Two miles further on the right, a little way below Ferguson’s sand bar, we observed a wharf or pier of loose paving stones, and some mill machinery on the bank above it—the remains of a floating mill carried away last winter by the floods.
Half a mile below this is a remarkable point, and fine beach of coarse gravel on the right, and a delightfully situated farm almost opposite.
Judge Boon has a good house on the left about three miles further down,[104] opposite to which on the Ohio side is the beginning of French Grant.
{137} The Ohio which had ran generally between the south and west, (except for about thirty miles near Le Tart’s falls where it takes a northerly course) had altered its direction to the north westward, from the confluence of Big Sandy river.
FOOTNOTES:
[102] The copperhead (trigonocephalus contortrix), a rather small venomous snake, gives no warning before it bites. The name was, therefore, applied during the War of Secession to disloyal Northerners.—Ed.
[103] This was the future town of Catlettsburg. The first land was surveyed on the Big Sandy in 1770, when Washington laid out bounty lands for Captain John Savage’s company, who had served in the French and Indian War.—Ed.
[104] This was Jesse Boone, son of the well-known pioneer Daniel, who had removed to Missouri with his other sons in 1798. Jesse Boone remained behind, was inspector of salt-works for West Virginia, and justice of the Kentucky county court for Greenup. This information is derived from personal relation of Nathan Boone, another son, in Wisconsin Historical Society Draper MSS., 6 S 212.—Ed.
CHAPTER XXI
French Grant—Dreadful epidemick disorder—Distressing scene occasioned by it—Mons Gervais and Burrsburgh—Greenupsburgh—Power of hunger proved—Little Sciota river—Portsmouth—Paroquets.