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Cornell University Library 1993.THE JOURNEYS AND JOURNALS OF
AN EARLY BUFFALO MERCHANT.
PAPER READ BEFORE THE SOCIETY, APRIL 14, 1890.
BY FRANK H. SEVERANCE.
On the frosty morning of February 5, 1822, a strange equi-
page turned out of Erie Street into Willink Avenue, drove down
that steep and ungraded highway for a short distance, then
crossed to Onondaga Street, and turning into Crow, was soon
lost to sight among the snowdrifts that lined the road running
around the south shore of Lake Erie. At least, such I take to
have been the route, through streets now familiar as Main,
Washington and Exchange, which a traveler would choose who
was bound up the south shore of Lake Erie.
The equipage, as I have said, was a strange one, and a good
many people came out to see it, not so much to look at the
vehicle as to bid good-bye to its solitary passenger. The con-
veyance itself was nothing more nor less than a good-sized
crockery-crate, set upon runners. Thills were attached, in which
was harnessed a well-conditioned horse. The baggage, snugly
stowed, included a saddle and saddle-bags, and a sack of oats for
the horse. Sitting among his effects, the passenger, though
raised but a few inches above the snow, looked snug and com-
fortable. With a chorus of well-wishes following him, he left the
village, and by night-fall had traveled many miles to the west-
ward, taking his course on the ice that covered Lake Erie.126
THE JOURNEYS AND JOURNALS OF
This was John Lay, a merchant of the early Buffalo, whom
even yet it is only necessary to introduce to the young people
and to new-comers. The older generation remembers well the
enterprising and successful merchant who shared fortunes with
Buffalo in her most romantic days. Before going after him, up
the ice-covered lake, let us make his closer acquaintance.
Mr. Lay, who was of good New-England stock, came to
Buffalo in 1810 to clerk in the general store of his brother-in-law,
Eli Hart. Mr. Hart had built his store on Main near the corner
of Erie Street, the site now occupied by the National Savings
Bank Building.* His dwelling was on Erie Street, adjoining, and
between the house and store was an ample garden. The space
now occupied by the Churches*)* was a rough common; native tim-
ber still stood thick along the east side of Main, above South
Division Street; the town had been laid out in streets and lots
for four years, and the population, exceeding at this time four
hundred, was rapidly increasing. There was a turnpike road to
the eastward, with a stage route. Buffalo Creek flowed lazily
into the lake; no harbor had been begun; and on quiet days in
summer the bees could still be heard humming among the bass-
woods by its waters.
This was the Buffalo to which young Lay had come. Look-
ing back to those times, even more novel than the condition of
the frontier village was the character of the frontier trade carried
on by Mr. Hart. The trade of the villagers was less important
than that which was held with the Canadians or English who
were in office under the Government. To them they sold India
goods, silks and muslins. Side by side with these, the shelves
were stocked with hardware, crockery, cottonades, jeans and
flannels, Indian supplies, groceries and liquors. The young New-
Englander soon found that with such customers as Red Jacket,
and other representative redmen, his usefulness was impaired un-
less he could speak Indian. With characteristic energy he set
himself at the task, and in three months had mastered the Seneca.
New goods came from the East by the old Mohawk River and
*So when this paper was written but now (’96) the old bank building is owned by the
American Express Company, with various tenants, and a likelihood of demolition in
’97, giving way to a grander successor.—Ed.
f From Main to Pearl, and from Erie to Niagara Streets.—Ed.AN EARL Y BUFFALO MERCHANT.
127
Lewiston route, were polled up the Niagara from Schlosser’s
above the Falls, on flatboats, and were stored in a log house at
the foot of Main Street.
Up to 18io the growth of Buffalo had been exceedingly slow,
even for a remote frontier point. But about the time Mr. Lay
came here new life was shown. Ohio and Michigan were filling
up, and the tide of migration strengthened. Mr. Hart’s market
extended yearly further west and southwest, and for a time they
did a profitable business.
Then came the War, paralysis of trade, and destruction of
property. Mr. Lay was enrolled as a private in Butt’s Co. for
defense. The night the village was burned, he, with his brother-
in-law, Eli Hart, were in their store. The people were in terror,
fearing massacre by the Indians, hesitating to fly, not knowing
in which direction safety lay.
“John,” said Mr. Hart, “there’s all that liquor in the
cellar—the redskins mustn’t get at that.”
Together they went down and knocked in the heads of all the
casks until, as Mr. Lay said afterwards, they stood up to their
knees in liquor.
As he was coming up from the work he encountered a vil-
lainous-looking Onondaga chief, who was knocking off the iron
shutters from the store windows. They had been none too quick
in letting the whiskey run into the ground. Mr. Lay said to the
Indian :
“You no hurt friend ? ”
Just then a soldier jumped from his horse before the door.
Mr. Lay caught iip a pair of saddle-bags filled with silver and
valuable papers, threw them across the horse, and cried out to
his brother-in-law:
“ Here, jump on and strike out for the woods.”
