Manuscript journal of a tour of New York State and the Niagara Peninsula, Upper Canada (now Ontario), 15 August-1 September 1816, written by a Welsh Old Etonian, possibly Pierce Wynne Yorke.
The writer and his companion (identified only as Richard, see ff. 18 and 45) leave New York City on 15 August 1816 (f. 1) and travel by steamer and wagon up the Hudson River valley (ff. 1-10 verso) to Albany, staying there 17-20 August (ff. 10 verso-16); they then continue overland, visiting Utica, 21-[23] August (ff. 21-24 verso), the Finger Lakes (ff. 28 verso-33 verso), and Buffalo, 28-29 August (ff. 35 verso, 38 verso). After crossing the Niagara River into Upper Canada they visit Niagara Falls, 29 August-1 September (ff. 40 verso-45), and continue to Newark [Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario] on 1 September (f. 45 verso). The volume contains frequent references to their accommodation, travel arrangements and the often unseasonable weather (1816 being the so called 'Year without a Summer'), as well as descriptions of the scenery and flora, agricultural practices, Indigenous Americans, American manners and politics and the effects of the War of 1812. Also included, in pencil, are a verse on Col. Cecil Bisshopp (inside front cover), brief accounts of bills paid (f. i) and mostly illegible notes apparently relating to the contents of the journal (inside back cover). The author is not named but evidently has close connections with North Wales (see ff. 4 recto-verso, 5 verso, 27 verso, 28 verso-29 verso, 45), is an Old Etonian and a schoolfriend of Bisshopp, whose grave he visits at Lundy's Lane, Niagara (see f. 44); Pierce (or Peirce) Wynne Yorke of Dyffryn Aled appears to be the most plausible candidate.
