Chapter VII: Preface: To Volume III (6)

Within a mile and a half of West Liberty Town the road passes through a narrow valley about four miles long, the borders of which, elevated in {80} many places from twenty-five to thirty feet, present several beds of coal from five to six feet thick, growing horizontally. This substance is extremely common in all that part of Pennsylvania and Virginia; but as the country is nothing but one continued forest, and its population scarce, these mines are of no account. On the other hand, were they situated in the eastern states, where they burn, in the great towns, coals imported from England, their value would be great.

The trees that grow in this valley are very close together, and of large diameter, and their species more varied than in any country I had seen before.

Wheeling, situated on one of the lofty banks of the Ohio, has not been above twelve years in existence: it consists of about seventy houses, built of wood, which, as in all the new towns of the United States, are separated by an interval of several fathoms. This little town is bounded by a long hill, nearly two hundred fathoms high, the base of which is not more than two hundred fathoms from the river. In this space the houses are built, forming but one street, in the middle of which is the main road, which follows the windings of the river for a distance of more than two hundred miles. From fifteen to twenty large {81} shops, well stocked, supply the inhabitants twenty miles round with provisions. This little town also shares in the export trade that is carried on at Pittsburgh with the western country. Numbers of the merchants at Philadelphia prefer sending their goods there, although the journey is a day longer: but this trifling inconvenience is well compensated by the advantage gained in avoiding the long winding which the Ohio makes on leaving Pittsburgh, where the numerous shallows and the slow movement of the stream, in summer time, retard the navigation.

We passed the night at Wheeling with Captain Reymer, who keeps the sign of the Waggon, and takes in boarders at the rate of two piastres a-week. The accommodation, on the whole, is very comfortable, provisions in that part of the country being remarkably cheap. A dozen fowls could be bought for one piastre, and a hundred weight of flour was then only worth a piastre and a half.

{82} CHAP. IX

_Departure from Wheeling for Marietta.--Aspect of the Banks of
the Ohio.--Nature of the Forests.--Extraordinary size of
several kinds of Trees._

On the 18th of July in the morning we purchased a canoe, twenty-four feet long, eighteen inches wide, and about as many in depth. These canoes are always made with a single trunk of a tree; the pine and tulip tree are preferred for that purpose, the wood being very soft. These canoes are too narrow to use well with oars, and in shallow water are generally forced along either with a paddle or a staff. Being obliged at times to shorten our journey by leaving the banks of the river, where one is under shade, to get into the current, or to pass from one point to another, and be exposed to the heat of a scorching sun, we covered our canoe a quarter of its length with a piece of cloth thrown {83} upon two hoops. In less than three quarters of an hour we made up our minds to continue our journey by water; notwithstanding we were obliged to defer our departure till the afternoon, to wait for provisions which we might have wanted by the way; as the inhabitants who live in different parts upon the banks of the river are very badly supplied.

We left Wheeling about five in the afternoon, made twelve miles that evening, and went to sleep on the right bank of the Ohio, which forms the boundary of the government, described by the name of the North West territory of the Ohio, and which is now admitted in the union under the denomination of the State of Ohio. Although we had made no more than twelve miles we were exceedingly fatigued, not so much by continually paddling as by remaining constantly seated with our legs extended. Our canoe being very narrow at bottom, obliged us to keep that position; the least motion would have exposed us to being overset. However, in the course of a few days custom made these inconveniences disappear, and we attained the art of travelling comfortably.

We took three days and a half in going to Marietta, about a hundred miles from Wheeling. Our {84} second day was thirty miles, the third forty, and on the fourth in the morning we reached this little town, situated at the mouth of the great Muskingum. The first day, wholly taken up with this mode of travelling, so novel to us, and which did not appear to me to be very safe, I did not bend my attention further; but on the following day, better used to this kind of navigation, I observed more tranquilly from our canoe, the aspect that the borders of this magnificent river presented.

Leaving Pittsburgh, the Ohio flows between two ridges, or lofty mountains, nearly of the same height, which we judged to be about two hundred fathoms. Frequently they appeared undulated at their summit, at other times it seemed as though they had been completely level. These hills continue uninterruptedly for the space of a mile or more, then a slight interval is observed, that sometimes affords a passage to the rivers that empty themselves into the Ohio; but most commonly another hill of the same height begins at a very short distance from the place where the preceding one left off. These mountains rise successively for the space of three hundred miles, and from our canoe we were enabled to observe them more distinctly, as they were more or less distant {85} from the borders of the river. Their direction is parallel to the chain of the Alleghanies; and although they are at times from forty to a hundred miles distant from them, and that for an extent of two hundred miles, one cannot help looking upon them as belonging to these mountains. All that part of Virginia situated upon the left bank of the Ohio is excessively mountainous, covered with forests, and almost uninhabited; where I have been told by those who live on the banks of the Ohio, they go every winter to hunt bears.