Mr. Hart took this advice and started. The horse was shot
from under him, but the rider fell unharmed, and catching up
the saddle-bags made his way on foot to the house of his brother-
in-law, Mr. Comstock. Later that day they came back to the
town, and with others they picked up thirty dead bodies and put
them into Reese’s blacksmith shop, where the next day they were
burned with the shop.128
THE JOURNEYS AND JOURNALS OF
After starting his relatives toward safety, Mr. Lay thought of
himself. The Onondaga had disappeared and Mr. Lay went
into the house, took a long surtout that hung on the wall, and
put it on. As he stepped out of the door he was taken prisoner,
and that night with many others, soldiers and civilians, was car-
ried across the river to Canada.
And here begins an episode, over which I am tempted to
linger; for the details of his captivity, as they have been related
to me by his widow, Mrs. Frances E. Lay, are worthy of an even-
ing’s consideration by themselves. I will only rehearse, as briefly
as possible, the chief events of this captivity in Canada, which
although not recorded in Mr. Lay’s journals, resulted in one of
his most arduous and adventurous journeys.
The night of December 30, 1813, was bitterly cold. The
captured and the captors ma'de a hard march from Fort Erie to
Newark—or, as we know it now, Old Niagara. The town was
full of Indians, and many of the Indians were full of whiskey.
Under the escort of a body-guard Mr. Lay was allowed to go to
the house of a Mrs. Secord, whom he knew. While there, the
enemy surrounded the house and demanded Lay, but Mrs.
Secord hid him in a closet and kept him concealed until Mr.
Hart, who had followed with a flag of truce, had learned of his
safety. Then came the long, hard march through Canadian
snows to Montreal. The prisoners were put on short rations,
were grudgingly given water to drink, and were treated with
such unnecessary harshness that Mr. Lay boldly told the officer
in charge of the expedition that on reaching Montreal he should
report him to the Government for violating the laws of civilized
warfare.
In March he was exchanged at Greenbush, opposite Albany.
There he got some bounty and footed it across the country to
Oneida, where his father lived. As he walked through the
village he saw his father’s sleigh in front of the postoffice, where
his parents had gone, hoping for news from him. They burned
his war-rags, and he rested for a time at his father’s home, sick
of the horrors of war and fearful lest his constitution had been
wrecked by the hardships he had undergone. It will be noted
that his enforced journey from Buffalo through Canada to Mon-AN EARL V BUFFALO MERCHANT.	129
treal and thence south and west to Oneida had been made in the
dead of winter and chiefly, if not wholly, on foot. Instead of
killing him, as his anxious parents feared it might, the experi-
ence seems to have taught him the pleasures of pedestrianism,
for it is on foot and alone that we are to see him undertaking
some of his most extended journeys.
I cannot even pause to call attention to the slow recovery of
Buffalo from her absolute prostration. The first house rebuilt
here after the burning was that of Mrs. Mary Atkins, a young
widow, whose husband, Lieutenant Asael Atkins, had died of an
epidemic only ten days before the village was destroyed. The
young widow had fled with the rest, finding shelter at Williams-
ville, until her new house was raised on the foundation of the old.
It stood at the corner of Church and Pearl streets, where the
“ Fulton Market ”* now is.
You are perhaps wondering what all this has to do with John
Lay. Merely this:	That when, at Mr. Hart’s solicitation, Mr.
Lay once more returned to Buffalo, he boarded] across the
common from the rebuilt store, with the Widow Atkins, and
later on married her daughter Frances, who, many years his
junior, still survives, and to whose vigorous memory and kind grac-
iousness we are indebted for these pictures of the past.f
The years that followed the war were devoted by Messrs.
Hart and Lay to a new upbuilding of their business. Mr. Hart,
who had ample capital, went to New York to do the buying for
the firm, and continued to reside there, establishing as many as
five general stores in different parts of Western New York. He
had discerned in his young relative a rare combination of
business talents, made him a partner, and entrusted him with the
entire conduct of the business at Buffalo. After peace was
declared the commercial opportunities of a well-equipped firm
here were great. Each season brought in larger demands from the
western country. Mudh of the money that accrued from the sale
of lands of the Holland Purchase flowed in the course of trade
into their hands. The pioneer families of towns to the west of
Buffalo came to Buffalo to trade, and personal friendships were
*Now the Stafford Building.—Ed.	/
fMrs. Lay died Nov. n, 1893.—Ed.
9130
THE JOURNEYS AND JOURNALS OF
cemented among residents scattered through a large section. I
find no period of our local history so full of activities. From
Western New York to Illinois it was a time of foundation-laying.
Let me quote a few paragraphs from memoranda which Mrs.
Lay has made relating to this period :
The war had brought men of strong character, able to cope with pioneer
life; among others, professional men, surgeons, doctors and lawyers:
Trowbridge, Marshall, Johnson, and many others. Elliot of Erie was a young
lawyer of whom Mr. Lay often said, “ His word is as good as his bond.”
Another friend was Hamot of Erie, who had married Mr. Hart’s neice. He
made frequent visits to his countryman, Louis Le Couteulx. [At whose house,
by the way, John Lay and Frances Atkins were married, Red Jacket being
among the guests.] At Erie, then a naval station, were the families of Dick-
inson, Brown, Kelso, Reed, Colonel Christy, and many others, all numbered
among Mr. Lay’s patrons. Albert H. Tracy came here about that time; he
brought a letter from his brother Phineas, who had married Mr. Lay’s sister.
He requested Mr. Lay to do for him what he could in the way of business.
Mr. Lay gave him a room over his store, and candles and wood for five years.
