A SUSPENSION BRIDGE.
About noon the third day, we came in sight of Wheeling, in Virginia.
This is a considerable place. It contains about ten thousand
inhabitants.
The boat stopped at Wheeling an hour or more to unload a part of her
freight. This gave us a fine opportunity to go on shore and view the
town. It is well built, but, like most of the places all the way from
Cincinnati to Pittsburg, has quite a sooty appearance, caused by the
dust of the coal, which they burn here in large quantities. Wheeling is,
moreover, a place of considerable manufacture.
But the greatest curiosity at this place, and one of the greatest I have
ever seen, is the suspension bridge thrown over the Ohio. It must be
something like one thousand feet in length, as broad as most bridges
are, and not far from ninety feet above the surface of the river when
the water is low; though much less, of course, at times when the river
rises.
This bridge is much more remarkable than the suspension bridge first
built over Niagara River; for while that is much higher above the water
than this, it is, in comparison, very narrow indeed. The suspension
bridge at Wheeling is broad enough for several carriages to go side by
side on it; but that below Niagara Falls is only just broad enough for
one.
I would have visited it; but I was afraid the boat in which I was
traveling would leave the wharf by some means sooner than was expected,
and it would be a sad thing to be left in port, with our trunks all on
board. Many of the company did venture, however, and they returned, too,
in good time.
Bridgeport, a small but flourishing village, is on the Ohio side of the
river, just opposite Wheeling. This whole region is noted for burnings
and massacres, during the wars of our country with the Indians little
more than fifty years ago.
One anecdote I will relate very briefly. In March, 1793, about
fifty-nine years ago, as two brothers by the name of Johnson, one of
them twelve, the other nine years of age, were playing by the side of
the river some ten or twelve miles above Wheeling, they were suddenly
seized by two Indians and carried about six miles into the woods. Here
the savages built a fire and halted for the night. When they lay down to
rest, each Indian took a boy on his arm. As may easily be conjectured,
however, the boys did not sleep. Finding the Indians to be very sound
asleep, they concerted a plan, young as they were, for destroying them
and effecting their escape. The plan succeeded. One of the Indians was
shot with his own rifle; the other was killed with a tomahawk. The boys
returned to their own homes the next day in safety.