TRAVEL TO CINCINNATI IN 1853
EDITED BY WILLIAM D. HOYT, JR.
Writers have described the hardships of
travel in the middle
of the nineteenth century, when
railroads were in their infancy,
but few accounts are as expressive or as
vivid as that penned by
the Honorable Peter Vivian Daniel,
Associate Justice of the
Supreme Court of the United States,
while on his way to the
Mississippi Valley to hold judicial
sessions in his circuit. A
letter written to his daughter from the
river boat Fall's City at
the Cincinnati wharf, April 7, 1853,1
leaves no doubt as to
Daniel's opinion of the service rendered
by the Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad. He branded the operations
as "premature and
out of order," and said the effect
on the traveler was confusion,
delay, annoyance and risk. The number of
hours consumed en
route from Washington to Wheeling nearly
tripled the journey,
and the lack of food was particularly
exhausting. At the same
time, the Justice appreciated the
magnitude of the undertaking
and the grandeur of the precipitous
country through which the
track wound its way. In contrast, too,
he praised the accommo-
dations on the boat, which was also
owned by the Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad Company. It is true that
he received especially
favorable treatment there, and so he may
have felt more in-
clined to view the vessel and its
accommodations with kindly
eyes.
Peter Vivian Daniel (1784-1860) was a
Virginian who had
served long and ably in the legislature
and the council of his
native state. Andrew Jackson offered him
a place in the Cabinet
as attorney-general in place of Taney,
but Daniel declined and
later, in 1836, was made judge of the
United States District
Court for Virginia. At the time of the
trip in question, he was
approaching the twelfth anniversary of
his appointment to the
1 The letter is among papers
deposited recently in the Alderman Library at the
University of Virginia by Mr. William
Randolph Grymes, of Orange.
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