Pennsylvania Scenery

For a larger view and a map featuring the scene’s location, click on the image above.

Attributed to James Trenchard 
American, 1747–after 1793
A View on the Juniatta River
Etching and engraving, 3 3/16 x 6 5/8 inches
Published in the August 1788 issue of The Columbian Magazine
Partial gift and purchase from John C. O’Connor and Ralph M. Yeager
86.644

This view along the Juniata River is presumed to have been executed by James Trenchard, one of the founders of The Columbian Magazine. For two years, beginning in 1789, he also served as the journal’s publisher.
    
The etching accompanies an article in The Columbian on the Juniata River. After discussing a difficult passage through the boulder-strewn "Long Narrows" near present-day Lewistown, the text describes another pass, through Jack’s Mountain, just west of the town of Mount Union, "which is rather worse than the other, but of shorter extent; being formed of larger and ruder masses of rock than at the other pass, and the road oftentimes running under water, which, added to the difficulties in common here met with, renders it extremely dangerous." 

In the print’s lower left, two travelers attempt to negotiate said road, while farther downstream, others traverse the river at Drake’s Ferry, a crossing established near Mount Union in 1783.