{204} CHAPTER XXXIII
Brown’s—Extensive prospect—Anticipation—Ensloe’s—Will’s creek plains—Will’s creek—European and American drivers compared—Cambridge—Beymer’s—Drove of cattle—Two travelling families—Good effects of system.
Brown’s—Extensive prospect—Anticipation—Ensloe’s—Will’s creek plains—Will’s creek—European and American drivers compared—Cambridge—Beymer’s—Drove of cattle—Two travelling families—Good effects of system.
On Monday 17th August, I proceeded from Zanesville before breakfast. The first nine miles were through a hilly country with houses every mile or two, the road tolerably good except in a few steep or miry spots. I then passed Brown’s tavern, most romantically situated in a deep and narrow valley, with Salt creek, a rivulet which I crossed, running through it. Two genteel looking travellers were at Brown’s door as I passed. It was about breakfast time. My appetite tempted me to stop and join them, but reflecting the stage would then get before me, I repressed it, and trotted on towards the usual place of breakfast of the stage.
From Salt creek, I ascended half a mile of a steep road to the highest hill which I had been yet on in this state, and keeping two miles along its ridge, I had there to ascend a still higher pinnacle of it, from whence there is a most extensiveview in every direction, of ridges beyond ridges covered with forests, to the most distant horizon; but though grand and extensive, it is dreary and cheerless, excepting to a mind which anticipates the great change which the astonishingly rapid settlement of this country will cause in the face of nature in a few revolving years. Such a mind will direct the eye ideally to the sides of hills covered with the most luxuriant gifts of Ceres; to valleys divested of their trees, and instead of the sombre forest, strengthening the vision with their verdant herbage, while the rivers and brooks, no {205} longer concealed by woods, meander through them in every direction in silvered curves, resplendent with the rays of a glowing sun, darting through an unclouded atmosphere; while the frequent comfortable and tasty farm house—the mills—the villages, and the towns marked by their smoke and distant spires, will cause the traveller to ask himself with astonishment, “So short a time since, could this have been an uninhabited wilderness?”
This lofty ridge continues with various elevations five miles and a half farther to Ensloe’s tavern, and is well inhabited all the way, and well timbered, though the soil is rather light. I here stopped to await the stage and breakfast, after which I rode on through a hilly country, rather thinly inhabited, five miles, and then three more on a flat, of the most wretched road imaginable, from the frequency of sloughs of stiff mud and clay. Travellers have ironically nicknamed this part of the road Will’s creek plains. It is really almost impassable for even the strong stage wagons which are used here.
After getting safely through the plains, and a mile further over a ridge, I came to Will’s creek, which is a small muddy river with a very slow current. The banks are steep and the bottom muddy, so that it has to be crossed by a wooden bridge, which has become extremely dangerous, from someof the posts having been unplaced by floods, so that it is shelving, one side being a good deal higher than the other, and the balustrade is so much decayed that it would not support a man, much less a carriage, yet bad as it was, I had to pay a toll of an eighth of a dollar for my horse. Though the European drivers far exceed the American in dexterity and speed, on their fine roads, in this country they would be good for nothing, and would pronounce it impossible to get a carriage through roads, that the American driver dashes through without a thought.—So much for habit.
{206} On crossing the bridge, I was astonished to find myself in a town of cabins in the midst of a forest, which I had heard nothing of before. It is called Cambridge, and was laid out last year by Messrs. Gumbar and Beattie the proprietors, the first of whom resides in it. The lots sell at from thirty to thirty-five dollars each. There are now twelve cabins finished and finishing, each of which contains two or three families; about as many more and some good houses, are to be commenced immediately. The settlement being very sudden, there was not as yet house room, for the furniture, utensils, and goods of the settlers, those articles were therefore lying out promiscuously about the cabins. The settlers are chiefly from the island of Guernsey, near the coast of France, from whence eight families arrived only four months ago.
I think Cambridge bids fair to become the capital of a county very soon.[148]The lands in the neighbourhood are equal in richness of soil to any I have seen on this side of Paint creek bottoms near Chilicothe.
Four miles from hence through a hilly country, brought me to Beymer’s tavern, passing a drove of one hundredand thirty cows and oxen, which one Johnston was driving from the neighbourhood of Lexington in Kentucky, to Baltimore. The intercourse between the most distant parts of the United States is now so common, that imported merchandize is wagonned all the way to Chilicothe and the intermediate towns, from Philadelphia and Baltimore, nearly six hundred miles, and then retailed as cheaply as at the ports of entry.
The drover with six assistants, two horsemen, two family wagons, and the stage wagon, put up at Beymer’s for the night, so that the house which was only a double cabin, was well filled, though not so much crowded as might have been expected, as the cattle drivers made a fire and encamped without doors, convenient to where they had penned the cattle, and {207} one of the travelling families slept in their wagon.—This family consisted of a man and his wife, and a neighbour’s daughter, who had removed to this state last year, from near Washington in Pennsylvania, and were now returning two hundred miles for some effects they had left behind. The other family, named Hutchinson, had emigrated from Massachusetts to Franklinville in this state, four years ago. By clearing and cultivating a farm and keeping a store, a distillery, and a saw mill, and then selling their property at its increased value, they had in that short time acquired a sufficiency to think themselves independent, and were now returning, to settle in some place in the neighbourhood of Albany, in the state of New York, where the old man said, “he would be once more in the world.” The systematick order which this family observed in travelling, and the comparative ease and comfort they enjoyed in consequence, were circumstances noticed by me with much admiration. The family consisted of Hutchinson and his wife, two daughters from fifteen to seventeen years of age, a grown up son they called doctor, another son about ten,and a young man who had had the charge of the mill, and who still continued with the family. They had a wagon, with four horses, and a saddle horse rode by one of the girls. On their stopping, the daughters began directly to prepare supper, as though they were at home, baked bread enough to serve them that night and next day, and then they sat down to sewing as composedly, as if they had been in their own house, and not on a journey; while the boys took care of the horses, and the old couple, though still active and healthy, sat at their ease, chatting and enjoying themselves. At all eventstheywere reaping the benefit of having brought up their family in orderly and industrious habits, and the cheerfulness and hilarity which pervaded each individual, was a proof that they were all equally {208} sensible of the blessings which their own good conduct had put them in the enjoyment of.
I had a good supper and bed, and found Beymer’s double cabin a most excellent house of accommodation. He is one of the proprietors of the stage wagons, and owns very considerable property in the state.
FOOTNOTES:[148]Cambridge was made the seat of Guernsey County when the latter was established in 1811.—Ed.
[148]Cambridge was made the seat of Guernsey County when the latter was established in 1811.—Ed.
[148]Cambridge was made the seat of Guernsey County when the latter was established in 1811.—Ed.