CHAPTER XXXII
Congo--Crouse’s mill--Pickaway plains--Beautiful prairies--Tarleton and Lybrant’s excellent inn--Vestiges of a great fire--River Hockhocking--New Lancaster--Babb’s--Jonathan’s creek--Springfield--River Muskingum and falls--Zanesville.
We crossed the Scioto at a ferry from the town, the stage and four horses being all carried over in the boat.
The first two miles were over a rich bottom, subject to inundation from the river floods in the winter. We had then three miles of a hilly country to Congo, a fine settlement in and round a beautiful prairie, a mile long to Crouse’s mill. This Crouse is a wealthy man, having a good house and offices, a farm of two sections, containing thirteen hundred acres, and an excellent mill-house and mill wrought by a creek which crosses the road and falls into the Scioto half a mile on the left. Another mile brought us to Rickey’s tavern, from whence a road leads to the left to Pickaway Plains, which is a noble and rich prairie, on the west side of the Scioto, fourteen miles long, formerly a principal settlement of the Indians,[143] and {198} now well inhabited by their white successors, who have a town called Levingston on the Prairie.
From Rickey’s to M’Cutchin’s tavern is four miles, across a beautiful savanna, variegated with clumps of trees, and fine groves, with farms at every half mile. We here stopped for a few minutes to water the horses, and I exchanged my seat in the stage, with a Mr. Willis of Chilicothe,[144] who had accompanied us on horseback, on his way to the federal city, Washington, to make some arrangements respecting the mails. The exchange suited us both, as on horseback I had a better view of the country, and his health being delicate, he preferred the stage.
The next six miles were through a thinly wooded but rich plain, with a farm every mile, and a tavern every three miles. The road was so far level but very miry, then another mile and a half over some hilly and broken land brought us to Lybrant’s tavern.
Had I not been informed, I should not have known that I was now in the town of Tarleton, as there was but one other house besides the tavern; three or four more were however just going to be built, and our landlord had no doubt of its soon becoming a smart town. The lots were sold at from sixteen to twenty-five dollars each.
Lybrant’s is one of the best and most reasonable inns I had met with in my tour. At one o’clock we set down to a most excellent breakfast of good coffee, roast fowls, chicken pie, potatoes, bread and butter, and cucumbers both sliced and pickled, all not only good, but delicate and fine even to the pastry, which is very uncommon in this country, and our charge was only a quarter of a dollar.
For eight miles from Tarleton, the road runs through low, rich and miry black oak woods, and now and then a small prairie, and settlements not {199} nearer each other than every two miles. The country then rising into hills the road improves, but it continues equally thinly inhabited, the settlements being mostly on what is called the old county road, which runs parallel to the state road about a mile and a half to the northward of it, and is better and shorter by a mile between Chilicothe and New Lancaster.
After riding a mile among the hills I passed Stukey’s tavern, for six miles beyond which the face of the country is very picturesque; the tops of the hills terminating in rocks, some impending and some perpendicular, while the road leads through a defile winding round their bottoms. The whole country is covered with dwarf oak, and other low shrubs and bushes and some thinly scattered black oaks of stunted growth. This scarcity of timber is partly owing to the poverty of the soil, and partly to the effect of fire, which must have gone through this whole district of six or seven miles, and that at no very distant period back, from many evident marks still remaining. What a grand yet awful scene must have been such a tract of woods in flames!
There is no house for three miles from Stukey’s tavern, and from that to within a mile of New Lancaster, there are but two other settlements.--Then, on descending a low hill, and emerging from the woods into an extensive natural meadow on the western bank of the Hockhocking, that town presents itself suddenly to view, well situated on a rising ground on the opposite side of the river, and making a better appearance at that distance than it has on entering it. A wooden bridge crosses the river, which is here only a rivulet just below the town, and here I passed a number of men engaged in racing their horses.
New Lancaster[145] is a compact little town of one wide street, about six hundred paces long, containing {200} sixty houses, amongst which is a neat little court-house of brick, forty-two by thirty-six feet, just built, with a cupola belfry. There are six stores and nine taverns. There is but one brick house, all the rest being of wood, amongst which conspicuously the best is that of Mr. Bucher a lawyer. In most towns in the United States, the best houses are chiefly inhabited by gentlemen of that profession.
