Little is known about Fortescue Cuming, the author. Editor Reuben G. Thwaites concluded from clues in the account that “he appears to have been an Englishman of culture and refinement, who had travelled extensively in other lands…” Thwaites, who had edited dozens of travel journals, found him an excellent travel reporter. He wrote in his Preface that Cumings had, “…an intelligent, open mind, free from local prejudices, and with trained habits of observation.” “In plain, dispassionate style, he has given us a picture of American life in the West, at the beginning of the 19th century, that for clear-cut outlines and fidelity of presentation has the effect of a series of photographic representations.”

The journals here cover two journeys. The first began in January 1807, and started as a pedestrian tour from Philadelphia to Pittsburg. After a stay of several months in Pittsburgh he continued by boat down the Ohio River to Maysville KY. He then visited Lexington and Frankfurt, crossed the Ohio, and traveled the new state road through Chillicothe, Lancaster and Zanesville to Wheeling. Then he returned to Pittsburgh. The second narrative starts at Maysville in 1808 and describes his voyage down the Ohio and Mississippi to Bayou Pierre, and then a horseback trip in Mississippi Territory.