{187} CHAPTER XXX
Heistant’s—Lashley goes on before—Sinking springs—Fatiguing road—Broadley’s—Musical shoemaker—Talbot’s—Dashing travellers—Bainbridge—Platter’s—Irish schoolmaster—Reeves’s—Paint creek—Cat-tail swamp—Rogers’s North fork of Paint—Arrival at Chilicothe—Meeker’s.
Heistant’s—Lashley goes on before—Sinking springs—Fatiguing road—Broadley’s—Musical shoemaker—Talbot’s—Dashing travellers—Bainbridge—Platter’s—Irish schoolmaster—Reeves’s—Paint creek—Cat-tail swamp—Rogers’s North fork of Paint—Arrival at Chilicothe—Meeker’s.
On Tuesday morning the 11th August, we arose with the dawn, and notwithstanding there was a steady smallrain, we pursued our journey, having first paid Marshon fully as much for our simple and coarse accommodations, as the best on the road would have cost, but our host I suppose thought his stories and his son’s musick were equivalent for all other deficiencies.
The land was poor, and no house on the road until we arrived at Heistant’s tavern, four miles from Marshon’s, where we met the Lexington stage.
My morning walk had given me an appetite for breakfast, which my fellow traveller not being willing to be at the expence of, declined, and saying that as I walked so much faster than him I would soon overtake him, he went on, intending to satisfy his stomach occasionally with some bread and cheese from his knapsack, and a drop of whiskey from his tin canteen, from which he had made a libation at first setting out, and had seemed surprised at my refusal of his invitation to partake.
Heistant is a Pennsylvania German, and has a good and plentiful house, in a very pleasant situation, called the Sinking springs, from a great natural curiosity near it. On the side of a low hill, now in cultivation, are three large holes, each about twenty feet deep and twenty feet diameter, about sixty paces apart, with a subterraneous communication by which the water is conveyed from one to the other, and issues in a fine rivulet at a fourth opening near the {188} house, where Heistant’s milk house is placed very judiciously. The spring is copious and the water very fine.[137]
After a good breakfast I walked on alone, and at about a mile, I entered on a dreary forest having first passed Irwin’s tavern, a pleasant situation where the stage sleeps going towards the S. westward. Three miles from Irwin’s, is over very broken, but well timbered hills, to the left of whichon Brush creek, I was informed, that there is a fine settlement, but it is not in sight of the road. The next two miles was through a beech bottom, which was rendered so miry by the rain that poured on me all the time, that it was most laborious walking through it. About the middle of it, I met three men in hunting shirts with each an axe in his hand. Their appearance in that solitary situation was no ways agreeable; however, we gave each other good day, and they told me that old Lashley had desired them to inform me that he would await me at Bradley’s, the next house, but when I came there, he had just departed, so that I might have very soon overtaken him, had I not preferred being alone, to effect which the more certainly, I stopped to rest, as it was a house of private entertainment. Bradley and his wife are about sixteen years from Stewartstown, county Tyrone in Ireland, and have a daughter lately married to a young shoemaker named Irons at the next cabin, where I stopped to get my shoes mended. I here found a dozen of stout young fellows who had been at work repairing the road, and were now sheltering themselves from the increasing storm, and listening to some indifferent musick made by their host on a tolerably good violin. I proposed taking the violin while he repaired my shoes. He consented and sat down to work, and in a few minutes I had all the lads jigging it on the floor merrily; Irons himself, as soon as he had repaired the shoes, jumping up and joining them.
{189} Seeing no prospect of the storm ceasing, I satisfied my shoemaker for his trouble, with something more agreeable to him than my musick, and then set off to reach Talbot’s, said to be a good tavern, three miles further.
The road led over the highest hill which I had yet seen since I left the Ohio, and afterwards through a level, well wooded, but thinly inhabited country.
In an hour I was at Talbot’s, which is a good two story house of squared logs, with a large barn and excellent stabling, surrounded by a well opened and luxuriant farm, with a fine run of meadow.
The landlord and his family are seven years from Nenagh in the county Tipperary, and is the first Irish settler, I had seen on my tour, from any other part than the north of Ireland. He had kept Ellis’s ferry on the Ohio, where Powers now resides, for some years, and has lately rented this house and farm from Mr. Willis of Chilicothe, the contractor for carrying the mail from Wheeling to Lexington.
Observing a new stage wagon in the yard, my host informed me that it was one which Mr. Willis intended in a few days to commence running between Chilicothe and Ellis’s ferry, so that it, and the one already established, will each run once a week on different days.
