I had not then read any history of our
Revolution, but had heard its battles and hardships, told over by my
father, which created a deep interest, and among the events was
Burgoyne's surrender. My mind was filled with the subject as we
proceeded on our way, and I expected to see a field covered with skulls,
and guns, and broken swords.
In my fifteenth year I accompanied my father, in his chaise, up the
Valley of the Mohawk to Utica. This gave me some idea of the western
country, and the rapid improvements going on there. I returned with some
more knowledge of the world, and with my mind filled with enthusiastic
notions of new settlements and fortunes made in the woods. I was highly
pleased with the frank and hospitable manners of the west. The next
spring I was sent by a manufacturing company to Philadelphia, as an
agent to procure and select on the banks of the Delaware, between
Bristol and Bordentown, a cargo of crucible clay. This journey and its
incidents opened a new field to me, and greatly increased my knowledge
of the world; of the vastness of commerce; and of the multifarious
occupations of men.
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