Seven ALS from James Darrach, a Philadelphia businessman, to his wife Eliza while on a business trip to New Orleans. Darrach travelled on horseback to Pittsburg and Louisville, and by boat down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to Natchez and New Orleans, to acquire cotton and sugar which he shipped back to Pennsylvania. Darrach devotes the majority of his letters to lamenting his absence from his wife and family, and provides brief descriptions of the progress of his travel, hunting during the boat trips, acquiring meat from Indians, conducting his business, and witnessing the debauchery in New Orleans, "the Modern Sodom."
Description:
Gift of Charles and Lindley Eberstadt, 1971.
Subject (Geographic):
Mississippi River--Description and travel, New Orleans (La.)--Commerce, New Orleans (La.)--Social life and customs, and Ohio River--Description and travel
Subject (Name):
Darrach, Eliza and Darrach, James, fl. 1813-1814
Subject (Topic):
Cotton--Commerce, Indians of North America--Southern States, and Sugar--Commerce
The volume also includes Kelso family accounts dated 1789-1806, and one page of accounts in Louisiana in 1782; two verses of an untitled patriotic poem by H. Thomas; and a brief entry dated January 24, 1798, noting the plan of Joseph Kelso to go to the East Indies. and Volume containing Kelso's journal (May 10-October 9, 1792) of a trip with Simpson on three flatboats that they constructed for the purpose of transporting flour from Fort Pitt down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans. The brief entries describe their daily travels, noting settlements that were later to be founded including Point Pleasant, West Virginia, Cincinnati, and Louisville. Kelso notes observing Indians, killing a bear, and meeting inhabitants of Natchez, Baton Rouge, Atakapass (where the flatboats were disposed of), and New Orleans. As the men were unable to sell the flour easily it was sold in Atakapass for cattle, which they had butchered and sold in New Orleans. The final entries (December 11, 1792-October 22, 1893) describe Kelso and Simpson's voyages from New Orleans to Alexandria, Virginia, via Havana, during which they were captured, imprisoned on St. Thomas, and then released from the crew of a British warship, finally landing at Alexandria on October 22, 1893.
Description:
Gift of Frederick W. Beinecke. and Nephew of the American revolutionary war hero Captain Michael Simpson of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Subject (Geographic):
Baton Rouge (La.)--Description and travel, Fort Pitt (Pa.), Mississippi River--Description and travel, Mississippi River--Navigation, Natchez (La.)--Description and travel, New Orleans (La.)--Description and travel, Ohio River--Description and travel, and Ohio River--Navigation
Subject (Name):
Kelso family, Kelso, Joseph, Kelso, William, and Simpson, Michael, Captain
Subject (Topic):
Commerce--Louisiana, Feed industry--Louisiana, Flatboats, Flour industry--Louisiana, Indians of North America--Mississippi River Valley, and Voyages and travels
Garrett, Edmund H. (Edmund Henry), 1853-1929 Harley, John J Twain, Mark, 1835-1910
Published / Created:
1883
Call Number:
Za C591 883Lc
Image Count:
2
Description:
BEIN Za C591 883Lc Copy 1: Has St. Charles Hotel on p. 443 (St. Charles in lst of three, St. Louis in first) and no verse. Blauch--4th state. and Title vignette.
Publisher:
J. R. Osgood,
Subject (Geographic):
Mississippi River Valley--Social life and customs and Mississippi River--Description and travel