I shifted my wet clothes, and then (there being no doctor nearer than Chilicothe, twenty-four miles) prescribed medicine and regimen for Talbot’s little daughter, who was suffering under a severe and dangerous attack of a nervous fever.
Three young men on horseback arrived soon after me, and were shewn into the same room. They talked a little largely, according to a very common custom among young travellers, intimating that they were just returning from the Olympian springs in Kentucky, a place of very fashionable resort, where they had been on a party of pleasure, and where they {190} had attended more to cards, billiards, horse jockeying, &c. than to the use of the waters for medicinal purposes. I am however much mistaken, if they had not been travelling on business, and took the opportunity of visiting those celebrated springs, which are the Bath of Kentucky, and which they now affected to speak of as thesole cause of their journey.[138]I listened with much amusement to their dashing conversation, knowing tolerably well how to estimate it, in a country where vanity in the young and ambition among the more advanced in life are predominant features. I do not confine this remark to the state of Ohio, where probably there is less of either than in the older states, in which, particularly to the southward of New England, they seem to be national characteristics.
We supped together and were then shewn to our beds by the landlord, who probably thought that the custom of two in a bed was general in America, by his shewing the whole four into a room with two beds: I followed him however down stairs, and soon had a good bed prepared for me in a room by myself.
On Wednesday morning the 12th August, I proceeded through a wilderness of fine land well adapted for cultivation, and finely timbered to Bainbridge, a hamlet of eight cabins, a large stone house building, a blacksmith shop, a post-office, and a store kept by William Daly for Humphrey Fullerton of Chilicothe. Daly told me that he had a good deal of business for the five months he had been here, there being a populous and well cultivated country in the neighbourhood on Buckskin and Paint creeks, at the falls of the latter of which, about a mile to the northward of Bainbridge are some of the best mills in the state, owned by Gen. Massey, who is also proprietor of Bainbridge, which he laid out for a town about a year ago, selling the lots at about thirty dollars each.
{191} The reason assigned for the lands being generally so badly settled along the roads, is, that they belong to wealthy proprietors, who either hold them at a very high price, or will not divide them into convenient sized farms.
From Bainbridge to Reeves’s on the bank of Paint creek, is through a fine well wooded level, with hills in sight from every opening in the woods, about a mile distant. I passed a finger post on the left, a mile from Bainbridge, pointing to the westward and directing to Cincinnatti seventy-three miles, and immediately after I left Platter’s tavern and well cultivated farm on the right, a little beyond which is a school-house, where I observed the schoolmaster, an Irish looking old man, with silver grey locks and barefooted, his whole appearance, and that of the cabin which was the school, indicating but little encouragement for the disseminating of instruction.
A mile from Platter’s I stopped at Reeves’s, where I had been informed I could be well accommodated, although it was not a tavern, and I proved my information to be correct, as I immediately got the breakfast I asked for, excellent bread, and rich milk, neatly served, in a large handsome and clean room, for which it was with difficulty I could prevail on Mrs. Reeves to accept any recompence.
This house is charmingly situated near the bank of Paint creek, and was the best I had seen since I entered the state of Ohio, it being spacious, of two lofty stories, and well built with very handsome stone. It is surrounded on all sides by a noble and well improved farm, which nine years ago, when Reeves came here from Washington in Pennsylvania, was a wilderness. He built his handsome house about five years ago, and at some distance on the bank of the creek, he has a large tanyard and leather shop, from whence one of his men, ferried me across the creek in a canoe.
{192} Paint creek is a beautiful little river about forty yards wide, running easterly to join the Scioto near Chilicothe.
My walk from hence to the north fork of Paint creek,was a most fatiguing one, being thirteen miles, mostly along a very rich bottom, with the creek on the right, and steep hills on the left, over spurs of which the road sometimes leads, which was always a relief to me, after wading for miles through the mud below. This tract is tolerably well settled, the soil being esteemed as rich as any in the state. At eleven miles from Reeves’s, is a hamlet of six or seven cabins called Cat-tail swamp, and two miles further I came to Rogers’s on the bank of the north fork of Paint.
Reeves’s appears to be the best land and the best improved farm on this side the Ohio, but Rogers’s, nearly as good a soil, is I think superiour in beauty of situation. The house which is a story and a half high is of square logs, and commodious enough for a farm house. It is on a moderately high bank, from whence they descend to the river by a flight of wooden steps, at the foot of which is a most beautiful spring which flows into a cask sunk on purpose, and from thence is conveyed by a small spout into the river, whose bank is guarded by a natural wall of soft slate, which I think could be easily wrought into good covering for houses. Nature has formed natural stairs of the slate, by which one may descend to any depth into the river for bathing, washing linen, or for any purpose which may be necessary, in proportion as the river rises or falls. A swimmer may also enjoy that invigorating exercise charmingly, as though the river is only about thirty yards wide, it is at this place sufficiently deep, and the current is moderate. Rogers has been here about nine years from Virginia, and was one of the first settlers in this part of the country.
