English Chronicle and Whitehall Evening Post – Thursday 31 October 1822
Letter from a Gentleman, dated Boston, Sept. 6, 1822:
I had a very fine delightful walk, from New York, of near 300 miles. The weather, though in the dog days, was temperate. At Providence and Newport, I staid ten or twelve days (the former a fine flourishing place) at a very nice, clean hotel. I boarded for three dollars per week. At Newport they have a very different aspect; its trade has declined, the whole town bears evident marks of it; property can be bought here very cheap; a retiring Englishman, who likes a quiet life, a good house and garden, might have an Eden, upon very cheap terms; it has all the character of the Isle of Wight—mild winters, cool summers; steam boats from New York touch there twice a week, crammed with pleasure and business folks for Boston, &c. In many of these beautiful Yankee towns, a very small income would give independence, with sociable intercourse, books, clever, intelligent people, &c. Two dollars per week, with a comfortable table, and washing included, is a current price of boarding in private families, and the merchants, lawyers, doctors, &c. board at first-rate hotels, at from 100 to 120 per ann.
I found a Mr. Farley who came to this land with Mrs. Gregory and Terry. At Boston, I find Mrs. Gregory, with a good stock of valuables, tells me it is all her own, out of debt, and that when she came to this country she had not 20 dollars; but she says, it is no merit of hers, ’tis all the Lord’s doings, and this she repeated again and again. I told her she certainly must have aided the Lord as her own care and activity were certainly worth something; but she still insisted that the Lord was the factotum, as the haberdasher, &c. She gives four hundred dollars per annum for a shop, but little larger than the one she used at Brighton, and for the shop only; she and her young woman board out; this is a less custom, as it relieves many people from the trouble of housekeeping.
Mrs. G. showed me some ribbons, &c., and did not at all know me. I went about two miles from the mail road, at New Rochelle, to the farm-house and tomb of Thomas Paine; it is twenty miles from New York. The grave appears just as Cobbett’s men left it, sunk down about eighteen inches. It is surrounded by a stone wall, about sixteen feet by twelve on the outside, and eighteen inches thick; about four feet high, built with mortar, and such slab-like stones that are about the land; part of the stones were thrown off, probably done at the time of taking the coffin away; these I replaced; it is in the corner of a field by a public road, and the piece was reserved by him for that purpose. Cobbett’s men began their work as soon as they could, intending to get away before folks got about; but in this they did not succeed, some of them told me. Had the proper authorities known it in time, they would have prevented the outrage.
At times, the whole distance of my route, I found plenty of whortleberries in the situation that suited them; the trees grow seven or eight feet high, and they hung so thick I could gather them by handfuls; these, when fresh, are fine little fruit for the thirsty traveller. There is scarcely any wheat planted upon this sea border. Rye, oats, and Indian corn, do well. The farmers all buy flour, but they live principally on Indian corn. I often, at taverns, see them take coarse grey rye bread, when white bread is by them.
Near New Norwich is a manufactory for flannels, fine, and as handsome as those imported. The looms upon a very ingenious plan; the girls stand, and with both hands on the lathe; with its action the spring shuttle flies, and the treadles are worked. The work is light and easy, and the whole is a beautiful and simple piece of mechanism, the weaver having only to swing the lathe. Near this place I saw the wreck of the Lester, 89 years of age, lamented the destruction of her tribe, by the excessive use of rum; and her great grand-daughter having married a mulatto man, troubled the poor old creature much. She told me her brother, now dead, had been to England, and was introduced to King George; she detailed to me the number of the warriors of her nation, when she was young, her journeys, and adventures, &c. The coloured man is very industrious, has got a good frame-house, conveniently furnished as a farm-house; but, from long habit, this poor old squaw prefers spending her time under a few boards, upon the grass, making little baskets; all her faculties are acute, except her sight, which is a little dimmed. She was very clean; her dog by her side, so faithful that it never left her any time together, night or day. I shall never forget this poor old woman and her dog.