Hot Springs: Alexander Dick Journal, August 30, 1808
The Hot Springs resort as drawn by Porte Crayon in 1857. The large hotel, the Homestead, was built by Dr. Thomas Goode in 1846. {1}
A Scottish accountant, Alexander Dick, was sent by Parliament in 1806 to investigate pre-Revolutionary War debts. He spent several years in the United States and kept a diary of his travels. To escape the summer heat of Richmond he traveled to the mountains of Virginia and visited both Warm Springs and Hot Springs. His entry for August 30th, 1808, described the Hot Springs. This excerpt is from a transcription of the original, fragile journal owned by the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia follows.
“We rode to day to the Hot Springs Six Miles farther on. These are not so copious as the Warm Springs, but they are remarkable on account of the Variety of their temperatures—One of them is 90, & within a few feet of it there is a very Cold Spring which Sinks the thermr. to 53—There is another about a hundred yards distant at 96. —One at 100 & one So high as 106—After bathing in this last for 15 or 20 Minutes the Patient is laid on a bed between blankets where he Sweats profusively for a half or 3 Quarters of an hour. The water here however is not So clear as at the Warm Springs—Returned to there last before dinner.” {Dick, 289-90}
Alexander Dick, Journal of Alexander Dick in America 1806-1809 [edited by] Helen Beall Lewis, Helen Beall Lewis’ thesis (M.A.)–University of Virginia, 1984.
Image Credits
- {1} David Hunter Strother, Virginia Illustrated: Containing a Visit to the Virginian Canaan, and the Adventures of Porte Crayon [pseud.] and His Cousins, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1857: p. 135. University of Virginia Library.
