Travels In The United States Of America; Commencing In The Year 1793, And Ending In 1797. With The Author's Journals Of His Two Voyages Across The Atlantic By William Priest
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Our course lay the whole length of the island, which is barren and
rocky; affording some romantic situations, in
Several of which I observed
(to use a cockney phrase) _snug little boxes_; these, I was informed,
belonged to the wealthy citizens; they commanded a view of the city, the
North River, the Sound, and adjacent islands.
At noon we entered Connecticut, the most southerly of the New England
states. Slept at Fairfield.
On the night of the 20th we reached Hertford, the capital of the state. -
About five miles from it, a house was pointed out to me, where a very
shocking circumstance took place a few years ago. - A merchant, not being
able to bear a change in his circumstances from affluence to extreme
poverty, coolly and deliberately shot his wife and five children, and
afterward himself. He tried every means, for several days, to send his
wife away; but she preferred dying with him and the children. He left a
paper on the table, informing his friends, that his only motive for
committing this rash action was to rescue his family from a situation,
which he himself found insupportable.
_Sept. 21st._ - We this afternoon entered the state of Massachusetts.
I found New England very different from any part of America I had before
seen; the soil but very indifferent, rocky, and mountainous, interspersed
with some rich tracts of land in the valleys; the up lands are divided by
means of stone walls, as in Derbyshire, and some other parts of Great
Britain.
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