236 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



into the mail yet, I thought I would add one for you, 

 though I have nothing very interesting to write. I sup- 

 pose it will not be very interesting to you to hear me tell 

 how this part of Virginia, that was once in a high state 

 of improvement, has nearly all grown up again into for- 

 est. Just so it may be some day where you now live. All 

 the houses rotten down, or burnt up, or tumbled into piles 

 of ruins, and all the fences gone, and fields covered with 

 trees, among which may be growing old apple trees, 

 cherry trees, &c. ; may be the condition of all the land 

 around our present home, as it is in some parts of this 

 country, that was once so rich and flourishing one hun- 

 dred years ago. 



There is one thing though, that never will be there as 

 it is here — that is the old roads gullied and washed down 

 the hills until it is like traveling in the bottom of a great 

 ditch, sometimes 30 or 40 feet deep. 



There is another thing here that never will be there — 

 that is, old stone houses and mills, for this is a stony 

 country. I traveled yesterday a mile up the side of a very 

 rocky hill, almost a mountain — so narrow and difficult 

 that it was troublesome passing other wagons. Now that 

 is something that you never have seen, and can never see 

 upon the prairie. 



Mother can tell you something about such roads and 

 rocky hills, for she has traveled over them across the 

 Alleghany Mountains, from Philadelphia. 



Yesterday I visited Mount Vernon, which you have 

 read about, I suppose, for it was once the home of Wash- 

 ington, whose character I would have you study well in 

 some of your books. 



When he was alive, upon the way of going to his house, 

 one passed some two miles through the well cultivaetd 

 fields of his plantation, on each side of the road, and at 

 nearly a mile from the house entered the "Mount Vernon 

 gate," between two neat little buildings, called gate 

 lodges, where lived some old negroes to open the gate, 

 after old English fashion, when gentlemen's houses and 



