Vevay.—Geographical Sketch of the State of Indiana.—Madison.— Charlestown—its Court.—Jeffersonville.—Clarksville.—New Albany.—The Falls of the Ohio.

Vevay, in Indiana, became a settlement twenty years ago, by Swiss emigrants, who obtained a grant of land, equal to 200 acres for each family, under the condition of cultivating the vine; they accordingly settled here, and laid out vineyards. The original settlers may have amounted to thirty; others joined them afterwards, and in this manner was founded the county town of New Switzerland, in Indiana, which consists almost exclusively of these French and Swiss settlers. They have their vineyards below the town, on the banks of the river Ohio. The vines, however, have degenerated, and the produce is an indifferent beverage, resembling any thing but claret, as it had been represented. Two of them have attempted to cultivate the river hills, and the vineyards laid out there are rather of a better sort. The town is on the decline; it has a court-house, and two stores very ill supplied. The condition of these, and the absence of lawyers, are sure indications of the poverty of the inhabitants, if broken windows, and doors falling from their hinges, should leave any doubt on the subject; they are, however, a merry set of people, and balls are held regularly every month. In the evening arrived ten teams laden with fifty emigrants from Kentucky, going to settle in Indiana; their reasons for doing this were numerous. Although they had bought their lands in Kentucky twice over, they had to give them up a third time, their titles having proved invalid; but still they would have remained, had it not been for the insolent behaviour of their more wealthy neighbours, who, in consequence of these emigrants having no slaves, and being thus obliged to work for themselves, not only treated them as slaves, but even encouraged their own blacks to give them every kind of annoyance, and to rob them—for no other reason than their dislike to have paupers for neighbours.

My landlord assured me that at least 200 waggons had passed from the Kentucky side, through Vevay, during the present season, all full of emigrants, discouraged from continuing among these lawless people.

The state of Indiana, which I had now entered, begins below Cincinnati, running down the big Miami westward to the big Wabash, which separates this country from the Illinois. To the south, it is bounded by the Ohio; to the north, by lake Michigan; thus extending from 37° 50', to 42° 10', north latitude; and from 7° 40', to 10° 47', west longitude. Like the state of Ohio, it belongs to the class coming within the range of the great valley of the Mississippi. It exhibits nearly the same features as the state of Ohio, with the exception, that it approaches nearer to the Mississippi than its eastern neighbour, and is the second slope of the eastern part of the valley of the Mississippi: it declines more than Ohio, being but 250 feet above lake Erie, and 210 feet above lake Michigan, which is one hundred feet less in elevation than the state of Ohio. Two ridges of mountains, or rather hills, traverse the country; the Knobs, or Silver-hills, running ten miles below Louisville, in a north-eastern direction, and the Illinois mountains appearing from the west, and running to the north-east, where they fall to a level with the high plains of lake Michigan. These hills have a perfect sameness. The climate is rather milder than that of Ohio. Cotton and tobacco are raised by the farmers in sufficient quantities for their home consumption. The growth of timber is the same as in Ohio. The vallies are interspersed with sycamores and beeches; and below the falls, with maples, and cotton and walnut-trees. The hills are covered with beech, sassafras, and logwood. This state, though not inferior to Ohio in fertility, and taken in general, perhaps, superior to it, has one great defect. It has no sufficient water communication, and thus the inhabitants have no market for their produce. There is not in this state any river of importance, the Ohio which washes its southern borders excepted. A scarcity of money therefore is more severely felt here, than in any other state of the Union. This want of inter-communication, added to the circumstance that the state of Ohio had already engrossed the whole surplus population from the eastern states, had a prejudicial effect upon Indiana, its original population being in general by no means so respectable as that of Ohio. In the north-west it was peopled by French emigrants, from Canada; in the south, on the banks of the Ohio, and farther up, by Kentuckians, who fled from their country for debt, or similar causes.

The state thus became the refuge of adventurers and idlers of every description. A proof of this may be seen in the character of its towns, as well as in the nature of the improvements that have been carried on in the country. The towns, though some of them had an earlier existence than many in Ohio, are, in point of regularity, style of building, and cleanliness, far inferior to those of the former state. The wandering spirit of the inhabitants seems still to contend with the principle of steadiness in the very construction of their buildings. They are mostly a rude set of people, just emerging from previous bad habits, from whom such friendly assistance as honest neighbours afford, or mutual intercourse and good will, can hardly be expected. The case is rather different in the interior of the country, and on the Wabash, the finest part of the state, where respectable settlements have been formed by Americans from the east. Wherever the latter constitute the majority, every necessary assistance may be expected.