They give the name of river-bottoms and flat-bottoms to the flat and woody ground between the foot of these mountains and the banks of the river, the space of which is sometimes five or six miles broad. The major part of the rivers which empty themselves into the Ohio have also these river-bottoms, which, as well as those in question, are of an easy culture, but nothing equal to the fertility of the banks of the Ohio. The soil is a true vegetable _humus_, produced by the thick bed of leaves with which the earth is loaded every year, and which is speedily converted into mould by the humidity that reigns in these forests. But what adds still more to the thickness of these successive beds of vegetable {86} earth are the trunks of enormous trees, thrown down by time, with which the surface of the soil is bestrewed in every part, and which rapidly decays. In more than a thousand leagues of the country, over which I have travelled at different epochs, in North America, I do not remember having seen one to compare with the latter for the vegetative strength of the forests. The best sort of land in Kentucky and Tenessea, situated beyond the mountains of Cumberland, is much the same; but the trees do not grow to such a size as on the borders of the Ohio. Thirty-six miles before our arrival at Marietta we stopped at the hut of one of the inhabitants of the right bank, who shewed us, about fifty yards from his door, a palm-tree, or _platanus occidentalis_, the trunk of which was swelled to an amazing size; we measured it four feet beyond the surface of the soil, and found it forty-seven feet in circumference. It appeared to keep the same dimensions for the height of fifteen or twenty feet, it then divided into several branches of a proportionate size. By its external appearance no one could tell that the tree was hollow; however I assured myself it was by striking it in several places with a billet. Our host told us that if we would spend the day with him he would {87} shew us others as large, in several parts of the wood, within two or three miles of the river. This circumstance supports the observations which my father made, when travelling in that part of the country, that the poplar and palm are, of all the trees in North America, those that attain the greatest diameter.

“About fifteen miles,” said he, “up the river Muskingum, in a small island of the Ohio, we found a palm-tree, or _platanus occidentalis_, the circumference of which, five feet from the surface of the earth, where the trunk was most uniform, was forty feet four inches, which makes about thirteen feet in diameter. Twenty years prior to my travels, General Washington had measured this same tree, and had found it nearly of the same dimensions. I have also measured palms in Kentucky, but I never met with any above fifteen or sixteen feet in circumference. These trees generally grow in marshy places.

“The largest tree in North America, after the palm, is the poplar, or _liriodendron tulipifera_. Its circumference is sometimes fifteen, sixteen, and even eighteen feet: Kentucky is their native country; between Beard Town and Louisville we {88} saw several parts of the wood which were exclusively composed of them. The soil is clayey, cold and marshy; but never inundated.

“The trees that are usually found in the forests that border the Ohio are the palm, or _platanus occidentalis_; the poplar, the beach-tree, the _magnolia acuminata_, the _celtis occidentalis_, the acacia, the sugar-maple, the red maple, the _populus nigra_, and several species of nut-trees; the most common shrubs are, the _annona triloba_, the _evonimus latifolius_, and the _laurus bensoin_.”

{89} CHAP. X

_Marietta.--Ship building.--Departure for Gallipoli.--Falling in
with a Kentucky Boat.--Point-Pleasant.--The Great Kenhaway._

Marietta, the chief of the settlements on the New Continent, is situated upon the right bank of the Great Muskingum, at its _embouchure_ in the Ohio. This town, which fifteen years ago was not in existence, is now composed of more than two hundred houses, some of which are built of brick, but the greatest part of wood. There are several from two to three stories high, which are somewhat elegantly built; nearly all of them are in front of the Ohio. The mountains which from Pittsburgh run by the side of this river, are at Marietta some distance from its banks, and leave a considerable extent of even ground, which will facilitate, in every respect, the enlarging of the town upon a {90} regular plan, and afford its inhabitants the most advantageous and agreeable situations; it will not be attended with the inconveniences that are met with at Pittsburgh, which is locked in on all sides by lofty mountains.

The inhabitants of Marietta were the first that had an idea of exporting directly to the Carribbee Islands the produce of the country, in a vessel built in their own town, which they sent to Jamaica. The success which crowned this first attempt excited such emulation among the inhabitants of that part of the Western Country, that several new vessels were launched at Pittsburgh and Louisville, and expedited to the isles, or to New York and Philadelphia. The ship yard at Marietta is situated near the town, on the Great Muskingum. When I was there they were building three brigs, one of which was of two hundred and twenty tons burthen.

The river Muskingum takes its source toward Lake Eria; it is not navigable for two hundred miles from its mouth in the Ohio, where it is about a hundred and sixty fathoms broad.[32] The country that it runs through, and especially its banks, are extremely fertile.

Near the town of Marietta are the remains of several {91} Indian fortifications. When they were discovered, they were full of trees of the same nature as those of the neighbouring forests, some of which were upwards of three feet diameter. These trees have been hewn down, and the ground is now almost entirely cultivated with Indian corn.

