Economy of my late fellow traveller--Proceed towards Washington--Fine
view of Wheeling and the Ohio--Lose my road--Get right again by
descending a precipice--A fine valley with several handsome seats
and mills--Stop at Mr. Eoff’s--A well regulated family--Little
Wheeling creek--An obliging traveller--Roney’s point--Beautiful and
picturesque country--Alexandria or Hardscramble--M’Crackan’s--Good
effects of temperance and cleanliness in travelling.
I stopped at Knox’s inn, where I asked for some beer, not daring to
drink wine or spirits. They had none, so I walked out to a small
house where I had observed on a sign _Beer and Cakes_. On entering
{212} I found Musgrave making a hearty meal on a cent roll and a pint
of beer. He appeared as glad to see me again as if we had been old
acquaintances, and had been long parted, and was easily prevailed on
to make a second libation with me to the prosperous termination of our
journies, in that humble, but wholesome and refreshing beverage. I then
returned to Knox’s, where I supped and slept. Next morning at dawn, I
took a plunge in the river, and after breakfast, finding my strength
invigorated and my spirits renovated by the cold bath, I continued
my journey on foot by the most direct road to Washington, instead of
awaiting for the stage according to my first intention, as it had to go
ten miles out of the direct road to deliver the mail at Charlestown.
I set out at half past nine o’clock, and soon gained the top of the
hill immediately over Wheeling, from whence there is a handsome bird’s
eye view of that town, Zane’s island in fine cultivation, the two
ferries across the Ohio, and the village of Canton beyond; while on
the left the Ohio is seen winding among hills five or six miles below,
and the view is bounded in that direction, by one ridge rising beyond
another to a great distance. Turning round on the narrow ridge over
which the road leads, I had Wheeling creek directly under me at the
foot of a precipice, it running in such a manner as to make the scite
of the town with the hill behind, almost a peninsula, between it and
the Ohio.
I had proceeded about a mile, when meeting a traveller, of whom I
inquired, I found I had taken a wrong road, in consequence of which I
had to descend a steep precipice on my right, letting myself down with
my hands from one tree to another, to the bottom. Here I got into the
right road, which follows the meanders of the creek up a fine valley
that has been settled about thirty years, and is now in a state of
excellent cultivation.
{213} At two miles from Wheeling I passed a very handsome house, a fine
farm, and a mill of a Mr. Woods on the left. Here I could not help
being struck with the difference of appearance between this wooden
house painted white, with green jalousie window shutters and red roof,
and the stone and brick houses of Ohio and Kentucky, much in favour of
the former, however better in reality the latter may be. A mile farther
I passed Mr. Chaplin’s fine merchant mill, and about a mile and a half
beyond that, where the valley narrows, I observed on the left, some
very remarkable large loose rocks, which seem to have fallen from a
rocky cliff which impends above.
Half a mile beyond this, I stopped at a Mr. Eoff’s neat cottage and
good farm, where every thing had an air of plenty and comfort. Four
or five genteel looking young women were all engaged in sedentary
domestick avocations, and an old lady served me with some milk and
water which I had requested, after which I resumed my walk.
A mile up the side of the creek brought me to Mr. Shepherd’s mill,
and elegant house of cut stone.[149] Here the creek forks and the
road also, one of the forks called Big Wheeling coming from the S. E.
and the right hand road leading along it to Morgantown; the left fork
called Little Wheeling, which forms Mr. Shepherd’s mill race, coming
from the eastward, and my road towards Washington leading along it,
through a narrow valley with small farms, wherever a bottom or an easy
declivity of the hills would permit.
I was here overtaken by a man on horseback, who very courteously
insisted on my riding his horse, while he walked above a mile. He was
a county Tyrone man in the north of Ireland, settled twelve years in
America, the last six of which has been in this neighbourhood, where he
cultivated a farm with good success. Indeed industry and sobriety is
all {214} that is necessary in any part of the United States, to the
westward of the mountains, to insure a comfortable independence in a
very few years.
My companion stopping at a house on the road, I again proceeded alone
to M’Kinley’s tavern, four miles from Shepherd’s. I here left the
creek on the left, crossing a smaller one which falls into it from
the right, and I then ascended a steep and high hill, called Roney’s
point, from its being the point of a ridge, and first owned by one
Roney. It was above half a mile to the top of hill, from whence a fine,
thickly settled and well cultivated, but very hilly country broke on
my view, beautifully variegated with cornfields in tassel--wheat and
oat stubble--meadows--orchards--cottages--and stacks of grain and hay
innumerable, with a small coppice of wood between every plantation.
Descending a little, a mile and a half further brought me to William
Trusdale’s cottage, where I rested, and refreshed with some buttermilk
and water, and then went on through the same kind of country, four
miles from Trusdale’s, to the Virginia and Pennsylvania boundary
line, half a mile beyond which I entered the village of Alexandria. A
gust approaching fast I stopped about half an hour at John Woodburn’s
tavern. This village is named from a Mr. Alexander, the proprietor of
the soil, and is nicknamed Hardscramble, either from the hilly roads
by which one arrives at it, or from the difficulty experienced by the
first settlers to obtain a subsistence. It contains about a dozen
houses and cabins, a meeting house, and three taverns, but it does not
seem to thrive.[150]
After the gust I proceeded six miles through a very fine country,
charmingly variegated, but hilly, to M’Crackan’s tavern. The rain had
rendered the road so slippery, that I could travel but slowly, so that
it was almost dark when I arrived there.
{215} I found another traveller in the house, who was going from the
western part of Massachusetts near Albany, to the western part of
Virginia, as an agent to dispose of some large tracts of land there,
owned by some people in Albany. Having got some thickened milk for
supper, and bathed my feet in cold water, I had a fine night’s rest.
I would not mention so often my mode of living and treating myself
while on this journey, only to shew the good effects of temperance
and cleanliness, which enabled me, though in so warm a season, to
travel either on foot or on horseback, without fatigue or injury to my
constitution.
FOOTNOTES:
[149] This was the home of Moses Shepherd, son of one of the most
prominent pioneers of this region. For a sketch of his career, see
Harris’s _Journal_, vol. iii of this series, p. 348, note 35.--ED.
[150] On the origin of the name Alexandria, and the early history of
the town, see Harris’s _Journal_, vol. iii of this series, p. 348, note
33.--ED.