Little and Big Hockhocking rivers--Belleville, and Mr. Wild on
Mr. Avery’s large farm--Devil’s hole--Shade river--Buffington’s
island--Neisanger’s.
We dropped down the stream gently three miles, to the end of
Blennerhasset’s island, a little beyond which, on the Ohio shore, we
observed a very good looking two story brick house, which as we had
been informed, is an excellent tavern owned and kept by Mr. Miles, but
we were not tempted to stop, as we had already breakfasted on bread
and milk in our skiff. Two miles and a quarter below Miles’s we passed
Little Hockhocking river on the right. It is about twenty-five yards
wide, and has a wooden bridge across it, and on its right bank is a
large square roofed house, handsomely situated.
A mile and a half below Little Hockhocking, we saw on our right a
remarkable cavern on the side of a craggy hill, and four miles lower,
having passed Newbury and Mustapha’s islands, the latter of which
is above a mile in length, and partly cultivated, we came to big
Hockhocking river on the right.[90] It is only about thirty yards wide
at its mouth, nevertheless it is navigable for keels and other small
craft {112} nearly seventy miles, a little above which highest point
of navigation, is situated the flourishing town of New Lancaster.
Two miles and a half below Hockhocking a rivulet called Lee’s creek,
puts in from the Virginia side, and half a mile further on the same
side, is the village of Belleville, or Belle-prè, finely situated on
a high bank, commanding a good view of the river both ways. There are
here only four or five cabins occupied by hunters and labourers, and
a tolerably good wooden house owned by a Mr. Avery from New-London in
Connecticut, who purchased a tract here of five miles front on the
river, and commenced this settlement about eleven years ago, but going
largely into ship building, he was so unfortunate in that business,
that in consequence he is now confined for debt in Wood county gaol.
A Mr. Wild, from Durham in Connecticut, who has been five years here,
resides in Mr. Avery’s house, and cultivates the farm, which is on a
handsome plain running back from the river, on which he has this season
seventy acres of corn and fifty of wheat, besides a large proportion of
meadow. He was very civil to us, insisting with much hospitality on our
taking some refreshment.
Last fall Mr. Avery’s barn with two thousand bushels of grain, several
stacks of grain, and a horse, grist and saw mills, were burnt by
incendiaries, who, though known, could not be brought to justice for
want of positive proof.
From Little Hockhocking the right bank is hilly and broken, and the
left an extensive bottom; both sides very thinly inhabited, to ten
miles below Belleville, in the last seven we not having observed
a single {113} cabin, though the land is level and rich. I cannot
account for the right shore not being settled, as it is part of the
Ohio Company’s purchase; but the reason on the Virginia side is, that
the heirs of general Washington to whom that valuable tract descended
on his death, ask for it no less than ten dollars per acre, so that
it will probably remain in its savage state as long as land can be
purchased cheaper in its neighbourhood, notwithstanding its good
situation and its excellent quality.[91]
After leaving Belleville we saw several bald eagles hovering about us.
They are about the size of large crows, and when on the wing have their
tails spread out in the form of a crescent.[92]
About the middle of this uninhabited tract, we observed on our right
a very remarkable large cavern called Devil’s hole: It is in the face
of a rock about half way up a steep hill close to the river. About
fifty rods further on the same hand we passed Shade river, which is a
considerable stream, and apparently very deep. During the war with the
Indians, a detachment of the Kentucky militia, ascended this river,
landed and destroyed some Indian encampments, but effected nothing of
moment.
Five miles below Shade river, we came to Buffington’s island, which is
partly cultivated and is about two miles long. Though that on the left
is the ship channel, we chose the one on the right, as it presented a
long narrow vista, which promised the strongest current: We found it
however very shallow, but beautifully picturesque. The river above the
island is about a quarter of a mile wide, but below, it is contracted
to about two hundred yards, and four miles lower, it is only one
hundred and twenty.
Though the river continues narrow, yet probably from the depth of its
bed the velocity of the current was not increased for a mile and a
quarter further to {114} Peter Neisanger’s fine farm, where we stopped
at half past seven o’clock.[93]
Fastening our skiff to a tree, we ascended the steep sloping bank to
the house, where we were received with cautious taciturnity by Mrs.
