Early Pleasure Tours 65 



at Charlotte. The afternoon's ride of that day was through 

 a very poor country, clay and stones. What land had been 

 cleared seemed to be principally devoted to the raising of 

 burnt stumps and mullen; some little grass, to be sure did 

 now and then make its appearance, but I should think the 

 poor sheep would find it hard work enough to live, without 

 troubling themselves with growing wool. A little ways out 

 of Charlotte, though, I recollect I was met by one of the 

 finest views I had ever seen. It was on a hill which over- 

 looked the country and the lake towards the southwest. 

 Between me and the Lake lay some pretty village or other 

 on the ground sloping towards it, the land looking really 

 very rich, — and by the way the soil just by the lake all along 

 is fine. Beyond lay the Lake itself, — bays, islands, etc., — 

 looking beautifully ; but the chief charm was the background, 

 a heap of mountains over in Essex Co. I never saw moun- 

 tains rise more beautifully one above another, the larger 

 ones seeming to cluster round and protect the smaller, nor 

 did the summer veil of haze ever sit on them more sweetly. 

 Back of all rose some magnificent thunder-heads and they 

 rose fast too, compelling me at five o'clock to take refuge 

 and toast and eggs in a little road-side inn. 



"Hartford, Sept. i, 1845. 



"My dear Fred [Kingsbury]': 



Charley and I had a fine cruise 'round. Charley wanted 

 to get home before Emma left, and we drove, with all night 



' This letter, written to one of his chums, refers to a sailboat trip from New 

 Haven to Hartford, with Charles Loring Brace, another of the group of five 

 young men formed during the New Haven days (John Hull and F. L. Olmsted, 

 Charles Trask, and the two just mentioned). In a reminiscent letter Frederick 

 Olmsted says of Charles Brace: "We had many long tramps together; I 

 remember once being with him for a week or two on a walk which took us 

 through Litchfield, Stockbridge and Lenox. I remember also vividly a fine 

 run of fourteen miles on skates, ending in a cold bath. He entered college 

 with my brother and they were room-mates; and, as for four years afterwards 

 I lived in or near New Haven, and was, a part of the time, attending the same 

 lectures with them, we continued to be in close intimacy." 

 5 



