Henrietta and Robert Liston were genuinely curious about the New World. (See previous posts here and here.) In her journals, Henrietta noted facts that she found interesting, described the foods they ate, and was astounded at the natural beauties, particularly the flora, of the countryside. Traveling on the east coast of North America was a challenge but one that the 45-year-old Mrs. Liston and her 55-year-old husband met with aplomb, courage, and even laughter.

The first night after leaving Mr. Jones’s Hospitable roof, we were obliged to take up our quarters, in what was called an Inn, Consisting of one room containing two Beds, one for the family, the other for Strangers; there were two young Men travelling on Horseback, besides several Inferior Guests, & I found that all the Party, except our Servants who were in a ruinous outKitchen, must lodge in this Chamber. . . .
One of the Group around the fire appearing intoxicated, & seemingly disposed to amuse himself with a Pistol, I took the Daughter of the House aside, & declared our readiness to be contented with any place, in order to Sleep in a separate apartment from these Men. She regretted that there was nothing but an empty Garrat, used for keeping Corn, without fire or door, & an open window. it was frost & snow, but we had taken our resolution, & we repaired to an old flat Bed, that happened to be in this miserable Place &, indeed, we were within a very little of being frozen to Death, notwithstanding an Eddadown [Eiderdown] Green silk Bedcover with which we travelled, & it was with some difficulty the Girl, next morning, could prevail on the Savages to let me approach the fire so as to thaw my fingers.

On Christmaseve 9Sunday December 24 1797), the Listons reached Fayetteville:

[I]t is a flourishing Town, upon a Branch of the Capefear River & nearly at the head of the navigation—before the [Revolutionary] War it was called Cross Creek. We were visited by a Scotch Gentleman, named [Robert] Donaldson, with whose family we past Christmas day very agreeably.

No doubt they were happy to spend the day with a fellow Scot, but Mrs. Liston does not give any details of the festivities. On New Year’s Eve, they arrived in Charleston, South Carolina. Two hundred years ago, Christmas and New Year’s Day—unlike today with its frenzied gift buying—were spent quietly at home or in paying social visits to friends; special foods for the occasion would have been served. Perhaps the Donaldsons prepared one of Mrs. Liston’s newly discovered favorites:

our most frequent food, & infinitely the best of its kind, was Pork & Corn bread . . . it was fresh & most excellent meat, . . . always broiled upon the Coals, & when we happened to get a few fryed Eggs to it, it was the best food possible & with Corn bread (no other is known) baked upon a hoe, in general, & call[ed] hoe cake.

(More about the Listons’ travels in the next post.)

Excerpts are taken from “1797. Tour to the Southern States—Virginia, North & South Carolina” in The Travel Journals of Henrietta Marchant Liston: North America and Lower Canada, 1796-1800, published in hardcover and eBook.

Arriving in Norfolk (see previous post), Henrietta Marchant Liston and her husband enjoyed a few weeks there, where they were royally entertained by local residents and officers of the British Navy. Mrs. Liston’s family members departed for home in Antigua, and Henrietta and Robert set off again in a

light Post Chaise, four good Horses, & one for a Servant, (for to our surprise we found that Norfolk did not afford Carriages or Horses to hire, & the land Carriage to Carolina is so little in use, that no Public Stages are established) having heard only formidable accounts of this journey we . . . hired three free Mulattos, two as Postillions, & one as a riding Servant, these Men know the Country, & could submit to its inconveniences.

There are three roads through the Carolina’s, the High, the Middle, & the Low; we chose to set out by the Middle one, having fewer Ferries & Swamps to engage with, than in the Lower, & we reserved the High one, for our return, in perhaps worse weather.

The post chaise and horses not only carried the Listons and their servants, but also their belongings: clothes for travel and formal visits, their eiderdown quilt and sheets—probably a good idea considering the likelihood of lice and other bugs found in mattresses at inns. The servants carried their own clothing and bedding. Somewhere in this small vehicle were stowed provisions, including a cocoa pot. The Listons quickly established their routine: rising at about 5 A.M., on the road by 6, and traveling some miles before stopping for breakfast. In the early afternoon, they would stop for dinner and, with any luck, find supper and a bed in the evening. While there were many inns or taverns on roads near cities such as Philadelphia, this was not the case in the South.

It is common through the Southern States to have letters of recommendation to private Houses, there being often no Inns, & when there are, the accommodations very wretched. it is not, indeed, an uncommon thing, even without Introduction, to drive up to a Gentleman’s House & to be always well received. We were rather pleased sometimes to avail ourselves of this custom, in order to observe the manner of living of an Independent Country Gentleman in a New Country.

Taverns, as Mrs. Liston carefully pointed out, differed from inns by being the “Houses of little Planters, who, from their own poverty, & for the conveniency of a few travellers, take money for giving what they have to you & your Horses nothing can be found fault with, for nothing can be mended.”

In Halifax, North Carolina, they used one of the letters of recommendation to stay with the planter Willie Jones:

[his] character was singular, & his Politics inimical to the English, He was from Principal a republican, & even thought the authority of the President [John Adams] approached too near the Kingly power. He told us himself of having once refused to receive Gen. Washington, George the first being nearly the same to king as George the third. . . .

The Listons so much enjoyed their visit with Jones and his wife Mary that they stayed an extra day.

(More to come in the next post.)

Henrietta’s commentary is taken from “1797. Tour to the Southern States—Virginia, North & South Carolina” inThe Travel Journals of Henrietta Marchant Liston: North America and Lower Canada, 1796-1800, published in hardcover and eBook. The 1795 map of North Carolina is from NCSA.

