Beginning the retreat

Thursday, September 25th, 1823 – I packed my gleanings of plants and seeds and specimens, and stood in readiness for the steamboat from Detroit, which came in the afternoon. In company with Mr Briscoe and family during the whole of the passage; we experienced a motion that could not be surpassed in an ocean. It blew a tempest the whole of the time. Towards Midnight on Sunday 28th we reached Buffalo, one of the wheels of the boat being swept away, and otherwise disabled.

Effectively, this marks the northern limit of Douglas's journeyings on this trip. He goes on to botanise around Niagara for a couple of days but in practice he has now given up on Canada and started to turn back towards New York. 

And what a journey back to Buffalo! He sets sail on, let's say, Thursday evening and reaches Buffalo just before midnight on Sunday. So he has spent three full days being tossed about in a tempest on Lake Erie, in a steamboat which is gravely disabled and must have been at some risk of foundering. I can't help thinking he has been lucky on this part of his journey and is perhaps secretly glad to be heading back to NYC.

Working hard in Buffalo

Saturday, September 13th, 1823 – Early in the morning I wrote to Jos. Sabine Esq., [Secretary of the Horticultural Society back in London] and then called on Oliver Forward, Esq., a gentleman of considerable wealth and friend of Governor Clinton. I took a walk around town and returned to breakfast. 

Went on board the steamboat at 9 o’clock am and sailed at 10, and after a pleasant passage of sixty hours landed at Amherstburg. As soon as I got my trunk on shore I waited on Mr Briscoe, from whom I received great kindness; he readily pledged his exertions for the furtherance of the Society’s objects. I spent the [Monday] evening with him and should tomorrow prove a good day we intend to make an excursion in the woods.

Two things strike me about this latest entry from Douglas. Firstly, just how hard he is working. He didn't arrive in Buffalo until midnight Friday. By 9am Saturday he has written to London, walked round the town, paid a schmoozing call on Oliver Forward, who is actually Judge Oliver Forward and THE leading citizen of the area, had breakfast and boarded the steamboat for a voyage down the whole length of Lake Erie. It leaves you out of breath just reading it. 

And secondly, there is an interesting paper in the US Library of Congress describing the life of Judge Oliver Forward, which gives an interesting insight into the condition of the territory around Buffalo in the early 1800s. It's well worth a read. And, incidentally, Amherstburg is on the now-Canadian side of the Detroit River, directly opposite modern-day Detroit. Back then, that whole area had only recently been disputed territory between Britain and the USA. 

 

The paper above gives an interesting description of Buffalo in 1811, only twelve years before Douglas arrived.  Although Buffalo had grown to be a settlement of some 2500 souls by 1823 it was doubtless still very similar to the 1811 description:

 

 

 The difficulties of operating vessels out of Buffalo Creek are well described.  In short order they became intolerable and Judge Forward led a Committee charged with constructing a harbour.  It was not without difficulties and almost went to the neighbouring settlement of Black Rock:

But, despite last minute problems, the harbour was built, a new steamer - The Superior - was built, and Buffalo's future was secured.  It's highly likely that the newly-built Superior is the steamship on which Douglas sailed Lake Erie to Amherstburg.