Neisanger, whose ungracious reception would have induced us to have
proceeded further, had not the evening been too far advanced for us
to arrive at better quarters before dark; and besides the state of
our stomachs rendered us insensible to an uncourteous reception:
We determined therefore to make our quarters good, though a few
minutes after, friend A----, repented of our resolution, on seeing
a figure scarcely meriting the name of human approaching him, where
he had gone alone in quest of some of the males of the family. It
had the appearance of a man above the middle age, strong and robust,
fantastically covered with ragged cloathing, but so dirty that it
was impossible to distinguish whether he was naturally a white or an
Indian--in either case he equally merited the appellation of _savage_.
A----, accosted him as lord of the soil, but he did not deign any
reply, on which he returned to me, where I was in the boat adjusting
our baggage, to consult with me whether we had not better proceed
farther; but first resolving to make one more attempt, we again mounted
the bank and found two men with rifles in their hands sitting at the
door, neither of whose aspects, nor the circumstance of their being
armed, were very inviting: As however we did not see the strange
apparition which A----, had described to me, we ventured to accost them.
The elder of the two was Neisanger.--Though he did not say us
“_nay_” to our request of supper, his “_yea_” was in the very extreme
of _bluntness_, and without either the manner or expression which
sometimes merits its having joined to it the adjective _honest_.
{115} They laid aside their rifles, and supper being announced by the
mistress of the cabin, we made a hearty meal on her brown bread and
milk, while she attended her self-important lord with all due humility,
as Sarah did Abraham; which patriarchal record in the scriptures, is
perhaps the original cause of a custom which I have observed to be
very common in the remote parts of the United States, of the wife not
sitting down to table until the husband and the strangers have finished
their meal.
During supper, Mr. Neisanger gradually relaxed from his blunt and
cautious brevity of speech, and we gathered from him that he had been
a great hunter and woodsman, in which occupation, he said that one man
may in one season kill two hundred deer and eighty bears.
He had changed his pursuit of the wild inhabitants of the forest about
nine years ago, for an agricultural life. Since that time he had
cleared a large tract of land, had planted three thousand fruit trees
on his farm, and had carried on a distillery of whiskey and peach
brandy, for the first of which he gets seventy-five cents per gallon,
and for the last a dollar.
After supper we took leave of this Nimrod of the west without much
regret, as our seats while under his roof had not been the most easy
to us, and we returned to our boat with more pleasure than we had done
heretofore.
We betook ourselves to rest on our platform, lulled to repose by
the mournful hooting of the owl, whose ill omened note was amply
compensated for by the delightful melody of the red bird, who awoke us
at early dawn with his grateful welcome to the returning day.[94]
From hence to Clarksburgh in Virginia is only seventy-five miles.
FOOTNOTES:
[90] For the Hockhocking River, see Croghan’s _Journals_, vol. i of
this series, p. 131, note 99.--ED.
[91] Washington admonished his executors in his will, not to dispose
of these lands too cheaply, and suggested a sale price of ten dollars
per acre. This particular tract became the property of six of his
grand-nieces, two of whom (named Fitzhugh) later settled in the
vicinity.--ED.
[92] The bald or white-headed eagle (_haliaëtus leucocephalus_), the
American national symbol.--ED.
[93] Peter Neisanger (or Niswonger) joined the Marietta colony in
1790. He was employed thereby as a ranger, and the succeeding year
gave timely warning to the people assembled at a church service of a
threatened Indian raid.--ED.
[94] The red-bird was either the scarlet tanager (_piranga rubra_),
or the cardinal grosbeak (_cardinalis virginianus_), both of which
frequent the Ohio shores.--ED.
{116} CHAPTER XVII
Old-town creek, and a floating mill--Take two passengers, both curious
characters--Laughable anecdote of a panick--Some of the customs of
the backwoodsmen--Their fondness for, and mode of fighting--Their
disregard of being maimed, illustrated by an anecdote--Le Tart’s
falls--Graham’s station--Jones’s rocks.
Proceeding on Saturday 25th July at 5 in the morning--at six we were
three miles below Neisanger’s, abreast of Old-town creek on the right,
and a floating mill owned by an Irishman named Pickets. These kind of
mills are of a very simple construction--the whole machinery being in
a flat, moored to the bank, and the stones being put in motion by the
current. They have but little power, not being capable of grinding more
than from fifteen to twenty bushels of wheat per day.
We were here hailed by two men who offered to work their passage to the
falls. We took them on board, and one proved to be one Buffington, son
to the owner of Buffington’s island, from whom Pickets had purchased
his farm and mill, and the other was an eccentrick character, being
an old bachelor, without any fixed place of abode, residing sometimes
with one farmer and sometimes with another, between Marietta and
Galliopolis, and making a good deal of money by speculating in grain,
horses, hogs, cattle, or any thing he can buy cheap and sell dear.
