John Milton Binckley, June 1859 Travel Diary, Page 20

[John Milton Binckley, June 1859 Travel Diary, page 20. Many thanks to William Myers, Mary Davy, Sally Young and Sue Davis for their ongoing research collaboration; specifically to William for providing scans of the original document, and in turn many thanks to Peter Johnston Binckley and Patricia D'Arcy "Trish" Binckley (1951-2007), at the source. This is my rough transcription. Extra paragraph breaks inserted for easier reading.]

All along I have noticed the "lightning bugs" glowing in the air. Cumberland looks like a collection of them, permanently glimmering. Over the town hangs a cloud, with a gloomy brooding, like remorse on a soul. But it is only the smoke of the city, falling, & made visible in the dark, faintly, by the city lights shining upward against it. The scene Even in the dark, is fine. The mountains rise up very high beyond the town, but in this dark, seem to overhang it. Pass a hotel on the corner, the same where several years ago, I recognized in the parlor unmistakably, a certain picture painted by father in his youth.

2 June '59. Now midnight. 2nd June.

I get a little dull -- can't talk -- can't see. There through the car doors, I see the other car doors, glass, & objects fantastically. I fancy the scene  car beyond the car is in the street of some strange city. Let me suppose the great London. Here let Dickens' Monmouth street come in, & scores of Jewish old clothesmen and motley groups. I see them all. . . be it gay Paris, and all the elegant [to be continued.]

[For stunning photographs taken along the Baltimore & Ohio one year earlier, see "Industrial Art: The 1858 Artists’ Excursion over the B&O Railroad," Underbelly:  FROM THE DEEPEST CORNERS OF THE MARYLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY LIBRARY, December 5, 2013. Link here.]

[John Milton Binckley (1831-1878).
Father = John Henry Binckley (1788-1849).]