conscientious, and fair-minded.

One of the most amiable and clear-headed of such foreign guests
was Francis Baily, later in life president of the Royal
Astronomical Society of Great Britain, but at the time of his
American tour a young man of twenty-two. His journey in 1796-97
gave him a wide experience of stage, flatboat, and pack-horse
travel, and his genial disposition, his observant eye, and his
discriminating criticism, together with his comments on the
commercial features of the towns and regions he visited, make his
record particularly interesting and valuable to the historian.*
Using Baily's journal as a guide, therefore, one can today
journey with him across the country and note the passing show as
he saw it in this transitional period.

* "Journal of a Tour in Unsettled Parts of North America in 1796
and 1797" by the late Francis Baily (London, 1856).


Landing at Norfolk, Virginia, Baily was immediately introduced to
an American tavern. Like most travelers, he was surprised to find
that American taverns were "boarding-places," frequented by
crowds of "young, able-bodied men who seemed to be as perfectly
at leisure as the loungers of ancient Europe." In those days of
few newspapers, the tavern everywhere in America was the center
of information; in fact, it was a common practice for travelers
in the interior, after signing their names in the register, to
add on the same page any news of local interest which they
brought with them. The tavern habitues, Baily remarks, did not
sit and drink after meals but "wasted" their time at billiards