Notes on a Tour Through the Western part of The State of New York

by Anonymous

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Pages: 28

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About this book

Steamboat fares, thin suppers and busy canal basins give this anonymous travel journal its practical character. Beginning with a departure from Bristol, the narrator records passage through New York City, up the Hudson to Albany and west toward Buffalo and Niagara. Admiration for river scenery sits beside blunt judgments of inns, roads, buildings and soil. Even a disappointing meal earns a precise account of its cost and shortcomings.

The opening presents the traveller as a farmer, and that interest shapes observations of cultivated land, orchards and growing towns. At Albany, the workings of the canal basin receive close attention; at Buffalo, ships and heavy lake surf suggest the scale of western commerce. Readers interested in early American travel will find a record of transport and settlement filtered through one outspoken observer, whose sense of value is as prominent as his pleasure in a view.