Major-General Hart, with whose son I was acquainted at Marietta, gave, in the Columbia Magazine for the year 1787, Vol. I. No. 9, a plan and a minute description of these ancient fortifications of the Indians: the translation of which is given in his Travels in Upper Pennsylvania. This officer, of the most distinguished merit, fell in the famous battle that General St. Clair[33] lost in 1791, near Lake Eria, against the united savages. When I was at Marietta, General St. Clair was Governor of the State of Ohio, a post which he occupied till this state was admitted in the union. His Excellency coming from Pittsburgh and going to Chillicotha, alighted at the inn where I lodged. As he was travelling in an old chaise, and without a servant, he did not at first attract my attention. In the United States, those who are called by the wish of their fellow-citizens to exercise these important functions do not change their dress, continue dwelling in their own houses, {92} and live like private individuals, without showing more ostentation, or incurring more expense. The emoluments attached to this office varies in every state; that of South Carolina, one of the richest of the union, gives its governor 4280 piastres, while the Governor of Kentucky receives no more than twelve or fifteen hundred. The inhabitants of the State of Ohio are divided in opinion concerning the political conduct of General St. Clair. With respect to talents, he has the reputation of being a better lawyer than a soldier.

On the eve of my departure I met a Frenchman at Marietta, who is settled on the banks of the Great Muskingum, about twenty miles from the town. I regretted much my inability to accept the invitation that he gave me to go and see him at his plantation, which would have given me time to make more extensive observations in that part of the Western Country.

On the 21st of July we set out from Marietta for Gallipoli, which is a distance of about a hundred miles. We reached there after having been four days on the water. The inhabitants of the country, by putting off from the shore in the night time, would have made that passage in two days and a half {93} or three days. According to the calculation that we made, the mean force of the stream was about a mile and a half an hour; it is hardly to be perceived in those parts where the water is very deep; but as you get nearer the isles, which, as I have said before, are very numerous, the bed of the river diminishes in depth, so that frequently there is not a foot of water out of the main channel. Whenever we came near those shallows the swiftness of the current was extreme, and the canoe was carried away like an arrow, which led us to observe that it was only as we distanced the islands that the bed increases in depth, and that the stream becomes less rapid.

On the day of our departure we joined, in the evening, a Kentucky boat, destined for Cincinnati. This boat, about forty feet long and fifteen broad, was loaded with bar iron and brass pots. There was also an emigrant family in it, consisting of the father, mother, and seven children, with all their furniture and implements of husbandry. The boatmen, three in number, granted us, without difficulty, permission to fasten our canoe to the end of their boat, and to pass the night with them. We intended, by that means, to accelerate our journey, by not putting up {94} at night, as we had before been accustomed to do, and hoped to spend a more comfortable night than the preceding one, during which we had been sadly tormented by the fleas, with which the greater part of the houses where we had slept, from the moment of our embarkation, had been infested. However our hopes were frustrated; for so far from being comfortable, we were still more incommoded. In the course of my travels it was only on the banks of the Ohio that I experienced this inconvenience.

We were on the point of leaving them about two in the morning, when the boat ran aground. Under these circumstances we could not desert our hosts, who had entertained us with their best, and who had made us partake of a wild turkey which they had shot the preceding evening on the banks of the river. We got into the water with the boatmen, and by the help of large sticks that we made use of as oars succeeded in pushing the vessel afloat, after two hours’ painful efforts.

In the course of the night we passed the mouth of the Little Kenhaway, which, after having watered that part of Virginia, empties itself into the Ohio, on its right bank. Its borders are not inhabited for more than fifteen or twenty miles from its _embouchure_. {95} The remainder of the country is so mountainous that they will not think of forming settlements there this long time. About five miles on this side the mouth of this little river, and on the right bank of the Ohio, is situated Bellepree, where there are not more than a dozen houses; but the settlements formed in the environs increase rapidly. This intelligence was given us at a house where we stopped after having left the Kentucky boat.

On the 23d of July, about ten in the morning, we discovered Point Pleasant, situated a little above the mouth of the Great Kenhaway, at the extremity of a point formed by the right bank of this river, which runs nearly in a direct line as far as the middle of the Ohio. What makes the situation more beautiful is, that for four or five miles on this side the Point, the Ohio, four hundred fathoms broad, continues the same breadth the whole of that extent, and presents on every side the most perfect line. Its borders, sloping, and elevated from twenty-five to forty feet, are, as in the whole of its windings, planted, at their base, with willows from fifteen to eighteen feet in height, the drooping branches and foliage of which form a pleasing contrast to the sugar maples, red maples, and ash trees, situated immediately {96} above. The latter, in return, are overlooked by palms, poplars, beeches, magnolias of the highest elevation, the enormous branches of which, attracted by a more splendid light and easier expansion, extend toward the borders, overshadowing the river, at the same time completely covering the trees situated under them. This natural display, which reigns upon the two banks, affords on each side a regular arch, the shadow of which, reflected by the crystal stream, embellishes, in an extraordinary degree, this magnificent _coup d’œil_.

