DOCUMENT
FROM PITTSBURGH TO SHAWNEE TOWN, 1819
Edited by WILLIAM D. HOYT, JR.
Maryland Historical Society
The people living along the Ohio River
"are miserably defi-
cient in morals principles and manners,
and much addicted to
drinking profanity and idleness."
Thus wrote Joseph Proud to
Nathaniel G. Maxwell from Shawnee Town,
Illinois, December
22, 1819. The letter containing these sentiments provides an in-
teresting picture of travel down the
Ohio at the close of the second
decade of the nineteenth century. The
country was not yet thickly
settled, and Proud's comment on the
"wretched log cabins" of
the inhabitants indicates something of
the pioneer conditions still
prevailing. Cincinnati, on the other
hand, was "a noble looking
town" with a population of ten
thousand people, two thousand
homes, and seven churches or meeting
houses. Shawnee Town
itself was not so wonderful, although it
was the scene of consid-
erable activity connected with emigrants
bound to the Missouri
and other westward points. Between
descriptions of the sights
along the river, the people living on
the banks, and the several
settlements, Proud inserted remarks on
the state of business, par-
ticularly the comparative costs of real
estate in the different
regions.
Joseph Proud (d. 1822) was the youngest
son of John and
Lurana Proud, of New Bedford,
Massachusetts. One of his
brothers, John Greene Proud, moved to
Baltimore, Maryland, to
engage in trade, and his eldest sister,
Ann, was the wife of
Nathaniel G. Maxwell (1775-1827), a
Baltimore bookseller and
stationer, who was the recipient of this
letter. Joseph Proud
continued his voyage down the
Mississippi and died at sea while
homeward bound from New Orleans less
than three years after
his stop at Shawnee Town.
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