Even in those days Mr. Tracy used to declare that he should make public life
his business.
Hart & Lay became consignees for the Astors in the fur business. I well
remember that one vessel load of furs from the West got wet. To dry them
Mr. Lay spread them on the grass, filling the green where the churches now
are. The wet skins tainted the air so strongly that Mr. Lay was threatened
with indictment—but he saved the Astors a large sum of money.
Hart & Lay acquired large tracts of land in Canada, Ohio
and Michigan. To look after these and other interests Mr. Lay
made several adventurous journeys to the West—such journeys as
deserve to be chronicled with minutest details, which are not
known to have been preserved. On one occasion, to look
after Detroit interests, he went up the lake on the ice with Major
Barton and his wife; the party slept in the wigwams of Indians,
and Mr. Lay has left on record his admiration of Mrs. Barton’s
ability to make even such rough traveling agreeable.
A still wilder journey took him to Chicago. He went alone,
save for his Indian guides, and somewhere in the western wilder-
ness they came to him and told him they had lost the trail.
Before it was regained their provisions were exhausted, and they
lived for a time on a few kernels of corn, a little mutton tallow,
and a sip of whiskey. Fort Dearborn—or Chicago —at that date131
AN EARL Y BUFFALO MERCHANT.
had but one house, a fur-trading post. When Mr. Lay and his
guides reached there they were so near starvation that the people
dared give them only a teaspoonful of pigeon-soup at a time.
Nor had starvation been the only peril on this occasion. An
attempt to rob him, if not to murder him, lent a grim spice to
the journey. Mr. Lay discovered that he was followed, and
kept his big horse-pistols in readiness. One night, as he lay in
a log-house, he suddenly felt a hand moving along the belt which
he wore at his waist. Instantly he raised his pistol and fired.
The robber dashed through the window, and he was molested no
more.
Such adventurous journeyings as these formed no inconsider-
able part of the work of this pushing Buffalo merchant during
the half dozen years that followed the burning of the town.
Business grew so that half a dozen clerks were employed, and
there were frequently crowds of people waiting to be served.
The store became a favorite rendezvous of prominent men of
the place.
Many a war episode was told over there. Albert Gallatin
and Henry Clay, Jackson and the United States banks—the
great men and measures of the day—were hotly discussed there;
and many a time did the group listen as Mr. Lay read from Niles'
Register, of which he was a constant subscriber. There were
sometimes lively scrimmages there, as the following incident,
narrated by Mrs. Lay, will illustrate:
There was a family in New York City whose son was about
to form a misalliance. His friends put him under Mr. Hart’s
care and he brought the youth to Buffalo, Here, however, an
undreamed-of difficulty was encountered. A young Seneca
squaw, well known in town as Suse, saw the youth from New
York and fell desperately in love with him. Mr. Lay, not caring
to take the responsibility of such a match-making, shipped the
young man back to New York. The forest maiden was discon-
solate, but unlike Viola, she told her love, nor “ let concealment
like the worm i’ the bud, feed on her damask cheek.” Not a
bit of it. On the contrary, whenever Suse saw Mr. Lay she
would ask him where her friend was. One day she went into
the store, and going up to the counter behind which Mr. Lay132	THE JOURNEYS AND JOURNALS OF
was busy, drew a club from under her blanket and “ let him have
it ” over the shoulders. The attack was sudden, but just as sud-
denly did he jump over the counter and tackle her. Suse was a
love-lorn maid, but she was strong as a wild-cat and as savage.
Albert H. Tracy, who was in the store, afterwards described the
struggle to Mrs. Lay.
“ I never saw a fight,” he said, “ where both parties came so
near being killed, but Lay got the better of her, and yanked her
out into the street with her clothes torn off from her.”
“I should think you would have helped John,” said the
gentle lady, as Mr. Tracy told her this.
“Oh, I knew he could manage her,” was the answer. Suse
never went near the store again.
By the close of the year 18-21, although still a young man,
the subject of this sketch had made a considerable fortune.
Feeling the need of rest, and anxious to extend his horizon
beyond the frontier scenes to which he was accustomed, he
decided to go to Europe. Telling Mr. Hart to get another
partner, the business was temporarily left in other hands; and
on February 5, 1822, as narrated at the opening of this paper,
Mr. Lay drove out of town in a crockery-crate, and took his
course up the ice-covered lake, bound for Europe.
Recall, if you please, something of the conditions of those
times. No modern journeyings that we can conceive of, short
of actual exploration in unknown regions, are quite comparable
to. such an undertaking as Mr. Lay proposed. Partly, perhaps,
because it was a truly extraordinary thing for a frontier merchant
to stop work and set off on an indefinite period of sight-seeing;
and partly, too, because he was a man whose love for the accu-
mulation of knowledge was regulated by precise habits, we are
now able to follow him in the closely-written, faded pages of
half a dozen fat journals, written by his own hand day by day
during the two years of his wanderings. No portion of these
journals has ever been published, yet they are full of interesting
pictures of the past, and show Mr. Lay to have been a close
observer and a receptive student of nature and of men.
The reason of his crockery-crate outfit may have been
divined. He wanted a sleigh which he could leave behind
without loss when the snow disappeared.AN EARL V BUFFALO MERCHANT.
