Proceed on foot--Washington--Frankfort--Morristown--Usual consequences
of a militia muster--St. Clairsville--Another traveller--Indian
Wheeling--Canton--River Ohio and Zane’s island--Wheeling--Part with
my fellow traveller.
On Tuesday the 18th August, the stage being only to go fifteen miles,
and the same distance next day, on account of the arrangement of the
carriage of the mails, rather than travel such a snail’s pace, I
proceeded on foot, leaving my baggage to follow in the stage. The first
five miles were excellent road, over a long but not very high ridge of
hills, without a single house to Washington, or Beymerstown, as it is
more generally called, from its being owned by the family of Beymer,
two of whom keep taverns in it.--It has twelve cabins, four of which
are taverns, and a blacksmith’s shop.
Four and a half miles further have no inhabitants; the road is
still good, but is led over several high, short and steep ridges,
which generally run from north to south. Then passing a cabin and
farm, in half a mile more I came to Frankfort or Smithstown, where
I breakfasted. This is a small village or rather hamlet of eight
or ten houses and cabins, some of which, as well as several in the
neighbourhood, are inhabited by families from Peeks-hill in New York,
many of whom regret their having removed {209} from thence to this
place, and with great reason, if one may judge from the appearance
of the soil, which is all a red and yellow clay, very stiff, and
apparently very unproductive.
The country now became better settled, but still continued very hilly.
I walked on, passing Wherry’s tavern where the stage was to sleep at
five miles, and stopping at Bradshaw’s, where I rested about half an
hour, and got some refreshment. This family is from the county Monaghan
in Ireland. Their house is too small for an inn, but they have a good
farm. Ten miles further brought me to Morristown, through a similar
hilly country, with a succession of woods and farms, the latter at
every mile, and a tavern at every two miles.
On the road I met in straggling parties above fifty horsemen with
rifles, who had been in Morristown at a militia muster, for the purpose
of volunteering, or of being drafted to serve against Britain, in case
of a war with that country, now much talked of. Most of them were above
half seas over, and they travelled with much noise--some singing, some
swearing, some quarrelling, some laughing, according to their different
natural dispositions, which are always most manifest when in that
unguarded situation.
I found Morristown, where I arrived just before dark, all in a bustle
from the same cause, many of the country people remaining to a late
hour, drinking and fighting.
My host Morrison who is a justice of the peace, and a major of the
militia, had shut his house against them, but there was another tavern,
where squire Morrison, while commanding the peace, during an affray,
came in for his share of the blows, and had his shirt torn.
I got a very good supper--bathed my feet and went to bed in a room
where a man and his wife, a young married couple, in another bed, acted
over a {210} similar scene to what I had experienced at New Lancaster,
keeping me awake chatting to me until a very late hour.
After a short but sound sleep, I awoke at an early hour well refreshed,
and pushed on eleven miles to St. Clairsville, through a fine, well
improved, and well inhabited country, which was still hilly, but the
ridges were neither so steep nor so high, as they are in general at
this side of Chilicothe.
I stopped at Thompson’s stage inn, where Mrs. Thompson who was very
civil, prepared me a good breakfast.
St. Clairsville, or Newelstown, as it is more frequently improperly
called, is the capital of Belmont county, and is pleasantly situated on
the point and top of the highest hill within sight, from whence twelve
or fourteen miles of ridges and woods may be seen in every direction,
some of them across the Ohio, which I was now again approaching. The
town is only about four years old, and already contains eighty good
houses, including several stores and taverns. It has a court-house
and gaol, and altogether it has the greatest appearance of wealth and
business of any town between Chilicothe and itself. There are several
Quakers, settled in the neighbourhood, who are a snug, wealthy and
industrious people, and who enhance the value of real property in a
wide extent around the focus of their settlements.
Leaving St. Clairsville at eleven o’clock, I joined a footman named
Musgrave, who was going to Morgantown in Virginia, to collect money to
pay off some incumbrances on his lands below Limestone. He was a plain
man, but an intelligent, expeditious and economical traveller, whose
company shortened the road to Wheeling. It is a well settled country
and a fine road, the first six miles from St. Clairsville. We then
descended a long hill into the river bottom of Indian Wheeling, where
we came to a good grist {211} and saw mill. Keeping down that fine
little mill river five miles to its confluence with the Ohio, we forded
it five times in that distance.
On the banks of the Ohio is a new town called Canton, laid out by
Mr. Zane last year, which has now thirteen houses. We here crossed
a ferry of a quarter of a mile to Zane’s island, which we walked
across, upwards of half a mile, through a fertile, extensive, and well
cultivated farm, the property of Mr. Zane, some of whose apples, pulled
from the orchard in passing, were very refreshing to us, while we sat
on the bank nearly an hour awaiting the ferry boat. At last the boat
came, and we crossed the second ferry of another quarter of a mile to
Wheeling.
Here my fellow traveller took leave of me, purposing to go five or six
miles further ere night, though it was now five o’clock, and we had
already walked upwards of thirty miles since morning.