[44] It was Washington’s favorite plan to unite the waters of the Potomac and Ohio, and in turn, those of the Ohio and Lake Erie, by means of canals. The Beaver River was always one of the possible links in this chain of inland communication between the Great Lakes and tidewater. As Flint observes, the Erie Canal (completed in 1825) was the most feasible, and eventually the only successful, undertaking to join the sea and the lakes.—Ed.
[45] The Allegheny route was the common one for New England emigrants who had journeyed through New York on the old Genesee Road; it became of more importance after the Erie Canal was in operation. See Buttrick’s Voyages, volume viii of our series.—Ed.
[46] For a brief biography of General Lacock, see Cuming’s Tour, volume iv of our series, note 57.—Ed.
[47] “Tales of My Landlord,” by Sir Walter Scott, include The Black Dwarf, Old Mortality, The Heart of Midlothian, etc. The two former were published in 1816 and the latter in 1818.—Ed.
LETTER VII[48]
Descend the Ohio from Beaver—Georgetown—Steubenville— Wellsburgh—Warren—Wheeling—Marietta—Muskingum river—Guyandat river—Letarts rapids—Kanhaway river—Point Pleasant—Galliopolis—Big Sandy river—Portsmouth—Occurrences and Remarks interspersed.
Portsmouth, Ohio, 18th Nov. 1818.
On the 29th of October I again got afloat.—The weather clear and fine, but the current of the river in most parts so slow that the eye could scarcely discover its motion.—Passed the mouth of Big Beaver Creek, 291/4 miles from Pittsburg.
Stopped for the night at a tavern 421/2 miles from Pittsburg. Opposite, on the Virginia shore of the river, stands Georgetown, a neat village, with a public ferry.—On little Beaver Creek are several grist and saw mills, a paper-mill, and several other machines. In the mouth of a creek, I observed that the surface of the water was tinged with the oil of naphtha.
A young gentleman, from Virginia, had stopped in the tavern sick; the hostess and neighbours {77} were very attentive to the unfortunate stranger.