Buffington was a very stout young man, and was going to the falls to
attend a gathering (as they phrase it in this country) at a justice’s
court, which squire Sears, who resides at the falls, holds on the
last Saturday of every month: He supposed there would be sixty or
seventy men there--some plaintiffs, and some defendants in causes of
small debts, actions of defamation, assaults, &c. and some to wrestle,
fight, {117} shoot at a mark with the rifle for wagers, gamble at other
games, or drink whiskey. He had his rifle with him and was prepared for
any kind of frolick which might be going forward. He was principally
induced to go there from having heard that another man who was to be
there, had said that he could _whip_ him (the provincial phrase for
beat.) After his frolick was ended he purposed returning home through
the woods.
He related a laughable story of a panick which seized the people of his
neighbourhood about two years ago, occasioned by a report being spread
that two hundred Indians were encamped for hostile purposes on the
banks of Shade river.
The Pickets’s and some others not accustomed to Indian war, forted
themselves, and hired Buffington to go and reconnoitre. He hunted, and,
to use his own language, _fooled_ in the woods three or four days; then
returned late in the evening to his own house, and discharged his two
rifles, giving the Indian yell after each, which so terrified the party
forted at Pickets’s, that the centinels threw down their rifles, and
ran into the river up to the belts of their hunting shirts. The whole
party followed--crossed the Ohio in canoes, and alarmed the Virginia
side by reporting that Buffington’s wife, and some others, who had not
been forted, were shot and scalped by the Indians; but when the truth
came out, they were much ashamed.
Buffington deals in cattle and hogs, which he occasionally drives to
the south branch of the Potomack, where they find a ready market for
the supply of Baltimore and the sea coast. The common price here is
about three dollars per cwt.
Two or three years ago when bear skins were worth from six to ten
dollars each, he and another man killed one hundred and thirty-five
bears in six weeks.
{118} It may not be improper to mention, that the backwoodsmen, as
the first emigrants from the eastward of the Allegheny mountains are
called, are very similar in their habits and manners to the aborigines,
only perhaps more prodigal and more careless of life. They depend
more on hunting than on agriculture, and of course are exposed to all
the varieties of climate in the open air. Their cabins are not better
than Indian wigwams. They have frequent meetings for the purposes of
gambling, fighting and drinking. They make bets to the amount of all
they possess. They fight for the most trifling provocations, or even
sometimes without any, but merely to try each others prowess, which
they are fond of vaunting of. Their hands, teeth, knees, head and feet
are their weapons, not only boxing with their fists, (at which they are
not to be compared for dexterity, to the lower classes in the seaports
of either the United States, or the British islands in Europe) but also
tearing, kicking, scratching, biting, gouging each others eyes out by
a dexterous use of a thumb and finger, and doing their utmost to kill
each other, even when rolling over one another on the ground; which
they are permitted to do by the byestanders, without any interference
whatever, until one of the parties gives out, on which they are
immediately separated, and if the conqueror seems inclined to follow
up his victory without granting quarter, he is generally attacked by a
fresh man, and a pitched battle between a single pair often ends in a
battle royal, where all present are engaged.
A stranger who had kept aloof during a fray of this kind, when it was
over, seeing a man with the top of his nose bit off, he approached him
and commiserated his misfortune. “Don’t pity me,” said the noseless
hero, “pity that fellow there,” pointing with one hand to another who
had lost an eye, and {119} shewing the eye which he held triumphantly
in the other.[95]
{120} Eight miles below Old-town creek we were carried through Le
Tart’s falls at the rate of six knots an hour, but the rapid, which it
ought to be called more properly than falls, is not more than half a
mile long.
Captain or squire Sears’s house, opposite to which we landed
our passengers, is very pleasantly situated on the left shore,
commanding a view of two islands above the falls, the nearest one in
cultivation,--the opposite shore variegated with low hills and valleys,
woods, cultivated fields and farm houses, a new water mill which he is
building on the right bank of the rapid, and the river below, taking a
sudden bend from N. W. to N. E. by N.
A mile and a half lower down we observed a large barge on the stocks in
the woods on the right bank.
Four miles from the falls we came to Graham’s station, which is a fine
populous settlement, extending about three miles along the left bank of
the river, from West creek to Wolfe’s farm house, which is charmingly
situated on a cliff. The Ohio side opposite is also well settled.