133
Business took him first to Cleveland, which he reached in six
days, driving much of the distance on the lake. Returning, at
Erie he headed south and followed the old French Creek route
to the Allegheny. Presently the snow disappeared. The
crockery-crate sleigh was abandoned, and the journey lightly
continued in the saddle; among the few impedimenta which
were carried in the saddle-bags being “a'fine picture of Niagara
Falls, painted on satin, and many Indian curiosities to present
to friends on the other side.”
. Pittsburg was reached March 2nd, and after a delay of four
days, during which he sold his horse for $30, we find our
traveler embarked on the new steamer Gen. Neville, carrying
$120,000 worth of freight and fifty passengers.
Those were the palmy days of river travel. There were no
railroads to cut freight rates, or to divert the passenger traffic.
The steamers were the great transporters of the middle West.
The Ohio country was just emerging from that famous period
which made the name “river-man” synonymous with all that
was disreputable. It was still the day of poor taverns, poor food,
much bad liquor, fighting, and every manifestation of the early
American vulgarity, ignorance and boastfulness which amazed
every foreigner who ventured to travel in that part of the
United States, and sent him home to magnify his bad impressions
in a book. But with all. its discomforts, the great Southern
river route of 1822 proved infinitely enjoyable to our Buffalonian.
At Louisville, where the falls intercepted travel, he re-embarked
on the boat Frankfort, for a fourteen days’ journey to New
Orleans. Her cargo included barrels of whiskey, hogsheads of
tobacco, some flour and cotton, packs of furs, and two barrels of
bear’s oil—how many years, I wonder, since that last item has
been found in a bill of lading on an Ohio steamer !
I must hurry our traveler on to New Orleans, where, on a
Sunday, he witnessed a Congo dance, attended by 5,000 people,
and at a theater, saw “The Battle of Chippewa” enacted.
There are one or two members of our society, I believe, who
would start for New Orleans tomorrow if they thought they
could see that play !134	THE JOURNEYS AND JOURNALS OF
April 27th Mr. Lay sailed from New Orleans, the only passen-
ger on the ship Triton, three hundred and ten tons, cotton-laden,
for Liverpool. It was ten days before they passed the bar of the
Mississippi and entered the Gulf, and it was not until June 28th
that they anchored in the Mersey. The chronicle of this sixty
days’ voyage, as is apt to be the case with journals kept at sea,
is exceedingly minute in detail. Day after day it is recorded
that “we sailed thirty miles today,” “sailed forty miles to-
day,” etc. There’s travel for you—thirty miles on long tacks,
in twenty-four hours ! The ocean greyhound was as yet unborn.
The chief diversion of the passage was a gale which blew them
along one hundred and ninety-five miles in one twenty-four
hours; and an encounter with a whaleship that had not heard a
word from the United States in three years. “ I tossed into their
boat,” Mr. Lay writes, “ a package of newspapers. The captain
clutched them with the avidity of a starving man.” Ashore in
Liverpool, the first sight he saw was a cripple being carried
through the streets—the only survivor from the wreck of the
President, just lost on the Irish coast.*
He hastened to London just too late to witness the coronation
of George IV., but followed the multitude to Scotland, where,
as he writes, “the outlay of attentions to this bad man were
beyond belief. Many of the nobility were nearly ruined there-
by.” He was in Edinburgh on the night of August 15, 1822,
when that city paid homage to the new King; saw the^whole
coast of Fife illuminated “ with bonfires composed of thirty tons
of coal and nearly one thousand gallons of tar and other com-
bustibles ” ; and the next day, wearing a badge of Edinburgh
University, was thereby enabled to gain a good place to view the
guests as they passed on their way to a royal levee. To the
nobility our Buffalonian gave little heed; but when Sir Walter
Scott’s carriage drove slowly by he gazed his fill. “ He has gray
thin hair and a thoughtful look,” Mr. Lay wrote. “ The Heart
of Midlothian” had just been published, and Mr. Lay went on
foot over all the ground mentioned in that historic romance.
He stayed in pleasant private lodgings in Edinburgh for six
♦Author’s Note.—This must not be confounded with the wreck of the steamer
President, which was never heard from after the storm of March 13, 1841. The Presi-
dent of which Mr. Lay wrote was obviously a bark, ship or other sailing craft.AN EARL Y BUFFALO MERCHANT.
135
months, making pedestrian excursions to various parts of Scot-
land. In twenty-eight days of these wanderings he walked
two hundred and sixty miles.
Instead of following him closely in these rambles, my auditors
are asked to recall, for a moment, the time of this visit. Great
Britain was as yet, to all intents and purposes, in the 18th Cen-
tury. She had few canals and no railroads, no applied uses of
steam and electricity. True, Stephenson had experimented on
the Killing worth Railway in 1814; but Parliament had passed
the first railway act only a few months before Mr. Lay reached
England, and the railway era did not actually set in until eight
years later. There is no reference in the Lay journals to steam
locomotives or railways. Liverpool, which was built up by the
African slave trade, was still carrying it on ; the Reform Bill was
not born in Parliament; it was still the old regime.
Our traveler was much struck by the general bad opinion
which prevailed regarding America. On meeting him, people
often could not conceal their surprise that so intelligent and
well-read a man should be an American, and a frontier trades-
man at that. They quizzed him about the workings of popular
government:
I told them [writes this true-hearted Democrat] that as long as we de-
manded from our public men, honesty and upright dealings, our institutions
would be safe, but when men could be bought or sold I feared the influence
would operate ruinously, as all former republics had failed for lack of integrity
and honesty.
