On the 17th, we arrived at Portsmouth, a well built town. It has a county court house, a newspaper office, a woollen manufactory, a number of stores, (shops,) and several good taverns. Having resolved on travelling a little way inland from the river, I immediately put my baggage on board a boat for Limestone, in Kentucky, addressed to a commission merchant there. Limestone is fifty-one miles from this place, and four hundred and forty-one miles from Pittsburg, by the river.
It gives me much pleasure to be relieved from the company of boatmen. I have seen nothing in human form so profligate as they are. Accomplished in depravity, their habits and education seem to comprehend every vice. They make few pretensions to moral character; and their swearing is excessive, and perfectly disgusting. Although earning good wages, they are in the most abject poverty; many of them being without any thing like clean or comfortable clothing. I have seen several whose trousers formed the whole of their wardrobe, and whose bodies were scorched to a brown colour by the rays of the sun. They are extremely addicted to drinking. Indeed I have frequently seen them borrowing of one another a few cents to quench their insatiable thirst, and in several instances refusing to repay them. The Scotsman recently alluded to missed a knife. On his accusing them of the theft, a degraded wretch offered to buy the fork.
My next letter will contain the particulars of a journey in the States of Ohio and Kentucky.
FOOTNOTES:
[48] For notes on the following persons and places mentioned in this chapter, see Croghan’s Journals, volume i of our series: Yellow Creek, note 93; Kanawha River, note 101. A. Michaux’s Travels, volume iii of our series: Wheeling, note 15; Marietta, note 16. F. A. Michaux’s Travels, volume iii of our series: Pennsylvania-Virginia boundary line, note 31; Gallipolis, note 34. Harris’s Journal, volume iii of our series: Putnam, note 1. Cuming’s Tour, volume iv of our series: Georgetown, note 59; Steubenville, note 67; Wellsburg, note 67; Grave Creek, note 78.—Ed.
[49] As early as 1786 a few pioneers had established themselves at the mouth of Indian Short Creek; but in 1805 the town was surveyed, a public sale of lots held, and the name Warren given to it.—Ed.
[50] It is interesting to note that, according to the Moravian missionary John Heckewelder, the Ohio River received its name from the white caps which often made canoe-travelling temporarily impossible. When it was covered with white caps the Indians would say “Kitschi ohio-peekhaune,” which means “verily this is a deep white river.” See “Names which the Lenni Lenape or Delaware Indians ... had given to Rivers, Streams, etc.,” in American Philosophical Society Transactions, new series, iv, pp. 369, 370. The commonly accepted derivation, that given by La Salle and the early French explorers, is that “Ohio” is an Iroquois word, meaning “beautiful river.”—Ed.
[51] The Cumberland National Road was completed to the Ohio (Wheeling, West Virginia) in this year (1818).—Ed.
[52] Being a national highway no tolls were originally levied on the Cumberland Road; this being, however, a most logical method of raising money for the necessary repairs, the road was ceded to the states through which it ran (1830-35), and the latter erected toll-gates and levied tolls.—Ed.
[53] See list of Americanisms, post, pp. 289-290; also Croghan’s Journals, volume i of our series, note 96.—Ed.