The Ohio at Marietta presents a perspective somewhat similar, perhaps even more picturesque than the one I have just described, through the houses of this little town, that we perceived five or six miles off, the situation of which is fronting the middle of the river, going up.

The Great Kenhaway, more known in the country under that denomination than by that of the New River, which it bears in some charts, takes its source at the foot of the Yellow Mountain in Tennessea, but the mass of its waters proceed from one part of the Alleghany Mountains. The falls and currents that are so frequently met with in this river, for upward {97} of four hundred miles, will always be an obstacle to the exportation, by the Ohio and the Mississippi, of provisions from the part of Virginia which it waters. Its banks are inhabited, but less than those of the Ohio.

{98} CHAP. XI

_Gallipoli.--State of the French colony Scioto.--Alexandria at
the mouth of the Great Scioto.--Arrival at Limestone in
Kentucky._

Gallipoli is situated four miles below Point Pleasant, on the right bank of the Ohio. At this place assembled nearly a fourth part of the French, who, in 1789 and 1790, left their country to go and settle at Scioto: but it was not till after a sojourn of fifteen months at Alexandria in Virginia, where they waited the termination of the war with the savages, that they could take possession of the lands which they had bought so dearly. They were even on the point of being dispossessed of them, on account of the disputes that arose between the Scioto Company and that of the Ohio, of whom the former had primitively purchased these estates; but scarcely had they arrived upon the soil that was destined for {99} them when the war broke out afresh between the Americans and Indians, and ended in the destruction of those unfortunate colonies. There is no doubt that, alone and destitute of support, they would have been all massacred, had it not been for the predilection which all the Indian nations round Canada and Louisiana have for the French. Again, as long as they did not take an active part in that war, they were not disturbed: but the American army having gained a signal advantage near the _embouchure_ of the Great Kenaway, and crossed the Ohio, the inhabitants of Gallipoli were united to it. From that time they were no longer protected, nor could they stir out of the inclosure of their village. Out of two that had strayed not more than two hundred yards, one was scalped and murdered, and the other carried a prisoner a great distance into the interior. When I was at Gallipoli they had just heard from him. He gained his livelihood very comfortably by repairing guns, and exercising his trade as a goldsmith in the Indian village where he lived, and did not express the least wish to return with his countrymen.

The war being terminated, the congress, in order to indemnify these unfortunate Frenchmen for the {100} successive losses which they had sustained, gave them twenty thousand acres of land situated between the small rivers Sandy and Scioto, seventy miles lower than Gallipoli. These twenty thousand acres were at the rate of two hundred and ten acres to every family. Those among them who had neither strength nor resolution enough to go a second time, without any other support than that of their children, to isolate themselves amidst the woods, hew down, burn, and root up the lower parts of trees, which are frequently more than five feet in diameter, and afterward split them to inclose their fields, sold their lots to the Americans or Frenchmen that were somewhat more enterprising. Thirty families only went to settle in their new possessions. Since the three or four years that they have resided there they have succeeded, by dint of labour, in forming for themselves tolerable establishments, where, by the help of a soil excessively fertile, they have an abundant supply of provisions; at least I conceived so, when I was there.

Gallipoli, situated on the borders of the Ohio, is composed solely of about sixty log-houses, most of which being uninhabited, are falling into ruins; the rest are occupied by Frenchmen, who breathe out a {101} miserable existence. Two only among them appear to enjoy the smallest ray of comfort: the one keeps an inn, and distills brandy from peaches, which he sends to Kentucky, or sells it at a tolerable advantage: the other, M. Burau, from Paris, by whom I was well entertained, though unacquainted with him. Nothing can equal the perseverance of this Frenchman, whom the nature of his commerce obliges continually to travel over the banks of the Ohio, and to make, once or twice a year, a journey of four or five hundred miles through the woods, to go to the towns situated beyond the Alleghany Mountains. I learnt from him that the intermittent fevers, which at first had added to the calamities of the inhabitants of Gallipoli, had not shown itself for upwards of three years. That, however, did not prevent a dozen of them going lately to New Orleans in quest of a better fortune, but almost all of them died of the yellow fever the first year after their arrival.

Such was the situation of the establishment of Scioto when I was there. Though they did not succeed better, it is not that the French are less persevering and industrious than the Americans and Germans; it is that among those who departed for Scioto not a tenth part were fit for the toils they {102} were destined to endure. However, it was not politic of the speculators, who sold land at five shillings an acre, which at that time was not worth one in America, to acquaint those whom they induced to purchase that they would be obliged, for the two first years, to have an axe in their hands nine hours a day; or that a good wood-cutter, having nothing but his hands, would be sooner at his ease on those fertile borders, but which he must, in the first place, clear, than he who, arriving there with two or three hundred guineas in his purse, is unaccustomed to such kind of labour. This cause, independent of the war with the natives, was more than sufficient to plunge the new colonists in misery, and stifle the colony in its birth.[34]