After supping at the inn where the stage stopped, I was shewn to bed up stairs in a barrack room the whole extent of the house, with several beds in it, one of which was already occupied by a man and his wife, from the neighbouring country, who both conversed with me until I feigned sleep, in hopes that would silence them, but though they then ceased to direct their discourse to me, they continued to talk to each other on their most private and domestick affairs, as though there had been no other person in the room. In spite of their conversation I at last fell asleep, but I was soon awoke in torture from a general attack made on me by hosts of vermin of the most troublesome and disgusting genii. I started from the bed, dressed myself, spread a coverlet on the floor, and lay down there to court a little more repose, but I was prevented by a constant noise in the house during the whole night, beginning with church musick, among which some sweet female voices were discernible, and ending in the loud drunken frolicks of some rustick guests, who kept Saturday night until late on Sunday morning.
Previous to going to bed I had sauntered round the town, and I observed all the taverns filled with guests in the roughest style of conviviality, from which I infer that the last day of the week is generally devoted to the orgies of Bacchus; by the same classes of people who on the succeeding day, attend with pious regularity the dogmatick lectures of some fanatick dispenser of the gospel. What an heterogeneous {201} animal is man!--sometimes exalted to an approach towards divinity, sometimes debased to lower than brutality:--A perpetual struggle between the essence and the dregs.
The dawn of morning relieved me from my uncomfortable couch, and going down stairs, I found all as silent as an hour before it had been noisy. I walked out into the town, where the same stillness prevailed, so I lounged along the banks of the Hockhocking enjoying the morning air, until a thick mist rising with the sun envelopped me, when I returned to the inn and finding the stage ready to depart, I again mounted Mr. Willis’s horse, and set out in advance of it.
Leaving New Lancaster and the fog below, I proceeded eighteen miles through a hilly country, with settlements within every mile, many of which were taverns. I then stopped at Babb’s, the sign of the house, appropriate to its being the half way house between Lancaster and Zanesville. Here an old father, two sons and three daughters, (spruce, well formed girls, with a most wonderful volubility of tongue) worried me with questions, until I excused myself from further gratifying their inexhaustible curiosity by pleading fatigue, and throwing myself on a bed, I awaited the arrival of the stage, about an hour, when we got an excellent breakfast, every article of which served as a topick for conversation to our garrulous entertainers, who affected to know a little of every thing and of every body.
Nine miles from Babb’s, through a similar country and very bad road with houses and taverns as in the morning, brought me to Jonathan’s creek, a handsome little river, about twenty yards wide, which I forded. The road was now generally level seven miles to Springfield, mostly through pleasant and rich little bottoms, with the creek close on the right more than half the way, and the country so thickly {202} inhabited, that was it not for the dead girdled[146] trees every where in the corn and wheat fields and meadows, it would have the appearance of an old settlement.
About a mile from Springfield I passed through a fine plain of a light sandy soil very proper for small grain, such as wheat, rye and oats, which has been cleared previous to this country being known to the whites. It is now covered with dwarf oak, hazle, and other copse wood, and contains probably fifteen hundred acres.
Springfield is a long straggling village, on a fine flat, sheltered on the north by a small chain of low but abrupt hills, and bounded on the south by the beautiful river Muskingum. The road or street is of clean gravel, and the cabins are distinguished from those I had hitherto seen by their chimneys of brick, instead of stone or logs. There are some good brick houses building, and some taverns and some stores, which give it a thriving appearance. There is also a fine grist and saw mill at the falls of the Muskingum at the upper end of the town. That river is about a hundred yards wide at the ferry just below the falls, which are formed by its being precipitated in a sheet, over a rock of about three feet perpendicular depth, which extends quite across, and is a fine object in the surrounding picturesque scenery. Another good object is a cliff impending over the falls, which terminates the chain of low hills behind Springfield.
I crossed the ferry to Zanesville, and dismounted at an inn where the stage generally stops. On entering I walked into a room, the door of which was open, where the first object that met my eye was the {203} corpse of a female, laid out in her shroud on a bier. There was no person in the room but another female who was seated near the corpse, and to whom I apologized for my abrupt entrance, explaining my reasons as being in advance of the stage. She answered by wishing she had some mode of preventing the stage from driving up to the house, as her sister had died that morning, and it would be inconvenient to accommodate travellers that night, on which I remounted, rode to the post office, where I found the stage delivering the mail, from whence in consequence of my information, the driver took us to Harvey’s very good inn, where we found an excellent supper, clean beds, a consequential host and hostess, and the highest charges I had hitherto paid in Ohio.
