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.