Part 9

Salem is a little trading town, situated at some distance from the river Delaware. The houses do not stand far asunder, and are partly stone, and partly wood. A rivulet passes by the town, and falls into the Delaware. The inhabitants live by their several trades, as well as they can. In the neighbourhood of Salem are some very low and swampy meadows; and therefore it is reckoned a very unwholesome place. Experience has shewn, that those who came hither from other places to settle, got a very pale and sickly look, though they arrived in perfect health, and with a very lively colour. The town is very easily distinguished about this time, by the disagreeable stench which arises from the swamps. The vapours of the putrid water are carried to those inhabitants which live next to the marshes; and enter the body along with the air, and through the pores, and thus are hurtful to health. At the end of every summer, the intermitting fevers are very frequent. I knew a young couple, who came along with me from England to America: soon after their arrival at Philadelphia, they went to Salem, in perfect health; but a few weeks after they fell sick, and before the winter was half over they were both dead.

Many of the inhabitants plant Saffron; but it is not so good and so strong as the English and French Saffron. Perhaps it grows better by being laid up for some years, as tobacco does.

The Gossypium herbaceum, or Cotton plant, is an annual plant; and several of the inhabitants of Salem had began to sow it. Some had the seeds from Carolina, where they have great plantations of cotton; but others got it out of some cotton which they had bought. They said, it was difficult, at first, to get ripe seeds from the plants which were sown here; for the summer in Carolina, from whence their first seed came, is both longer and hotter than it is here. But after the plants have been more used to the climate, and hastened more than they were formerly, the seeds are ripe in due time.

At night I returned to Raccoon.

May the 4th. Crab-trees are a species of wild apple trees, which grow in the woods and glades, but especially on little hillocks, near rivers [39]. In New Jersey the tree is rather scarce; but in Pensylvania it is plentiful. Some people had planted a single tree of this kind near their farms, on account of the fine smells which its flowers afford. It had begun to open some of its flowers about a day or two ago; however, most of them were not yet open. They are exactly like the blossoms of the common apple-trees, except that the colour is a little more reddish in the Crab-trees; though some kinds of the cultivated trees have flowers which are very near as red: but the smell distinguishes them plainly; for the wild trees have a very pleasant smell, somewhat like the rasp-berry. The apples, or crabs, are small, sour, and unfit for any thing but to make vinegar of. They ly under the trees all the winter, and acquire a yellow colour. They seldom begin to rot before spring comes on.

I cannot omit an observation here. The Crab-trees opened their flowers only yesterday and to-day; whereas, the cultivated apple-trees, which are brought from Europe, had already lost their flowers. The wild cherry-trees did not flower before the 12th of May; on the other hand, the cultivated or European ones, had already opened their blossoms on the 24th of April. The black walnut-trees of this country had neither leaves nor flowers, when the European kind has large leaves and blossoms. From hence it appears, that trees brought over from Europe, of the same kind with the wild trees of America, flower much sooner than the latter. I cannot say what is the reason of this forwardness of the European trees in this country, unless they bring forth their blossoms as soon as they get a certain degree of warmth, which they have in their native country. It seems, the European trees do not expect, after a considerable degree of warmth, any such cold nights as will kill their flowers; for, in the cold countries, there seldom happen any hot days succeeded by such cold nights as will hurt the flowers considerably. On the contrary, the wild trees in this country are directed by experience, (if I may so speak) not to trust to the first warmth; but they wait for a greater heat, when they are already safe from cold nights. Therefore, it happens often, that the flowers of the European trees are killed by the frosts here; but the native trees are seldom hurt, though they be of the same kind with the European ones. This is a manifest proof of the wisdom of the Creator.

May the 5th. Early this morning I went to Rapaapo, which is a great village, whose farms ly all scattered. It was inhabited merely by Swedes, and not a single Englishman, or people of any other nation, lived in it: therefore they have preserved their native Swedish tongue, and mixed but few English words with it. The intention of my journey was partly to see the place, and to collect plants; and other natural curiosities there; and partly to find the places where the White Cedar, or Cupressus thyoides, grows.

The Mayflowers, as the Swedes call them, were plentiful in the woods where-ever I went to-day; especially on a dry soil, or one that is somewhat moist. The Swedes have given them this name, because they are in full blossom in May. Some of the Swedes and the Dutch call them Pinxterbloem, (Whitsunday flowers), as they really are in blossom about Whitsuntide. The English call them Wild Honeysuckles; and at a distance they have some similarity to the Honeysuckle, or Lonicera. Dr. Linnæus, and other botanists, call it an Azalea [40]. Its flowers were now open, and added a new ornament to the woods, being little inferior to the flowers of the honeysuckle and Hedysarum. They sit in a circle round the stem’s extremity, and have either a dark red or a lively red colour; but, by standing for some time, the sun bleaches them, and at last they get a whitish hue. I know not why Colden calls them yellow [41]. The height of the bush is not always alike. Some were as tall as a full grown man, and taller, others were but low, and some were not above a palm from the ground; yet they were all full of flowers. The people have not yet found that this plant may be applied to any use; they only gather the flowers, and put them in pots, because they are very shewy. They have some smell; but I cannot say it is very pleasant. However, the beauty of the colour entitles them to a place in every flower-garden.