My friend and colleague Louise North—we collaborated on both In the Words of Women and the Selected Letters of John Jay and Sarah Livingston Jay—has compiled and written a new book, The Travel Journals of Henrietta Marchant Liston: North America and Lower Canada, 1796-1800, that will be available on December 15. Louise has compiled a travelogue for this blog to run during the month of December based on materials from her book.

————————————————————————————————————

Today, travelers do not hesitate to make journeys of many miles “over the river and through the wood.”* on (mostly) decently marked roads, innumerable places at which to eat or stay, and emergency help available if necessary. But have you ever wondered what such journeys would have been like in the late eighteenth century? How might you travel or procure a bed for the night and food for yourself and your horses when no inn is to be found?

Consider the tale of Henrietta Marchant Liston who, with her husband Robert (the second minister from Great Britain to the young United States), began a trip southward from Philadelphia to Charleston, South Carolina on 1 November 1797 on “one of those fine days the American autumns so often present bright clear Sun & elastic air.” They traveled in their own carriage accompanied by family members and one servant.

Crossing the Susquehanna River by ferry, the Listons spent two days in Baltimore before continuing south on 6 November: “the worst peices of road we had travelled.—but an excellent Breakfast at Spurriges, a fryed chicken, tea, Coffee & eggs &c recruited our spirits.” Arriving in Washington City the next day (it was then under construction), they

found this beautiful spot almost a desert, in appearance, though now containing more than six hundred Houses, but so scattered as to give the look of Country ones, Horses & Cows feeding sumptuously in the Principal streets, & Partridges are shot in the very Centre of this future great City.

The travelers then visited at Mount Vernon with George and Martha Washington for several days. They sent their carriage back to Philadelphia as they would continue to Norfolk, Virginia

in a small Sloop . . . [and] found no difficulty setting out from Mount Vernon, Vessells drawing thirty feet water can lye within a hundred yards of the House.

This Voyage which is generally made in forty eight hours, & for which Mrs. Washington’s kindness seemed amply to have supplied us with provisions was not, from accidents, completed till the ninth day, two days we were aground on a Sand Bank, on which we were driven during a short severe Storm, two days in the Rappahanock River, where we took shelter during a violent fog, & the last night nearly lost in a Gale.

The Listons reached Norfolk on 24 November and “found our friends much alarmed about us.” When Mrs. Washington heard about this near disastrous voyage, she wrote [22 Feb. 1798]: “Your voyage from hence to Norfolk was of a length hardly ever known before, this accompanied by bad weather, and short allowance of provisions . . . must have rendered your situation very unpleasant.**

* Line from poem by Lydia Maria Child published in 1844.
** Martha Washington’s words are from the George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, 1741-1799.

More to come in the next post.

Henrietta’s comments are taken from “1797. Tour to the Southern States—Virginia, North & South Carolina” in The Travel Journals of Henrietta Marchant Liston: North America and Lower Canada, 1796-1800, published in hardcover and eBook. The portrait of Mrs. Liston is by Gilbert Stuart (1800); it is at the National Gallery, Washington, DC. The illustration of the crossing of the Susquehanna River titled Wright’s Ferry (ca. 1812) is by Pavel Svinin and is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Harriott Pinckney Horry, the daughter of Charles Pinckney and Eliza Lucas, and wife of Daniel Huger Horry, was preparing in late 1775 to flee her native Charleston, South Carolina. Two British warships had been lying offshore since the summer; in early November the president of the Provincial Congress gave orders to the commanding officer at nearby Fort Johnson to take action should the ships attempt to pass. The city, threatened with bombardment was practically defenseless. Harriott wrote the following letter expressing her feelings of unease and anxiety to a cousin in Georgetown, some fifty miles to the north.

28th Novr. 1775At about this Season of the year I used to flatter myself with the pleasure of seeing my dear Cousin, and enjoying that free & unreserved conversation so pleasing to the social mind. . . . But alas! how uncertain is the prospect of this felicity now! how uncertain ’tis when we shall meet again! My Mother, Daniel [her young son] and myself intend to go to a little Plantation House at Ashepoo in search of safety, when we can stay no longer here; but think with what reluctance I must leave the place of my nativity, this poor unhappy Town, devoted to the Flames, when I leave in it my Husband, Brothers, and every known male relation I have, (infants excepted,) exposed to every danger that can befall it. . . .

[Your husband] will inform you of affairs here and of the Mortifying truth of the number of disaffected in our Province to ye. American cause. I really believe tho’ the Gaiety and levity reported of our Sex in Town is very unjust. I have seen very little of the first, and nothing of the last for many months, indeed I think rather an universal dejection appears at present, the heavy Cloud that hangs over us ready to burst upon our heads calls for all our Fortitude to meet the Awful Event with that decency and resignation becoming Xtians [Christians]; the Scandalous conduct of many among us, leaves us not much to hope, a most humiliating Circumstance to all true lovers of their Country. Almost all the Women, and many hundred Men have left Town. In a few days I imagine we shall hardly have a female acquaintance to speak to. . . . My Brother [Charles C. Pinckney] is at ye Fort. Tom [Thomas Pinckney] at present recruiting. Mr Horry goes to ye Fort next Friday to stay a month.
Adieu my dear Cousin, be assured of the most sincere attachment &c —

Most of the above letter can be found on page 141 of In the Words of Women. The remainder can be found in Eliza Pinckney by Harriott Horry Ravenel (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1896), pages 248-249, taken from the facsimile copy held by the Library of Congress, available online.