French Grant--Dreadful epidemick disorder--Distressing scene
occasioned by it--Mons Gervais and Burrsburgh--Greenupsburgh--Power
of hunger proved--Little Sciota river--Portsmouth--Paroquets.
A little below judge Boon’s we were hailed by a man on the Ohio
shore. We landed and found him to be a Mr. White, who had put a box
of medicines into our boat at Marietta, for doctor Merrit, and having
travelled on horseback had arrived here before us.
We now delivered it to White, who, hearing A---- call me Doctor, he
requested me to stop and visit a Mr. Hunt, who with two of his men and
his housekeeper, were suffering under a most severe epidemick malady,
which was then raging in and about French Grant, and which doctor
Merrit, the only medical man in the settlement, had been attacked with
yesterday. Prompted by humanity, we walked to the cabin occupied by
Mr. Hunt’s family, where we beheld a truly distressing scene. In an
Indian grass hammock, lay Mr. Hunt, in a desperate and hopeless stage
of the yellow fever; his skin and eyes of a deep yellow, and he in a
state of apparent stupor, but still sensible. His housekeeper, looking
almost as ill, and groaning piteously, on a bed near him. One of his
men seated on a chair, in a {138} feeble state of convalescence; and
another standing by almost recovered, but still looking wretchedly. On
the floor were travelling trunks, cases, books, furniture, and house
utensils, promiscuously jumbled together, but all clean, as was the
cabin itself.
I could not help contrasting in my mind Mr. Hunt’s present situation,
at so great a distance from his connexions, from cultivated society,
and from medical aid, with what it was, when he represented his native
state of New Hampshire in congress, or during his travels in Europe.
Such are some of the hardships and inconveniences attending the first
settlers in a new country.[105]
After approving what doctor Merrit had prescribed, and recommending a
continuance of his regimen and advice, which consisted of alterative
catharticks followed by tonicks, we took our leave, impressed with the
opinion that Mr. Hunt had but a few hours longer of existence, which
also seemed to be his own opinion, as when I addressed a few cheering
words to him, he only answered by shaking his head and closing his
eyes. I supposed the rest of the family would recover. White is an
intelligent man, and makes a trade of sinking wells, of which he has
sunk a very fine one, of forty-five feet deep for Mr. Hunt, near a good
two story house almost finished.
French Grant contains twenty-four thousand acres, given by the United
States to some French settlers, who had been disappointed in the titles
of their purchases at Galliopolis, amongst whom a Mons. Gervais[106]
had for his part four thousand acres, on which he planned a town, which
he named Burrsburgh, in honour of the then vice president: but after
passing ten solitary years in a small log cabin, with no society except
that of his dog and cat, during which time he employed himself in
cultivating his little garden, he last year sold his whole tract to Mr.
Hunt, except two hundred and seventeen acres, given by him to an {139}
agent in Philadelphia, as a recompence for his having enabled him to
fulfil the engagement to government by which he held the land. He now
lives in Galliopolis, and Mr. Hunt has changed the intended Burrsburgh
into a farm.
On our walk to the boat I gave White some directions for himself as
preventive to the prevailing disorder, for which he thanked me, and
asked our charge for the freight of doctor Merrit’s box in such a
manner as to preclude the possibility of making any.
We then crossed the river at Greenupsburgh, the seat of justice of
Greenup county, in Kentucky. It is laid out for a town within the last
year, but it contains as yet only one dwelling house, occupied by one
Lyons as a tavern, where the courts are held; immediately in the rear
of which is a strong and wretched dungeon of double logs, called the
gaol, with a pillory between. Little Sandy river, about seventy yards
wide, flows into the Ohio just below Greenupsburgh.
It was almost dark when we landed at Lyons’s. We ordered supper,
during the preparation of which Mrs. Lyons requested my advice for her
husband, who had been seized that morning by the prevailing fever. I
wrote a prescription for him _secundum artem_, which I thought fully
equivalent to our supper, but as she gave us no credit for it in our
bill, she probably supposed that a travelling doctor ought to prescribe
gratis.
