Canal Reminiscences / Recollections of Travel in the Old Days on the James River & Kanawha Canal

The author offers nostalgic vignettes of 19th-century inland travel in Virginia, describing slow canal packet and batteau journeys, the skills and daily life of boatmen, stagecoach rides, and bustling packet landings. Observations mix practical detail—cargoes, cooking, poles and oars, river hazards—with social commentary on merchants, townspeople, and economic anxieties, often delivered with wry humor. Sketches recall landscapes, inns, and local characters while reflecting on technological change and the canal's decline, juxtaposing past leisure and abundance with contemporary worries about commerce and progress.