the Chevalier Dubac, formerly an officer in the French service, who,
obliged, on account of the revolution, to emigrate from France, at
first went to settle at Scioto, but very soon after {73} changed his
residence, and went to Pittsburgh, where he is now in trade. He has
very correct ideas concerning the western country; he is also
perfectly acquainted with the navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi,
having several times travelled over New Orleans, and gives, with all
possible complaisance, to the few of his fellow-countrymen who go into
that country, instructions to facilitate their journey, and prevent
the accidents that might happen to them.
During my stay at Pittsburgh I formed a most particular acquaintance
with my fellow-traveller Mr. Samuel Craft, an inhabitant of the state
of Vermont, whom I met, for the first time, at Greensburgh. I learnt
of him, among other things, that in this state, and those contiguous
to it, the expences occasioned by clearing the land are always covered
by the produce of pearl-ashes, extracted from the ashes of trees which
they burn; and that there are even persons who undertake to clear it
on the sole condition of having the pearl-ashes. This kind of economy,
however, does not exist in the other parts of North America; for in
all the parts of the east, from New York westward, the trees are burnt
at a certain loss. It is true that the inhabitants of New England,
which, properly speaking, comprehends all the {74} states east of New
York, are acknowledged to be the most enterprising and industrious of
all the Americans, especially those who understand domestic economy
the best.
Mr. Craft then imparted to me the intent of his journey, which was to
be convinced that what he had seen published upon the extraordinary
salubrity and fertility of the banks of the river Yazous was correct,
and in that case to acquire for himself and a few friends several
acres of land, and to go and settle there with two or three families
in his neighbourhood who were rather embarrassed. The motive for his
emigration to so remote a country was founded, in the first place, on
the length of the winters, which in the state of Vermont are as severe
as in Canada, and which shackle the activity of its inhabitants more
than one third of the year; and in the next place, upon the cheapness
of the country’s produce: instead of which, in those parts watered by
the river Yazous,[29] the temperature of the climate and the
fertility of the soil are favourable to the cultivation of cotton,
indigo, and tobacco, {75} the produce of which is a great deal more
lucrative than that of the northern part of the United States, and the
sale of which is assured by their exportation to New Orleans, where
they can go and come by the river in less than a fortnight.
{76} CHAP. VIII
_Departure from Pittsburgh for Kentucky.--Journey by land to
Wheeling.--State of agriculture on the route.--West Liberty
Town in Virginia.--Wheeling._
Mr. Craft and I agreed to go together to Kentucky by the Ohio,
preferring that way, although longer by a hundred and forty miles, to
that by land, which is more expensive. However, as the season of the
year being that when the waters are at the lowest, to gain time, and
to avoid a considerable winding which the river makes on leaving
Pittsburgh, we were advised to embark at Wheeling, a small town
situated upon the Ohio, eighty miles lower down the river, but not so
far by land.[30] On the 14th of July, in the evening, we set out on
foot, and crossed the Monongahela at John’s Ferry, situated on the
opposite bank, at the bottom of Coal-Hill, a very lofty mountain which
borders the river to a vast {77} extent, insomuch that it conceals the
view of all the houses at Pittsburgh built on the other side.
After having coasted along the borders of the Ohio about a mile and a
half, we entered the wood, and went to sleep at an indifferent inn at
Charter Creek, where there was but one bed destined for travellers:
whenever it happens that several travellers meet together, the last
that arrive sleep on the floor, wrapped in the rug which they always
carry with them when they travel into the remote parts of the United
States.
The following day we made upwards of twenty miles, and went to lodge
with one Patterson. On this route the plantations are two or three
miles distant from each other, and more numerous than in the interior
of the country, which is a general observation of all travellers. The
inhabitants of this part of Pennsylvania are precise in their
behaviour, and very religious. We saw, in some places, churches
isolated in the woods, and in others, pulpits placed beneath large
oaks. Patterson holds a considerable and extensive farm, and a
corn-mill built upon a small river. He sends his corn to New Orleans.
The rivers and creeks are rather scarce in this part of Virginia, on
which account they are obliged to {78} have recourse to mills which
they turn by horses; but the flour that comes from them is consumed in
the country, not being susceptible of entering into trade. Nobody has
ever yet thought of constructing windmills, although there are on the
top of several of the hills places sufficiently cleared, that offer
favourable situations.
On the 16th of July we arrived at Wheeling, very much fatigued. We
were on foot, and the heat was extreme. Our journey was rendered more
difficult from the nature of the country, which is covered with hills
very close together, to some of which we were almost half an hour
before we could reach the summit. About six miles from Patterson’s we
found the line of demarkation that separates Pennsylvania from
Virginia, and cuts the road at right angles. This line is traced by
the rubbish that is piled up on lofty eminences, consisting of all the
large trees, in a breadth of forty feet. Twelve miles before our
arrival at Wheeling we passed by Liberty Town, a small town consisting
of about a hundred houses, built upon a hill.[31] The plantations are
numerous in the environs, and the soil, although even, is extremely
fertile. The produce of the lands vary: they produce from fifteen to
twenty bushels of corn {79} per acre, when they are entirely cleared,
and only twelve to fifteen when the clearing away is not complete,
that is to say, when there are many stumps remaining; for in clearing
they begin by cutting the trees within two feet of the ground, and
after that dig up the stumps. It is proper to observe that the
inhabitants give only one tillage, use no manure, and never let the
soil lie idle. The value of this land is according to its quality. The
best, in the proportion of twenty to twenty-five acres cleared, for a
lot of two or three hundred, is not worth more than three or four
piastres per acre. The taxes are from a half-penny to a penny per
acre. The hands being very scarce, labour is dear, and by no means in
proportion with the price of produce; the result of which is, that in
all the middle and southern states, within fifty miles of the sea,
each proprietor clears very little more than what he can cultivate
with his family, or with the reciprocal aid of some of his neighbours.
This is applied more particularly to the western country, where every
individual may easily procure land, and is excited to labour by its
incomparable fertility.
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.