Having crossed the Pennsylvania western boundary, the Ohio River
separates West Virginia from the State of Ohio, passing a region which
seems mournful from the many abandoned oil-derricks displayed near the
banks for a long distance. The Ohio shore is Columbiana County, a name
fancifully compounded by an early State Legislature from "Columbus"
and "Anna;" and it is recorded that when the subject was pending one
member proposed to add "Maria," so that the euphonious whole would be
"Columbianamaria." His effort failed, however. At the various towns,
the railroads come out from the mountain regions of West Virginia,
bringing the bituminous coal for shipment. Ninety-four miles below
Pittsburg is Wheeling, the metropolis of West Virginia, a busy
manufacturing city of forty thousand people. Farther down, in the
midst of the flats adjoining the river, at Moundsville, is the great
Indian Mound, a relic of the prehistoric inhabitants of this region
standing up eighty feet high and being eight hundred and twenty feet
in circumference at the base. In this mound were found two sepulchral
chambers containing three skeletons. At Benwood, near by, one branch
of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad crosses the river to Bellaire in
Ohio. The Muskingum River, coming out of the heart of the State, flows
in at Marietta, a stream thus named by the Delaware Indians when they
first came to this region, from the abundance of elk and deer who
could be approached near enough to see their eyes, Muskingum meaning
"elk's eyes." Marietta is the oldest town in Ohio, settled in 1788 by
a colony sent out by the "Ohio Company" of New England, which had been
granted many square miles of land along the river. This colony of
forty-seven Yankee pioneers marched over the Alleghenies, floated down
the Ohio on a flatboat which they called the "Mayflower," and landing
at the mouth of the Muskingum, their first act was writing a set of
laws and nailing them to a tree, and in this code naming their
settlement in honor of Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France. A
company of troops in a little stockade fort protected them from the
Indians. Here they found a curious mass of ancient fortifications,
relics of the prehistoric mound-builders--a square enclosed by a wall
of earth ten feet high, having twelve entrances, a covered way,
bulwarks to defend the gateways, and other elaborate works, including
a moat fifteen feet wide defended by a parapet. Thirteen miles below,
the Little Kanawha River flows in at Parkersburg, and here the other
branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad crosses on a massive bridge,
a mile and a half long, over the river and lowlands. This is the
entrepot of a great petroleum district which gives the town a large
trade, and they are said to be still striking in the Ritchie County
oilfield thousand-barrel wells. In the river two miles below is the
noted Blennerhassett's Island, where that gentleman, an Irishman of
distinction, built himself a splendid mansion and made a fine estate
in 1798. When Aaron Burr afterwards concocted his notorious
conspiracy, he induced Blennerhassett to invest his fortune in the
scheme. Whilst not convicted of treason, Burr's dupe was irretrievably
ruined and his house and estate fell into decay.
The Great Kanawha flows in, the chief river of West Virginia, at Point
Pleasant, the Indian "rapid river," and it is now the outlet of one of
the leading coal-fields, the New River district, in its upper waters,
the navigation being maintained by an elaborate system of locks and
movable dams. At the mouth was fought the severest battle with the
Indians in the Ohio Valley, the tribes from beyond the river attacking
the troops, but being beaten off after great bloodshed. Huntington is
beyond, where the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway comes out to the Ohio,
after having passed Charleston, the West Virginia State capital, fifty
miles up the Kanawha. The Big Sandy River enters below, the boundary
of Kentucky, and beyond is the mouth of the Scioto on the Ohio bank,
where the terminus of the Lake Erie and Ohio Canal gave the start to
the city of Portsmouth, having twenty thousand people. Maysville, to
the westward on the Kentucky shore, is a leading hemp-market, and one
of the towns supplying the famous "Blue Grass Region." The river banks
here are very attractive and are backed by ranges of hills. Stretching
southward from the shores are extensive green parks, with few fences
and only occasional green fields, displaying majestic trees, one of
the best grazing districts in America, the wealth of the inhabitants
being in their flocks. Some distance back from the river the blue
grass begins, so named from its blue tinge when in blossom, the
district occupying ten thousand square miles in five Kentucky
counties, the soil being very rich and the extensive pastures lined by
hemp and tobacco fields. Stock farms abound, and Lexington is the
metropolis of the district, a thriving town of twenty-five thousand
people, about eighty miles south of the Ohio, an important horse and
cattle market, and also famous for its distilleries of the native
Bourbon whiskies. Here is the noted race-track of the "Kentucky
Horse-Breeders' Association," and in this district are raised the
greatest racing horses of America. Probably the leading stock farm is
at Ashland, a short distance out of town, where Henry Clay long had
his home. Lexington received its name from having been founded in 1775
about the time of the battle of Lexington. It has a fine monument to
Henry Clay, who died in 1852, and it is also the seat of the
University of Kentucky, with eight hundred students.