To-day I saw the first ear of this year’s rye. In Sweden, rye begins to shew its ears about Ericmas, that is, about the 18th of May, old stile [42]. But in New Sweden, the people said, they always saw the ears of rye in April, old stile; whether the spring begins late or early. However, in some years the ears come early, and in others late, in April. This spring was reckoned one of the late ones.

Bullfrogs [43] are a large species of frogs, which I had an opportunity of hearing and seeing to-day. As I was riding out, I heard a roaring before me; and I thought it was a bull in the bushes, on the other side of the dyke, though the sound was rather more hoarse than that of a bull. I was however afraid, that a bad goring bull might be near me, though I did not see him; and I continued to think so till some hours after, when I talked with some Swedes about the Bullfrogs, and, by their account, I immediately found that I had heard their voice; for the Swedes told me, that there were numbers of them in the dyke. I afterwards hunted for them. Of all the frogs in this country, this is doubtless the greatest. I am told, that towards autumn, as soon as the air begins to grow a little cool, they hide themselves under the mud, which lies at the bottom of ponds and stagnant waters, and ly there torpid during winter. As soon as the weather grows mild, towards summer, they begin to get out of their holes, and croak. If the spring, that is, if the mild weather, begins early, they appear about the end of March, old stile; but if it happens late, they tarry under water till late in April. Their places of abode are ponds, and bogs with stagnant water; they are never in any flowing water. When many of them croak together, they make an enormous noise. Their croak exactly resembles the roaring of an ox or bull, which is somewhat hoarse. They croak so loud, that two people talking by the side of a pond cannot understand each other. They croak all together; then stop a little, and begin again. It seems as if they had a captain among them: for when he begins to croak, all the others follow; and when he stops, the others are all silent. When this captain gives the signal for stopping, you hear a note like poop coming from him. In day-time they seldom make any great noise, unless the sky is covered. But the night is their croaking time; and, when all is calm, you may hear them, though you are near a mile and a half off. When they croak, they commonly are near the surface of the water, under the bushes, and have their heads out of the water. Therefore, by going slowly, one may get close up to them before they go away. As soon as they are quite under water, they think themselves safe, though the water be very shallow.

Sometimes they sit at a good distance from the pond; but as soon as they suspect any danger, they hasten with great leaps into the water. They are very expert at hopping. A full-grown Bullfrog takes near three yards at one hop. I have often been told the following story by the old Swedes, which happened here, at the time when the Indians lived with the Swedes. It is well known, that the Indians are excellent runners; I have seen them, at Governor Johnson’s, equal the best horse in its swiftest course, and almost pass by it. Therefore, in order to try how well the bull-frogs could leap, some of the Swedes laid a wager with a young Indian, that he could not overtake the frog, provided it had two leaps before hand. They carried a bull-frog, which they had caught in a pond, upon a field, and burnt his back-side; the fire, and the Indian, who endeavoured to be closely up with the frog, had such an effect upon the animal, that it made its long hops across the field, as fast as it could. The Indian began to pursue the frog with all his might at the proper time: the noise he made in running frightened the poor frog; probably it was afraid of being tortured with fire again, and therefore it redoubled its leaps, and by that means it reached the pond before the Indian could over-take it.

In some years they are more numerous than in others: nobody could tell, whether the snakes had ever ventured to eat them, though they eat all the lesser kinds of frogs. The women are no friends to these frogs, because they kill and eat young ducklings and goslings: sometimes they carry off chickens that come too near the ponds. I have not observed that they bite when they are held in the hands, though they have little teeth; when they are beaten, they cry out almost like children. I was told that some eat the thighs of the hind legs, and that they are very palatable.

A tree which grows in the swamps here, and in other parts of America, goes by the name of White Juniper-tree. Its stem indeed looks like one of our old tall and strait juniper-trees in Sweden: but the leaves are different, and the wood is white. The English call it White Cedar, because the boards which are made of the wood, are like those made of cedar. But neither of these names are just, for the tree is of the cypress kind [44]. It always grows in wet ground or swamps: it is therefore difficult to come to them, because the ground between the little hillocks is full of water. The trees stand both on the hillocks and in the water: they grow very close together, and have strait, thick, and tall stems; but they were greatly reduced in number to what they have been before. In such places where they are left to grow up, they grow as tall and as thick as the tallest fir-trees; they preserve their green leaves both in winter and summer; the tall ones have no branches on the lower part of the stem.