His political talks brought to him these definitions, which I
copy from his journals:
Tory was originally a name given to the wild Irish robbers who favored
the massacre of the Protestants in 1641. It was afterward applied to all high-
flyers of the Church. Whig was a name first given to the country field-eleva-
tion meetings, their ordinary drink being whig, or whey, or coagulated sour
milk. Those against the Court interest during the reigns of Charles II. and
James II. and for the Court in the reigns of William and George I., were
called Whigs. A Yankee is thus defined by an Englishman, who gives me '
what is most likely the correct derivation of the epithet:	The Cherokee word
eanker (?) signifies coward or slave. The Virginians gave the New Eng-
landers this name for not assisting in a war with the Cherokees in the early
settlement of their country, but after the affair of Bunker Hill the New Eng-136
THE JOURNEYS AND JOURNALS OF
landers gloried in the name, and in retaliation called the Virginians Buckskins,
in allusion to their ancestors being hunters, and selling as well as wearing
buckskins in place of cloth.
In Edinburgh he saw and heard much of some of Scotia's
chief literary folk. Burns had been dead twenty-six years, but
he was still much spoken of, much read, and admired far more
than when he lived. With Mr. Stenhouse, who for years was an
intimate of Burns, Mr. Lay formed a close acquaintance:
Mr. Stenhouse has in his possession [says the journal] the MSS. of all of
Burns’s writings. I have had the pleasure of perusing them, which I think a
great treat. In the last of Burns’s letters which I read, he speaks of his
approaching dissolution with sorrow, of the last events of his life in the most
touching and delicate language.
The journal relates some original Burns anecdotes, which Mr.
Lay had from the former companions of the bard, but which
have probably never been made public, possibly because—in
characteristic contrast to the letter referred to above—they are
touching but not delicate.
Our Buffalonian encountered numerous literary lions, and
writes entertainingly of them. He speaks often of Scott, who,
he says, “ is quite the theme. He is constantly writing—some-
thing from his pen is shortly expected. I saw him walking on
the day of the grand procession. He is very lame, has been
lame from his youth, a fact I did not know before.” James
Hogg, author of the “ Winter Evening Tales,” lived near Edin-
burgh. Mr. Lay describes him as a “ singular rustic sort of a
genius, but withal clever—very little is said about him.”
I have touched upon Mr. Lay’s achievements in pedes-
trianism, a mode of travel which he doubtless adopted partly
because of the vigorous pleasure it afforded, partly because it was
the only way in which to visit some parts of the country. A man
who had walked from Fort Erie to Montreal, to say nothing of
hundreds of miles done under pleasanter circumstances, would
naturally take an interest in the pedestrian achievements of
others. Whoever cares for this “ sport ” will find in the Lay
journals unexpected revelations on the diversions and contests of
almost seventy years ago. Have we not regarded the walking-
match as a modern mania, certainly not antedating Weston’s137
AN EARLY BUFFALO MERCHANT.
achievements ? Yet listen to this page of the old journal, dated
Edinburgh, August 27, 1822:
I went to see a pedestrian named Russell, from the north of England, who
had undertaken to walk one hundred and two miles in twenty-four successive
hours. He commenced his task yesterday at 1.15 o’clock. The spot chosen
was in the vale between the Mound and the North Bridge, which gave an
opportunity for a great number of spectators to see him to advantage; yet the
numbers were so great and so much interested that there were persons con-
stantly employed to clear his way. The ground he walked over meas-
ured one-eighth of a mile. I saw him walk the last mile, which he did in
twelve minutes. He finished his task with eleven minutes to spare, and was
raised on the shoulders of men and borne away to be put into a carriage, from
which the horses were taken. The multitude then drew him through many
principal streets of the city in triumph. The Earl of Fyfe agreed to give him
^30 if he finished his work within the given time. He also got donations
from others. Large bets were depending, one of 500 guineas. He carried a
small blue flag toward the last and was loudly cheered by the spectators at
intervals.
Nor was the “ sport” confined to Scotland. August 4, 1823,
being in London, Mr. Lay writes:
Today a girl of 8 years of age undertook to walk thirty miles in eight con-
secutive hours. She accomplished her task in seven hours and forty-nine min-
utes without being distressed. A wager of 100 sovereigns was laid. This
great pedestrian feat took place at Chelsea.
A few weeks later he writes again :
This is truly the age of pedestrianism. A man has just accomplished the
task of 1,250 miles in twenty successive days. He is now to walk backward,
forty miles a day for three successive days. Mr. Irvine, the pedestrian, who
attempted to walk from London to York and back, 394 miles, in five days and
eight hours, accomplished it in five days, seven and one-half hours.
With men walking backwards and eight-year-old girls on the
track, these Britons of three-fourths of a century ago still deserve
the palm. But Mr. Lay’s own achievements are not to be lightly
passed over. Before leaving London he wrote: “The whole
length of my perambulations in London and vicinity exceeds
1,200 miles.”
The journals, especially during the months of his residence
in Scotland, abound in descriptions of people and of customs
now pleasant to recall because for the most part obsolete. He138
THE JOURNEYS AND JOURNALS OF
heard much rugged theology from Scotland’s greatest preachers;
had an encounter with robbers in the dark and poorly-policed
streets of Edinburgh; had his pockets picked while watching
the King; and saw a boy hanged in public for house-breaking.
