We stopped at Cincinnati which is delightfully situated just opposite the mouth of Licking river.[166]—This town occupies more ground, and seems to contain nearly as many houses as Lexington. It is on a double bank like Steubenville, and the streets are in right lines, intersecting at right angles. The houses are many of them of brick, and they are all in general well built, well painted, and have that air of neatness which is so conspicuous in Connecticut and Jersey, from which latter state, this part of the state of Ohio is principally settled. Some of the new brick houses {233} are of three stories with flat roofs, and there is one of four stories now building. Mr. Jacob Burnet, an eminent lawyer, has a handsome brick house beautifully situated just outside the west end of the town.[167] Cincinnati, then named Fort Washington, was one of the first military posts occupied by the Americans in the western country, but I observed no remains of the old fort. It is now the capital of Hamilton county, and is the largest town in the state.
After remaining at Cincinnati from three o’clock until half past five, we then proceeded, passing Col. Suydam’s very handsome stone house with piazzas and balconies, in the French West India style, three or four miles below.
May 9th, having passed the Big Miami, the boundary between Ohio and the territory of Indiana in the night, at seven in the morning we were abreast of Big Bone Lick creek, so called from a skeleton of the mammoth being found here.[168] This is fifty-nine miles below Cincinnati. The tiresome sameness of the banks continued until noon when being abreast of one Reamy’s, thirty-two miles further, the settlements became thicker on the Kentucky side, and the river assumed a more cheerful appearance. I observed some farms on the opposite shore of Indiana, at one of which I was informed was a vineyard.
At three P. M. we stopped at Port William, delightfully situated just above the embouchure of Kentucky river, which is from eighty to a hundred yards wide. This is the capital of Gallatin county, and contains twenty-one houses, many of which are of brick, but all rather in a state of decay.[169] The lands appear good, but probably the country is not in a sufficient state of improvement to admit of a town here yet. Frankfort the capital of the state, is on the Kentucky, only sixty miles above Port William.
{234} At four we gave our boats to the stream, and after floating all night seventy-eight miles, past some islands and some thinly scattering settlements, we rowed into Bear Grass creek, which forms a commodious little harbour without current for Louisville, May 10th, at 9 A. M.
Louisville is most delightfully situated on an elevated plain to which the ascent from the creek and river is gradual, being just slope enough to admit of hanging gardens with terraces, which doctor Gault at the upper, and two Messrs. Buttets at the lower end of the town have availed themselves of, in laying out their gardens very handsomely and with taste. From the latter, the view both up and down the river is truly delightful. Looking upwards, a reach of five or six miles presents itself, and turning the eye to the left, Jeffersonville, a neat village of thirty houses, in Indiana, about a mile distant, is next seen. The eye still turning a little more to the left, next rests upon a high point where general Clark first encamped his little army, about thirty years ago, when he descended the river to make a campaign against the Indians, at which time Louisville, and almost the whole of Kentucky was a wilderness covered with forests. The rapids or falls (as they are called) of the Ohio, are the next objects which strike the observer. They are formed by a range of rocks and low islands, which extend across the river, the deepest channel through which is near the Indiana shore, and has only six feet water, and that even very narrow when the river is low. The fall here has been proved by a level to be twenty-two inches and a half in two miles, from Bear Grass creek to Shipping Port, which causes a velocity of current of about twelve miles an hour in the channel. Clarksville, a new village in Indiana at the lower end of the rapids, is next seen, beyond which Silver creek hills, a moderately high and even chain, bound the view five or six miles distant.[170] Continuing {235} to turn to the left, Rock island, and the same chain of hills appearing over it, finish two thirds of a very fine panorama. The town and surrounding forests form the other third.
Louisville consists of one principal and very handsome street, about half a mile long, tolerably compactly built, and the houses generally superiour to any I have seen in the western country with the exception of Lexington. Most are of handsome brick, and some are three stories, with a parapet wall on the top in the modern European taste, which in front gives them the appearance of having flat roofs.
I had thought Cincinnati one of the most beautiful towns I had seen in America, but Louisville, which is almost as large, equals it in beauty, and in the opinion of many excels it. It was considered as unhealthy which impeded its progress, until three or four years ago, when probably in consequence of the surrounding country being more opened, bilious complaints ceased to be so frequent, and it is now considered by the inhabitants as healthy as any town on the river. There is a market house, where is a very good market every Wednesday and Saturday. The court-house is a plain two story stone building, with a square roof and small belfry. There are bells here on the roofs of the taverns as in Lexington, to summon the guests to their meals. Great retail business is done here, and much produce is shipped to New Orleans.
May 11.—At four P. M. Mr. Nelson, a pilot, came on board and conducted the boats through the falls, by the Kentucky schute, and in forty-five minutes we moored at Shippingport, where we found commodore Peters’s boat and officers, and captain Nevitt’s gun boat, all bound to New Orleans in a few days.
{236} Shippingport is a fine harbour, there being no current in it, but the banks are rather low, so as to be inundated at very high floods.