Description

Among the numerous journals and narratives of travel during the Colonial period, few are so lively and so full of good-humored comment on people and customs as the Itinerarium of Dr. Hamilton. The subject of this volume is a journey which Dr. Hamilton undertook in 1744, leaving Annapolis May 30, and travelling overland northward through New Castle, Wilmington, and Chester to Philadelphia. Mr. Hasell, of Barbados, whom he had expected to travel with him from Annapolis, he found at Philadelphia, where he stayed a week. June 13, he resumed his journey and spent three days on the road to New York, crossing the Delaware near Bristol, and passing through Trenton and Princeton to Perth Amboy; and thence, via three ferries, to Staten Island, across the Narrows, and across the East River to New York, that being apparently the surest and most convenient route. After six days in New York, he started, June 21, in a sloop for Albany, together with Rev. John Miln, formerly a clergyman in Albany. The journey up occupied nearly five days; he stayed about a week in and around Albany and spent three days on the return sloop journey. After five days' stay in New York, July 5 to 10, he started eastward with two Boston merchants, journeying through Long Island to the neighborhood of Montauk Point, thence across the Sound to New London, and thence through Stonington, Newport, Bristol, and Dedham to Boston, the whole journey occupying eight days. At Boston he stayed ten days, and then, July 28, started northward, stopping at Marblehead, Salem, Ipswich, and Newbury, to Portsmouth and New Castle, and back by the same route, a week's journey in all. After about two weeks in Boston, he started southward August 18, going through Providence and Bristol to Newport, where he stayed a week. He resumed his travels August 24, passing New London, Saybrook, New Haven, and Norwalk to New York, a week's journey. The second visit in New York occupied two weeks; he left September 13, and after five days' stay in Philadelphia, reached home again September 27, having travelled, as he records it, 1624 miles.