CHAPTER XXI

French Grant—Dreadful epidemick disorder—Distressing scene occasioned by it—Mons Gervais and Burrsburgh—Greenupsburgh—Power of hunger proved—Little Sciota river—Portsmouth—Paroquets.

A little below judge Boon’s we were hailed by a man on the Ohio shore. We landed and found him to be a Mr. White, who had put a box of medicines into our boat at Marietta, for doctor Merrit, and having travelled on horseback had arrived here before us.

We now delivered it to White, who, hearing A—— call me Doctor, he requested me to stop and visit a Mr. Hunt, who with two of his men and his housekeeper, were suffering under a most severe epidemick malady, which was then raging in and about French Grant, and which doctor Merrit, the only medical man in the settlement, had been attacked with yesterday. Prompted by humanity, we walked tothe cabin occupied by Mr. Hunt’s family, where we beheld a truly distressing scene. In an Indian grass hammock, lay Mr. Hunt, in a desperate and hopeless stage of the yellow fever; his skin and eyes of a deep yellow, and he in a state of apparent stupor, but still sensible. His housekeeper, looking almost as ill, and groaning piteously, on a bed near him. One of his men seated on a chair, in a {138} feeble state of convalescence; and another standing by almost recovered, but still looking wretchedly. On the floor were travelling trunks, cases, books, furniture, and house utensils, promiscuously jumbled together, but all clean, as was the cabin itself.

I could not help contrasting in my mind Mr. Hunt’s present situation, at so great a distance from his connexions, from cultivated society, and from medical aid, with what it was, when he represented his native state of New Hampshire in congress, or during his travels in Europe. Such are some of the hardships and inconveniences attending the first settlers in a new country.[105]

After approving what doctor Merrit had prescribed, and recommending a continuance of his regimen and advice, which consisted of alterative catharticks followed by tonicks, we took our leave, impressed with the opinion that Mr. Hunt had but a few hours longer of existence, which also seemed to be his own opinion, as when I addressed a few cheering words to him, he only answered by shaking his head and closing his eyes. I supposed the rest of the familywould recover. White is an intelligent man, and makes a trade of sinking wells, of which he has sunk a very fine one, of forty-five feet deep for Mr. Hunt, near a good two story house almost finished.

French Grant contains twenty-four thousand acres, given by the United States to some French settlers, who had been disappointed in the titles of their purchases at Galliopolis, amongst whom a Mons. Gervais[106]had for his part four thousand acres, on which he planned a town, which he named Burrsburgh, in honour of the then vice president: but after passing ten solitary years in a small log cabin, with no society except that of his dog and cat, during which time he employed himself in cultivating his little garden, he last year sold his whole tract to Mr. Hunt, except two hundred and seventeen acres, given by him to an {139} agent in Philadelphia, as a recompence for his having enabled him to fulfil the engagement to government by which he held the land. He now lives in Galliopolis, and Mr. Hunt has changed the intended Burrsburgh into a farm.

On our walk to the boat I gave White some directions for himself as preventive to the prevailing disorder, for which he thanked me, and asked our charge for the freight of doctor Merrit’s box in such a manner as to preclude the possibility of making any.

We then crossed the river at Greenupsburgh, the seat of justice of Greenup county, in Kentucky. It is laid out for a town within the last year, but it contains as yet only one dwelling house, occupied by one Lyons as a tavern, where the courts are held; immediately in the rear of which is a strong and wretched dungeon of double logs, called thegaol, with a pillory between. Little Sandy river, about seventy yards wide, flows into the Ohio just below Greenupsburgh.

It was almost dark when we landed at Lyons’s. We ordered supper, during the preparation of which Mrs. Lyons requested my advice for her husband, who had been seized that morning by the prevailing fever. I wrote a prescription for himsecundum artem, which I thought fully equivalent to our supper, but as she gave us no credit for it in our bill, she probably supposed that a travelling doctor ought to prescribe gratis.

We had an excellent supper of tea, nice broiled chickens, and fine biscuit, to which travelling and rowing gave us good appetite, notwithstanding we saw our landlady take the table cloth from under her sick husband’s bed clothes. After this let not the delicate town bred man affect disgust at the calls of nature being satisfied in a manner he is unused to, as {140} in a similar situation, I will venture to assert, he would do as we did.

After supper, we dropped down the stream about a mile, then anchored with a stone at the end of a rope, at a little distance from the shore, and went to sleep.

Proceeding, on the twenty-eighth, at the dawn of day, by half past five we were abreast of Green township, a small hamlet of six or seven houses, on the right, in French Grant, three miles below Greenupsburgh. Six miles lower, we left on the right, Little Sciota river, about thirty yards wide.

Half a mile further, on the same side, we passed a stratum of iron ore, and a mile below that, a stony point projecting and sloping downwards, forming a fine harbour for boats, when the point is not overflowed. Tiger creek, about twenty yards wide, and apparently navigable for boats, flows in from the Kentucky side, three miles lower down, opposite to which, from Little Sciota river, the bottoms arevery narrow, being confined by a picturesque range of low rocky cliffs and mountains, with a few straggling pines overtopping the other trees on their summits.

