Upstate Travels: British Views of Nineteenth-Century New York

by Roger M. Haydon (Editor)

Overview

After the War of 1812, British travelers, intensely curious about the United States, poured across the Atlantic. Hundreds published their impressions in lively, quarrelsome books that infuriated and enchanted Americans and Britons alike. Most of these volumes have been out of print for a century or more. Here Roger Haydon brings together forty-two excerpts from one generation of these travelers' accounts, between 1815 and 1845, when New York State was a microcosm of the country. In his introduction and prefaces to each selection he describes the kinds of tourists who visited and how they traveled, assessing the general accuracy of their accounts, and provides pertinent background information.

The readings follow the period's most popular itinerary—up the Hudson Valley through Albany and its environs on to the spas and the Champlain Valley, across the state via the Erie Canal, the Genesee Valley, and the Finger Lakes to the Niagara Frontier, and down into the Southern Tier—to record in vivid detail the generation that saw New York State come to dominate the nation. In Upstate Travels, these travelers' voices are accessible again to entertain and inform all who are interested in New York history. Bibliography, index, and dozens of period illustrations are included.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801477232
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	07/15/2011
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Roger M. Haydon is Executive Editor at Cornell University Press.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

British Visitors to nineteenth-Century New York State 1

Traveling in Early New York State 11

The Accuracy of Travelers'Accounts 28

The Hudson Valley 31

The Fishkill Area in 1817 Henry Bradshaw Fearon 32

Farming in Dutchess County,1830 John Fowler 36

Mill and Harvest: Work in Dutchess County, 1841 William Thomson 42

HighSociety, 1836 Charles Augustus Murray 47

Albany and its Environs 55

Two Views of Albany, 1818 and 1819 William Dalton John M. Duncan 57

Electing a Governor, 1824 I. Finch 61

Female Education in the 1830s Andrew Reed 64

The Fourth of July, 1838 James Silk Buckingham 69

Lebanon Springs and the Shakers in 1835 Andrew Bell 77

Through Schoharie and Delaware Counties in 1825 I. Finch 85

A Brief Trip to Otsego County in 1836 Charles Augustus Murray 91

The Spas and the Champlain Valley 95

A Northern Trip in the Winter of 1816 Francis Hall 98

Temperance in the Ballston Area, 1838 James Silk Buckingham 104

Two Views of Saratoga, 1820s and 1840s Beaufoy Alexander Mackay 107

Saratoga County in the Fall of 1828 James Stuart 112

Saratoga and Warren Counties in the Mid-1830s Richard Weston 119

A Tourist Party at Lake George in the Mid-1830s Harriet Martineau 129

The Erie Canal 135

A Tour from Rochester to Utica in 1820 John Howison 136

The Mohawk Valley 144

A Canal Journey in 1834 David Wilkie 145

Utica in 1840 Archibald Montgomery Maxwell 149

A Journey West of Utica in the Mid-1830s Richard Weston 153

Ontario's Weather Shore 157

Jefferson County in 1843 James Edward Alexander 158

Oswego in the Early 1840s Anonymous 164

An Immigrant Couple in Oswego County, 1828 Benjamin Smith 166

The Lake Villages 170

Syracuse in 1838 James Silk Buckingham 170

Auburn Penitentiary in August 1833 Edward Strutt Abdy 175

The Penitentiary in 1839 George Combe 179

Villages of the Northern Finger Lakes Francis Anne Kemble Alexander Mackay 185

The Genesee Valley 191

The Notorious Captain Hall Visits Rochester in 1827 Basil Hall 192

Rochester in the Mid-1840s William Brown 197

Through the Genesee Country in 1833 Patrick Shirreff 200

The Niagara Frontier 207

Lockport inl831 Henry Tudor 208

A Niagara Falls Tourist in the Early 1840s Anonymous 212

Immigrants on the Shore of Lake Erie, 1831 James Edward Alexander 215

Three Views of Buffalo 217

Grand Island and Buffalo in 1838 James Silk Buckingham 218

Entering Buffalo in August 1830 John Fowler 224

Military Buffalo in the Early 1840s James Edward Alexander 228

The Southern Finger Lakes and Southern Tier 231

Friends in Cattaraugus County, 1819 Emmanuel Howitt 233

From Buffalo to Elmira in 1816 Francis Hall 236

Ithaca in 1828 James Stuart 242

A Tour of Cayuga and Seneca Lakes in 1832 Edward Thomas Coke 245

Scipio to Binghamton in l819 William Dalton 251

Bibliography 259

Index 265