With friends he went to a Scotch wedding, the description of
which is so long that I can only give parts of it:
About forty had assembled. The priest, a Protestant, united them with
much ceremony, giving them a long lecture, after which dinner was served up
and whiskey toddy. At six, dancing commenced, and was kept up with spirit
until eleven, when we had tea, after which dancing continued until three in
the morning. The Scotch dances differ from the American, and the dancers
hold out longer. The girls particularly do not tire so early as ours at home.
We retired to the house where the bride and groom were to be bedded. The
females of the party first put the bride to bed, and the bridegroom was then
led in by the men. After both were in bed liquor was served. The groom
threw his left-leg hose. Whoever it lights upon is next to be married. The
stocking lighted on my head, which caused a universal shout. We reached
home at half-past six in the morning, on foot.
I have been much too long in getting Mr. Lay to London,
to go about much with him there. And yet the temptation is
great, for to an American of Mr. Lay’s intelligence and in-
quiring mind, the great city was beyond doubt the most divert-
ing spot on earth. One of the first sights he saw—a May-day
procession of chimney-sweeps, their clothes covered with gilt
paper—belonged more to the 17th Century than to the 19th.
Peel and Wilberforce, Brougham and Lord Gower, were
celebrities whom he lost no time in seeing. On the Thames he
saw the grand annual rowing-match for the Othello wherry prize,
given by Edmund Kean in commemoration of Garrick’s last
public appearance on June 10, 1776. Mr. Lay’s description of
the race, and of Kean himself, who “ witnessed the whole in an
eight-oared cutter,” is full of color and appreciative spirit. He
saw a man brought before the Lord Mayor who “ on a wager
had eaten two pounds of candles and drank seven glasses of
rum,” and who at another time had eaten at one meal ‘4 nine
pounds of ox-hearts and taken drink proportionately”; and he
went to Bartholomew’s Fair, that most audacious of English
orgies against which even the public sentiment of that loose day was
beginning to protest. As American visitors at Quebec feel todayAN EARL Y BUFFALO MERCHANT.	139
a flush of patriotic resentment when the orderly in the citadel
shows them the little cannon captured at Bunker Hill, so our
loyal friend, with more interest than pleasure, saw in the chapel
at Whitehall, “ on eacli side and over the altar eight or ten
eagles, taken from the French, and flags of different nations;
the eagle of the United States is among them, two taken at New
Orleans, one at Fort Niagara, one at Queenston, and three at
Detroit ”; but like the American at Quebec, who on being
taunted with the captured Bunker Hill trophy, promptly replied,
“ Yes, you got the cannon, but we kept the hill,** Mr. Lay, we
may be sure, found consolation in the thought that though we
lost a few eagle-crested standards, we kept the Bird o’ Freedom’s
nest.
July 5, 1823, he crossed London Bridge on foot, and set out
on an exploration of rural England, tourings in which I have
not time to follow him. When he first went abroad he had con-
templated a trip on the continent. This, however, he found it
advisable to abandon, and on October 5, 1823, on board the
Galatea, he was beating down the channel, bound for Boston.
The journey homeward was full of grim adventure. A tempest
attended them across the Atlantic. In one night of terror,
“ which I can never forget,” he writes, “the ship went twice
entirely around the compass, and in very short space, with con-
tinual seas breaking over her.” The sailors mutinied and tried
to throw the first mate into the sea. Swords, pistols, and mus-
kets were made ready by the captain. Mr. Lay armed himself
and helped put down the rebellion. When the captain was once
more sure of his command, “ Jack, a Swede, was taken from
his confinement, lashed up, and whipped with a cat-o’-nine-tails,
then sent to duty.” The dose of cat was afterwards adminis-
tered to the others. It is no wonder that the traveler’s heart
was cheered when, on November 13th, the storm-tossed Galatea
passed under the guns of Forts Warren and Independence, and
he stepped ashore at Boston.
He did not hurry away, but explored that city and vicinity
thoroughly, going everywhere on foot, as he had, for the most
part, in England. He visited the theaters and saw the celebri-
ties of the day, both of the stage and the pulpit. At the old140
THE JOURNEYS AND JOURNALS OF
Boston Theater, Cooper was playing Marc Antony with Mr. Finn as
Brutus and Mr. Barrett as Cassius.
On November 20th he pictures a New England Thanksgiving:
This is Thanksgiving Day throughout the State of Massachusetts. It is
most strictly observed in this city; no business whatever is transacted—all
shops remained shut throughout the day. All the churches in the city were
open, divine service performed, and everything wore the appearance of Sunday.
Great dinners are prepared and eaten on this occasion, and in the evening the
theaters and ball-rooms tremble with delight and carriages fill the streets. * *
* * A drunken, riotous gang of fellows got under our windows, yelping and
making a great tumult.
A week later, sending his baggage ahead by stage coach, he
passed over Cambridge Bridge, on foot for Buffalo, by way of
New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Pittsburg, and Erie.
Once more I must regret that reasonable demands on your
patience will not let me dwell with much detail on the incidents
and observations of this unusual journey. No man could take
such a grand walk and fail to see and learn much of interest.
