"My First Day in America"

Amherstburg, Tuesday, September 16th, 1823 – This morning at daylight I called on Mr Briscoe. We took breakfast at 6 am [another early start!] and set out northeast of Amherstburg. He took his dogs and gun and proved himself, before we had been out two hours, a marksman of the first sort.

This is what I might term my first day in America

The trees in the woods were of astonishing magnitude. The soil, in general, over which we passed was a very rich black earth, and seemed to be formed of decomposed vegetables. On the southeast of the town, near the margin of Lake Erie, the soil is of a reddish cast and produces fine crops of Indian corn; and now for the last four years, I learn they have cultivated tobacco with great success for the Montreal market.

Towards mid-afternoon the rain fell in torrents, urging us to leave the woods drenched in wet.

Interesting, this. Douglas's ship dropped anchor on August 3rd, he has been active in New York and Philadelphia, but it is only now, on September 16th that he considers himself as having his first day in America. I guess that is because this is the first day on which he considers himself properly 'in the field' and ready for plant collecting. Ironically, on modern maps he isn't actually in America at all but in Canada!! And here we see another reference to rain falling in torrents, a description which will become all too familiar a few years later when he is in the Pacific North West!

On the road again - rain falling in torrents

Sunday, September 7th, 1823

This morning at 5 I was awakened with tremendous peals of thunder. On my looking out of the window the streets were quite inundated; the town standing on a gentle declivity, the water rushed with great rapidity.

I waited at 12 on the Governor, who said that his opinion was for me to proceed to Canada without delay, the season being far advanced, and particularly as the steamboat ‘Superior’ was to sail from Buffalo on Saturday next.

After giving me letters of introduction to all the places of science or influence on my line of journey, accompanied with a small guide and verbal instruction, I prepared to leave Albany, calculating to see it perfectly on my return. I wrote to Jos Sabine Esq., [at the Horticultural Society].

Left Albany at 4 o’clock for Schenectady [around 15 miles], where I arrived at 9 o’clock of the same evening; the rain fell in torrents all the way.  Ah David, it always does in your world!

Douglas was always assiduous in schmoozing people who could assist his endeavours. Here he is with Governor DeWitt Clinton, driving force behind the construction of the Erie Canal, of which we'll hear more later. Clinton was a serious politician, previously Mayor of New York, presidential candidate and State Governor.  Whoever wrote Douglas's introductions had no qualms about starting at the top.  

As when he met Dr David Hosack in New York City it's instructive to see a still-young gardener from Perthshire mixing in the upper echelons of American society.  If Douglas was once a shy boy he's showing little sign of it here.  Although we don't know how much he was having to gear himself up for these encounters he seems to have no hesitation about working his networks and getting stuck in.  

It's amusing too to hear Douglas complaining of the rain falling in torrents. This became a recurring theme in his later voyages in the Pacific North West.