On the 25th of July we set out from Gallipoli for Alexandria, which is about a hundred and four miles distant, and arrived there in three days and a half. The ground designed for this town is at the mouth of the Great Scioto, and in the angle which the right bank of this river forms with the north west border of the Ohio. Although the plan of Alexandria has been laid out these many years, nobody goes to settle there; and the number of its houses is not more than twenty, the major part of which are {103} log-houses. Notwithstanding its situation is very favourable with regard to the numerous settlements already formed beyond the new town upon the Great Scioto, whose banks, not so high, and more marshy, are, it is said, nearly as fertile as those of the Ohio. The population would be much more considerable, if the inhabitants were not subject, every autumn, to intermittent fevers, which seldom abate till the approach of winter. This part of the country is the most unwholesome of all those that compose the immense state of Ohio. The seat of government belonging to this new state is at Chillicotha, which contains about a hundred and fifty houses, and is situated sixty miles from the mouth of the Great Scioto. A weekly newspaper is published there.[35]

At Alexandria, and the other little towns in the western country, which are situated upon a very rich soil, the space between every house is almost entirely covered with _stramonium_. This dangerous and disagreeable plant has propagated surprisingly in every part where the earth has been uncovered and cultivated within twelve or fifteen years; and let the inhabitants do what they will, it spreads still wider every year. It is generally supposed to have made its appearance at James-Town in Virginia, whence it derived {104} the name of _Jamesweed_. Travellers use it to heal the wounds made on horses’ backs occasioned by the rubbing of the saddle.

_Mullein_ is the second European plant that I found very abundant in the United States, although in a less proportion than the _stramonium_. It is very common on the road leading from Philadelphia to Lancaster, but less so past the town; and I saw no more of it beyond the Alleghany Mountains.

On the 1st of August we arrived at Limestone in Kentucky, fifty miles lower than Alexandria. There ended my travels on the Ohio. We had come three hundred and forty-eight miles in a canoe from Wheeling, and had taken ten days to perform the journey, during which we were incessantly obliged to paddle, on account of the slowness of the stream. This labour, although painful, at any rate, to those who are unaccustomed to it, was still more so on account of the intense heat. We also suffered much from thirst, not being able to procure any thing to drink but by stopping at the plantations on the banks of the river; for in summer the water of the Ohio acquires such a degree of heat, that it is not fit to be drank till it has been kept twenty-four hours. This excessive heat is occasioned, on the one hand, by the {105} extreme heat of the climate in that season of the year, and on the other, by the slow movement of the stream.

I had fixed on the 1st of October to be the epoch of my return to Charleston in South Carolina, and I had nearly a thousand miles to go by land before I could arrive there, in executing the design I had formed of travelling through the state of Tennessea, which lengthened my route considerably. Pressed for time, I relinquished the intention I had formed of going farther down the Ohio, and took leave of Mr. Samuel Craft, who pursued by himself, in a canoe, his journey to Louisville, whence, after having come down the Ohio and Mississippi, he was to proceed up the river Yazous to go to Natches, and then return by land to the state of Vermont, where he expected to be about the middle of November following, after having made, in six months, a circuit of nearly four thousand miles.

{106} CHAP. XII

_Fish and shells of the Ohio--Inhabitants on the Banks of
the river--Agriculture--American Emigrant--Commercial
Intelligence relative to that part of the United States._

The banks of the Ohio, although elevated from twenty to sixty feet, scarcely afford any strong substances from Pittsburgh; and except large detached stones of a greyish colour and very soft, that we observed in an extent of ten or twelve miles below Wheeling, the remainder part seems vegetable earth. A few miles before we reached Limestone we began to observe a bank of a chalky nature, the thickness of which being very considerable, left no room to doubt but what it must be of a great extent.

Two kinds of flint, roundish and of a middling size, furnished the bed of the Ohio abundantly, especially as we approached the isles, where they are accumulated {107} by the strength of the current; some of a darkish hue, break easily; others smaller, and in less quantities, are three parts white, and scarcely transparent.

In the Ohio, as well as in the Alleghany, Monongahela, and other rivers in the west, they find in abundance a species of _Mulette_ which is from five to six inches in length. They do not eat it, but the mother-o’-pearl which is very thick in it, is used in making buttons. I have seen some at Lexinton which were as beautiful as those they make in Europe. This new species which I brought over with me, has been described by Mr. Bosc, under the name of the _Unio Ohiotensis_.

The Ohio abounds in fish of different kinds; the most common is the cat-fish, or _silurus felis_, which is generally caught with a line, and weighs sometimes a hundred pounds. The first fold of the upper fins of this fish are strong and pointed, similar to those of a perch, which he makes use of to kill others of a lesser size. He swims several inches under the one he wishes to attack, then rising rapidly, he pierces him several times in the belly; this we had an opportunity of observing twice in the course {108} of our navigation. This fish is also taken with a kind of spear.

Till the years 1796 and 1797 the banks of the Ohio were so little populated that they scarcely consisted of thirty families in the space of four hundred miles; but since that epoch a great number of emigrants have come from the mountainous parts of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and settled there; in consequence of which the plantations now are so increased, that they are not farther than two or three miles distant from each other, and when on the river we always had a view of some of them.

