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William Priest - Travels in the United States of America
the disorder at Philadelphia is the yellow fever, imported in a french schooner from the West Indies;
some of the passengers of this vessel died of this fatal disorder, at a lodging-house in Water-street, and
communicated the infection to the family. It is now spreading rapidly through the city, in all directions.
The faculty, so far from being able to cure this disorder, have, in several instances, fallen victims to it's
fury. Within this few days, a Dr. Rush has discovered this disorder is not the yellow fever of the
West Indies and has applied an opposite mode of cure by copious bleedings, mercurial medicines, &c.
with some success. What is truly extraordinary, the infection does not affect people of colour!
Sept. 28th. - Came to an anchor off Glocester Point, five miles below Philadelphia: the vessel
proceeds no further at present, as all intercourse with the city is cut off, and business at a stand.
October 1st.
Brought my baggage on shore, and arrived, at four in the afternoon, at Woodbury, the county town of
Glocester, in the state of West Jersey. With some difficulty I procured a lodging within half a mile of the
town. Woodbury consists of about fifty well built houses, chiefly inhabited by quakers, and other
dissenters of the most rigid kind; so very primitive are they in their appearance, that a barber cannot
make a living among them.
Oct. 13th. - Spent the last ten days in shooting, and rambling about the woods. The face of the
country is exactly that of an immense forest, entirely covered with wood, except the plantation cleared by
the settlers. The land sandy, and by no means of a good quality; the chief produce maize, or indian corn. I
counted the increase of one stalk with three ears; the amount of the grains were upward of
one thousand two hundred.
Oct. 16th. - I believe the Americans conceive their woods to be inexhaustible. My landlord this
day cut down thirty-two young cedars to make a hog-pen. A settler informs me, he raised a gum tree
from the seed, which, in sixteen years, measured twenty inches diameter, three feet from it's base. He
tells, me they have ten species of oak; viz, white, black, red, spanish, turkey, chesnut, ground, water,
barren, and live oak. The white, turkey, and chesnut are used for ship-timber; the acorn of the latter very
superiour in size to any other. Red oak is chiefly used for pipe-staves, and exported to most parts of
Europe, and the West Indies. Black oak is a dry wood, and easily splits; is chiefly used for the rails and
fences of their enclosures. Ground oak is bushy, and seldom exceeds six feet in height; it bears a small
acorn of a very superiour flavour, which is the chief food of the deer, and sheep, who run wild in the
woods. Water and barren oak are small and bushy, and only used for firing. Live oak is said to be
very superiour to all the rest, and the best ship-timber in the world. I am informed it is a sort of
evergreen, seldom met with north of the Carolinas.
Oct. 26th. - Went to Philadelphia. - After crossing the Delaware, I found the land very different
from the Jersey shore; a fine stiff black soil, the clover growing spontaneously. The city exhibited a most
melancholy spectacle; most of the houses and stores shut up, and grass growing in many of the streets;
what few white inhabitants I met with had a most dejected appearance. The disorder has been
most favourable to the softer sex; women with child, and those above and under a certain age, were in
general free from the infection: but so fatal has it proved to the other sex, that, in Apple-tree-alley, which
does not exceed fifty yards in length, there are upwards of sixty widows within these two months. The
total loss on this melancholy occasion already exceeds four thousand, nearly one tenth of the inhabitants!
Returning to Woodbury, I met with a quaker, who informed me of the cause of the infectious
disorder in the Great City: " It is a judgment on the inhabitants for their sins, insomuch that they
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