The marshes where these trees grow are called Cedar Swamps. These cedar swamps are numerous in New Jersey, and likewise in some parts of Pensylvania and New York. The most northerly place, where it has been hitherto found, is near Goshen in New York, under forty-one degrees and twenty-live minutes of north latitude, as I am informed by Dr. Colden. For to the North of Goshen, it has not been found in the woods. The white cedar is one of the trees, which resist the most to putrefaction; and when it is put above ground, it will last longer than under ground: therefore it is employed for many purposes; it makes good fences, and posts which are to be put into the ground; but in this point, the red cedar is still preferable to the white; it likewise makes good canoes. The young trees are employed for hoops, round barrels, tuns, &c. because they are thin and pliable; the thick and tall trees afford timber, and wood for cooper’s work. The houses which are built of it, surpass in duration, those which are built of American oak. Many of the houses in Rapaapo were made of this white cedar wood; but the chief thing which the white cedar affords is the best kind of shingles. The white cedar shingles are preferred to all others for several reasons; first, they are more durable than any others made of American wood, the red cedar shingles excepted; secondly, they are very light, so that no strong beams are requisite to support the roof. For the same reason it is unnecessary to build thick walls, because they are not pressed by heavy roofs. When fires break out, it is less dangerous to go under or along the roofs, because the shingles being very light can do little hurt by falling; they suck the water, being somewhat spungy, so that the roofs can easily be wetted in case of a fire: however, their fatness occasions that the water does not hurt them, but evaporates easily. When they burn and are carried about by the wind, they have commonly what is called a dead coal, which does not easily set fire where it alights. The roofs made of these shingles can easily be cut through, if required, because they are thin, and not very hard; for these qualities the people in the country, and in the towns, are very desirous of having their houses covered with white cedar shingles, if the wood can be got. Therefore all churches, and the houses of the more substantial inhabitants of the towns, have shingle roofs. In many parts of New York province, where the white cedar does not grow, the people, however, have their houses roofed with cedar shingles, which they get from other parts. To that purpose great quantities of shingles are annually exported from Eggharbour and other parts of New Jersey, to the town of New York, from whence they are distributed throughout the province. A quantity of white cedar wood is likewise exported every year to the West Indies, for shingles, pipe staves, &c. Thus the inhabitants are very busy here, not only to lessen the number of these trees, but even to extirpate them entirely. They are here (and in many other places) in regard to wood, bent only upon their own present advantage, utterly regardless of posterity. By this means many cedar swamps are already quite destitute of cedars, having only young shoots left; and I plainly observed, by counting the circles round the stem, that they do not grow up very quickly, but require a great deal of time before they can be cut for timber. It is well known that a tree gets only one circle every year; a stem, eighteen inches in diameter, had one hundred and eight circles round the thicker end; another, seventeen inches in diameter, had a hundred and sixteen; and another, two feet in diameter, had one hundred and forty-two circles upon it. Thus near eighty years growth is required, before a White cedar raised from seed can be used for timber. Among the advantages which the white cedar shingles have over others, the people reckon their lightness. But this good and useful quality may in future times turn out very disadvantageous to Philadelphia, and other places where the houses are rooted with cedar shingles; for as the roofs made of these shingles are very light, and bear but a trifling weight on the walls, so the people have made the walls but very thin. I measured the thickness of the walls of several houses here, of three stories high (cellar and garret not included), and found most of them nine inches and a half, and some ten inches thick; therefore it is by no means surprising, that violent hurricanes sometimes make the brick gable-ends to vibrate apparently, especially on such houses as have a very open situation. And since the cedar-trees will soon be wanting in this country, and the present roofs when rotten must be supplied with heavier ones, of tiles, or of other wood, it is more than probable, that the thin walls will not be able to bear such an additional weight, and will either break, or require to be supported by props: or else the whole house must be pulled down and rebuilt with thicker walls. This observation has already been made by others. Some of the people here make use of the chips of white cedar instead of tea, alluring me that they preferred it in regard to its wholesomeness to all foreign tea. All the inhabitants here were of opinion, that the water in the cedar swamps is wholesomer than any other drink: it creates a great appetite, which they endeavoured to prove by several examples. They ascribed this quality to the water itself, which is filled with the rosin of the trees, and to the exhalations which came from the trees, and can easily be smelled. The people likewise thought that the yellowish colour of the water, which stands between the cedar trees, was owing to the rosin, which comes out of the roots of these trees. They likewise all agreed, that this water is always very cold in the hottest season, which may be partly owing to the continual shade it is in. I knew several people who were resolved to go to these cedar swamps, and use the waters for the recovery of their appetite. Mr. Bartram planted a white cedar in a dry soil, but it could not succeed there: he then put it into a swampy ground, where it got as it were new life, and came on very well; and though it was not taller than a man, yet it was full of cones. Another thing is very remarkable, with regard to the propagation of this tree: Mr. Bartram cut its branches in spring two years successively, and put them into the swampy soil, where they struck roots, and succeeded very well. I have seen them myself.