Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/203

 captain Taylor, a man of good property in Mercer county, who was an enthusiastick admirer of it, was prevailed on by the governour to undertake the management and superintendance, and it has since not only supported itself, but has earned a surplus, which goes into the state treasury. Taylor is a stern man of steady habits, and a great mechanical genius. He superintends every class of workmen himself, and has invented several machines for the improvement of mechanicks. He has nailors, coopers, chair makers, turners, and stone cutters, the latter of whom cut and polish marble slabs of all sizes, and he has taught most of them himself.

He is a large and strong man, about fifty years of age, and either through eccentricity, or to give himself a terrifick appearance, he wears his dark brown beard about two inches long, from each ear round the lower part of the chin. It is surely a strange taste, which prompts him to separate himself from his family and the world, to exercise a petty tyranny over felons, and to live in such constant apprehension from them, that, as I was informed, he always carries pistols.

We resisted the polite and friendly importunity of Mr. Hunter, to spend the day with him, and quitting Frankfort, we took a different route to that by which we had come, which brought us, after riding ten miles mostly through woods, to Coles's, who keeps an inn on this road, in opposition to Daly, on the other. But any traveller, who has once contrasted his rough vulgarity, and the badness of his table and accommodations, with the taste, order, plenty, and good attendance of his mulatto competitor, will {174} never trouble Mr. Coles a second time, especially as there is no sensible difference in the length or goodness of the roads, and that by Daly's, is through a generally much better settled country.

We got back to Lexington on Monday, 3d August, in time for breakfast, which I partook of at the publick table of the Traveller's Inn, merely for curiosity, but notwithstand