ause of dispute is the doubt the farmers have that one of the Dutch
kings did not give and covenant the seestates, which the Van Rensselaer
can prove by parchment: thus the tarring and feathering is done. Troy
population is 40,000: a nice town, with a splendid arsenal, 156 miles
from New York. The Hudson is navigable no farther. We took a chaise to
the Shaker Village of Watervleit, where we found a Shaker settlement of
about 120 people: there are three more in the neighbourhood; in all
about 400. At this place they have 2000 acres of good land, their own:
they grow everything they eat, and are all teetotallers. We entered the
house where the Shaker manufactures are sold. We purchased a few
dollars' worth, and they politely presented my friend and I with a book
each. The old gentleman and lady were very civil, and showed us over the
gardens, where they grow seed for sale, which is sold by Wilcox, London.
They are famed for it all over the world. Pine-apples are growing in
abundance; also water-melons, tomatoes, &c. The place was in beautiful
order, and they appeared happy. They declined to show us the chapel, or
the lady Shakers. They all live in single blessedness, and devoted to a
life of celibacy. They are called Shakers from their peculiar form of
adoration, which consists of a dance, performed by the men and women of
all ages, advancing and retiring in a preposterous sort of trot. All the
possessions and revenues of the settlement are thrown into a common
stock, which is managed by the elders. They are capital farmers, and
good breeders of cattle; honest and just in their transactions; and are
the only class of people, either gentle or simple, that can resist
_thievish_ tendencies in horse-dealing. We returned to Lansingburgh,
where packers of beef live, or rather butchers, where they kill and cut
bullocks up by steam, as many as 20,000 in the season. At Cincinnati in
the West they kill 3000 pigs a-day, or 1,000,000 a-year, in the same
way. Back to Troy to dinner, and took railway to Saratoga Springs. This
is a beautiful place, and the water is most beautiful. From every part
of the states they flock here for three months in the Summer. Population
of residents, 2500. New York drapers open stores here. I tasted the
Congress spring, Colombian, the Putnam, and one other, all of which
tasted very much like German Seltzer water, but very purgative. The
United States Inn was our quarters, kept by Mr. Murvin and Judge Murvin.