Both tell us how frail is man, both tell us that there is one who says to the ocean "here let thy proud waves be staid" and to the mountains "be thou removed and they obey his voice❞—and all call upon us to give glory to God for his goodness and his love to poor and feeble worms of earth. (To be continued.) JOHN C. CALHOUN AS SEEN BY HIS POLITICAL FRIENDS: LETTERS OF DUFF GREEN, DIXON H. LEWIS AND RICHARD K. CRALLE DURING THE PERIOD FROM 1831 TO 1848. EDITED BY FREDERICK W. MOORE, PH. D., VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY. From-Duff Green. (Continued.) To-R. K. Crallé, Washington. Dated-[Fredericksburg, Va.,] August 9, 1837. Green in Virginia making speeches and canvassing for the weekly edition of the U. S. Telegraph. The late change of the name of the weekly is unpopular and will have to be abandoned. "It requires explanation. Every one knows that the old Telegraph was anti Abolition and they do [sic. not?] hesitate to speak about it. But the term Reformer they say does not convey the idea that they attach to the paper." From-Duff Green. To-R. K. Crallé, Washington, D. C. Dated-Raleigh, N. C., August 28, 1837. Scheming to get "our friends" to insist on a share in the public printing for him as the condition of their voting for Gales & Seaton. Travelling in the interest of his paper and meeting with encouragement. "I hear but one voice among our friends. They say give us no more choice of evils." From-Dixon H. Lewis. To-R. K. Crallé, Washington, D. C. Dated-Philadelphia, July 17, 1838. Stating that John Sergeant is the attorney of the Bank and of the Pennsylvania State Abolition Party; enclosing other material showing that the United States Bank Party, in and about Philadelphia, at least, is an abolition party; and requesting Crallé to publish a strong editorial for the purpose of influencing the approaching Alabama elections.-Smith Coll. and Denny Coll. From-Duff Green. To-R. K. Crallé, Lynchburg, Va. Green has completed arrangements for bringing out a paper in New York and wants Mr. Crallé to edit it. He suggests the following as the editorial policy: "I believe that Mr. Calhoun is pressing his hostility to the Banking System too far. That his true position is a mediatorThat Van Buren will be reëlected and that Mr. Calhoun and his friends should be in position to profit by the changes of the times. Let Benton & Kendall make war on the BanksIf they wage the war, it will be for Mr. Calhoun's benefit unless he goes further than he should do. Let him occupy the position of moderation & patriotism & constitute as he should be the rallying point of the Patriotic of all parties. We have materials enough without making war on the banks. We have said enough against the system. Let us maintain the banks as they are, and use the sub-treasury as a means of sustaining the banks not of subverting them. Let us be the friends of a well regulated credit, instead of its enemies, and we will [have] enough to war on in Clay's colonization." "The cabinet is now divided. The struggle is between Kendall and Poinsett." From-Duff Green. To-R. K. Crallé, Lynchburg, Va. Dated-Baltimore, December 16, 1839. |