For adventurers of all descriptions, Indiana holds out allurements of every kind. Numbers of Germans, French, and Irish, are scattered in the towns, and over the country, carrying on the business of bakers, grocers, store, grog shops, and tavern keepers. In time, these people will become steady from necessity, and consequently prosperous. The number of the inhabitants of Indiana amounts to 215,000. Its admission into the Union as a sovereign state, dates from the year 1815 to 1816; its constitution differs in some points from that of Ohio, and its governor is elected for the term of three years.Madisonville, the seat of justice for Jefferson-county, on the second bank of the Ohio, fifty-seven miles above its falls, contains at present 180 dwelling-houses, a court-house, four stores, three inns, a printing office—with 800 inhabitants, most of them Kentuckians. The innkeeper of the tavern at which I alighted, does no credit to the character of this people. He was engaged for some time in certain bank-note affairs, which qualified him for an imprisonment of ten years; he escaped, however, by the assistance of his legal friends, and of 1000 dollars. The opportunity of testifying his gratitude to these gentlemen soon presented itself. One of his neighbours, a boatman, had the misfortune to possess a wife who attracted his attention. Her husband knowing the temper of the man, resolved to sell all he had, and to move down to Louisville. Some days before his intended departure, he met Sheets in the street, and addressed him in these words: “Mr. Sheets, I ought to chastise you for making such shameful proposals to my wife;” so saying, he gently touched him with his cane. Sheets, without uttering a syllable, drew his poniard, and stabbed him in the breast. The unfortunate husband fell, exclaiming, “Oh, God! I am a dead man!”—“Not yet,” said Sheets, drawing his poniard out of the wound, and running it a second time through his heart; “Now, my dear fellow, I guess we have done.” This monster was seized and imprisoned, and his trial took place. His countrymen took, as might be expected, a great interest in his fate. With the assistance of 3000 dollars, he even this time escaped the gallows. I read the issue of the trial, and the summons of the jury, in the county paper of 1823, which was actually handed to me in the evening by one of the guests. But a more remarkable circumstance is, that the inhabitants continue to frequent his tavern. At first they stayed away for some weeks; but in less than a month the affair was forgotten, and his house is now visited as before.

The road from Madison to Charleston, leads through a fertile country, in some parts well cultivated. The distance from Madison is twenty-eight miles. It is the chief town of Clark county, and seems to advance more rapidly than Madison, the country about being pretty well peopled, and agriculture having made more progress than in any part of the state through which I had travelled. I found it to contain 170 houses and 750 inhabitants, five well stored tradesmen’s shops, a printing office, and four inns. The town is about a mile distant from the river, on a high plain. When I arrived, the court was going to adjourn, and I hastened to the court-house. The presiding judge and his two associate judges were in their tribune, and the parties seated on boards laid across the stumps of trees. One of the lawyers having concluded his speech, the defendant was called upon. The gentleman in question, whom I took for a pedlar, stood close by my side in conversation with his party, holding in his hand half an apple, his teeth having taken a firm bite of the other half. At the moment his name was called, he walked with his mouth full, up to the rostrum, and kept eating his apple with perfect indifference. “Well,” interrupted the judge impatient of the delay; “what have you to say against the charge? You know it is high time to break up the court, and I must go home.” The gentleman at the bar now pocketted his apple, and having thus augmented the store of provision which he probably kept by him, looked as if he carried two knapsacks behind his coat. “It strikes me mightily,”—was the exordium of this speech, which in point of elegance and conciseness was a true sample of back-wood eloquence. Fortunately the speaker took the judge’s hint; in less than half an hour he had done—in less than one hour the jurymen returned a verdict, the county transactions were finished, and the court broke up.

From Charleston to Louisville, the distance is fourteen miles. The lands are fertile. Several very well looking farms shew a higher degree of cultivation, especially near Jeffersonville. There the road turns into an extensive valley formed by the alluvions of the Ohio. Jeffersonville, the seat of justice for Floyd-county, three quarters of a mile above the falls of the Ohio, was laid out in 1802, and has since increased to 160 houses, among which are a bank, a Presbyterian church, a warehouse, a cotton manufactory, a court-house, and an academy, with a land office, for the disposal of the United States’ lands. The commerce of the inhabitants, 800 in number, is of some importance, though checked by the vicinity of Louisville, and by the circumstance, that the falls on the Indiana side are not to be approached, except at the highest rise. Two miles below this town, is the village of Clarksville, laid out in 1783, and forming part of the grant made to officers and soldiers of the Illinois regiment. It contains sixty houses and 300 inhabitants. New Albany, a mile below Clarksville, has a thousand inhabitants, and a great deal of activity, owing to its manufactory of steam engines, its saw mills, and the steam boats lying at anchor and generally repairing there. It is a place of importance, and though hitherto the resort of sailors, boatmen, and travellers, who go down the river in their own boats, it is annually on the increase.

The Ohio is generally crossed above the falls at Jeffersonville. The sheet of water dammed up here by the natural ledge of rocks which forms the falls, expands to 5,230 feet in breadth. The falls of the Ohio, though they should not properly be called falls, cannot be seen when crossing the river, and the waters do not pour like the falls of Niagara over an horizontal rock down a considerable depth, but press through a rocky bed, about a mile long, which spreads across the river, and causes a decline of twenty-two feet in the course of two miles. When the waters are high, the rocks and the falls disappear entirely. Seen from Louisville at low water, they have by no means an imposing appearance. The majestic and broad river branches off into several small creeks, and assumes the form of mountain torrents forcing their way through the ledge of rocks. When the river rises, and only three islands are to be seen, the immense sheet of water rushing down the declivity at the rate of thirteen miles an hour, must afford a magnificent spectacle. At the time I saw it, the river was lower than it had been for a series of years.