The inhabitants on the borders of the Ohio, employ the greatest part of their time in stag and bear hunting, for the sake of the skins, which they dispose of. The taste that they have contracted for this kind of life is prejudicial to the culture of their lands; besides they have scarcely any time to meliorate their new possessions, that usually consist of two or three hundred acres, of which not more than eight or ten are cleared. Nevertheless, the produce that they derive from them, with the milk of their cows, is sufficient for themselves and families, which are always very numerous. The houses that they inhabit {109} are built upon the borders of the river, generally in a pleasant situation, whence they enjoy the most delightful prospects; still their mode of building does not correspond with the beauties of the spot, being nothing but miserable log houses, without windows, and so small that two beds occupy the greatest part of them. Notwithstanding two men may erect and finish, in less than three days, one of these habitations, which, by their diminutive size and sorry appearance, seem rather to belong to a country where timber is very scarce, instead of a place that abounds with forests. The inhabitants on the borders of the Ohio do not hesitate to receive travellers who claim their hospitality; they give them a lodging, that is to say, they permit them to sleep upon the floor wrapped up in their rugs. They are accommodated with bread, Indian corn, dried ham, milk and butter, but seldom any thing else; at the same time the price of provisions is very moderate in this part of the United States, and all through the western country.

No attention is paid by the inhabitants to any thing else but the culture of Indian corn; and although it is brought to no great perfection, the soil being so full of roots, the stems are from ten to twelve feet {110} high, and produce from twenty to thirty-five hundred weight of corn per acre. For the three first years after the ground is cleared, the corn springs up too strong, and scatters before it ears, so that they cannot sow in it for four or five years after, when the ground is cleared of the stumps and roots that were left in at first. The Americans in the interior cultivate corn rather through speculation to send the flour to the sea-ports, than for their own consumption; as nine tenths of them eat no other bread but that made from Indian corn; they make loaves of it from eight to ten pounds, which they bake in ovens, or small cakes baked on a board before the fire. This bread is generally eaten hot, and is not very palatable to those who are not used to it.

The peach is the only fruit tree that they have as yet cultivated, which thrives so rapidly that it produces fruit after the second year.

The price of the best land on the borders of the Ohio did not exceed three piastres per acre; at the same time it is not so dear on the left bank in the States of Virginia and Kentucky, where the settlements are not looked upon as quite so good.

The two banks of the Ohio, properly speaking, not having been inhabited above eight or nine years, {111} nor the borders of the rivers that run into it, the Americans who are settled there, share but very feebly in the commerce that is carried on through the channel of the Mississippi. This commerce consists at present in hams and salted pork, brandies distilled from corn and peaches, butter, hemp, skins and various sorts of flour. They send again cattle to the Atlantic States. Tradespeople who supply themselves at Pittsburgh and Wheeling, and go up and down the river in a canoe, convey them haberdashery goods, and more especially tea and coffee, taking some of their produce in return.

More than half of those who inhabit the borders of the Ohio, are again the first inhabitants, or as they are called in the United States, the _first settlers_, a kind of men who cannot settle upon the soil that they have cleared, and who under pretence of finding a better land, a more wholesome country, a greater abundance of game, push forward, incline perpetually towards the most distant points of the American population, and go and settle in the neighbourhood of the savage nations, whom they brave even in their own country. Their ungenerous mode of treating them stirs up frequent broils, that brings on bloody wars, in which they generally fall victims; {112} rather on account of their being so few in number, than through defect of courage.

Prior to our arrival at Marietta, we met one of these _settlers_, an inhabitant of the environs of Wheeling, who accompanied us down the Ohio, and with whom we travelled for two days. Alone in a canoe from eighteen to twenty feet long, and from twelve to fifteen inches broad, he was going to survey the borders of the Missouri[36] for a hundred and fifty miles beyond its _embouchure_. The excellent quality of the land that is reckoned to be more fertile there than that on the borders of the Ohio, and which the Spanish government at that time ordered to be distributed _gratis_, the quantity of beavers, elks, and more especially bisons, were the motives that induced him to emigrate into this remote part of the country, whence after having determined on a suitable spot to settle there with his family, he was returning to fetch them from the borders of the Ohio, which obliged him to take a journey of fourteen or fifteen hundred {113} miles, his costume, like that of all the American sportsmen, consisted of a waistcoat with sleeves, a pair of pantaloons, and a large red and yellow worsted sash. A carabine, a tomahawk or little axe, which the Indians make use of to cut wood and to terminate the existence of their enemies, two beaver-snares, and a large knife suspended at his side, constituted his sporting dress. A rug comprised the whole of his luggage. Every evening he encamped on the banks of the river, where, after having made a fire, he passed the night; and whenever he conceived the place favourable for the chace, he remained in the woods for several days together, and with the produce of his sport, he gained the means of subsistence, and new ammunition with the skins of the animals that he had killed.

