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Every good thing for the sick and sane is to be found here in the greatest abundance. At breakfast, twelve to fifteen different kinds of wheat, bran, maize, buckwheat, rye, rice, hot and cold bread and cakes; milk without water and cream without milk; coffee and tea, green and black; sausages, eggs, honey, maple molasses, and cheese; mutton and venison chops, fried and boiled; fried chickens and cold corned beef and ham – and all these well cooked and arranged on a snow white tablecloth supported by a table having ample room and verge enough for all the guests to sit comfortably and partake of the aforesaid dainties without indecent hurry.

At dinner you have venison, beef and mutton; turkeys, ducks and chickens; corned beef and ham, cooked in all sorts of ways, and followed by a dessert consisting of a variety of excellent pastry and preserves, with abundance of rich milk and cream. For supper, see the foregoing account of breakfast. The butter is always fresh and good and made in their own dairy, which go and look at; Mr. Caruthers will show it to you with much pleasure, and he has a right to be proud of it.

Source: “Peregrine Prolix” (Philip Holbrook Nicklin), Letters Descriptive of the Virginia Springs, 1837.