[64] This group of islands is still known as Kneistly’s Cluster. See Thwaites, On the Storied Ohio.
Jacob Kneistly (or Nessly) was of Swiss origin and emigrated to this region from Pennsylvania about 1785.—Ed.
[65] Croxton’s Run was the scene of one of the last Indian fights in this vicinity (1787). Fourteen hunters were attacked here by a party of wandering Shawnees, and four of the whites killed.—Ed.
{89} CHAPTER XI
Remarkable bend in the river—Steubenville—Ornamented seats and farms—Charlestown—Bakewell’s, and other manufacturies—A versatile professional character—Buffalo creek.
At 6 o’clock on Monday, 20th July, we proceeded on our voyage, and three miles below Brown’s passed a point or rather a peninsula on the left, formed by a remarkable turn in the river, which takes a direction due east for two miles; its general course from Big Beaver to Baker’s island having been west, and from thence south. On the peninsula is a well cleared and beautifully situated farm, and there is a remarkable heap of loose rocks on the opposite shore, where a small creek falls into the Ohio, with a neat stone cottage at its mouth. At the end of the easterly reach is a good two story stone house of a Mr. Kelly, just under a hill on the Ohio side, with a fine bottom opposite.
At a little before eight o’clock we stopped at Steubenville, the capital of Jefferson county in Ohio, seven miles from Brown’s. This town has been settled about eight years, chiefly by emigrants from the state of Jersey. It contains one hundred and sixty houses, including a new gaol of hewn stone, a court-house of square logs (which it is said is to be soon replaced by a new one[66] of better materials), and a brick presbyterian church. There are four or five different sects of Christians in this town, but no established minister, except a Mr. Snodgrass to the presbyterians, and a Mr. Doddridge, who comes from {90} Charlestown in Virginia, every other Sunday, to officiate to the episcopalians in the court-house, which is occasionally used for the same purpose by the other sects.
There is a land-office here for the sale of the publick lands, from which large sums in Spanish dollars are sent annually to the treasury of the United States in Washington. Perhaps this is one cause of the town having increased so rapidly. Another may be its very handsome situation. The first street, which is parallel to the river, is on a narrow flat, sufficiently raised above the river floods; while the rest of the town is about twenty feet perpendicular above it, on an extensive plain, rising gradually with a gentle slope to the foot of the hills which surround it in a semicircle like an amphitheatre, about a mile distant. On one of those a Mr. Smith has a house and farm which seems to impend over the south end of the town, from an elevation of four hundred feet perpendicular from the bed of the river. Mr. Bazil. Wells, who is joint proprietor of the soil with Mr. James Ross of Pittsburgh, has a handsome house and finely improved garden and farm on the bank of the Ohio, a quarter of a mile below the town.[67]
We remained about an hour in Steubenville, (which is named in honour of the late major-general baron Steuben, the founder of the present American military tacticks): We then pursued our course down the river, passing at half a mile a point on the left, where is a tavern with a fine extensive bottom behind it; and four and a half miles further, we left Mingo bottom island (very small) on the left; half a mile below which on the right is Mr. Potter’s handsome square roofed house, and a quarter of a mile lower down is Mr. Pratt’s neat frame cottage, ornamented like Potter’s with weeping willows and Lombardy poplars. A mile and a quarter from hence we passed two small creeks called Cross creeks, one on {91} each hand, and a mile and a half below them, on turning a point on the left, we saw Charlestown, half a league before us, on the Virginia side, making a handsome appearance, with the white spire of the court house, and several good looking private houses, which are distinctly seen from the river, on account of the situation being on a lower bank than that of Steubenville.
At eleven we landed in Charlestown,[68] went to the inn where the mail stage between Pittsburgh and Wheeling stops, and ordered dinner, during the preparation of which, we amused ourselves with walking through the town. It was laid out about fourteen years ago, and now contains about eighty houses of various materials—brick, stone and wood, principally in one street parallel to the Ohio. In the middle is a convenient little court-house of stone, with a small, light cupola spire. The gaol is behind it, and in front is the pillory,[69] on a plan differing from any I ever saw elsewhere: A large, round wooden cover, like an immense umbrella, serving as a shade for the criminal in the stocks, or for a platform for one in the pillory to stand on, or for a shelter from sun or rain to the inhabitants who meet on business in front of the court-house, the place generally used as a sort of exchange in the small towns in this country. A Col. Connel, who is a farmer, and clerk of the county courts of Brooke county, has a very large but unfinished house of hewn stone near the court-house. The academy is a good brick building on the ascent of the hill behind the town, and was a good school until broken up by some political division among the inhabitants, which induced Mr. Johnston, the last master, to remove to Beaver {92} in Pennsylvania, where he now keeps the county clerk’s office.[70]