Such were the first inhabitants of Kentucky and Tennessea, of whom there are now remaining but very few. It was they who began to clear those fertile countries, and wrested them from the savages who ferociously disputed their right; it was they, in short, who made themselves masters of the possessions, after five or six years’ bloody war: but the long habit of a wandering and idle life has prevented their enjoying the fruit of their labours, and profiting by {114} the very price to which these lands have risen in so short a time. They have emigrated to more remote parts of the country, and formed new settlements. It will be the same with most of those who inhabit the borders of the Ohio. The same inclination that led them there will induce them to emigrate from it. To the latter will succeed fresh emigrants, coming also from the Atlantic states, who will desert their possessions to go in quest of a milder climate and a more fertile soil. The money that they will get for them will suffice to pay for their new acquisitions, the peaceful delight of which is assured by a numerous population. The last comers instead of log-houses, with which the present inhabitants are contented, will build wooden ones, clear a greater quantity of the land, and be as industrious and persevering in the melioration of their new possessions as the former were indolent in every thing, being so fond of hunting. To the culture of Indian corn they will add that of other grain, hemp, and tobacco; rich pasturages will nourish innumerable flocks, and an advantageous sale of all the country’s produce will be assured them through the channel of the Ohio.

The happy situation of this river entitles it to be looked upon as the centre of commercial activity between {115} the eastern and western states. By it the latter receive the manufactured goods which Europe, India, and the Caribbees supply the former; and it is the only open communication with the ocean, for the exportation of provisions from the immense and fertile part of the United States comprised between the Alleghany Mountains, the lakes, and the left banks of the Mississippi.

All these advantages, blended with the salubrity of the climate and the beauty of the landscapes, enlivened in the spring by a group of boats which the current whirls along with an astonishing rapidity, and the uncommon number of sailing vessels that from the bosom of this vast continent go directly to the Caribbees; all these advantages, I say, make me think that the banks of the Ohio, from Pittsburgh to Louisville inclusively, will, in the course of twenty years, be the most populous and commercial part of the United States, and where I should settle in preference to any other.

{116} CHAP. XIII

_Limestone.--Route from Limestone to Lexinton.--Washington.--
Salt-works at Mays-Lick.--Millesburgh.--Paris._

Limestone, situated upon the left bank of the Ohio, consists only of about thirty or forty houses constructed with wood. This little town, built upwards of fifteen years, one would imagine to be more extensive. It has long been the place where all the emigrants landed who came from the Northern States by the way of Pittsburgh, and is still the staple for all sorts of merchandize sent from Philadelphia and Baltimore to Kentucky.

The travellers who arrive at Limestone by the Ohio find great difficulty in procuring horses on hire, to go to the places of their destination. The inhabitants there, as well as at Shippensburgh, take this undue advantage, in order to sell them at an {117} enormous price. As I intended staying some time at Lexinton, which would greatly enhance my expenses, I resolved to travel there on foot; upon which I left my portmanteau with the landlord of the inn where I stopped, which he undertook for a piaster to send me to Lexinton, and I set off the same day. It is reckoned from Limestone to Lexinton to be sixty-five miles, which I went in two days and a half. The first town we came to was Washington, which was only four miles off.[37] It is much larger than Limestone, and contains about two hundred houses, all of wood, and built on both sides of the road. Trade is very brisk there; it consists principally in corn, which is exported to New Orleans. There are several very fine plantations in the environs, the land of which is as well cultivated and the enclosures as well constructed, as at Virginia and Pennsylvania. I went seven miles the first evening, and on the following day reached Springfield, composed of five or six houses, among the number of which are two spacious inns, well built, where the inhabitants of the environs assemble together. Thence I passed through Mays-Lick, where there is a salt-mine. I stopped there to examine the process pursued for the extraction of salt. The {118} wells that supply the salt water are about twenty feet in depth, and not more than fifty or sixty fathoms from the river Salt-Lick, the waters of which are somewhat brackish in summer time. For evaporation they make use of brazen pots, containing about two hundred pints, and similar in form to those used in France for making lye. They put ten or a dozen of them in a row on a pit four feet in depth, and a breadth proportionate to their diameter, so that the sides lay upon the edge of the pit, supported by a few handfuls of white clay, which fill up but very imperfectly the spaces between the vessels. The wood, which they cut in billets of about three feet, is thrown in at the extremities of the pit. These sort of kilns are extravagant, and consume a prodigious quantity of wood; I made an observation of it to the people employed in the business, to which they made answer, that they did not know there was any preferable mode; and they should follow their own till some person or other from the Old Country (meaning Europe) came and taught them to do better. The scarcity of hands for the cutting down and conveyance of the wood, and the few saline principles that the water contains when dissolved, occasions the salt to be very dear; they sell it at from four to {119} five piasters per hundred weight. It is that scarcity which induces many of them to search for salt springs. They are usually found in places described by the name of Licks where the bisons, elks, and stags that existed in Kentucky before the arrival of the Europeans, went by hundreds to lick the saline particles with which the soil is impregnated. There are in this state and that of Tenessea a set of quacks, who by means of a hazle wand pretend to discover springs of salt and fresh water; but they are only consulted by the more ignorant class of people, who never send for them but when they are induced by some circumstance or other to search over a spot of ground where they suspect one of those springs.

