Alexandria Gazette

Correspondence of the Cour. & Enquirer.

Hancock, (Md) July, 1837.

In accordance with my promise, I transmit you a brief account of some of my peregrinations.

I commence with a few particulars relative to the construction of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, the noble pet of the comparatively undersized but truly enterprising State of Maryland.

Upwards of one hundred and thirty miles of the work are completed; that is, from Washington to within a short distance of this place. Fifty or sixty miles more, and the canal will reach the valuable iron and coal regions in the environs of Cumberland. A portion of this distance is rapidly assuming the form and features of a canal; for more than three thousand men are employed in its construction, and in verity, they are earning their bread by the sweat of their brows, these "dog days" melting moments. You may judge of the spirited measures of the Company, and the desire for an early completion of this great undertaking, by the fact that there are eight corps of engineers stationed on the line between this place and Cumberland, and that the contractors received seventy thousand dollars for work done in April, and their forces have been on the increase ever since. The upper part of the line I understand is staked out and ready for letting.

The whole work will be under contract in a week or two. Be assured that this grand enterprise has proved an oasis in the desert of the nation's distress to hundreds of laborers and mechanics, who without this employment would have been with their families in the clutches of starvation. Common laborers get from $1.12½ to $1.31 cents per day; blacksmiths and rough carpenters, about $1.50, and stone masons from $1.25 to $2. Irishmen are not so numerous on this public construction as they were formerly. Those who are here now are orderly and well behaved.

I purpose visiting the Tunnel, which is commenced some distance up the line. Eighteen English miners have just passed through here for that site, having been sent for expressly from Old England to undertake that work. Some of them are handsome Dirk-Hatterick looking fellows. When I saw them, English like they were endeavoring to conjugate the verb to grumble. It appears that some money loving Yankee engaged to charter two coaches, and pay all these miners' expenses on the road from Baltimore to Hancock for a certain sum from each individual. He certainly chartered the coaches, but the men complained most bitterly to me that he only allowed them one meal in twenty-four hours. This is hard upon an Englishman, who at home expects four meals a-day, and who is but a mediocre biped at anything, except grumbling, unless he is well fed.

The crops in this and the neighboring counties have improved astonishingly. The corn looks luxuriantly beautiful. Wheat will turn out to be a pretty fair crop; rye and oats are abundant, but much of the hay has been spoiled by the frequent showers; the oldest inhabitants do not remember so great an improvement in the crops of grain as this season has produced. For instance; one farmer eight weeks ago, offered to take thirty five bushels of wheat for the whole of his crop of that grain. He now assures me he expects to make two hundred and forty bushels of merchantable wheat. The rye harvest commenced in this vicinity this morning

More from me anon.