The face of the country before us now changed for the better; not being broken as to the eastward, but fine extensive levels and slopes, well inhabited and cultivated; and the ridges of hills, though long, not so steep, and finely clothed with heavy wood. This was the general appearance of the country, until we arrived at Somerset, the capital of the county, 14 miles from the top of the Allegheny ridge.

This is a new town, having been laid out and built within twenty years: It contains about seventy tolerably good houses, with a court-house, where upstairs, is the present place of worship, common to all sects like Bedford, until a church, which is to be in common also, is erected, for which the town has petitioned the assembly to enable them to raise $3000 by lottery.

We stopped at Webster’s excellent, comfortable, and well furnished inn, where we found good fires, a good supper, and a series of the Baltimore Daily Advertiser.

Since I had come over the three mountains between Strasburgh and Ramsay’s, the principal subject of conversation along the road, was concerning the murder by two Frenchmen of a Mr. David Pollock, on the 23d of this month, on Allegheny mountain. {54} They had shot him, and when he fell in consequence from his horse, they dragged him off the road into the wood, and stabbed him with a knife in several places. He was soon after discovered dead by a company of packers, who had seen two men but a little while before, and had heard soon after, the reports of a double barrelled gun carried by one of them. This, and the meeting of a horse with a saddle and saddle-bags, and no rider, gave them a suspicion, and induced them to search in the wood, following the tracks of men from the road into the wood, to the body. After returning to the road they again saw the two men whom they suspected come out of the woods before them. They pursued them, but lost sight of them at a turning in the road, where they again took into the woods. The packers rode on to the next house and gave an alarm, which soon mustered the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, who arming themselves, went in pursuit of the murderers. One of them resisting, when discovered, was shot, and the other apprehended, and lodged in Somerset gaol.

I had been informed that the prisoner neither spoke, nor understood English, and that since his apprehension, he had no interpreter with him, except a German farmer, who understood French but badly. Impelled by humanity, I asked my landlord to accompany me to visit him. He was a poor, ignorant, abject, pusillanimous wretch of the name of Noel Hugue, and had lately arrived in America from Marseilles, where he had been a traiteur or cook. He denied the murder or any knowledge of it, but his story was inconsistent and dissatisfactory. On my informing him of the motives of my visit, he was very grateful. I advised him to write to any persons at New York or Philadelphia, where he had staid some time after his arrival, who might have it in their power to send him any testimonial of character; {55} and, as I thought his case desperate, to write to his friends or connections in France, and that the court before which he would be tried, or whatever lawyer was charged with his defence, would forward his letters. On my return to the inn a Mr. Leiper, a young gentleman just called to the bar, requested me to accompany him to the gaol, to interpret between him and the prisoner, as he intended voluntarily to undertake his defence, although it was so unpopular as not to be unattended with personal danger, in the irritated state of mind of the country. I complied with his request, but from the interview, I had no reason to expect his humane attempt would be, or ought to be successful.[23]

FOOTNOTES:

[19] Part of the log building, which formed the garrison here, and which was erected by the troops of Geo. III. king of Great Britain, still exists, and has been newly weatherboarded lately, and now forms a kitchen to a tavern.—Cramer.

[20] In the summer of 1809, the foundation of a new Presbyterian church was laid in Bedford opposite the court-house for the Rev Mr. Boyd’s congregation, a young clergyman of handsome talents, and who had settled here a short time before.—Cramer..

[21] It is perhaps worth while for the sake of a curious and important fact, to mention the extraordinary effects of the water on a gentleman who had visited this spring in the summer of 1809, and who before he left it, discharged from his bowels a living monster, described by some who saw it, as a lizard, by others a crab, with legs, claws, &c. and of considerable size.—The unhappy man had been ill for several years, without being able to get any relief by the aid of skilful physicians. Immediately after this, he began to recover, and is now in a fair way of regaining his health.

Of the four classes of mineral waters known, the water of this spring unites the qualities of at least three of them, viz. The saline, the sulphurous, and the martial—but of the second it is lightly tinctured. Its usual effects on people in health, are those of an immediate and powerful diuretick, a gentle cathartick, with a considerable increase of perspiration, and sometimes a slight emetick, this last happening but very seldom. The water may be drank in great quantities with safety, from two to thirty half pints, being the usual quantity in the course of an hour before breakfast. Some indeed drink fifty half pints, while others are considerably incommoded by drinking a gill, which was the case with Mrs. Snyder, wife of governor Snyder, whose death was lately announced. She was at the spring, August 1809, but her case, which was of the consumptive kind, was too far gone to admit of recovery. Not being able to take the water, she tarried but a few days, and returned to Lancaster with her companion, Miss ——