{134} CHAPTER XX

Big Guiandot river—Crumps’s farm—Inhospitable reception—General remark—Two hunters—Cotton plantation, and gin for cleaning the cotton—Snakes—Remedy for their bite—Great Sandy river—State boundary—Hanging rock.

Six miles below Bowden’s, we passed Big Guiandot river which joins the Ohio from the left, and is about eighty yards wide, having one Buffington’s finely situated house and farm on the bank just below it. From Bowden’s to Big Guiandot, the banks of the Ohio are well settled on both sides. In the next eleven miles, we passed three creeks on the right, and one on the left hand, the second one called Indian Guiandot, only worth remarking. It coming on to rain very heavy, we stopped here at the end of eleven miles, just above the mouth of a fine little river on the left called Twelve Pole creek, about thirty yards wide, with a ferry and a large scow or flat for carrying over horses or cattle. The house we stopped at was very well situated on the top of a high sloping bank, and was the residence of one Crumps, who had removed here from Kentucky, and possessed the rich and well cultivated surrounding farm. The family were at breakfast, but no place was offered at the table to the wet travellers, though it was well loaded with viands, which Mr. Crumps apparently knew how to make the best use of for fattening, as his corpulency and general appearance strongly indicated a propensity to boorish gluttony. Indeed we were not permitted to enter the eating room, but with a sort of sullen civility, were desired to sit down in an open space which divides two enclosed ends from each other, but all covered with the same roof, and which is the usual style of the cottages in this part of the country. The space in the middle is probably {135} left unenclosed, for the moreagreeable occupancy of the family during the violent heats of summer.

I have observed that wherever we have stopped on the banks of the river, we have rarely experienced that hospitality, which might be expected to prevail amongst people so remote from polished society.

Two hunters sat down with us after they had finished their breakfast, and they entertained us above an hour with their feats of deer and bear killing, in which the one always related something more extraordinary than the other. At last they bantered each other to go out and kill a deer.

It still rained very heavy, but nothing deterred by it, they each took their rifle, stuck their tomahawks into the belts of their hunting shirts, and accompanied by a fine dog, led by a string to prevent his breaking (or hunting the game beyond the reach of their rifles) they set off for the woods.

Seeing some cotton regularly planted on the opposite side of the river, on inquiry, I learned that from hence down the Ohio, a good deal of cotton is raised, although on account of its not standing the winter, it must be planted every year. Though the climate farther south is more congenial to it, it is nevertheless an annual throughout the continent to the northward of Cape Florida, differing from the countries between the tropicks, where I have sometimes seen the same plants bear to the seventh year; but that only in places where it was neglected, as the common usage there is to replant every third or fourth year. A few miles from Crumps’s there is a large gin worked by two men, which can clean seven hundred pounds per day; the toll for ginning is one eighth of the quantity cleaned.

The copperhead snake[102]abounds here, but the rattlesnakeis scarce. Crumps told us that the bark of the root of the poplar, particularly the yellow poplar, made into a strong decoction and taken inwardly, {136} while a part pounded and applied to the bite of any snake, is an infallible remedy: And that it is also a most powerful alterative, and purifier of the blood.

There being no prospect of the rain subsiding, at eleven o’clock we proceeded, sitting under our awning and letting the boat drop with the current, which she did about two miles an hour.

At half past twelve we passed Great Sandy river on the left, four miles below Crumps’s. It is about a hundred yards wide, and is the boundary between Virginia and Kentucky; in the latter of which, on the bank above the confluence, are two large houses, one of logs and the other framed and clapboarded, with a sign post before the door—probably the scite of some future town.[103]

Three miles from hence are two small creeks opposite each other, and a good brick house building at the mouth of that on the left. Three miles and a half further is Big Storm creek on the right, a mile and a half below which, we passed on the left, an excellent house of a Mr. Colvin, nearly opposite to which, on the right is a small insulated mountain named Hanging Rock, from its being a bare perpendicular rock, from half the elevation to the top.

This is a very picturesque and agreeable object to the eye, fatigued with the perpetual sameness of the banks below Point Pleasant.

Two miles further on the right, a little way below Ferguson’s sand bar, we observed a wharf or pier of loose paving stones, and some mill machinery on the bank above it—theremains of a floating mill carried away last winter by the floods.

Half a mile below this is a remarkable point, and fine beach of coarse gravel on the right, and a delightfully situated farm almost opposite.

Judge Boon has a good house on the left about three miles further down,[104]opposite to which on the Ohio side is the beginning of French Grant.

{137} The Ohio which had ran generally between the south and west, (except for about thirty miles near Le Tart’s falls where it takes a northerly course) had altered its direction to the north westward, from the confluence of Big Sandy river.

FOOTNOTES:[102]The copperhead (trigonocephalus contortrix), a rather small venomous snake, gives no warning before it bites. The name was, therefore, applied during the War of Secession to disloyal Northerners.—Ed.[103]This was the future town of Catlettsburg. The first land was surveyed on the Big Sandy in 1770, when Washington laid out bounty lands for Captain John Savage’s company, who had served in the French and Indian War.—Ed.[104]This was Jesse Boone, son of the well-known pioneer Daniel, who had removed to Missouri with his other sons in 1798. Jesse Boone remained behind, was inspector of salt-works for West Virginia, and justice of the Kentucky county court for Greenup. This information is derived from personal relation of Nathan Boone, another son, in Wisconsin Historical Society Draper MSS., 6 S 212.—Ed.

[102]The copperhead (trigonocephalus contortrix), a rather small venomous snake, gives no warning before it bites. The name was, therefore, applied during the War of Secession to disloyal Northerners.—Ed.

[103]This was the future town of Catlettsburg. The first land was surveyed on the Big Sandy in 1770, when Washington laid out bounty lands for Captain John Savage’s company, who had served in the French and Indian War.—Ed.

[104]This was Jesse Boone, son of the well-known pioneer Daniel, who had removed to Missouri with his other sons in 1798. Jesse Boone remained behind, was inspector of salt-works for West Virginia, and justice of the Kentucky county court for Greenup. This information is derived from personal relation of Nathan Boone, another son, in Wisconsin Historical Society Draper MSS., 6 S 212.—Ed.

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