Volume 4

Travels: in New-England and New York / [Timothy Dwight].

  • Dwight, Timothy, 1752-1817.
Date:
1821-1822
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Travels: in New-England and New York / [Timothy Dwight]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    13/536 (page 9)
    JOURNEY TO NIAGARA LETTER I. Journey to Sheffield—White marble—Rapid descent of the streams which fall into the Hudson, and into the Hooestennuc—Egremont—Manor of Livingston—Clav- erark—Character of first Settlers in little landing places—Kaatskill—Canton— Durham —Kaatskill Mountains—Bristol—Blenheim—Stamford—Harpersfield— Meredith—White pine tree—Franklin—Sidney—Miserable Inns—Troublesome Innkeeper—Unadilla—Oxford—Norwich—Jericho—Chenango River and Valley —Sherburne—Hamilton—Cazenovia. Dear Sir, ON Wednesday, Sept. 19th, 1804,1 began a journey to the falls of Niagara. 1 was detained by rain until three o’clock in the after- noon, and then rode to Watertown : twenty-six miles. The next day I proceeded to Sheffield : forty-one miles. At Litchfield, and afterwards at Canaan, I had expected to find my destined com- panions in this excursion ; but missed of them in both places. At the latter, after a solitary ride of between fifty and sixty miles, I found some gentlemen going to Sheffield, whose company made the remainder of the way very agreeable. The day was remarka- bly cold for the season, and was followed by a severe frost : the ice at Sheffield being, the next morning, about the thickness of a dollar, and the tender vegetables generally destroyed. During the prece- ding nine years there has not, in those parts of the country where I have journeyed, been a frost, sufficiently intense to destroy veg- etables of this class, until about the middle of October. At Sheffield, 1 found two gentlemen designing to set out for Kaatskill,* and with them I proceeded very pleasantly on the journey. The road turns directly West from Sheffield, and en- *The name of this town was originally spelled Kaatskill, but has since been alter- ed by the Legislature to Catskill.—Pub.