Zanesville was laid out for a town six or seven years ago. It contains forty houses much scattered and does not seem to thrive so much as Springfield, which is only two or three years old, contains fifty houses, and bids fair to become of more consequence than Zanesville,[147] notwithstanding the latter is the county town of Muskingum county. It was named after Mr. Zane of Wheeling, who as a recompense for opening the first road from Wheeling to Chilicothe, got a grant of three sections of land of six hundred and forty acres each. On one section he founded Zanesville; on another, New Lancaster, and the third is part of the rich bottom on the bank of the Scioto opposite to Chilicothe.
FOOTNOTES:
[143] Pickaway Plains, in Pickaway County south of Circleville, was said to contain the richest land in Ohio. It was a noted rendezvous for the Shawnees; from hence started the army that Lewis defeated at Point Pleasant (1774), and here at a camp which he called Camp Charlotte in honor of the queen, Lord Dunmore made the peace that ended the war. Here, also, Chief Logan’s famous speech was delivered.--ED.
[144] Nathaniel Willis, the grandfather of the poet by that name, was a printer, who prided himself on having been a participant in the Boston Tea-party. During the Revolution, he was proprietor of the Boston _Independent Chronicle_. On peace being declared, he went to Virginia, and at Martinsburg published for a few years the _Potomac Guardian_. Tempted by reports from the new territory, he once more removed and established (probably in 1800) the _Scioto Gazette_ at Chillicothe, the third newspaper of the state. He was also, for a time, state printer, and as Cuming informs us connected with the forwarding of the mail.--ED.
[145] The site of New Lancaster had previously been that of a well-known Indian village called Standing Stone from an eminence in the vicinity. It was the most southwestern town of the Delawares in Ohio, and was also called French Margaret’s Town, because a daughter of Madame Montour had at one time resided therein. As an American settlement it was laid out by Zane in 1800; later, “New” was dropped from its title by legislative enactment.--ED.
[146] A hasty and temporary way of clearing land, by notching the bark all round the trunks of the large trees, which kills them, and in a few years they fall by their own top weight aided by the least gust of wind, if not cut down in the interim at the increasing leisure of the cultivator.--CRAMER.
[147] Since it has been determined that Zanesville is to be the seat of the state government at least for a time, the town is making a rapid progress in population, buildings, and improvements generally. The country around it is also opening into fine farms on both sides of the river. Furnaces and forges are erecting in the neighbourhood, saw and grist mills, and a paper mill not far distant.--CRAMER.
{204} CHAPTER XXXIII
Brown’s--Extensive prospect--Anticipation--Ensloe’s--Will’s creek plains--Will’s creek--European and American drivers compared--Cambridge--Beymer’s--Drove of cattle--Two travelling families--Good effects of system.
On Monday 17th August, I proceeded from Zanesville before breakfast. The first nine miles were through a hilly country with houses every mile or two, the road tolerably good except in a few steep or miry spots. I then passed Brown’s tavern, most romantically situated in a deep and narrow valley, with Salt creek, a rivulet which I crossed, running through it. Two genteel looking travellers were at Brown’s door as I passed. It was about breakfast time. My appetite tempted me to stop and join them, but reflecting the stage would then get before me, I repressed it, and trotted on towards the usual place of breakfast of the stage.
From Salt creek, I ascended half a mile of a steep road to the highest hill which I had been yet on in this state, and keeping two miles along its ridge, I had there to ascend a still higher pinnacle of it, from whence there is a most extensive view in every direction, of ridges beyond ridges covered with forests, to the most distant horizon; but though grand and extensive, it is dreary and cheerless, excepting to a mind which anticipates the great change which the astonishingly rapid settlement of this country will cause in the face of nature in a few revolving years. Such a mind will direct the eye ideally to the sides of hills covered with the most luxuriant gifts of Ceres; to valleys divested of their trees, and instead of the sombre forest, strengthening the vision with their verdant herbage, while the rivers and brooks, no {205} longer concealed by woods, meander through them in every direction in silvered curves, resplendent with the rays of a glowing sun, darting through an unclouded atmosphere; while the frequent comfortable and tasty farm house--the mills--the villages, and the towns marked by their smoke and distant spires, will cause the traveller to ask himself with astonishment, “So short a time since, could this have been an uninhabited wilderness?”