{193} I supped and slept here, and next morning, Thursday the 13th August, after refreshing by swimming in the river, I pursued my way to Chilicothe four miles, the first mile and half of which was over a chain of moderately high and not very steep hills of a tolerably good soil, to colonelM’Arthur’s elegant stone house and noble farm.[139]The other two miles and a half was through a level plain, passing a neat house and handsome improvement of Mr. Henry Massey’s, just before entering Chilicothe, which I did at eight o’clock, stopping at Muker’s tavern, as the breakfast bell rang, which summoned seventeen or eighteen boarders and travellers to an excellent breakfast with good attendance, to which I did ample justice, after my bath and walk.
FOOTNOTES:[137]Sinking Springs is in the southwestern corner of Highland County, Ohio.—Ed.[138]Olympian Springs was in Bath County, Kentucky, a few miles southeast of Owingsburg. Its popularity has declined; in 1880 there were but twenty-five inhabitants at the place.—Ed.[139]The home of General McArthur was known as “Fruit Hill.” Duncan McArthur was of Scotch parentage, born in New York in 1772. Left early to his own resources, he volunteered under Harmar in 1791, worked at the Maysville salt-works, and in 1793 became chain-bearer for General Massie in the latter’s survey of Ohio lands. McArthur’s industry and capacity soon secured his promotion to the position of assistant surveyor, and by judicious choice of lands he acquired wealth and prominence. Having been major-general of Ohio militia for some years, his services were called for in the War of 1812-15, and he was at Detroit when it was surrendered by Hull. Released on parole, he was elected to Congress, whence he resigned to become brigadier-general in the army, and served in the Western division thereof throughout the war. Later began his political career, consisting of two terms in Congress (1822-26), and the governorship of Ohio (1830). But as an anti-Jacksonian, he failed of re-election, and retired to “Fruit Hill” where he died in 1840.—Ed.
[137]Sinking Springs is in the southwestern corner of Highland County, Ohio.—Ed.
[137]Sinking Springs is in the southwestern corner of Highland County, Ohio.—Ed.
[138]Olympian Springs was in Bath County, Kentucky, a few miles southeast of Owingsburg. Its popularity has declined; in 1880 there were but twenty-five inhabitants at the place.—Ed.
[138]Olympian Springs was in Bath County, Kentucky, a few miles southeast of Owingsburg. Its popularity has declined; in 1880 there were but twenty-five inhabitants at the place.—Ed.
[139]The home of General McArthur was known as “Fruit Hill.” Duncan McArthur was of Scotch parentage, born in New York in 1772. Left early to his own resources, he volunteered under Harmar in 1791, worked at the Maysville salt-works, and in 1793 became chain-bearer for General Massie in the latter’s survey of Ohio lands. McArthur’s industry and capacity soon secured his promotion to the position of assistant surveyor, and by judicious choice of lands he acquired wealth and prominence. Having been major-general of Ohio militia for some years, his services were called for in the War of 1812-15, and he was at Detroit when it was surrendered by Hull. Released on parole, he was elected to Congress, whence he resigned to become brigadier-general in the army, and served in the Western division thereof throughout the war. Later began his political career, consisting of two terms in Congress (1822-26), and the governorship of Ohio (1830). But as an anti-Jacksonian, he failed of re-election, and retired to “Fruit Hill” where he died in 1840.—Ed.
[139]The home of General McArthur was known as “Fruit Hill.” Duncan McArthur was of Scotch parentage, born in New York in 1772. Left early to his own resources, he volunteered under Harmar in 1791, worked at the Maysville salt-works, and in 1793 became chain-bearer for General Massie in the latter’s survey of Ohio lands. McArthur’s industry and capacity soon secured his promotion to the position of assistant surveyor, and by judicious choice of lands he acquired wealth and prominence. Having been major-general of Ohio militia for some years, his services were called for in the War of 1812-15, and he was at Detroit when it was surrendered by Hull. Released on parole, he was elected to Congress, whence he resigned to become brigadier-general in the army, and served in the Western division thereof throughout the war. Later began his political career, consisting of two terms in Congress (1822-26), and the governorship of Ohio (1830). But as an anti-Jacksonian, he failed of re-election, and retired to “Fruit Hill” where he died in 1840.—Ed.