We had an excellent supper of tea, nice broiled chickens, and fine
biscuit, to which travelling and rowing gave us good appetite,
notwithstanding we saw our landlady take the table cloth from under her
sick husband’s bed clothes. After this let not the delicate town bred
man affect disgust at the calls of nature being satisfied in a manner
he is unused to, as {140} in a similar situation, I will venture to
assert, he would do as we did.
After supper, we dropped down the stream about a mile, then anchored
with a stone at the end of a rope, at a little distance from the shore,
and went to sleep.
Proceeding, on the twenty-eighth, at the dawn of day, by half past
five we were abreast of Green township, a small hamlet of six or seven
houses, on the right, in French Grant, three miles below Greenupsburgh.
Six miles lower, we left on the right, Little Sciota river, about
thirty yards wide.
Half a mile further, on the same side, we passed a stratum of iron ore,
and a mile below that, a stony point projecting and sloping downwards,
forming a fine harbour for boats, when the point is not overflowed.
Tiger creek, about twenty yards wide, and apparently navigable for
boats, flows in from the Kentucky side, three miles lower down,
opposite to which, from Little Sciota river, the bottoms are very
narrow, being confined by a picturesque range of low rocky cliffs and
mountains, with a few straggling pines overtopping the other trees on
their summits.
Three miles further we stopped at Portsmouth on the right, and
breakfasted at John Brown’s tavern. Mr. Brown is a magistrate and
keeps a store. After breakfast, the wind blowing too fresh up the
river for us to make any progress without great labour, I walked to
the upper end of the town, through a straight street, parallel to the
Ohio, about half a mile long, on the top of a handsome sloping bank. I
returned by a back street, which brought me to the banks of the Scioto,
which river, running from the northward, falls into the Ohio a mile
below Portsmouth, at an angle of thirty-three degrees, leaving only
sufficient room between the two rivers for two parallel streets, on the
one of which fronting the Ohio, building lots of a quarter of an acre,
now sell at fifty dollars each. There is a {141} narrow level near a
mile long below the town to the point of junction of the Scioto with
the Ohio, which cannot be built on, as it is annually inundated by the
spring floods: there is now a fine field of corn on it, and it would
all make excellent meadow. Mr. Massie, of Chilicothe, who is proprietor
of both it and the town, asks fifteen hundred dollars for it, though it
does not appear to contain fifty acres.[107]
Portsmouth is in a handsome and healthy situation, though rather too
much confined by the Scioto’s approach to the Ohio, so far above its
confluence with that river. It is likely to become a town of some
consequence, as it is the capital of the county of Scioto. It is only
two years since it was laid out, and it now contains twenty houses,
some of which are of brick, and most of them very good. I was shewn the
scite of a court-house intended to be erected immediately.
Alexandria, in sight, below the mouth of the Scioto, is on a high,
commanding bank, and makes a handsome appearance from above Portsmouth,
to travellers descending the river. It is eleven years old, but it has
not thriven, and the erection of the town of Portsmouth so near it, has
caused it to decline rapidly. It has still however the post-office for
both towns.
There is a remarkable naked, round topped, rocky mountain, on the
Virginia side, opposite to Portsmouth, which forms a variety to the
forest covered hills, which every where meet the eye of the traveller
through this western region.
We observed here, vast numbers of beautiful large, green paroquets,
which our landlord, squire Brown, informed us abound all over the
country. They keep in flocks, and when they alight on a tree, they are
not distinguishable from the foliage, from their colour.[108]
FOOTNOTES:
[105] Samuel Hunt of New Hampshire was born in 1765, and after studying
law travelled in Europe for three years. Upon his return he was twice
sent to Congress from his native state (1802-05), and declined the
third election in order to convey a colony to the Ohio, where he had
negotiated a purchase in the French Grant from the owner, Gervais. He
engaged as a housekeeper, Miss Cynthia Riggs; and came out on horseback
in the fall of 1806. Cuming’s fears were realized, for Hunt died a
few days after he had passed. The New Hampshire colony emigrated
later (1810), however, under the lead of Asa Boynton, and the name of
Burrsburgh was changed to that of Haverhill.--ED.