Three miles further we stopped at Portsmouth on the right, and breakfasted at John Brown’s tavern. Mr. Brown is a magistrate and keeps a store. After breakfast, the wind blowing too fresh up the river for us to make any progress without great labour, I walked to the upper end of the town, through a straight street, parallel to the Ohio, about half a mile long, on the top of a handsome sloping bank. I returned by a back street, which brought me to the banks of the Scioto, which river, running from the northward, falls into the Ohio a mile below Portsmouth, at an angle of thirty-three degrees, leaving only sufficient room between the two rivers for two parallel streets, on the one of which fronting the Ohio, building lots of a quarter of an acre, now sell at fifty dollars each. There is a {141} narrow level near a mile long below the town to the point of junction of the Scioto with the Ohio, which cannot be built on, as it is annually inundated by the spring floods: there is now a fine field of corn on it, and it would all make excellent meadow. Mr. Massie, of Chilicothe, who is proprietor of both it and the town, asks fifteen hundred dollars for it, though it does not appear to contain fifty acres.[107]

Portsmouth is in a handsome and healthy situation, though rather too much confined by the Scioto’s approach to the Ohio, so far above its confluence with that river. It is likely to become a town of some consequence, as it is the capital of the county of Scioto. It is only two years since it was laid out, and it now contains twenty houses, some of which are of brick, and most of them very good. I was shewn the scite of a court-house intended to be erected immediately.

Alexandria, in sight, below the mouth of the Scioto, is on a high, commanding bank, and makes a handsome appearance from above Portsmouth, to travellers descending the river. It is eleven years old, but it has not thriven, and the erection of the town of Portsmouth so near it, has caused it to decline rapidly. It has still however the post-office for both towns.

There is a remarkable naked, round topped, rocky mountain, on the Virginia side, opposite to Portsmouth, which forms a variety to the forest covered hills, which every where meet the eye of the traveller through this western region.

We observed here, vast numbers of beautiful large, green paroquets, which our landlord, squire Brown, informed us abound all over the country. They keep in flocks, and when they alight on a tree, they are not distinguishable from the foliage, from their colour.[108]

FOOTNOTES:[105]Samuel Hunt of New Hampshire was born in 1765, and after studying law travelled in Europe for three years. Upon his return he was twice sent to Congress from his native state (1802-05), and declined the third election in order to convey a colony to the Ohio, where he had negotiated a purchase in the French Grant from the owner, Gervais. He engaged as a housekeeper, Miss Cynthia Riggs; and came out on horseback in the fall of 1806. Cuming’s fears were realized, for Hunt died a few days after he had passed. The New Hampshire colony emigrated later (1810), however, under the lead of Asa Boynton, and the name of Burrsburgh was changed to that of Haverhill.—Ed.[106]Jean Gabriel Gervais conducted the movement which led to the congressional grant for the French of Gallipolis, and received four thousand acres for services therein. He lived at Gallipolis until the final sale of his lands. The income resulting from the investment of the funds, permitted his return (1817) to pass the evening of his life in his native Paris.—Ed.[107]General Nathaniel Massie, born in Virginia in 1763, served in the Revolution while a youth, and at its close emigrated to Kentucky. There he was soon employed in the movement which led to the Virginia Military Reserve settlement in Ohio. When Virginia ceded her Northwest claims to Congress (1784) she retained a large tract between the Scioto and Miami rivers for bounty lands for her soldiers. Massie began the survey thereof in 1788, and two years later led out the first colony on the site of Manchester, Ohio. At the close of the Indian wars Chillicothe was platted (1796), and became the first capital of the state of Ohio. Massie was an influential leader in early Ohio politics; he headed the opposition to General St. Clair, and persuaded Jefferson to remove him (1803). A strong Democrat in politics, his presence at the constitutional convention aided in giving a democratic cast to the new state constitution. For many years he acted as major-general of the Ohio militia, and one of his last public services was to reinforce Harrison at Fort Meigs. His death occurred in 1813.—Ed.[108]Nearly all the early travellers speak of finding paroquets in the Ohio Valley, but they are now only to be found much south of this latitude.—Ed.

[105]Samuel Hunt of New Hampshire was born in 1765, and after studying law travelled in Europe for three years. Upon his return he was twice sent to Congress from his native state (1802-05), and declined the third election in order to convey a colony to the Ohio, where he had negotiated a purchase in the French Grant from the owner, Gervais. He engaged as a housekeeper, Miss Cynthia Riggs; and came out on horseback in the fall of 1806. Cuming’s fears were realized, for Hunt died a few days after he had passed. The New Hampshire colony emigrated later (1810), however, under the lead of Asa Boynton, and the name of Burrsburgh was changed to that of Haverhill.—Ed.

[106]Jean Gabriel Gervais conducted the movement which led to the congressional grant for the French of Gallipolis, and received four thousand acres for services therein. He lived at Gallipolis until the final sale of his lands. The income resulting from the investment of the funds, permitted his return (1817) to pass the evening of his life in his native Paris.—Ed.

[107]General Nathaniel Massie, born in Virginia in 1763, served in the Revolution while a youth, and at its close emigrated to Kentucky. There he was soon employed in the movement which led to the Virginia Military Reserve settlement in Ohio. When Virginia ceded her Northwest claims to Congress (1784) she retained a large tract between the Scioto and Miami rivers for bounty lands for her soldiers. Massie began the survey thereof in 1788, and two years later led out the first colony on the site of Manchester, Ohio. At the close of the Indian wars Chillicothe was platted (1796), and became the first capital of the state of Ohio. Massie was an influential leader in early Ohio politics; he headed the opposition to General St. Clair, and persuaded Jefferson to remove him (1803). A strong Democrat in politics, his presence at the constitutional convention aided in giving a democratic cast to the new state constitution. For many years he acted as major-general of the Ohio militia, and one of his last public services was to reinforce Harrison at Fort Meigs. His death occurred in 1813.—Ed.

[108]Nearly all the early travellers speak of finding paroquets in the Ohio Valley, but they are now only to be found much south of this latitude.—Ed.

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