The country we traversed ten miles on this side Mays-Lick, and eight miles beyond, did not afford the least vestige of a plantation. The soil is dry and sandy; the road is covered with immense flat chalky stones, of a bluish cast inside, the edges of which are round. The only trees that we observed were the white oak, or _quercus alba_, and nut-tree, or _juglans hickery_, but their stinted growth and wretched appearance clearly indicated the sterility of the soil, occasioned, doubtless, by the salt mines that it contains.

{120} From Mays-Lick I went to Millesburgh, composed of fifty houses; I went there to visit Mr. Savary, who had been very intimately acquainted with my father, and by his invitation I left my inn and went to lodge at his house.[38] Mr. Savary is one of the greatest proprietors in that part of the country; he possesses more than eighty thousand acres of land in Virginia, Tenessea and Kentucky. The taxes that he pays, although moderate, are notwithstanding very burthensome to him; more so, as it is with the greatest difficulty he can find purchasers for his land, as the emigrations of the eastern states, having taken a different direction, incline but very feebly towards Kentucky.

Near Millesburgh flows a little river, from five to six fathoms broad, upon which two saw-mills are erected. The stream was then so low that I crossed it upon large chalky stones, which comprised a part of its bottom, and which at that time were above water. In winter time, on the contrary, it swells to such a degree that it can scarcely be passed by means of a bridge twenty-five feet in height. The bridges thrown over the small rivers, or creeks, that are met with frequently in the interior of the country, more especially in the eastern states, are all formed of the {121} trunks of trees placed transversely by each other. These bridges have no railings; and whenever a person travels on horseback, it is always prudent to alight in order to cross them.

On this side Lexinton we passed through Paris, a manor-house for the county of Bourbon. This small town, in the year 1796, consisted of no more than eighteen houses, and now contains more than a hundred and fifty, half of which are brick. It is situated on a delightful plain, and watered by a small river, near which are several corn mills. Every thing seems to announce the comfort of its inhabitants. Seven or eight were drinking whiskey at a respectable inn where I stopped to refresh myself on account of the excessive heat. After having replied to different questions which they asked me concerning the intent of my journey, one of them invited me to dine with him, wishing to introduce me to one of my fellow-countrymen arrived lately from Bengal. I yielded to his entreaties, and actually found a Frenchman who had left Calcutta to go and reside at Kentucky. He was settled at Paris, where he exercised the profession of a school-master.

{122} CHAP. XIV

_Lexinton.--Manufactories established there.--Commerce.--Dr.
Samuel Brown_

Lexinton, the manor-house for the county of Fayette, is situated in the midst of a flat soil of about three hundred acres, like the rest of the small towns of the United States that are not upon the borders of the sea. This town is traced upon a regular plan, and its streets, sufficiently broad, cut each other at right angles. The want of pavement renders it very muddy in winter time, and rainy weather. The houses, most of which are brick, are disseminated upon an extent of eighty or a hundred acres, except those which form the main street, where they are contiguous to each other. This town, founded in 1780, is the oldest and most wealthy of the three new western states; it contains about three thousand inhabitants. Frankfort, the seat of government in Kentucky, which is upwards of twenty {123} miles distant from it, is not so populous.[39] We may attribute the rapid increase of Lexinton to its situation in the centre of one of the most fertile parts of the country, comprised in a kind of semicircle, formed by the Kentucky river.

There are two printing-offices at Lexinton, in each of which a newspaper is published twice a week. Part of the paper is manufactured in the country, and is dearer by one-third than in France.[40] That which they use for writing, originally imported from England, comes by the way of Philadelphia and Baltimore. Two extensive rope walks, constantly in employ, supply the ships with rigging that are built upon the Ohio. On the borders of the little river that runs very near the town several tan-yards are established that supply the wants of the inhabitants. I observed at the gates of these tan-yards strong leathers of a yellowish cast, tanned with the black oak; in consequence of which I saw that this tree grew in Kentucky, although I had not observed it between Limestone and Lexinton; in fact, I had seen nothing but land either parched up or extremely fertile; and, as I have since observed, this tree grows in neither, it is an inhabitant of the mountainous parts, where the soil is gravelly and rather moist.

{124} The want of hands excites the industry of the inhabitants of this country. When I was at Lexinton one of them had just obtained a patent for a nail machine, more complete and expeditious than the one made use of in the prisons at New York and Philadelphia; and a second announced one for the grinding and cleaning of hemp and sawing wood and stones. This machine, moved by a horse or a current of water, is capable, according to what the inventor said, to break and clean eight thousand weight of hemp per day.