[106] Jean Gabriel Gervais conducted the movement which led to the
congressional grant for the French of Gallipolis, and received four
thousand acres for services therein. He lived at Gallipolis until the
final sale of his lands. The income resulting from the investment of
the funds, permitted his return (1817) to pass the evening of his life
in his native Paris.--ED.
[107] General Nathaniel Massie, born in Virginia in 1763, served in
the Revolution while a youth, and at its close emigrated to Kentucky.
There he was soon employed in the movement which led to the Virginia
Military Reserve settlement in Ohio. When Virginia ceded her Northwest
claims to Congress (1784) she retained a large tract between the Scioto
and Miami rivers for bounty lands for her soldiers. Massie began the
survey thereof in 1788, and two years later led out the first colony
on the site of Manchester, Ohio. At the close of the Indian wars
Chillicothe was platted (1796), and became the first capital of the
state of Ohio. Massie was an influential leader in early Ohio politics;
he headed the opposition to General St. Clair, and persuaded Jefferson
to remove him (1803). A strong Democrat in politics, his presence at
the constitutional convention aided in giving a democratic cast to the
new state constitution. For many years he acted as major-general of
the Ohio militia, and one of his last public services was to reinforce
Harrison at Fort Meigs. His death occurred in 1813.--ED.
[108] Nearly all the early travellers speak of finding paroquets in
the Ohio Valley, but they are now only to be found much south of this
latitude.--ED.
{142} CHAPTER XXII
The Scioto--Alexandria--Colgin’s fine family--Very cold
weather--Remarks on the sudden changes of weather--Salt lick--Salt
springs and works.
The Scioto is about two hundred and fifty yards wide at its mouth, and
is navigable for large flats and keel boats to Chilicothe, the capital
of the state, forty-seven miles by land, but between sixty and seventy
following the meanders of the river; and about a hundred miles further
for batteaux, from whence is a portage of only four miles to Sandusky
river which falls into Lake Erie--and near the banks of which the
Five Nations have established their principal settlements, called the
Sandusky towns. Its general course is about S. S. W. and except during
the spring floods, it has a gentle current, and an easy navigation.
About thirty miles from its mouth, and eight or ten from its left bank,
are some salt springs, which make salt enough for the consumption of
the country for forty or fifty miles round.[109]
At three o’clock we left Portsmouth, from whence to Alexandria is W. S.
W. about a mile and a quarter. We landed there and walked through the
town, which contains only ten large houses besides barns and other out
buildings--but, though inhabited, they are neglected and out of repair,
and every thing bears the appearance of poverty and decay. From hence
to Chilicothe the distance by the road is forty-seven miles.
We delayed about an hour, and then proceeding down the river, we
observed the hills on the left to be of conical forms, and the river
bottoms very narrow. About four miles below Alexandria we observed
rather a tasty cottage and improvement on the right. We inquired of a
gentlemanly looking elderly man on the bank, “who resided there?” but
{143} he uncourteously not deigning a reply, we were informed at the
next settlement that it was a Major Bellisle.[110]
Passing Turkey creek on the right, and Conoconecq creek on the left,
seven miles more brought us opposite to a very handsome insulated
mountain, five hundred feet high, on the right, and passing Willow
(small) island and bar on the same hand, we landed nearly opposite to
buy milk at a decent looking cabin and small farm. It was owned by
one Colgin, an Irishman, who has been several years in Kentucky, but
only two in his present residence. He has only eight acres cleared,
on which he maintains himself, his wife, and seven children, who are
all comfortably and even becomingly drest. There was an air of natural
civility, and even kindness, in the manner of this family, which I had
not observed before on the banks of the Ohio. The children, who were
all born in Kentucky, were uncommonly handsome.