This lofty ridge continues with various elevations five miles and a half farther to Ensloe’s tavern, and is well inhabited all the way, and well timbered, though the soil is rather light. I here stopped to await the stage and breakfast, after which I rode on through a hilly country, rather thinly inhabited, five miles, and then three more on a flat, of the most wretched road imaginable, from the frequency of sloughs of stiff mud and clay. Travellers have ironically nicknamed this part of the road Will’s creek plains. It is really almost impassable for even the strong stage wagons which are used here.
After getting safely through the plains, and a mile further over a ridge, I came to Will’s creek, which is a small muddy river with a very slow current. The banks are steep and the bottom muddy, so that it has to be crossed by a wooden bridge, which has become extremely dangerous, from some of the posts having been unplaced by floods, so that it is shelving, one side being a good deal higher than the other, and the balustrade is so much decayed that it would not support a man, much less a carriage, yet bad as it was, I had to pay a toll of an eighth of a dollar for my horse. Though the European drivers far exceed the American in dexterity and speed, on their fine roads, in this country they would be good for nothing, and would pronounce it impossible to get a carriage through roads, that the American driver dashes through without a thought.--So much for habit.
{206} On crossing the bridge, I was astonished to find myself in a town of cabins in the midst of a forest, which I had heard nothing of before. It is called Cambridge, and was laid out last year by Messrs. Gumbar and Beattie the proprietors, the first of whom resides in it. The lots sell at from thirty to thirty-five dollars each. There are now twelve cabins finished and finishing, each of which contains two or three families; about as many more and some good houses, are to be commenced immediately. The settlement being very sudden, there was not as yet house room, for the furniture, utensils, and goods of the settlers, those articles were therefore lying out promiscuously about the cabins. The settlers are chiefly from the island of Guernsey, near the coast of France, from whence eight families arrived only four months ago.
I think Cambridge bids fair to become the capital of a county very soon.[148] The lands in the neighbourhood are equal in richness of soil to any I have seen on this side of Paint creek bottoms near Chilicothe.
Four miles from hence through a hilly country, brought me to Beymer’s tavern, passing a drove of one hundred and thirty cows and oxen, which one Johnston was driving from the neighbourhood of Lexington in Kentucky, to Baltimore. The intercourse between the most distant parts of the United States is now so common, that imported merchandize is wagonned all the way to Chilicothe and the intermediate towns, from Philadelphia and Baltimore, nearly six hundred miles, and then retailed as cheaply as at the ports of entry.
The drover with six assistants, two horsemen, two family wagons, and the stage wagon, put up at Beymer’s for the night, so that the house which was only a double cabin, was well filled, though not so much crowded as might have been expected, as the cattle drivers made a fire and encamped without doors, convenient to where they had penned the cattle, and {207} one of the travelling families slept in their wagon.--This family consisted of a man and his wife, and a neighbour’s daughter, who had removed to this state last year, from near Washington in Pennsylvania, and were now returning two hundred miles for some effects they had left behind. The other family, named Hutchinson, had emigrated from Massachusetts to Franklinville in this state, four years ago. By clearing and cultivating a farm and keeping a store, a distillery, and a saw mill, and then selling their property at its increased value, they had in that short time acquired a sufficiency to think themselves independent, and were now returning, to settle in some place in the neighbourhood of Albany, in the state of New York, where the old man said, “he would be once more in the world.” The systematick order which this family observed in travelling, and the comparative ease and comfort they enjoyed in consequence, were circumstances noticed by me with much admiration. The family consisted of Hutchinson and his wife, two daughters from fifteen to seventeen years of age, a grown up son they called doctor, another son about ten, and a young man who had had the charge of the mill, and who still continued with the family. They had a wagon, with four horses, and a saddle horse rode by one of the girls. On their stopping, the daughters began directly to prepare supper, as though they were at home, baked bread enough to serve them that night and next day, and then they sat down to sewing as composedly, as if they had been in their own house, and not on a journey; while the boys took care of the horses, and the old couple, though still active and healthy, sat at their ease, chatting and enjoying themselves. At all events _they_ were reaping the benefit of having brought up their family in orderly and industrious habits, and the cheerfulness and hilarity which pervaded each individual, was a proof that they were all equally {208} sensible of the blessings which their own good conduct had put them in the enjoyment of.
I had a good supper and bed, and found Beymer’s double cabin a most excellent house of accommodation. He is one of the proprietors of the stage wagons, and owns very considerable property in the state.
FOOTNOTES:
[148] Cambridge was made the seat of Guernsey County when the latter was established in 1811.--ED.