Near this on the left bank opposite a small island, is a curious stratum of slate, covering a substratum of coal, which also shews itself.
A mile below this is Custard’s island, a mile long, opposite the lower end of which on the left, is the very pleasantly situated house and farm of Mr. Stewart, in passing which we were asked by some people at the landing, if we had seen a man polling up a skiff yesterday on his way to Pittsburgh, and they pointed out his house on the opposite bank, which he had left yesterday; which was matter of astonishment to us, how the man we hailed in this skiff above Beaver, could have surmounted so many ripples and rapids in so short a time; it evinced uncommon strength, activity, and perseverance.
A mile and a half below Stewart’s, we passed Faucetstown, a hamlet of five or six houses and a ferry, from whence is a road thirty miles to Warren in Ohio. Here I observed some seines for fishing, made by fastening bushes together with the tough and flexible stalks of the wild grape, with which this whole western country abounds.
Two miles below Faucetstown, on the right, is a remarkable rocky cliff, three hundred feet perpendicular, from which to Baker’s island of a mile in length, is two miles, and from thence about a mile further, we passed on the right, Yellow creek,[62] a handsome little river thirty yards wide, with Mr. Pettyford’s good stone house well situated on its left bank.[63]
{86} From Yellow creek the appearance of the soil and country is better than above it, and the river is very beautiful, being in general about a quarter of a mile wide, interspersed with several islands, which add much to its beauty; some being partly cultivated and partly in wood, some wholly in wood, and some covered with low aquatick shrubs and bushes; and all fringed with low willows, whose yellowish green foliage, contrasted with the rich and variegated verdure of the gigantick forest trees, the fields of wheat and Indian corn, and the dwarf alders, other shrubbery and reeds of the inundated islands, which they surround, mark their bounds as on a coloured map. First Neasley’s cluster of small islands, two miles below Yellow creek; then Black’s island a mile and a half long, two miles below them, and lastly, Little island close to the west end of Black’s, joined by a sand bar to the right shore, where Jacob Neasley has a good two story wooden house, with a piazza.[64]
Four miles further we stopped at Wm. Croxton’s tavern, the sign of the Black Horse, on the Virginia side, and got a bowl of excellent cider-oil. This is stronger than Madeira and is obtained from the cider by suffering it to freeze in the cask during the winter, and then drawing off and barrelling up the spirituous part which remains liquid, while the aqueous is quickly congealed by the frost. Croxton and his wife had a youthful appearance, notwithstanding they had eight children, seven of whom were living.
He was born in this neighbourhood, lived here during the last Indian war, and cultivated a bottom opposite, through which flows a rivulet called Croxton’s run, which turns a grist and saw mill.[65] On the United States appropriating the N. W. territory, now the state of Ohio, he lost all that property by its being purchased by others, before he became informed of the necessity of his securing his tenure by obtaining a grant from the government. He complained {87} of a toothache, from the torture of which I relieved him, by burning the nerve with a hot knitting needle, which however did not prevent him from charging us for our cider.
On the opposite bank a mile below Croxton’s, a Mr. White of Middleton in Virginia, is building a fine house of hewn stone; and a mile further on the same side, we admired the romantick situation of a farm house, with a garden tastily filled with a profusion of flowers; opposite to which on the Virginia side, is a remarkable cliff near the top of the high river hill, occasioned by a large piece of the hill having broken off and fallen down.
Four miles below Croxton’s we passed Brown’s island, containing three hundred and fifty acres of first rate land, on the right, and opposite the lower end of it on the left we stopped for the night at Brown’s, who is a magistrate, and has a noble farm and a house very pleasantly situated on a high bank, with a steep slope to the river.
We found the squire weighing sugar, which he had sold to Mr. Sumrall of Pittsburgh, who owns some regular freighting keel boats, who with one of them was now on his return from Cumberland river, and had also stopped here for the night.