Three miles further we passed on the right, Twin creeks, about a
hundred yards apart, a mile beyond which we anchored under the Ohio
shore at half past nine, and passed under our awning as cold a night
as I have experienced in the more northern climates in November. The
sudden and frequent changes from excessive heat to excessive cold
throughout the United States, are amongst the greatest inconveniences
to which the inhabitants are exposed, and are very trying to delicate
constitutions, being the cause of pulmonary complaints, which are very
common, particularly among the females.
On the clear, cold morning, of the twenty-ninth of July, we hauled up
our anchor, and dropping down the current three miles, we landed at
Salt Lick landing, at six o’clock.
We walked about a mile to the salt springs. The old original one,
formerly used by the Indians, and another lately opened, are on the
west side of Salt Lick {144} creek and are owned by a family of the
name of Beal. Three others on the east side of the creek, opened
within three years, belong to a Mr. Greenup. The salt is made in
three furnaces at Beal’s springs, and in four at Greenup’s. Each
furnace contains fifty cast iron pans, of about twenty gallons each,
and makes, on Greenup’s side, one hundred bushels of salt per week,
while on Beal’s side they make only sixty bushels per week, in each
furnace. The price of salt at the works is two dollars per bushel. A
furnace requires eight men to do its work, whose wages are from twenty
to twenty-five dollars per month each. The water in the old spring is
near the surface, but the new wells are sunk to the depth of fifty-five
feet. The water is wound up by hand by a windlass, in buckets, and
emptied into wooden troughs, which lead to the furnaces. The old spring
has two pumps in it. Much labour might be saved by machinery wrought
either by horses, or by the water of the neighbouring creek; but in so
new a country one must not expect to find the arts in perfection.
The proprietors of each furnace pay a yearly rent of from three to five
hundred bushels of salt to the proprietors of the soil.
The valley in which the springs are is small, and surrounded by broken
and rather barren hills, but producing wood enough to supply the
furnaces with fuel constantly, if properly managed.
There is a wagon road of seventy miles from hence to Lexington, through
a country settled the whole way. The road passes the upper Blue Licks,
where are also salt springs and furnaces, not nearly however so
productive as these. The Salt Lick springs, which are the strongest in
this western country, are not half so strongly impregnated with salt,
as the water of the ocean, yielding only about one pound of salt, from
sixty pounds of water.
{145} What a subject of admiration does it not afford to the moralizing
philosopher, that such a provision should be made by all bountiful
nature, or rather by nature’s God, for supplying both the intellectual
and brute creation, with an article so necessary to both, in the heart
of an immense continent, so remote from any ocean.
There are three or four houses at the landing, which was intended as
the scite of the county town, but the seat of the courts has been
established four miles lower down the Ohio.[111]
We breakfasted on good coffee, biscuit, meat and cheese, at the house
of one M’Bride, an Irishman, who has a fine family of ten children all
living.
FOOTNOTES:
[109] For the early history of the Scioto, see Croghan’s _Journals_,
vol. i of this series, p. 134, note 102.--ED.
[110] Major John Belli was a cosmopolitan, his father being French, his
mother Dutch, and he himself born (1760) and educated in England. He
inherited estates in Holland, but having become imbued with republican
principles, emigrated to America, bearing letters of recommendation
from John Jay. Belli landed at Alexandria, Virginia, in 1783 and
remained there nine years, forming a personal acquaintance with
Washington, Knox, and other public men. Sent west on public business
in 1791, he remained as deputy-quartermaster of the army until after
Wayne’s victory, when he purchased land at the mouth of Turkey Creek,
and built thereon the house of which Cuming speaks. It was a large
two story frame building, unusually good for the region, and was
named “Belvidere.” Major Belli married a cousin of General Harrison,
and although the founder of Alexandria at the mouth of the Scioto,
preferred his home at Turkey Creek, where he died in 1809.--ED.
[111] Vanceburgh, at the mouth of Salt Lick Creek, is now the
county-seat for Lewis County; but Clarksburgh, a village below, was
originally so chosen.--ED.