On passing Wolfe’s we asked a man at the door who it was that lived
there: He informed us, and {121} civilly invited us to land and quench
our thirst at a fine spring on the beach; but we declined stopping, as
we had filled our water cask at Pickets’s mill.
There is a ferry across the Ohio about the middle of Graham’s station,
which connects a road from Big to Little Kenhawa, sixteen miles to the
former and thirty to the latter.[96]
Nine miles below Wolfe’s, Jones’s rocks, on a hill on the right have a
striking appearance. They are of freestone, bare, and heaped upon each
other, resembling some of the old Turkish fortifications so numerous in
the Levant.
On a small bottom between them and the river, in a very romantick
situation, is a farm, seven years old, belonging to a Mr. Jones, who
informed us that there is a vein of good coal about a quarter of a mile
from his house.
This was the first house we had observed for the last eight miles,
though the land on the Virginia side, owned by one Waggoner, seems to
be of the first quality.
FOOTNOTES:
[95] This indeed is a most lamentable picture of the depravity of
human nature, and might have applied better fifteen or twenty years
ago than at present. But our author ought to have confined it to a
_particular_ frontier, and to a _few_ individuals; for it is by no
means the character of _all_ our backwoodsmen, nor are such ferocious
and more than beast-like battles customary on the borders of all our
frontier settlements. Nor can we believe even the more profligate among
the class here spoken of, would _purposely_ meet (unless indeed in an
actual state of warfare) to fight, to gouge, and to tear each others
flesh to pieces in the manner described; but that fighting, gouging,
&c. might be the _consequence_ of such meetings and carousings, we
have little doubt, especially where whiskey is the common drink of the
country. There are always a few diabolically wicked in all societies
of men, rude or civilized; but it would be unjust to libel a _whole_
community because of the wickedness and profligacy of a _few_.
It is observable that European travellers frequently misrepresent us
by giving for a _general_ character, that which is _particular_; hence
they mislead their readers into the most monstrous blunders as respects
the true features of our national character, while they do us a greater
piece of injustice than they might have intended. As an instance
of this the following quotation from “_Volney’s View of the United
States_,” will suffice: Speaking of the Philadelphia mode of eating and
drinking, he observes:
“At breakfast they deluge the stomach with a pint of hot water,
slightly impregnated with tea, or slightly tinctured, or rather
coloured, with coffee; and they swallow, almost without mastication,
hot bread, half baked, soaked in melted butter, with the grossest
cheese, and salt or hung beef, pickled pork or fish, all which can with
difficulty be dissolved.
“At dinner they devour boiled pastes, called, absurdly, puddings,
garnished with the most luscious sauces. Their turnips and other
vegetables are floated in lard or butter. Their pastry is nothing but
a greasy paste, imperfectly baked. To digest these various substances,
they take tea, _immediately after dinner_, so strong that it is bitter
to the taste, as well as utterly destructive of the nervous system.
Supper presently follows, with salt meat and shell fish in its train.
Thus passes the whole day, in heaping one indigestive mass upon
another. To brace the exhausted stomach, wine, rum, gin, malt spirits,
or beer, are used with dreadful prodigality.”
I am a native American, have passed through most of the American
states, and never drank, nor saw drunk, at either publick or private
table, “_tea immediately after dinner_,” nor never heard of a practice
of the kind in any of the states, hence I think I have reason to
conclude Mr. Volney _erroneous_ in giving this as the _general_
custom of a people; and think it probable he drew his conclusions
from the _particular_ practice of a _few_ families, in which he might
have lodged; and which might have altered their usual mode of eating
and drinking, in order to accommodate the supposed habits of this
great traveller, he being a native of France, where it is well-known
coffee is much used after dinner. How much more would the publick be
benefitted by the remarks of travellers on the manners and customs of
countries, would they divest themselves of their prejudices, passions,
and partialities, and confine themselves to the relation of simple
truths. Methinks a traveller who intends to publish his travels, ought
to be a _philosopher_, in the true sense of the word.--CRAMER.
[96] Rev. William Graham, who had been for twenty-one years president
of the first academy west of the Blue Ridge, becoming imbued with a
missionary spirit, bought six thousand acres of the Washington lands
and attempted to found a Presbyterian colony thereon. He brought out
several families in 1798, but returning the next year died at Richmond,
whereupon his colonists grew discouraged and withdrew. The place,
however, has retained to this day its name of Graham’s Station.--ED.