[77] Dillon’s Bottom is nearly opposite Moundsville. Just beyond, at the bend which Cuming mentions, was situated Round Bottom, which Colonel Crawford surveyed for Washington, in 1771. Cresap made a tomahawk claim to the same land, and there was a long litigation over the matter, which was not finally adjusted until 1839, when the suit was decided in favor of Washington’s claim. See Washington’s Works (Ford ed., New York, 1889), iii, pp. 392, 408.—Ed.
[78] On Big Grave Creek occurred the ambuscade (September 27, 1777) in which Captain William Foreman and twenty Virginia militiamen were slain on their way to the relief of Fort Wheeling.—Ed.
[79] The family of Bakers here mentioned is not to be confused with that of Joshua Baker, at whose settlement opposite Yellow Creek occurred the massacre of Logan’s family. John Baker was a Prussian who emigrated to America in 1755, removed to the Shenandoah Valley, later to Dunkard’s Creek, and (1781) to Washington County, Pennsylvania. While there he learned of a projected Indian attack on the fort at Wheeling, and sent his son Henry, a youth of eighteen, to deliver the warning. Henry was captured by the Indians, carried to the Sandusky towns, and only saved at the intercession of Simon Girty. Upon his release three years later, he found that his father had again removed, and fortified Baker’s Station near Captina Creek. At the close of the Indian wars, Henry Baker married, and moving up the river purchased a farm including Captina Island, where Cuming found him.—Ed.
[80] Mrs. Cresap was a Miss Ogle, whom Michael Cresap had married a few years previous. Michael Cresap, jr., was but an infant when his father, Captain Michael Cresap, died. The latter is well-known in border annals. As early as 1771 he had begun sending out squatters from his home in Old-town, Maryland, to take up Ohio lands; but he himself did not settle in this vicinity until the spring of 1774, when he immediately became involved in the troubles leading to Lord Dunmore’s War. He was commissioned captain of the local militia (June 10, 1774), and joined McDonald’s expedition to the Muskingum towns. The following year Cresap was again in Maryland, and raised a company for the Continental army, dying in New York on his way to join Washington at Cambridge. Of his children the eldest daughter married Luther Martin, the well-known Maryland statesman and jurist. The youngest son, Michael, settled on his father’s Ohio lands, and became a wealthy and respected citizen.—Ed.
[81] For the incidents connected with the early history of Fish Creek, see Harris’s Journal, vol. iii of this series, p. 350, note 37.—Ed.
CHAPTER XIV
Fishing creek—Apathy of relatives for a dying man—Long reach—Charles Wells’s—Remarkable petrifaction—Squire Green’s—Little Muskingum river—Marietta—Muskingum river—Ingenuous mode of ferrying—Vestiges of Indian fortification.
At half past four on Wednesday 22d July, we loosed from the bank, and drifted down the stream: The banks on both sides low, and the bottoms very extensive.
At eight we were abreast of Fishing creek on the left seven miles below Wells’s. It is about the size of Fish creek, and has a saw mill on it, and at its mouth, one Morgan has a farm beautifully situated.
{102} At half past eight we overtook Frazey’s boat which we had passed on the 18th, and which had floated past us during the night. The sick man had had fits yesterday, yet neither his wife, his son, nor his brother seemed much affected with his situation, but spoke of it very carelessly, though they did not expect him to live twenty-four hours longer. He had been some years in a declining state, and perhaps they thought that his death would be convenient both to them and to himself.