Mr. Bakewell from England, who has been established here about two years, politely shewed us his manufactury of pottery and queensware. He told us that the business would answer very well, could workmen be got to be depended upon; but that those he has hitherto employed, have always quit his service before the term of the expiration of their contracts, notwithstanding any law to the contrary; and two of them have actually set up small manufacturies in Charlestown, one of queensware in opposition to him, and the other of tobacco pipes. Bakewell’s ware is very good, but not so fine, nor so well glazed as that manufactured in England, owing probably to the difference of materials, as the process is the same.
Mr. Doddridge who officiates alternately here and at Steubenville, to the episcopal congregations, first practised law, then physick, and now adds the trade of a tanner to the profession of divinity.[71]
The wells here are dug forty to fifty feet deep before water is come at, but that inconvenience might be easily remedied by conveying water to the town in pipes from the surrounding hills, which will doubtless be the case, should it ever become a manufacturing town; which a few more inhabitants of equal spirit and enterprize with Bakewell would soon effect.
Buffalo creek falls into the Ohio at the south end of the town, after a course of forty or fifty miles through Washington county in Pennsylvania, and {93} the narrow tongue of Virginia in which Charlestown is situated. It had a wooden bridge about forty yards in length across the mouth of it, on the post road to Wheeling, which was carried away last spring by a flood.[72]
FOOTNOTES:
[66] A handsome brick court-house has since been erected, and the inside work nearly completed. An original bank was established at Steubenville in 1809, by a law of the state, with a capital of 100,000 dollars, with power to increase it to 500,000 dollars. Bazaleel Wells president, W. R. Dickinson, cashier.—Cramer.
[67] Steubenville was founded (1797) upon the site of Fort Steuben, one of the earliest blockhouses built in Ohio by the Federal government (1786-87).
Bezaleel Wells was the son of Alexander Wells, a well-known West Virginia pioneer who founded the town of Wellsburg, dying there in 1813. The son was considered the best surveyor in the region, and laid out and speculated in town lots at Canton, Ohio, as well as at Steubenville.—Ed.
[68] The present town of Wellsburg, West Virginia, was first laid out (1791) under the name of Charlestown, in honor of Charles Prather, its earliest proprietor. In 1816 its name was changed by action of the legislature.—Ed.
[69] The pillory punishment, a few years ago, prevailed throughout several of the states, but has been wisely abolished by all but Virginia.—Cramer.