But here was a practical, shrewd, observant gentleman, who, just
returned from two years in Great Britain, was studying his own
countrymen and weighing their condition and ideas by most
intelligent standards. The result is that the pages of the journals
reflect with unaccustomed fidelity the spirit of those days, and
form a series of historical pictures not unworthy our careful
attention. Just a glimpse or two by the way and I am through.
The long-settled towns of Massachusetts and Connecticut
appeared to him in the main thrifty and growing. Hartford
he found a place of seven thousand inhabitants, “compactly but
irregularly built, the streets crooked and dirty, with sidewalks
but no pavements/ ’ He passed through Wethersfield, “ famous
for its quantities of onions. A church was built here, and its bell
purchased,’’ he records, “with this vegetable.” New Haven
struck him as “ elegant, but not very flourishing, with three
hundred students in Yale.” Walking from twenty-five to thirty-
five miles a day, he reached Rye, just over the NewJYork State
line, on the ninth day from Boston, and found people burning
turf or peat for fuel, the first of this that he had noticed in the
United States.AN EARL Y BUFFALO MERCHANT.
141
At Harlem Bridge, which crosses to New York Island, he
found some fine houses, “ the summer residences of opulent
New Yorkers’ *; and the next day “ set out for New York, seven
miles distant, over a perfectly straight and broad road, through a
rough, rocky, and unpleasing region.” In New York, where he
rested a few days, he reviewed his New England walk of two
hundred and twelve miles :
, The general aspect of the country is pleasing, inns are provided with the
best, the people are kind and attentive. I think I have never seen tables
better spread. I passed through thirty-six towns on the journey, which are of
no mean appearance. I never had a more pleasant or satisfactory excursion.
There are a great number of coaches for public conveyance plying on this
great road. The fare is $12 for the whole distance. Formerly it was 254
miles between Boston and New York, but the roads are now straightened,
which has shortened the distance to 212 miles.
He had experienced a' Boston Thanksgiving. In New York,
Thursday, December 18th, he had another one. Thanksgiving
then was a matter of State proclamation, as now, but the day had
not been given its National character, and in many of the States
it was not observed at all. We have seen what it was like in
Boston. In New York 4‘business appears as brisk as on any
other laboring day.” The churches, however, were open for
service, and our traveler went to hear the Rev. Mr. Cummings
in Vanderventer Street, and to contribute to a collection in
behalf of the Greeks.
Four days before Christmas he crossed to Hoboken, and
trudged his way through New Jersey snow and mud to Philadel-
phia,which he reached on Christmas. At the theater that night
he attended—
a benefit for Mr. Booth of Covent Garden, London, and was filled with
admiration for Mr. Booth, but the dancing by Miss Hath well was shocking in
the extreme. The house was for a long time in great uproar, and nothing
would quiet them but an assurance, from the manager of Mr. Booth’s
reappearance.
This of course was Junius Brutus Booth. Here is Mr. Lay’s
pen picture of Philadelphia sixty-three years ago :
The streets of Philadelphia cross at right angles; are perfectly straight,
well paved, but miserably lighted. The sidewalks break with wooden bars on
which various things are suspended, and in the lower streets these bars are142
THE JOURNEYS AND JOURNALS OF
appropriated for drying the washerwomen’s clothes. Carpets are shaken in the
streets at all hours, and to the annoyance of the passer-by. Mr. Peale of the
old Philadelphia Museum was lecturing three nights a week on galvanism,
and entertaining the populace with a magic lantern.
It is much the same Philadelphia yet.
January 8th Mr. Lay took his way south to Baltimore, mak-
ing slow progress because of muddy roads; but he had set out to
walk, and so he pushed ahead on to Washington, although there
were eight coaches daily for the conveyance of passengers
between the two cities, the fare being $4. The road for part of the
way lay through a wilderness. “ The inns generally were bad
and the attention to travelers indifferent.’’
In Washington, which he reached on January 14th, he lost no
time in going to the House of Representatives, where he was soon
greeted by Albert H. Tracy, whose career in Congress must be
familiar to all of you.
On the day named, the House was crowded to excess with spectators, a
great number of whom were ladies, in consequence of Mr. Clay’s taking the
floor. He spoke for two hours on the subject of internal improvements, and
the next day the question of erecting a statue to Washington somewhere about
the Capitol, was debated warmly.
On his return north, in passing through Baltimore, he called
on Henry Niles, who, as editor of Niles' Weekly Register, was to
thousands of Americans of that day, what Horace Greeley became
later on—an oracle : and on January 18th, struck out over a fine
turnpike road for Pittsburg.
The Pittsburg pike was then the greatest highway to the
West. The Erie Canal was nearing completion, and the stage
routes across New York State saw much traffic. Yet the South-
Pennsylvania route led more directly to the Ohio region, and it
had more traffic from the West to the East than the more north-
ern highways had for years to come. In the eastern part of the
State it extends through one of the most fertile and best-settled
parts of the United States. Farther west it climbs a forest-clad
mountain, winds through picturesque valleys, and from one end
of the great State to the other is yet a pleasant path for the
modern tourist. The great Conestoga wagons in endless trains,
which our pedestrian seldom lost sight of, have now disappeared.AN EARL Y BUFFALO MERCHANT.
