Part 13

“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.