143
The wayside inns are gone or have'lost their early character, and
the locomotive has everywhere set a new pace for progress.
When Mr. Lay entered the Blue Ridge section, beyond
Chambersburg, he found Dutch almost the only language spoken.
The season was at first mild, and as he tramped along the
Juniata, it seemed to him like May. “ Land,” he notes, “ is to
be had at from $i to $3 per acre.” It took him seventeen days
to walk to Pittsburg. Of the journey as a whole, he says :
At Chambersburg the great stage route from Philadelphia unites with the
Baltimore road. Taverns on these roads are frequent and nearly in sight of
each other. The gates for the collection of tolls differ in distance—some five,
others ten and others twenty-five miles asunder. Notwithstanding the travel
is great, the stock yields no profit to holders, but, on the contrary, it is a sink-
ing concern on some parts, and several of the companies are in debt for open-
ing the road. About $100 per mile are annually expended in repairs. It cost
a great sum to open the road, particularly that portion leading over the moun-
tains and across the valleys.
Taverns are very cheap in their charges; meals are a fourth of a dollar,
beds 6% cents, liquors remarkably cheap. Their tables are loaded with food
in variety, well prepared and cleanly served up with the kindest attention and
smiling cheerfulness. The women are foremost in kind abilities. Beer is
made at Chambersburg of an excellent quality and at other places. A good
deal of this beverage is used and becoming quite common; it is found at most
of the good taverns. Whiskey is universally drank and it is most preva-
lent. Places for divine service are rarely to be met with immediately on the
road. The inhabitants, however, are provided with them not far distant in the
back settlements, for almost the whole distance. The weather has been so
cold that for the two last days before reaching Pittsburg I could not keep my-
self comfortable in walking; indeed, I thought several times I might perish.
In Pittsburg he lodged at the old Spread Eagle Tavern, and
afterwards at Conrad Upperman’s inn on Front Street at $2 a
week. He found the city dull and depressed :
The streets are almost deserted, a great number of the houses not tenanted,
shops shut, merchants and mechanics failed; the rivers are both banked by ice,
and many other things wearing the aspect of decayed trade and stagnation of
commerce. Money, I find, purchases things very low. Flour from this city
is sent over the mountains to Philadelphia for $1 per barrel, which will little
more than half pay the wagoner’s expenses for the two hundred and eighty
miles. Superfine flour was $4.12^ in Philadelphia, and coal 3 cents per
bushel. Coal for cooking is getting in use in this city—probably two-thirds
the cooking is with coal.144
THE JOURNEYS AND JOURNALS OF
He had no trouble up to this point in sending his baggage
ahead. It was some days before the stage left for Erie. All was
at length dispatched, however, and on February 14th he crossed
over to Allegheny—I think there was no bridge there then--—and
marched along, day after day, through Harmony, Mercer, Mead-
ville, his progress much impeded by heavy snow; at Waterford
he met his old friend, G. A. Elliott, and went to a country
dance; and finally on February 20th found himself at Mr. Hamot’s
dinner-table in Erie, surrounded by old friends. They held him
for two days; then, in spite of heavy snow, he set out on foot
for Buffalo. Even the faded pages of the old journal which hold
the record of these last few days, bespeak the eager nervousness
which one long absent feels as his wanderings bring him near
home. With undaunted spirit, our walker pushed eastward to the
house of Col. N. Bird, two miles beyond Westfield; and the
next day, with Col. Bird, drove through a violent snow-storm to
Mayville to visit Mr. William Peacock—the first ride he had
taken since landing in Boston in November of the previous year.
But he was known throughout the neighborhood, and his friends
seem to have taken possession of him. From Mr. Bird’s he went
in a stage-sleigh to Fredonia to visit the Burtons. Snow two
feet deep detained him in Hanover town, where friends showed
him “ some tea-seed bought of a New-England peddler, who left
written directions for its cultivation.” “ It’s all an imposition,”
is Mr. Lay’s comment—but what a horde of smooth-tongued
tricksters New England has to answer for !
The stage made its way through the drifts with difficulty to
the Cattaraugus, where Mr. Lay left it, and stoutly set out on
foot once more. For the closing stages of this great journey, let
me quote direct from the journal:
I proceeded over banks of drifted snow until I reached James Marks’s,
who served breakfast. The stage wagon came up again, when we went on
through the Four-mile woods, stopping to see friends and spending the night
with Russell Goodrich. On February 29th (two years and twenty-four days
from the date of setting out) I drove into Buffalo on Goodrich’s sleigh and
went straight to Rathbun’s, where I met a great number of friends, and was
invited to take a ride in Rathbun’s fine sleigh with four beautiful greys. We
drove down the Niagara as far as Mrs. Seely’s, and upset once.AN EARL V BUFFALO MERCHANT.
145
What happier climax could there have been for this happy
home-coming !
Here, since this paper is not a biography of Mr. Lay, but
merely notes from his journals on the subject of his journeys, we
will leave this well-remembered merchant of the early Buffalo.
Let me add, however, a grateful acknowledgement to the mem-
bers of his family who kindly placed the much-treasured journals
in my hands, together with a most interesting MS. of reminis-
cences, written by Mrs. Lay. To this lady and her daughters,
and to Mr. W. C. Bryant, who first told me of the Lay MSS.,
you are indebted for whatever pleasure the evening’s paper has
afforded.
10